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Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ found in tap water of 197M Americans JR Culpepper November 5, 2026

WASHINGTON – About 197 million people in the U.S. drink drinking water contaminated with the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, according to test data released by the Environmental Protection Agency and recent state test results.

That’s 23 million more Americans exposed to PFAS in drinking water than the EPA found in previous tests. 

The number aligns with findings from a 2020 paper by Environmental Working Group scientists that estimated PFAS was in the water of 200 million Americans. 

The new EPA findings mark the last installment of tests of the nation’s drinking water supply conducted as part of the Fifth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, or UCMR 5, the regulation that required U.S. water utilities to test drinking water for 29 individual PFAS compounds.

The UCMR 5 data reveal 3,595 sites with detectable levels of PFAS, bringing the total number of known PFAS-contaminated sites to 13,459.

“The new data confirms what we feared: PFAS contamination of tap water is as widespread as our study estimated in 2020,” said David Andrews, Ph.D., EWG’s chief science officer. 

Protections under threat

The EPA results come against a backdrop of increasing environmental deregulation. The agency is in the final stages of rolling back limits on four PFAS chemicals. 

The agency is retaining first-time drinking water standards for the two most notorious PFAS – PFOA and PFOS. And the EPA set a health goal of zero for these two chemicals because it has identified no level in tap water that is without health risk. 

“We already know PFAS exposure has been linked to a variety of health harms and can be harmful in extremely small amounts. Delaying, weakening or abandoning PFAS limits would be detrimental to public health.” Andrews added.

In 2024, the Biden EPA finalized first-time limits on six PFAS in drinking water. The limits, called maximum contaminant levels, or MCLs, set enforceable standards for the amount of contaminants allowed in drinking water. 

In a reversal last year, Trump’s EPA announced plans to leave four PFAS unregulated – GenX, PFBS, PFNA and PFHxS. 

The agency plans to retain the PFOA and PFOS standards at 4 parts per trillion. But it also wants to extend the compliance deadline for meeting those standards to 2031. 

The EPA’s plan to reverse the four MCLs also likely contradicts an anti-backsliding provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act. That law requires any revision to a federal drinking water standard to “maintain, or provide for greater, protection of the health of persons.”

“This isn’t just a regulatory change, it’s a public health betrayal. These rollbacks will expose American families to chemicals linked to cancer and other serious health issues,” said Scott Faber, EWG’s vice president for government affairs.

“The EPA is abandoning science-based protections at the exact moment its own tests prove we need them most,” he added. 

Widespread PFAS pollution 

Even if the limits for PFOA and PFOS remain in force, scrapping the four other limits will make it harder to hold polluters responsible for endangering millions of Americans by releasing toxic forever chemicals into U.S. waterways. 

The EPA’s toxicity assessments of GenX and PFHxS – replacement chemicals for PFOA and PFOS – found that exposure to even extremely small doses could pose similarly serious health risks. Finalizing the rollback means the agency wouldn’t enforce limits on GenX and PFHxS in tap water.

EWG estimates nearly 30,000 industrial polluters could be discharging PFAS into the environment, including into sources of drinking water. Restrictions on industrial discharges would lower the amount of PFAS ending up in drinking water sources.

Other organizations have found similarly concerning levels of PFAS contamination as EWG’s estimates. A recent report from Environment America found that PFAS was detected in 83% of rivers, lakes, streams and other surface waters between 2022 and 2024.

“It’s time to turn off the tap and address drinking water contamination at the source. For PFAS, that’s chemical plants, industrial sites and any manufacturers unnecessarily using these chemicals,” said Faber.

Health risks of PFAS exposure

PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because once released into the environment, they do not break down, and they can build up in the body. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has detected PFAS in the blood of 99% of Americans, including newborn babies. 

Very low doses of PFAS have been linked to suppression of the immune system. Studies show exposure to PFAS can also increase the risk of cancer, harm fetal development and reduce vaccine effectiveness. 

“Consumers shouldn’t have to worry about the safety of the water that comes from their tap,” Andrews said. “With 197 million people exposed to PFAS in their drinking water, government regulators must hold polluters accountable and ensure utilities have the resources to remove these toxic forever chemicals.”

While the cost of removing PFAS from drinking water should not fall on consumers, numerous  home filter options can help,” he added.

For people who know of or suspect the presence of PFAS in their tap water, a home filtration system is the most efficient way to reduce exposure. Reverse osmosis and activated carbon water filters can effectively remove these chemicals. But consumers should make sure to change their filters as recommended. 

In 2023, EWG researchers tested the performance of 10 popular water filters to evaluate how well each reduced PFAS levels detected in home tap water.

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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action. Visit www.ewg.org for more information.

Areas of Focus Water Toxic Chemicals PFAS Chemicals EPA, state PFAS data confirm EWG’s 2020 estimate as Trump moves to scrap protections Press Contact JR Culpepper jr.culpepper@ewg.org (202) 779-9990 November 5, 2026

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The centrepiece of every UN climate summit is for countries to negotiate the wording of a large number of legal agreements – and COP31 in the Turkish city of Antalya is no different.

These texts are hashed out behind closed doors in the “blue zone” at the COP, where diplomats from nearly 200 nations – not including the US – will be haggling over each individual verb.

Over the course of the two-week summit, negotiators will be trying to reach consensus on more than 100 separate agreements – but, first, they must agree which issues are on the agenda.

The complexity of this process can make it challenging to keep track of what countries are fighting about and how negotiations are progressing.

Carbon Brief’s real-time text tracker, below, offers a helping hand by decoding the agenda and keeping a searchable record of every document for each part of the negotiations.

The first column of the interactive tracker lists the topic of each agenda item, with further columns including dates, page counts and links to the original PDFs.

The table is searchable via the interactive text box and can be sorted using the arrow icons.

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This year’s talks come with a twist: Turkey holds the presidency and is hosting COP31, but Australia is jointly running the show as “president of negotiations”.

The pair have already announced their intention to produce a “cover text” – an overarching political document summarising key negotiated outcomes, along with issues not on the official agenda.

This could include a recognition that warming is set to “overshoot” the 1.5C limit and the impacts this is already causing. It may also include potential solutions, such as the Turkish presidency’s “electrification” target, for 35% of global final energy to come from electricity by 2035.

While the summit is not seen as a banner year for the negotiations, falling half-way between two “global stocktakes” of progress, there are still plenty of major topics up for discussion.

These include efforts to finalise the “global goal on adaptation” and whether to continue a contested process on how to cut emissions, known as the “mitigation work programme”.

Negotiators will also be trying to agree on the details of a new “just transition mechanism”, also referred to as the “Belém-Antalya mechanism for global just transitions” (BAM).

While most of the items on the agenda are agreed in advance, parties can suggest late additions. These must be signed off before negotiations can begin, often resulting in an “agenda fight”.

COP30 agreed to put two new items on the agenda for future summits.

These are the provision of climate finance by developed countries, under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and making global “finance flows” consistent with the treaty, under Article 2.1c.

Ahead of COP31, the African group of nations filed a request to add climate-related trade tariffs to the agenda. COP30 had agreed to annual “dialogues” on this matter at the Bonn climate talks.

The African group also wants further items added, on tripling adaptation finance and on funding for the Green Climate Fund, a flagship UN body designed to support climate action.

Ahead of the opening of the summit, Carbon Brief’s text tracker counts 104 substantive items on the agenda, not including procedural matters, such as the election of COP officials.

The figure below illustrates the status of the COP31 negotiations overall, in a traffic-light format. Each agenda item is colour-coded according to its current status.

(() => { const iframe = document.getElementById('cop31-text-chart'); const iframeOrigin = new URL(iframe.src).origin; window.addEventListener('message', (event) => { if (event.origin !== iframeOrigin || event.source !== iframe.contentWindow) { return; } const message = event.data; if ( !message || message.type !== 'cop31-text-chart:resize' || !Number.isFinite(message.height) || message.height < 0 ) { return; } iframe.style.height = `${Math.ceil(message.height)}px`; }); })();

For topics shown in red, negotiators have not yet managed to put anything down on paper, perhaps because parties have fundamentally different views on how they should proceed.

For items in orange, negotiators are working on an “informal text”, which is an early draft setting out the views of different parties, but not yet expressed in formal legal language.

Once a draft legal agreement becomes available, topics will be colour-coded yellow. At this point, areas of remaining disagreement will be denoted in the text with [square brackets] and “options”.

As such, texts with many square brackets or options tend to be an indicator of a high level of disagreement between parties. For this reason, the tracker table above counts and displays the number of outstanding brackets and options in each document.

During the course of the summit, negotiators may work through many iterations of texts on each agenda item. These documents may include “bridging text”, designed to resolve differences of opinion and to find a “landing zone” that all groups can agree on.

Agreement is reached on a given topic once all brackets and options have been resolved, at which point the item will be coloured green in Carbon Brief’s traffic-light chart.

Where agreement cannot be reached, discussions may be subject to “rule 16”, meaning negotiations are postponed until the next session. These topics are colour-coded grey.

The figure below gives an at-a-glance overview of the status of the main topics up for negotiation.

(() => { const iframe = document.getElementById('cop31-agenda-status'); const iframeOrigin = new URL(iframe.src).origin; window.addEventListener('message', (event) => { if (event.origin !== iframeOrigin || event.source !== iframe.contentWindow) { return; } const message = event.data; if ( !message || message.type !== 'cop31-agenda-status:resize' || !Number.isFinite(message.height) || message.height < 0 ) { return; } iframe.style.height = `${Math.ceil(message.height)}px`; }); })();

As parties narrow down the options and brackets towards the end of each summit, they start to generate “clean” texts, which contain no areas of disagreement and can be converted into “draft decisions” that are ready for formal adoption at the closing plenary of the meeting.

Finally, at the closing plenary, each draft decision must be gavelled through by the COP president, signifying its formal adoption as a legal agreement and outcome of the summit.

This last step is usually a formality, but dramatic exceptions are possible.

During the closing plenary at COP29, the president of the meeting failed to adopt a deal relating to the “global stocktake” from 2023, which had called for “transitioning away” from fossil fuels.

Carbon Brief also ran text trackers for COP28, COP29 and COP30.

Words by Simon Evans. Tracker maintained by Ho Woo Nam.

Interactive: Who wants what at the COP31 climate change summit 02.11.2026 COP31 Antalya Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks 29.10.2026 China policy Interview: COP31 president says electrification is ‘surest way to protect citizens’ 10.07.2026 COP31 Antalya Bonn climate talks: Key outcomes from the June 2026 UN climate conference 19.06.2026 Adaptation

The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP31 climate summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Lula’s victory has saved the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) for now, but its reliance on private investment, Global South debt, and dubious governance means that it is still a false solution for forests, regardless of who is in power in Brazil. 

This article was originally published by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung

By Valentina Figuera Martínez and Oli Munnion

The re-election of Lula da Silva in Brazil’s presidential race is a huge victory for progressive politics in Latin America, narrowly avoiding descent once more into the chaos of the far-right Bolsonaro dynasty. Lula’s decisive win is also a victory against U.S. interventionism, and the Trump Administration’s efforts to impose its political, neocolonial and military dominance across the region.

However, one consequence of the result is that a lifeline has been thrown to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), a new and highly controversial forest finance scheme championed by the Brazilian government. A Bolsonaro victory would undoubtedly have been the final nail in the coffin for TFFF, a silver lining to an otherwise very big, dark cloud.

The TFFF is still on life support though—it has until the end of the year to secure USD 10 billion in initial funding, which it has so far failed to do, or face key investors such as the Norwegian government pulling out, regardless of whether Lula or Bolsonaro sit in the presidential chair.
This makes COP31 make or break for TFFF. Although not on the formal agenda of the UN climate negotiations, the scheme’s backers will be desperately seeking additional pledges in the corridors of the Antalya conference centre.

What Went Wrong in Belém?

Alongside the failure of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, to establish a binding roadmap to end deforestation, the TFFF also fell short of its promise to secure the “future of tropical forests”. Brazil’s flagship financing scheme had attracted only USD 6.7 billion in sponsor capital, well below the USD 25 billion initially required to operate at a full scale.

What it did attract was widespread opposition from civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations. Messaging against TFFF featured prominently in demonstrations in Belém, and a statement rejecting TFFF and defending forest rights was signed by 205 organisations, many of which were participating in counter-mobilisations.1

The plan had been to use the USD 25 billion in sponsor capital to issue up to USD 100 billion of “senior market debt” (low interest rate, high repayment priority loans and bonds), at a one to four leverage, to build a total investment fund of USD 125 billion.

This sum would then be invested by the fund at a higher rate of return in order to generate an anticipated revenue of USD four billion per year, which would be paid to tropical forest countries in exchange for conserving one billion hectares of standing tropical forests.

In Belém, sponsor capital pledges from the Global North included Norway’s USD 3 billion, Germany’s €1 billion (USD 1.15 billion), and France’s €500 million (USD 577 million), totalling USD 4.7 billion, all with specific conditions and strings attached.

So far, more than a quarter of TFFF funds come from countries that are supposed to be its main beneficiaries

Brazil and Indonesia, which are two of the three largest tropical forest countries, committed USD one billion each in sponsor capital. That means that so far, more than a quarter of TFFF funds come from countries that are supposed to be its main beneficiaries.

In addition to these five countries, very small pledges from the Netherlands (USD 5 million), Portugal (USD 1 million), and the Minderoo Foundation (USD 10 million) brought the total to USD 6.7 billion, although this sum isn’t available immediately due to several of the conditions imposed.2

Since then, other pledges have trickled in, such as the UK’s £400 million (approximately USD 534 million), and another USD 500 million from the Netherlands post-election, taking the total to USD 7.8 billion. At the same time though, Europe’s steady march to the right and cooling of climate commitments has put some pledges in doubt. A member of the German Chancellor’s CDU budget committee has argued that Germany’s €1bn investment is hard to justify and should be removed from the 2027 national budget.

A “once-in-a-generation initiative (…) via an innovative financing mechanism” was promised, but what is the financial logic behind the TFFF and will it tackle the underlying drivers of deforestation? Let’s start at the beginning.

Whose Proposal Is It?

The Brazilian government claims that the TFFF is led by Global South tropical forest countries. In reality, it is a proposal written by bankers for bankers, and was conceived of in the Global North under the leadership of the World Bank.

One of its earliest iterations was a set of four papers published in 2018 by the Center for Global Development (CGD) under the title “Creating a Multilateral Wealth Fund for a Global Public Good: A Proposal for a Tropical Forest Finance Facility”. Among the authors is Kenneth Lay, former vice president and treasurer of the World Bank from 2006 to 2010. Other Global North contributors are cited, as well as officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

However, there is no mention of Brazil, Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo in this initial documentation, and the participation of these tropical forest countries and the subsequent leadership of the Brazilian government have come later, giving legitimacy to the scheme.

A Neo-Colonial Economic Model Underlies the TFFF

According to the 2018 version of the scheme,

“TFFF is a proposal to mobilise significant low-cost resources which can be invested in private markets to generate a financial return for rewarding successful actions that contribute to achieving a global goal, reduced deforestation. (…) Utilising primarily public funds to generate investment profits from the private sector that in turn provide international finance for public goods could serve to move beyond the finite borders of overseas development aid.”

From its inception, the intention was clear: the TFFF was designed to use limited public funds to leverage much larger private investments in order to generate profit for wealthy investors and claim to contribute to “halting deforestation”. A convenient formula for limiting public contributions and maximising private returns, while claiming deforestation benefits in the Global South.

This original 2018 financial logic has been revived in the three concept notes subsequently presented by the Brazilian government3, which hinge on: 1) converting money borrowed from wealthy investor countries and companies into profit that can be used to “drive change in developing countries”; and 2) distributing these funds using a results-based aid approach once pre-agreed measurable outcomes are achieved.

In essence, it reproduces a neo-colonial and technocratic dynamic.

In essence, it reproduces a neo-colonial and technocratic dynamic that privileges “measurable outcomes” over lived realities, reducing complex social, cultural, and ecological factors to narrow metrics. What is easy to measure tends to be prioritised over what matters most, sidelining gender justice, Indigenous governance systems, collective rights, structural drivers of inequality and other forms of environmental harm beyond deforestation.

TFFF is presented as a “country-led” approach, but reinforces a paternalistic mindset in which donors and Global North actors “drive change” in the Global South, rather than addressing historical responsibility for climate breakdown, ecological harm, colonial crimes, and debt injustices.

The TFFF is seen by its proponents as a unique opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, allowing private investors to make money and secure corporate greenwashing by reporting their alleged “contributions” to ‘Net Zero commitments’ and ‘nature positive finance’, such as the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)4. All of which have been denounced by civil society as controversial schemes to perpetuate corporate abuses, human rights violations and environmental crimes.

Who is Really Funding the Fund?

One of the most concerning aspects of the scheme is its heavy reliance on bond markets for Global South debt. In essence, the money used to “protect” tropical forests will be largely paid for by countries in the Global South, through debt servicing and payments to wealthy international investors. As the Third World Network has warned, the real financing will come from “developing countries themselves, disguised by the international capital markets as ‘natural’ return on investments”.

This reflects a perverse money-machine logic: the TFFF will borrow billions of dollars from sponsors and wealthy investors at a lower interest rate, and then invest those resources heavily in emerging market bonds, issued, for example, by highly indebted Global South countries or companies driving deforestation that need immediate liquidity, at a higher rate of return. These emerging market bonds are issued at higher interest rates as they are judged to involve higher risk for the lender (in this case, the TFFF), as it is assumed, for example, that Global South borrowers are more likely to default.

The TFIF will make its money through deepening the debt crisis and insolvency in the Global South.

The profit generated through this difference in interest rates (and often unjust assessment of risk) will then be used primarily to repay lenders, cover World Bank fees, and service interest on sponsor capital. Only if there are profits left over following these transactions would any funds actually be transferred to tropical forest countries. Therefore, the TFIF will make its money through deepening the debt crisis and insolvency in the Global South, at a time when debt levels are already unprecedented.

Merel van der Mark, Forests and Finance Coalition Coordinator and an expert on financial mechanisms, has made the link between a failure of the Global North to pay what is owed when it comes to climate and biodiversity finance, and the shift towards private finance to make up the shortfall.

In an interview given for this article, she explains how

“for years and years, tropical forest countries have asked for support from richer countries, for the protection of their forests. But rich countries have failed to mobilise the amounts that are needed to achieve real forest protection.”

“So the TFFF seems to me a sad acknowledgement that rich countries are not doing their part, and that the only way to mobilise them to allocate money to forest protection is if they get their money back, with interest. So in that sense, I think that TFFF does not mobilise finance in an equitable way.”

Deforestation as a Market Failure

The TFFF’s rationale is that by valuing standing tropical forests, the fund will address a “market failure” by assigning a value to, and paying for, the “ecosystem services” provided by tropical forests, thereby incentivising their protection over their destruction or degradation. The financialisation of nature is therefore the proposal’s driving force, where forests are turned into a market value that can generate returns, prioritising capital accumulation above human rights, ecosystem integrity, and all other considerations.

This poses a profound contradiction: the dominant economic system that turns nature into a financial asset is destroying the cultures, practices, rights and relationships to territories of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women, and youth—the commodification of nature is therefore not compatible with respecting the interdependent complexities that make up an ecosystem.5

The structural drivers of deforestation are precisely the same commodity supply chains and industrial processes that fuel the current economic system.

Aligning an economic and financial system designed to extract wealth from nature and forest-dependent peoples with the protection of tropical forests is a paradox in itself. The structural drivers of deforestation are precisely the same commodity supply chains and industrial processes that fuel the current economic system: agribusiness, intensive livestock farming, mining, fossil fuel extraction, infrastructure development, logging for pulp and paper and biomass energy, among other economic sectors.

The same financial system that will sustain the TFFF generates vast profits from companies driving deforestation. It’s like deliberately fighting a losing battle, just to ensure profits for wealthy investors.

The Propaganda Trap: IPLC “Advice” Is Not the Same as Decision-Making Power

A key pillar of the TFFF is that tropical forest countries will allocate a minimum of 20% of payments they receive to supporting Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). This means that if a tropical forest country receives USD four per hectare of standing forest, 80 cents would have to be allocated to IPLCs.

Subsequently, the most recent TFFF proposal (Concept Note 3.1) developed “Guiding Principles for the Allocation to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities”, and established a “Technical and Scientific Advisory Panel” and an “IPLCs Advisory Council”. Primarily composed of 10 IPLC representatives, the IPLCs Advisory Council will only advise the TFFF Board, and will have no access to decision-making over mobilising and managing the fund’s overall resources. Moreover, the members of the IPLCs Advisory Council will need to be approved by the TFFF Board.

The really important decisions will be taken by the Board of the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF), which is the “financial heart” of the fund and responsible for managing the capital (discussed in more detail below). As the World Rainforest Movement (WRM) points out in its analysis of the scheme, it is a mechanism steeped in colonial rationale. Giving IPLCs an advisory role and the power to decide how a fraction of the leftover resources are spent is not the same as giving them full access to decision-making and participation in the fund’s governance structure.

Chief Ninawa Huni Kui, an Indigenous leader from the Brazilian Amazon and president of the Federation of the Huni Kui Indigenous People in Acre, Brazil, is highly skeptical of the scheme. In an interview given for this article, he said:

“I don’t believe we will have positive results with those actions. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility is just another propaganda trap that will generate huge profits [for wealthy investors]. From a critical perspective, it is a form of co-optation: involving Indigenous Peoples without letting them make the decisions. It’s another deception. The fund’s decisions will not respond to the real desires and needs of all peoples. This ends up weakening the Indigenous movement, rather than strengthening it”.

In addition to concerns about decision-making, the Huni Kui leader also sees the TFFF’s speculative nature as a contradiction to the cosmovision of Indigenous Peoples. “A capitalist fund is very contrary to the spiritual worldviews of Indigenous Peoples, to the relationship between bem viver6 and territories. Financial resources cannot be confused with bem viver. ‘I’ll give them some money and they’ll have a better relationship with nature.’ It’s not about that. We’re talking about a deeper notion; it’s about reverence and recognition of nature,” he said.

On top of this, the fund’s stated commitment to equity, rights and inclusion—expressed through the introduction of “funding access modalities” for IPLCs and tropical forest countries—is not guaranteed in the event of market stress, liquidity pressure, drawdowns or default. Even if the financial architecture of the fund remains intact, tropical forest countries, and therefore IPLCs, may receive no payments, as priority would be given to repaying investors.

TFIF: the Real Decision-Making Player

The governance structure of the TFFF involves two independent entities: the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) and the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (“the Facility” or TFFF).

The TFIF will be responsible for mobilising and managing financial resources, and will take important decisions through the TFIF Board, a central institution in the scheme. The TFIF will have its own governance structure and the freedom to make “market-driven decisions”, which will inevitably mean prioritising economic interests over rights. The TFFF will be limited to “oversee[ing] the forest cover rewards system, including eligibility criteria, monitoring methodologies, and disbursement rules”.

The TFFF Board will include eighteen member countries: nine sponsor countries and nine non-sponsor tropical forest countries that meet the criteria set out in the Facility Charter, the fund’s institutional governance framework, which will guide implementation arrangements, eligibility criteria, and other foundational considerations. All sponsor countries contributing at least USD one billion to the TFFF will be granted a seat on the TFFF Board, until the total number reaches nine.

The Technical and Scientific Advisory Panel and the IPLCs Advisory Council will function under the supervision of the TFFF Board, which limits their decision-making power in key areas such as conflict resolution, enforcement action, defining indicators, and setting baselines. This contradicts principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and weakens democratic control.

On the other hand, the TFIF Board will consist of “professionals” with the required “expertise”, and will be nominated and appointed by the “Sovereign Sponsors” (national governments providing sponsor capital) from an “independent committee’s recommendation”.

The Role of the World Bank

The World Bank will be the scheme’s trustee and host the TFFF Secretariat, and may also “provide certain Treasury Management services to TFIF”. Its reputation has been discredited in the Global South as it has been widely recognised for sinking countries in debt, imposing unjust conditions on loans, shaping economies to benefit big corporations instead of people, and even backing military dictatorships.

The TFFF will therefore be hosted by and benefit an organisation responsible for promoting policies that exacerbate inequalities and ecological impacts in the Global South7, which could prove even more problematic in times of global crisis and financial instability.

The payment hierarchy that the World Bank will oversee will be determined according to the revenues of the TFIF, and will be prioritised in the following way:

1. Bond-holders, including “debt service and fees payments” to those who lent their money to the TFFF and World Bank fees;
2. Other Private investors;
3. Sovereign sponsors, which are mainly state loans;
4. In last place, eligible tropical forest countries that have a deforestation rate lower than 0,5 percent.

If revenues decline, payments to tropical forest countries will be the first to be postponed, and if things get even worse, the TFIF will “commence an orderly liquidation”.

This payment hierarchy matters: in years when returns are low, forest-based payments would be reduced before investor returns are affected. In extreme market downturns, forest-related payments might pause altogether. Next in line would be reductions in payments to sovereign sponsors, further protecting the interests of private investors.

Payments to IPLCs will therefore be the lowest priority, while the interests of sponsors and wealthy private investors will be protected through the fund’s investment strategy. Trying to align profit-making with environmental outcomes in this way could therefore put more pressure on forest-dependent communities, as it is ultimately they that will bear the greatest risk burden from market volatility, potential liquidation, and penalties.

Will the TFFF Incentivise Investments that Harm Forests?

Although the TFFF’s concept note 3.1 states that investments in deforestation, coal, peat, oil, and gas will be excluded, the fund’s unclear investment exclusion criteria are a serious concern. Questions remain unanswered about whether and how the criteria would effectively prohibit investments in sectors that cause deforestation, and ensure that companies that are linked to harmful biodiversity impacts would not benefit from the scheme.

Van der Mark points out that there are many more industrial sectors that have “impacts on biodiversity, like the use of agrotoxics and intensive water use, that are for now not excluded. And here lies a tension, because if the exclusion criteria are too strict, they will exclude too many activities and the fund won’t be able to generate the returns it needs to make the payments to forest countries.”

Generating profits from speculative financial markets while relying on exclusion criteria to avoid investing in biodiversity-destroying activities reveals a fundamental contradiction at the fund’s core. What’s the point in creating a scheme that could lead to social and environmental harms if safeguards are not developed and strictly enforced?

The TFFF also claims that it will have strict criteria to ensure that payments to tropical forest countries will be reduced significantly if their deforestation rates increase. However, as van der Mark explains, there is a risk of leakage to other biomes if TFFF-related payments mean that commodity production just expands into areas not covered by the scheme.

Furthermore, “there is also the risk that intensification of production on already converted areas, through the use of more fertilisers and pesticides, will harm nature in other ways than through deforestation.” The TFFF’s criteria are not able to mitigate either of these risks.

The TFFF may become another tool to instrumentalise finance for destruction

Civil society organisations have long warned about the urgent need to halt destructive finance that is directed towards activities that harm forests and biodiversity. Ironically, by its design, the TFFF may become another tool to instrumentalise finance for destruction, displace forest loss into other biomes within eligible tropical forest countries, and detract from efforts to fundamentally change how international finance flows.

The current climate and biodiversity finance architecture—designed to support the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—is subservient to the extractive economic model. The barriers to accessing funding by Global South countries, such as power asymmetries, debt injustices and challenges in resource mobilisation are not going to be overcome with debt-driven conservation schemes like the TFFF.

“As much as it’s important to mobilise finance for nature protection, as TFFF is trying to do, it is even far more important to regulate harmful finance. If destructive finance is not halted, it’s like mopping the floor with the tap still open,”

explains van der Mark.

“To really halt destructive finance, we must address the core problem: our economic system built on extractivism and a structural dependence on perpetual growth. This growth imperative drives ecological overshoot, social inequity, and financial practices that externalise harm while privatising gains. We need to shift to an economic system that operates within planetary boundaries, that restores ecosystems, and prioritises sufficiency over accumulation.”

Real Solutions: Addressing the Root Causes of Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss

Market-based approaches to climate change and biodiversity loss are constantly embroiled in scandals and facing serious questions over integrity.8 Concerns over human rights violations and poor performance records demand alternative approaches rooted in human rights, traditional knowledge, and gender justice.

An effective funding mechanism must aim to address the root causes of deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as transform dominant economic and financial structures to prioritise nature and social equity over private interests. While common but differentiated responsibilities among countries are a crucial foundation to build strong finance architecture around, the TFFF design has major flaws and won’t be able to mobilise resources in a sustained, gender-responsive, equitable and predictable manner for tropical forest countries. Instead, the TFFF is a speculative financial mechanism that will feed off Global South debt and gamble on volatile financial markets amid geopolitical instability.

The much-lauded 20 percent direct access to funds for IPLCs is a trap designed to buy support from Indigenous groups: having a say over the leftovers is not the same as having full governance power over the fund. Indigenous Peoples, local communities, women and youth must have full access to decision-making in the entire governance structure of any fund that truly wants to be effective.

An effective fund must ensure continuous capacity-building, legal protection, and strong regulations to protect land rights, alongside a robust grievance mechanism. It must also actively support efforts to dismantle the financial incentives that drive deforestation, while strengthening legal systems to address the high levels of risk faced by environmental defenders when protecting their territories.9

An effective fund must ensure continuous capacity-building, legal protection, and strong regulations to protect land rights

Moreover, institutional arrangements and policy decisions that genuinely aim to enable transformative change must address underlying structural constraints, including:

Debt restructuring and cancellation10, and tax justice: priority must be given to relieving the fiscal pressures on Global South countries to expand commodity production and dependence on destructive activities. Public sources of funding must be increased to fund social and environmental priorities, rather than perpetuating the debt crisis. In this context, taxing the super-rich and extractive sectors is an urgent conversation to design an efficient fund capable of addressing the root causes of deforestation and biodiversity loss.

Recognition of ecological debt: Global North countries are historically responsible for the majority of biodiversity destruction and ecological degradation, but they continue to evade their responsibilities. Only two countries have contributed their share of USD 20 billion per year agreed under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF)11. An effective fund must ensure not only human rights-based and gender-responsive approaches, but also recognise the colonial legacies of nature depletion and its implications for societies, economies, traditional cultures, and ecosystems.

Increasing public finance for biodiversity and climate action while lessening the fiscal pressures that push Global South countries toward biodiversity-harming activities is essential to achieving meaningful and lasting outcomes.

In Conclusion: The Ecological Collapse Caused by Capitalism will not be Solved with More Capitalism

Genuine efforts to curb deforestation demand moving away from market-based approaches that perpetuate wealth accumulation and greenwashing, and instead support inclusive decision-making while confronting the structural drivers of forest loss. The TFFF cannot meaningfully challenge agribusiness, extractive industries, illegal logging, false solutions, and perverse incentives that sustain destructive activities.

Forest protection requires robust, rights-based public financing mechanisms.

At its core, the TFFF is a leveraged bet on risky emerging market debt12 that embodies contradictory approaches to forest conservation and diverts attention from the urgent need to halt the expansion of extractive sectors. It also obscures the role of state policies—often shaped by pressures from the international financial system—that render extractivism a perceived necessity for maintaining financial stability.

Forest protection requires robust, rights-based public financing mechanisms that place ecosystem integrity and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the center, rather than market-driven schemes that demand regulation, investment screening, and social and environmental safeguards.

Real solutions are already being built on the ground, and we must work towards ensuring that the right financial resources, as well as political, social and economic conditions, are in place to allow them to flourish. These alternatives need to be strengthened, policies must be coherent, and key conditions such as land rights must be guaranteed.

Recognising that forests and biodiversity cannot be treated as commodities or financial assets is essential. Fundamentally, the ecological collapse caused by capitalism will not be solved with more capitalism.

• 1“NO to TFFF, YES to Forest Rights. Statement from Civil Society Organisations on the Launch of the Tropical Forests Forever Fund (TFFF)”, Global Forest Coalition (GFC), November 2025, https://globalforestcoalition.org/no-to-tfff-yes-to-forest-rights/. 
• 2See “Investment Tracker,” TFFF Watch, https://tfffwatch.org/investment-tracker/Norway.
• 3The first Concept Note was published by the Brazilian government in July 2024, the second one in February 2025, the third one in August 2025, and the fourth one (Version 3.1) was released in October 2025. 
• 4The TNFD is a voluntary initiative for corporate greenwashing made up of a group of large corporations–including many with a terrible track record in environmental issues. It is based on the core claim that more self-reporting by corporations on their nature-related impacts is key to solving the biodiversity crisis. This taskforce has been developing a framework on what a business should report on. To learn more see “The TNFD: What it is, who’s behind it and why it’s a major greenwashing risk,” Global Forest Coalition (GFC), December 2022. The TFFF will allow corporations profiting off environmental abuse to report “compliance”with the TNFD, and apply “financial products” that supposedly “support nature” to greenwash their polluting activities. 
• 5For an analysis on commodifying nature and avoiding a real change see “Marketing the planet: The financialization of nature”, by Helena Paul, Radical Ecological Democracy, January 2022, https://www.cbd.int/cms/ui/forums/attachment.aspx?id=417&exp=639052793791354386&uid=1&key=07baea2208edfad639fb5530f97da407.
• 6South American Indigenous philosophy that favors deep relationships between humans and nature over individualistic material and consumerist development. See Alberto Acosta, The Dictionary of Radical Alternatives, https://dictionaryofradicalalternatives.org/Concepts:Buen_Vivir/Alberto_Acosta/English; and Eduardo Gudynas and Alberto Acosta, “La renovación de la crítica al desarrollo y el buen vivir como alternativa”, Utopía y Praxis Latinoamericana, 2011, https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/279/27919220007.pdf. 
• 7See also The World Bank: A Critical History (2023), by Éric Toussaint, https://www.plutobooks.com/product/the-world-bank-a-critical-history/.
• 8“Rise in legal challenges over carbon credit schemes”, The Guardian, June 25, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/25/courts-corporate-carbon-offsetting-claims-lse-report; Souparna Lahiri and Valentina Figuera Martínez, Biodiversity Offsetting: A corporate social license to perpetuate biodiversity destruction and gender inequality, Global Forest Coalition (GFC), October 2024, https://globalforestcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/EN_Biodiversity-Offsetting-Briefer.pdf.
• 9For an investigation on the struggles of environmental defenders see “Collective Power: The Struggle for Protection for Land and Environmental Defeders” September 16, 2026, Global Witness, https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/land-and-environmental-defenders/collective-power/.
• 10For an analysis of the key reasons why debt is relevant to biodiversity protection and should remain on the agenda of international policy processes, see Jessica Dempsey and Audrey Irvine-Broque, “Addressing debt is critical to halting biodiversity loss”, March 2022, Third World Network, https://www.twn.my/title2/briefing_papers/twn/Debt%20biodiversity%20TWNBP%20Mar%202022%20Dempsey.pdf. 
• 11Pettinotti, L., Cao, Y., Kamninga, T. and Colenbrander, S. (2024) A fair share of biodiversity finance? Apportioning responsibility for the $20 billion target by 2025. ODI Working Paper. London: ODI (https://odi.org/en/about/our-work/a-fair-share-of-biodiversity-finance)
• 12See Max Alexander Matthey and Aidan Hollis, “The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF): Brazil’s $125bn Rainforest Gamble,” Substack, September 2025, https://substack.com/home/post/p-174014902. 

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IN THE SUMMER of 2018, Yellowhead Institute was just a baby. 

We launched earlier that year and found ourselves in the midst of a political crisis in Indian Country. Justin Trudeau had been elected and sought sweeping changes to Indigenous policy, including a proposal for an alternative to the Indian Act. We wanted to understand the shape of this alternative to help communities prepare and intervene. Our small 2-3 person team poured over ministerial statements, budgets, new laws and policy; we spoke to dozens of First Nation leaders and activists; and slowly pieced together the vision for the “Rights Framework,” which we then went on to critique in our first ever Special Report in October 2018. It landed. We presented the findings to First Nation political organizations around the country. Then, at the 2018 Assembly of First Nations (AFN) Special Chiefs Assembly, a young Delaware leader named Megan Logan took the stage on behalf of First Nation youth opposed to the Rights Framework, citing our report. Chiefs in Assembly passed a resolution against the Framework. 

That was the moment we knew Yellowhead had a place in the national dialogue on Indigenous issues; that we could produce rigorous, independent, and critical research and analysis that would support communities in their efforts to make change. 

Over eight years later, we are still doing that work. In fact, this is the 200th publication of the Yellowhead Brief. Our short-form, argumentative or descriptive research and writing has endured. 200 publications. Of course, Yellowhead does many things: on the research side, we publish four Special Reports every year, multiple special features, and our multi-year Red Paper projects. We run the Yellowhead School with two non-credit programs (the Misko Aki Knowledge Exchange, or MAKE, and Yellowhead Online), AND a degree program, the Public Administration and Indigenous Governance B.A. All of which are designed to provide critical tools, quality research, and transformational education designed to build solidarity and/or practice Native sovereignty.

But the Brief is the gate-way for most people into the Yellowhead galaxy. So, reaching this milestone is important for our team and it marks an occasion to reflect. As we do, it feels like so much has changed over our near ten-year run, and so much remains the same. There is a new Liberal Government, new proposals to change the collective relationship, and a new generation of young people telling their leaders that something is not quite right. Okiniwak, Walking Forward Together, and Here We Stand are just a few of the Indigenous youth groups based in Ontario organizing across the country, building community, taking stands on contemporary political issues in thoughtful ways, and challenging the rest of us to pay attention. There are many others.

These groups’ primary concerns revolve around the Carney Government’s Building Canada Strong(er) agenda and the related economic reconciliation framework that seeks to bring Indigenous communities along. Yellowhead has used the Brief to understand and explain the infrastructure being established to “Build Canada Strong” in pieces on Special Economics Zones, Cooperation Agreements, the climate costs of Bill C-39, But there is clearly more work to be done around the new consultation regime, the role of the Major Projects Office, environmental management, the proposed sovereign wealth fund, implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous rights more generally. 

Still, we know that Carney is not Trudeau. 

Where Trudeau sought to overhaul the machinery of government, was open to restitution, and created bilateral negotiations frameworks – all to build trust for a comprehensive approach to a new relationship – Carney is focused on a narrower set of priorities. Trudeau clearly had his critics (myself included), yet he makes Carney look like John A. MacDonald: a Prime Minister set on nation-building where Indigenous people are, more or less, in the way. Carney rarely speaks on Indigenous issues, and when he does, betrays his lack of interest or knowledge. As Cree Minister of Indigenous Services, Mandy Gull-Masty, reports on the Indian Act’s slow death, Carney is apparently unaware and makes a renewed pitch to scrap the legislation. His approach is decidedly unilateral and obtuse.

Meanwhile, we have hostile provinces. The young people of Here We Stand are pointing to Ontario’s Bills 5 and 140, designed to fast-track development and strip environmental protections in that province. Treaty 8 Chiefs have told Alberta their consultation framework is so weak they’ll meet soon in court (again). Saskatchewan is selling off First Nation lands, Quebec is erasing Indigenous languages through Bill 96, and B.C. just elected a party that campaigned on scrapping the provincial UNDRIP law. 

‘Round we go. Reconciliation arrives, does a few laps, and then quietly jogs off – a pattern seen throughout the highs and lows of Canadian history. We see the shift in our day-to-day: reconciliation is no longer an institutional focus, funders are shifting resources to other areas, and renewed racism creeps into our social media pages.

Still, in our near-decade of work we know that it’s in these times of confrontation that public education and useful, accessible research and analysis matters most. So, as we enter another valley in our collective relationship, Yellowhead will be there.

Citation:

King, Hayden. “In the Valley of Reconciliation: Yellowhead Institute & Crown-Indigenous Relations, 2018-2026” Yellowhead Institute. Nov 05 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/in-the-valley-of-reconciliation-yellowhead-institute-crown-indigenous-relations-2018-2026

Photograph: Round Dance by Stan Williams

 

The post In the Valley of Reconciliation: Yellowhead Institute & Crown-Indigenous Relations, 2018-2026 appeared first on Yellowhead Institute.

The Southwest just got way too much of a good thing. Last weekend, a ferocious storm inundated communities and killed at least four people. Though precipitation is an essential component of Arizona’s desert climate, the state got two or three months’ worth of it in just a few days — far more than human infrastructure could handle all at once. Since September 20, an astonishing 28.84 inches of rain has fallen on Clovis, New Mexico, compared to its historical average of just 3.3 inches.

“This weekend was just adding more on the rough times that those communities in Southwest Colorado and Arizona and Utah and New Mexico have been having recently,” said Russ Schumacher, director of the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University, who’s also the state climatologist. “I think the El Niño connection is pretty clear.”

Indeed, that band of warm water in the Pacific could be priming much of the southern United States for a winter of increased precipitation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s seasonal outlook. “Could an event like this have happened in a non-El Niño year?” asked Michael A. Crimmins, a climatologist at the University of Arizona. “It could have, but it would have been a lot harder to pull all of the ingredients together at the same time, and would have been a lot less likely.”

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Precipitation outlook through February 2027

Slightly favors wetterFavors wetterSlightly favors drierFavors drierEqual chancesWetterDrierEqual chancesPuerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands

“Slightly favors” means a 33–50 percent chance of the favored category, and “favors” means 50 percent or more. Hawaiʻi is shaded from CPC’s Hawaiian Islands outlook. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are unshaded; NOAA’s outlook suggests warmer temperatures in this region but publishes no corresponding probability.

Source: NOAA Climate Prediction Center

Clayton Aldern / Grist

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The looming problem this winter is heat, oddly enough. The unfolding El Niño is already the strongest on record, and it could get stronger still in the next few months. Although that amounts to just a handful of extra degrees in the Pacific, it injects a tremendous amount of energy into the atmosphere, scrambling weather the world over. The phenomenon is so influential, in fact, that it has helped cancel hurricanes over in the Atlantic, by messing with winds high up in the atmosphere. Accordingly, this year shattered the record for the latest first hurricane in a season by nearly a month. Normally by this time of year we’d have seen six of these cyclones, but 2026 has still only produced one.

The Southwest, though, gets no such relief from inclement weather. In addition to adding heat to the sky, the warmer waters of El Niño also increase atmospheric moisture. Even beyond the El Niño, temperatures in the Pacific have been running extra hot, which explains why the western part of the ocean has produced 10 hurricanes this season even as the Atlantic has remained quiet. (Overall, more than 90 percent of the excess heat that humans have pumped into the atmosphere has been absorbed by the oceans.)

All this warm water means more moisture for the weather patterns that have been moving into the Southwest over the last month. A separate system in late October, for instance, became one of the most extreme storms in Colorado’s history, pelting higher elevations with up to 8 inches of rain in four days, causing widespread destruction. “It’s just really extreme amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere that have been aimed into the Southwest in each of those storms,” Schumacher said.

This autumn precipitation primed Arizona, Colorado, and other Southwestern states for yet more destruction this past week. For one, rivers were already running high, then ran all the higher. And two, if soils are soaked, a follow-up bout of rain will run off and cause flooding. “We get the second storm, just a little bit after the first one, then everything was primed for even worse flooding this time around,” Schumacher said. 

Read Next California has a plan for El Niño’s torrential rain: Save it for later Matt Simon

In mountainous terrain, this gets especially dangerous, as the topography funnels rainwater into raging torrents. “If you hike around the Southwest, you’re going to see out-of-place boulders all over the place,” Crimmins said. “Water put it there. Maybe it was 5,000 years ago or something like that, but water moves. We can have really epic flash flooding.”

The one silver lining here is that any increased precipitation from this El Niño could bring drought relief to much of the southern U.S., according to NOAA’s projections. Climate change is not only exacerbating these ongoing dry spells — hotter temperatures also increase evaporation from reservoirs. At the same time, populations are growing in the Southwest, meaning more people demanding more water. 

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.insetlabel{font-weight:500;font-size:12px;fill:#6B665E} @media (max-width:800px){.el-nino-drought-outlook#el-nino-drought-outlook svg.map .fxlabel{font-size:26px}.el-nino-drought-outlook#el-nino-drought-outlook svg.map .insetlabel{font-size:18px}} @media (max-width:480px){.el-nino-drought-outlook#el-nino-drought-outlook svg.map .fxlabel{font-size:38px}.el-nino-drought-outlook#el-nino-drought-outlook svg.map .insetlabel{font-size:24px}} @media (prefers-reduced-motion:reduce){.el-nino-drought-outlook#el-nino-drought-outlook *{transition:none !important}} Drought could ease across the South this winter

Seasonal drought outlook through January 31, 2027

WorseningPersistingDevelopingImprovingEndingPuerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands

Source: NOAA Climate Prediction Center U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook

Clayton Aldern / Grist

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With these factors conspiring, the Colorado River’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are approaching the point of collapse. The potential for more rainfall this winter might help fill them, Schumacher said, but it can’t reverse the system’s precipitous decline. “It’s a long way to go to get even back to where we were a year ago,” he said. “Let alone when it was in good condition decades ago.”

The wildcard this year is snowpack: It’s still too early to tell, Schumacher said, how much snow will fall in Colorado. Whereas rainwater flows quickly into rivers, making it harder to store without overwhelming infrastructure — hence all the destructive flooding of late — snowpack slowly releases water as things thaw in the spring. With a record low snowpack earlier this year, Colorado is in desperate need of bountiful flakes in the months ahead.

Water agencies can’t change the weather, but they can at least change how they manage precipitation. Down in Arizona, cities like Tucson have been installing green infrastructure — basically dirt spaces that hydrate native plants — which slow down the flow of water, thus preventing flooding. “There’s really cool and clever ways of thinking about stormwater as a resource,” Crimmins said, “rather than a nuisance.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Extreme flooding in the Southwest foreshadows a wild El Niño winter on Nov 5, 2026.

TORONTO — Winners of this year's Clean Fleet Awards are collectively saving an estimated $25 million annually in fuel costs and reducing oil consumption by approximately 250,000 barrels a year, demonstrating the financial benefits of going electric...

Nearly 7M U.S. school students may be exposed to pesticides used to treat crop fields Anthony Lacey November 5, 2026 Geoff Horsfield Al Rabine 1 in 4 schools within a quarter-mile of pesticide-treated fields, new EWG analysis shows November 5, 2026

Nearly 20,000 U.S. public elementary and middle schools sit within a quarter-mile of crop fields where harmful pesticides may be sprayed, a new EWG analysis finds. Almost 7 million students attend those schools and could be exposed, including more than 575,000 at schools within 200 feet of a field.

Pesticide applications could be putting children, families and school staff at risk because they lack basic protections such as buffer zones and warnings. 

INTERACTIVE MAP U.S. elementary and middle schools near crop fields

This map shows the number and percentage of elementary and middle schools within a quarter mile, 1,000 feet and 200 feet of what the Department of Agriculture considers to be a crop field. These schools have the potential to be in the “spray zone” of pesticides that may be used on these fields. Pesticides sprayed on crop land can harm children who attend schools nearby.

View here

Children face higher risks of the potential health harms linked to pesticides because their developing bodies and nervous systems are more vulnerable to chemical toxicity. Two hundred feet is close enough for harmful drift to reach classrooms and playgrounds. In addition to students, thousands of teachers and other school staff are at risk. 

EWG’s new map allows users to see how many schools in their state, county, congressional district or state legislative district are at risk. It does not account for public high schools or private schools. Nor does it include the thousands of public parks, playgrounds and ball fields where children live and play that may also be sprayed with pesticides. Schools were considered if they contained at least one grade that is K-8. 

Research shows that pesticides are often detected inside homes as far as a half-mile from spraying. EWG found 1,932 public elementary and middle schools within just 200 feet of application and 19,208 within a quarter-mile of a crop field that could be treated with pesticides – one out of every four schools in America.

And it doesn’t matter where kids go to school – this is a nationwide issue:

• In New York, over 550 schools are within a quarter-mile of a crop field, totaling over 200,000 students. 
• In Ohio, almost 1,000 schools and 400,000 children are within a quarter-mile of a crop field.  
• In Florida, over 270 schools and almost 150,000 children. 
• In Colorado, 340 schools and over 100,000 children.  
• In Vermont, more than 71% of schools in the state are within a quarter-mile of a crop field. 

But families lack key information about these commercial pesticide applications. Parents and caregivers deserve the certainty of knowing their children are not being exposed to harmful pesticides when they are at school. They have the right to know when pesticides are being applied near their schools, who is applying them, what is being applied and what precautions are being taken to protect children.

EWG’s map makes it clear that Congress must do more to protect consumers and kids at schools from commercial applications of toxic chemicals. 

That’s why EWG and Consumer Reports are urging Congress to reject any new pesticide laws unless they include the Consumer Pesticide Safety Bill of Rights – a road map for making the food Americans eat and the communities they live in safer. It addresses long-running gaps in pesticide protection, and it includes a call for Congress to ensure that children are safe from pesticide exposure while at school.

What are the health risks of pesticide exposure?

Studies show that living near pesticide spraying is linked to harm to the respiratory system, increased risk of cancer and harm to the developing fetus, such as low birth weight and reduced IQ. 

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, children are especially susceptible to potential health problems stemming from pesticide exposure, such as neurological and behavioral development, endocrine disruption and cancer.

Spraying creates dangers not just for kids at schools close to fields where pesticides are used but also for those in more distant neighborhoods, where chemicals may drift.

Pesticide air monitoring has shown some pesticides can travel miles from the application site. Evidence suggests health harms such as pediatric cancers may be associated with pesticide applications up to 2.5 miles away. 

How is pesticide use regulated near schools?

Many states, cities and counties have adopted legal standards to restrict pesticide spraying near schools, citing the risks it poses to children, whose bodies and brains are still developing. But these protections vary from state to state.

More than 40 states – including Georgia, Illinois, New York, North Carolina and Texas – have restricted how and when pesticides can be sprayed near schools. 

Alabama and North Carolina, for example, ban crop dusting near schools. Many other states – including Arizona, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan and New Hampshire – have placed buffer zones that restrict pesticide spraying around schools. 

Illinois and other states require that alerts be posted on school grounds to tell students before or after spraying. 

Some states, including Kentucky, Minnesota and Nevada, require that parents be notified. Others, like Louisiana and Pennsylvania, require schools to track students who are sensitive to pesticides. 

Other states, including Georgia and New Mexico, limit the hours when pesticides can be sprayed near schools. California prohibits pesticide applications within a quarter-mile of public schools during the hours when children are most likely to be present. The state also requires additional notifications, reporting and training, 

What should the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress do?

State regulations and laws are inconsistent, and many help parents and students only after they have been exposed to toxic chemicals or when it is too late. 

The standards also always assume pesticides will be applied without error by the applicator –  something that isn’t always done.

Instead, the federal government should set a minimum standard for buffer zones around schools, and ensure states’ ability to go further. Even though the people who spread the chemicals on farm fields may already be required to wear special protective gear, communities nearby remain unprotected. 

Congress and the EPA can also ensure proper notifications are sent if pesticides are applied near schools, as many states already require. 

Parents and families should not have to track down a government registry, pay a fee or require a doctor’s note to be notified of pesticide applications that could expose them, their children or their pets to toxics. Families deserve to know whether someone living or working near their home has applied pesticides that can make people sick. 

As with some state programs, the EPA and states should work together to proactively notify people of commercial pesticide applications near their homes and schools. This would give parents more information to potentially lower their kids’ exposure risk.

Pesticide companies, including Bayer’s Monsanto and ChemChina’s Syngenta, are actively trying to hide pesticide application information from consumers. These companies are trying to boost pesticide sales and hide the risks from industrial chemical use. 

Now, they’re trying to push Congress to quickly reauthorize a pesticide law, the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act, without making any changes to protect the public. 

Congress might consider renewing the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act as early as December. The current law, through which the chemical industry negotiates fees that fund the EPA’s pesticide reviews, is set to expire next September. 

Lawmakers shouldn’t support any new pesticide law that fails to protect consumers and kids at school. Any such legislation should adopt EWG and Consumer Reports’ Consumer Pesticide Safety Bill of Rights – making clear that consumers deserve to be protected from toxic chemicals. 

Happy day-after-Election Day!

When we started our Vote for Climate Justice campaign last election cycle, our goal was to infuse every part of Portland’s City Council elections with climate justice. So together, with all of you, we educated voters and candidates on the issues impacting our rivers, our trees, our air, our communities, and our climate, knowing that education and stories can lead to action. We saw the fruits of that work last election, and we see it now.

Thank you. Thank you for voting. Thank you for helping your friends, family, and neighbors vote. Thank you for being a part of our Vote for Climate Justice program. Now let’s continue showing up and speaking up together, for justice and with joy, for our neighbors, our planet, and all of our futures. If you’re feeling inspired, consider supporting us with a donation to keep this successful grassroots organizing going! Rumble on the River: Post-Election Reflection & Directions

Thursday, November 12
Havurah Shalom (825 NW 18th Ave)
Doors at 5:30 PM, Panel discussion at 6:30 PM

Panelists:

• Dr. Tammy Carpenter – OR Representative-Elect in District 27
• Rep. Travis Nelson – OR Representative, District 44
• Angelo Bologna – AFSCME Local 328
• Josie Moberg – Immigration Attorney
• Matt Reed – Oregon Education Association
• Nafisah Ula – Jobs with Justice
• Moderated by: Damon Motz-Storey – Director of Policy & Communications for Portland City Councilor Candace Avalos

Together, We Make a Difference

In September and October, the 350PDX community sent over 1000 emails to City Council, plus dozens of written comments, speaking up about a data center resolution, the transfer of Zenith Energy’s franchise to I Squared Capital, a strong Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub policy with a significant drawdown of fossil fuels, a No Immunity for Big Oil resolution, and an investment policy that excludes all fossil fuels.

•  No secret deals for data centers passed!
• The Zenith Energy franchise transfer went through without additional community protections or industry accountability
• No Immunity for Big Oil resolution passed!
• Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub strong amendments passed! The final draft will come to Council November 5 and 12, we’ll let you know if further action is needed.

We still need to speak up about the City’s investment policy. The proposed policy adds in an Environmental, Social, and Governance framework for ethical investing, but does not exclude natural gas or coal. Speak up for fossil fuel divestment by sending this email, or submitting a written or verbal comment (this testimony toolkit has talking points and links).

Two Upcoming Actions at City Council

Building on our momentum from the last couple months, let’s finish 2026 strong by advocating for two important issues: reducing building emissions in large buildings, and banning tear gas. These policies are both a long time coming, and this is the moment to pass them! However, they’re receiving a lot of push-back, so we need to show major community support. See these and other actions on our Take Action page.

Fight NW Natural: Pass Climate & Health Standards for Existing Buildings

Portland environmental justice and tenant rights groups have been working on a building emissions reduction policy for over 5 years, targeting buildings over 20,000 square feet, and it’s finally been introduced in the Housing & Permitting Committee. Unfortunately, NW Natural and their industry allies have been flooding City Council with negative comments, even though this policy is similar to Building Performance Standards already in place in other cities like Seattle, Denver, Boston, New York, and Washington, DC. Written comment is open through December 1 (this toolkit has talking points and links). Sign up for a testimony training on November 23 by emailing cherice@350pdx.org!

Ban Tear Gas in Portland with a “Right to Breathe Act”

Tear gas and other chemical weapons used for “crowd control” are not only damaging to human health and people’s rights to speech and assembly, but they’re also harmful to waterways, trees, birds, animals, plants, and soil. After a presentation by Portland Police last week where they tried to convince City Council they should continue to be allowed to gas us, they need to hear from the public.  Learn more, submit written testimony by Thursday 11/5, and stay tuned for further opportunities to speak up.

Energy Justice Team:

The Energy Justice Team works together on everything from fighting data centers, Zenith, and the CEI Hub to advocating for PCEF and transportation justice! Our next team meeting is VIRTUAL on next Tuesday, November 10 at 6 PM. Reach out to dineen@350pdx.org and cherice@350pdx.org for the link or to get plugged into the team.

The “Bipartisan American Affordability & Jobs” Bill (U.S. Senate Bill 5653) is a fast-moving threat to public advocacy, sovereign Tribal nations, and our climate and environment. It would dismantle the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Endangered Species Act. All of the legal and regulatory tools we’ve used over the past decade in our region to stop pipelines, energy terminals, and power plants could be erased by this bill. It’s a giveaway to Big Tech and the fossil fuel industry.

350PDX and over 60 other organizations across the Pacific Northwest sent a letter opposing the bill to US Senators and Representatives in Oregon and Washington. Use this tool to send a message to your Senators and Representatives urging them to oppose this bill, and check out this Opposition Guide for more ways to take action.

Forest Defense Team:

This week the Forest Defense Team continued our campaign planning. The discussions have been detailed, exciting, fruitful, and challenging due to the current threats facing forested land. One campaign we advocating for is the continuation of funding for the Trees in the Curb Zone pilot project which has aims to create infrastructure and increase tree canopy in low-canopy neighborhoods. Additionally, the team plans to continue the ongoing push to get long-term funding for street tree maintenance.

Learn about Portland’s new Street Tree Care program from Parks & Recreation Urban Forestry staff on November 13 at 9 AM. This pilot program is the culmination of a 5-year campaign by 350PDX and partner organizations to provide proactive tree care, first called for 80 years ago. RSVP to noelle@350pdx.org

The Forest Defense Team meets on the first and third Monday of each month, alternating between virtual and in-person meetings. Our next meeting will be on November 16 from 6 – 7:30 PM. Reach out to tyler@350PDX.org for details.

Art Team:

Last month, the Art Team brought our mourning mothers to the No Kings protest and passed out flyers encouraging attendees to engage with 350PDX’s upcoming actions! Additionally, we have been hard at work on a surprise project for our end of year fundraising.

The Art Team meets twice a month. We host our art builds on the second Sunday of every month and our monthly planning meetings on the last Wednesday.

• Next Art Build: November 8, 1 – 4PM
• Next Planning Meeting: Wednesday, November 25, 6 – 7:30 PM

Meetings are held in the 350PDX workshop (3639 N Mississippi Ave). RSVP to arts@350pdx.org.

Book Club:

The 350PDX Book Club meets every month on the first Wednesday of the month at 6:30PM, alternating between virtual and in-person. Reach out to books@350PDX.org with any questions or to join our list, and please RSVP so we can inform you of any meeting changes.

Lots of Book Club announcements this month: our virtual meetings are BACK, we are meeting MONTHLY again, our in-person meetings are back home at the 350PDX Offices, and we’re excited to welcome our newest co-facilitator, Ian Murdock. Welcome!

Join us on Wednesday, December 2 at 6:30 PM for our next fiction in-person meeting. We’ll discuss A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger; based on traditional Lipan Apache storytelling structure, this young adult novel weaves an unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. RSVP at books@350PDX.org.

Save the date for our other upcoming discussions:

• Wednesday, January 6 at 6:30 PM (free pick; Google Meet): Book to be selected in December

• Wednesday, February 3 at 6:30 PM (nonfiction; 350PDX Offices): The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street by Mike Tidwell

Milwaukie Advocates for Climate Justice:

The Milwaukie Advocates for Climate meet monthly on the third Monday from 5:30 – 6:30 PM at Milwaukie City Hall — all are welcome! To get connected, sign up here or email MAC@350pdx.org.

Join us on Friday, November 6th at 6:30 PM for a documentary screening of “The Little Town That Could” at the Ledding Library in Milwaukie. This is an inspiring documentary of a community in New York working together to reduce emissions. It will be followed by a panel discussion with filmmakers and local climate activists.

Washington County Team:

The Washington County Team invites all to our next monthly online meeting at 6:30 PM on Tuesday November 10. We are looking forward to discussing election results that could impact improving climate action policies and catching up with each other online.

Last month we enjoyed talking with Tualatin City Council member Bridget Brookes regarding a win for the Tualatin Climate Action Plan. The City recently completed work on the activation of a new micro-power turbine that will improve City building & fleet power while using cleaner energy and reducing Tualatin’s expenses. It will also capture power from the local drinking water source that’s been latent for decades. Embracing this innovation will make Tualatin more resilient in many ways.

We welcome guest presenters who would like to share their programs and local climate actions! Please reach out to us at 350washco@gmail.com if you would like to engage and educate our group on a future Tuesday evening!

We always welcome newcomers to our events and to our (mostly) monthly online meetings (6:30 PM on the second Tuesday of the month). For the link, join us here or contact us at 350washco@gmail.com.

Southwest Neighborhood Team:

The 350PDX Southwest Neighborhood Team includes neighborhoods on the south and west sides of Portland. We work together to raise awareness of the climate emergency.

Our street corner demonstrations continue weekly in November every Friday. New time is 3 – 4 PM at SW Terwilliger & SW Taylor’s Ferry. Some parking is available in the Chez Jose and Anytime Fitness lot, or reach us via bus or bike.

Our monthly meetings happen on the third Monday of the month. To get involved, please contact Pat Kaczmarek at patk5@msn.com.

Before closing our newsletter, a few reminders:

• Check out our Take Action page, which we update regularly. It includes actions that may not be in our newsletter.
• Join the 350PDX community Slack channel! This is a great way to stay connected on an ongoing basis. Contact to info@350pdx.org and we can add you.
• 350PDX is still searching for a wonderful, new home. Please reach out to info@350PDX.org if you have ideas for a space where we can have meetings, our arts team can create show-stopping puppets, and more!

Thank you for reading our monthly newsletter. We hope to see you soon!

With gratitude,

Cherice, Dineen, Jessica, Maeve, and Noelle

The post 2026 November Newsletter! appeared first on 350PDX: Climate Justice.

China’s rapidly-expanding clean energy generation and deepening electrification has made the country more resilient to energy shocks, bolstering its position ahead of the COP31 climate talks in Türkiye, where speeding up the world’s electrification is set to dominate.

The growth of China’s renewable energy capacity protected it from the economic fallout from the energy crisis triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) published on Thursday.

As oil and gas stopped flowing through the key fossil fuel trade route, leading prices to soar, China’s crude oil imports – the largest in the world – fell sharply, leading the country to start drawing down on its reserves and curbing its exports of petroleum products.

“Yet, the import reduction did not produce the economic and social disruption in China one might normally expect from a shock of this scale,” the report found.   

As temporary adjustment cushioned the oil-import shock, clean power and the electrification of the transport sector buffered the economic costs.

The rise of renewable energy and nuclear power have reduced China’s fossil fuel imports bill by more than $9 billion since 2020, more than any other country, according to CREA.

“China remains exposed to imported fuels, particularly where oil is used as a chemical feedstock, but reducing fossil-fuel demand already contributes to energy security,” said Qi Qin, the report’s author.

The view from Beijing: vindicated

CREA’s analysis found the roll-out of electric vehicles (EVs) displaced 38 million tonnes of oil equivalent between March and August, equivalent to around 13% of China’s crude oil imports in the same period the previous year.

China’s ongoing reliance on coal-fired power plants also protected the country against oil and gas supply disruptions, although coal power generation remained broadly flat in the six months since the start of the Iran war, according to the report.

• Nov 3, 2026 News Brazil’s fossil fuel roadmap sketches out first global timetable The COP30 presidency’s voluntary timetable asks countries to plan first, then build up clean energy – only turning to oil and gas supplies from 2031 Read more
• Nov 3, 2026 News Canada, EU agree deeper cooperation on energy and cleantech supply chains Both sides have pledged to strengthen investment and trade cooperation to make cleantech supply chains more resilient to shocks Read more
• Nov 3, 2026 News Africa launches long-delayed energy bank to finance fossil fuel projects The Africa Energy Bank’s main aim is financing oil and gas projects, underscoring support among many African governments for continued fossil fuel development Read more

Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Climate home News that China’s all-of-the-above approach to energy development has provided the country with the strategic flexibility to face the oil shock.

“While China has often been criticised in previous years for moving too slowly away from coal, this year’s global energy market volatility has given Chinese policymakers a renewed sense of confidence. There is a growing sentiment in Beijing that recent events have vindicated China’s energy strategy as both prudent and pragmatic,” he said.

Can China support the electrification pledge?

Despite its vast cleantech build-out and rapid electrification boosting its energy resilience, China has stopped short of endorsing an initiative by COP31 host Türkiye to increase the global share of electricity to 35% in final energy use by 2035.

Li Gao, vice minister at the Ministry of ​Ecology and Environment, who will lead the Chinese delegation at COP31, told a press conference the electrification target was in line with Chinese policy. “We believe that increasing electrification levels will help promote a green and low-carbon energy transition and address climate change,” he said.

China’s position on the electrification initiative is one of the major questions hanging over the COP31 talks beginning in Antalya next week.

“What is clear is that China has the most to gain from accelerated electrification because of their manufacturing capabilities,” said Bruce Douglas, CEO of the Global Renewables Alliance.

In 2026 alone, China’s exports of solar panels, batteries, EV and other cleantech are on track to avoid emissions equivalent to Brazil’s annual emissions.

• Sep 8, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit Despite a rebound in coal generation this year, clean energy from wind and solar is gaining ground on the fossil fuels that have powered decades of industry growth Read more
• Sep 22, 2026 News COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment Campaigners and experts say the goal’s effectiveness in reducing emissions may be limited unless countries agree to meet it using only clean energy Read more
• Nov 3, 2026 News Brazil’s fossil fuel roadmap sketches out first global timetable The COP30 presidency’s voluntary timetable asks countries to plan first, then build up clean energy – only turning to oil and gas supplies from 2031 Read more

Türkiye’s proposal doesn’t include a commitment to produce the power from clean energy, nor does it explicitly link electrification to the transition away from fossil fuels – issues on which the EU has signalled it is ready to push back.  

But Chinese analysts say Beijing is unlikely to support linking a global electrification goal to commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.

Former French climate envoy Laurence Tubiana, the outgoing CEO of the European Climate Foundation, told Climate Home News that the EU and developed countries such as Brazil – which is influential within the BRICS group of large emerging economies – have a responsibility to push China to show leadership in the talks.

Driving the world’s electrification

The electrification of the Chinese economy has outpaced that of any other major economy.

In the US and the EU, the share of electrification has stagnated just above 20%. In China, it has doubled since 2005, reaching close to 30% in 2025.  

The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects China will remain the single largest driver of global electricity demand growth through to 2030, as it electrifies its manufacturing sector as well as growing demand for cooling and EV charging.

Over the next five years, the IEA forecasts that China will increase its electricity consumption by as much as the total electricity consumption of the EU today.

In August, the Chinese government set a target to boost the share of electricity in its final energy consumption to 35% by 2030 – five years ahead of Türkiye’s proposed goal.

From laggard to frontrunner

Clean-power growth and electrification could meet all of China’s rising power demand, according to CREA. By 2030, this would mean renewable and nuclear energy could reach 54% of power generation – exceeding China’s target to generate half its electricity from non-fossil sources by the end of the decade.

Clean electricity already met all of China’s demand growth in 2025. “The challenge lies in sustaining such growth over several years,” said Qin.

From Beijing’s perspective, the global targets such as the electrification pledge “no longer appear particularly ambitious or threatening”, said Li, of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“China, long perceived as a climate laggard, is increasingly moving ahead of countries in the Global North. A global ceiling target is increasingly only a floor for China,” he emphasised.

The post Clean power shields China from oil shock more than any other country appeared first on Climate Home News.

GTA's Periodical: Weaving Alternatives Latest periodical * WEAVING ALTERNATIVES 20: Remembering Bandung, Reimagining Futures (July 2026). Past issues * Newsletter 01 (July 2020) * Newsletter 02 (October 2020) * Newsletter 03 (February 2021) * Newsletter 04 (May 2021) * Newsletter 05 (September 2021) - [PDF] [PDF in Spanish] * Newsletter 06 (January 2022) - [PDF] [PDF in Spanish] AlternativesAlternativesAlternativesAlternatives

Food was on the table. Now Congress should deliver. Anthony Lacey November 4, 2026

Food was on the table during the election – and voters are hungry for change. 

While many issues mattered to voters, polling shows that food issues like rising food inflation, food safety and how food affects our health were as important as health care and other concerns. 

For starters, voters want Congress to do more to make sure that our food is safe. In particular, Congress should make sure the chemicals added to our food meet tough safety standards. Congress should also do more to keep our food free from pathogens and contaminants like the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.

When farmers offer to adopt regenerative practices like cover crops, Congress should make sure they get financial support. 

Voters also want Congress to do more to ensure consumers have access to healthy food. In particular, Congress should require that our schools offer healthier options, and some states have already acted to phase out harmful ultra-processed foods. 

Voters also want Congress to restore funding cuts to anti-hunger programs and take steps to address rising food prices. Reducing tariffs on food imports and breaking up monopolies would be good places to start. 

Until the election, few of these issues got the attention we deserve. Now that the voters have spoken, it’s time for Congress to deliver a recipe for success. 

Here are seven steps the new Congress can take right away to provide consumers with more safe, healthy, and affordable food:

1. The new Congress should require that all new food chemicals are reviewed for safety before they are added to our food. Right now, 99% of new food chemicals are reviewed for safety by the chemical companies, not the safety experts at the Food and Drug Administration. 
2. The new Congress should require that pesticide residues found on the fruits and vegetables most commonly eaten by our kids meet the toughest safety standards, and that safety experts at the Environmental Protection Agency quickly review pesticides when they are banned by other nations. 
3. The new Congress should define ultra processed foods and require a disclosure on food labels so we can find healthier options when we shop. 
4. The new Congress should make sure that food safety experts carefully track pathogens and regularly inspect food manufacturing plants and fruit and vegetable farms to reduce the risk posed by pathogens like cyclospora. 
5. The new Congress should direct food safety experts to set limits on the amount of toxic PFAS in our food and ban PFAS in cookware. 
6. The new Congress should triple spending on regenerative farming practices like cover crops to help address water pollution in places like Iowa. Right now, three out of four farmers are turned away when they seek help to adopt regenerative farming practices. 
7. The new Congress should rescind the cuts to anti-hunger programs that have increased hunger at a time of rising food prices. Everyone should have enough to eat. 

Food is a kitchen table issue. There’s much more Congress should do to make our food a priority. These seven steps are a good place to start.  

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Food Chemicals Authors Scott Faber November 4, 2026

Last night the trajectory changed for the redrock wilderness. For the past two years we’ve been fighting for Utah’s wild places on three fronts: against a Republican-controlled Congress, against the president and his administration, and against the anti-public-lands state of Utah. Last night, when Democrats decisively took control of both the House and Senate, a new political reality emerged: one where wilderness and public lands will have champions in Congress with the power to deflect attacks from the administration.

We’re clear-eyed that the Trump administration’s corrupt attacks on public lands will continue—and perhaps even ramp up—during his lame duck presidency. Here in Utah, Republicans have an irrational antipathy to public lands and continue to hold statewide office and dominate the state legislature (though it seems their supermajority may soon be a thing of the past). We have plenty of work ahead, starting with defeating the permitting reform bill that the U.S. Senate may take up as soon as Monday.

But today also ushers in a new era. For the first time since 1989 and Rep. Wayne Owens, Utah will have a member of the House of Representatives—Ben McAdams in Congressional District 1—who has committed to champion America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act. After decades of having to build power outside the state of Utah to protect public lands in Utah, the tide is turning. We’ll be organizing in the Beehive State and across the country. When the 120th Congress convenes in January, we will have unprecedented opportunities and we’ll be working together to make the most of each and every one.

The work ahead is hard. It will take many more hard years to restore Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, to pass the Red Rock bill, and to protect Utah’s wild places. But SUWA is in it for the long haul, and we know that people like you—at the heart of the Protect Wild Utah movement across the country—are too.

Thank you for casting your vote. Thank you for entrusting us to do this work and for financially supporting us if you’re able. We’re deeply grateful. What we said after the 2024 election still rings true: We can protect the places and values that matter. Together, we will.

For the redrock,

Scott Braden

Executive Director
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

The post A New Day for the Redrock appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

This article first appeared on Yale Climate Connections and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 

Outgoing Sen. Mitch McConnell was one of the most powerful figures ever to walk the halls of the U.S. Congress and was instrumental in steering the country’s climate policy. At virtually every opportunity, he chose to block efforts to address the problem.

McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, did not seek reelection and is set to retire from the Senate in January. At that point, he will have been the 10th-longest-serving senator in U.S. history. He was also the longest-serving Senate party leader in history.

During his tenure, McConnell exerted his power to halt or overturn climate action in Congress, at the Supreme Court, and in the White House. Over a decades-long career, he joined a short list of individuals most responsible for stymying political efforts to address climate change.

A Senate leader’s war against the president

Over his 40-year tenure in the Senate, McConnell received over $4 million in donations from the oil and gas and coal industries – the fifth-most of any senator.

He was chosen as the leader of Senate Republicans in 2007, shortly before President Barack Obama, a Democrat, won office with a 60-member filibuster-proof Senate majority and a Democratic-controlled House.

At the time, observers thought it possible that Congress would pass bipartisan legislation to combat climate change.

In 2008, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi and former Republican House leader Newt Gingrich had created an ad together in which Gingrich said, “We do agree: Our country must take action to address climate change.”

The House soon passed a carbon cap-and-trade bill designed to tackle climate pollution. Eight Republicans voted in favor.

But the Democrats were never able to put their filibuster-proof majority to work on climate legislation. Their majority was thinned by election recounts, legal challenges, member illnesses, the death of Democrat Robert Byrd, and a lost special election in January 2010. What’s more, several Senate Democrats did not support the cap-and-trade bill, so climate advocates needed support from perhaps half a dozen Senate Republicans.

Some Republicans, most prominently the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, worked on a version of the cap-and-trade bill. But rather than support the legislation, McConnell had decided instead to declare war on Obama’s entire agenda, as reporter Ryan Lizza documented in a 2010 article. By working on a climate bill, Republican senators risked angering McConnell.

The cap-and-trade bill died a quiet death, never having received a vote in the Senate.

In 2019, McConnell acknowledged the reality of human-caused climate change. At the time, he said he preferred to solve the problem through technology and innovation. Yet he opposed legislation that climate advocates and researchers said would spur technological innovation, such as a price on carbon pollution and clean energy tax credits.

The Senate finally passed sweeping climate legislation in 2022, when Democrats enacted the Inflation Reduction Act. McConnell vehemently opposed the bill.

In 2025, McConnell helped to repeal many provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act when he supported the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed the Senate by a single vote.

McConnell’s conservative Supreme Court

The senator expressed pride in his influence over the Supreme Court. Notably, he blocked Obama’s nomination of moderate Merrick Garland in 2016 to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. In a move that broke with norms and historical precedent, McConnell refused to allow the chamber to consider or vote on Garland’s nomination.

“The most important decision I've made in my entire political career was not to fill the Supreme Court vacancy when Justice Scalia passed away,” McConnell recalled in 2024.

Soon after taking office in January 2017, Trump nominated the conservative Neil Gorsuch to the court, and the Republican-controlled Senate approved him. The Senate under McConnell also approved the 2018 nomination of conservative Brett Kavanaugh and the 2020 nomination of conservative Amy Coney Barrett.

The now right-wing court has consistently issued rulings that undermine climate and other environmental regulations.

In the 2022 case West Virginia v. EPA, the court issued a 6-3 decision – with the three new conservative justices in the majority – ruling against the Obama administration’s 2016 Clean Power Plan to regulate climate pollution from power plants. They did so even though the proposed rule never went into effect and by then had already been repealed under the first Trump administration.

In that case, the court also formalized what it called the “major questions doctrine,” which prohibits federal agencies from issuing new regulations that will have major economic or political influence unless Congress has specifically and explicitly delegated that authority.

In the 2024 case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, in another 6-3 partisan split, the court overturned the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, a principle that federal judges should defer to a government agency's reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous Congressional statute.

Both decisions could enable the Supreme Court to block federal climate regulations in the future.

A crucial vote to acquit

In January 2021, the senator had an opportunity to prevent a second Trump administration. He chose not to take it.

The House of Representatives had impeached Trump for inciting an insurrection at the Capitol a week earlier.

"There's no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said at the time.

But he declined to whip his caucus to remove Trump. Instead, McConnell and 42 other Republican senators voted to acquit him.

Had Trump been impeached, he would have been constitutionally barred from ever again holding office. Instead, he was elected to a second term in 2024 and has presided over the most anti-climate-policy administration in U.S. history, which has included withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement for the second time and repealing virtually all federal climate policies. It proved to be a fitting capstone to McConnell’s lengthy career of sabotaging climate policy at every level of government.

 

//

Historic midterms deliver clear message to Congress: Prioritize people’s health and well-being Anthony Lacey November 4, 2026

WASHINGTON – The American people have sent a powerful message with the historic midterm elections: They demand a government that works for them, not a government corrupted by the power of polluters and corporate interests. 

The sweeping rejection of the Trump administration’s policies presents Congress’ incoming Democratic majority with both an opportunity and an obligation to deliver on the issues that matter most to families. 

The Environmental Working Group says the next Congress should pursue efforts to provide safe, healthy food and clean drinking water, strengthen protections against toxic chemicals and pesticides, and support affordable clean energy.

The following is a statement from EWG President and Co-founder Ken Cook:

This historic election is a celebration of American pluralism – and a reminder that, to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin’s warning, we have a republic, if we can keep it. 

Last night’s results offer us a reason for optimism and a renewed confidence that progress is possible. By listening to voters and putting people first, we can begin to restore trust in government, and build a healthier, safer and more hopeful future for generations to come.

The results are also a resounding rejection of President Donald Trump’s agenda and a powerful affirmation of the values that make America stronger: opportunity, accountability and the fundamental promise that government should work for the people, not powerful corporate interests.

The people are fed up with policies that cater to polluters and corrupt corporate interests ahead of the health, safety and economic well-being of millions of Americans. 

Democrats now have an opportunity – and an obligation – to deliver on a different vision, one grounded in the kitchen-table issues that matter to families every day. That means fighting for clean, safe, healthy food free from harmful pesticides and toxic additives; drinking water free from dangerous contaminants; and affordable, clean energy. 

It means holding polluters accountable, restoring the government’s ability to protect public health and the environment, and rejecting the playbook of the last two years of putting Big Food, Big Ag and Big Pesticides ahead of the public interest.

Democrats must also begin to repair the damage inflicted by the most stridently anti-environmental, anti-science administration in our history, and rebuild the federal government’s capacity to protect Americans.

That means restoring and strengthening critical agencies, including the EPA, the FDA and the CDC. It means restoring and strengthening science-based safeguards against pesticide exposure and toxic chemicals; protecting drinking water from contamination; and ensuring that public health, not corporate influence, drives regulatory decisions.

EWG stands ready to work with Congress – and all stakeholders – to make it happen and to turn this electoral mandate into real action.

We have an ambitious agenda and concrete opportunities to make progress. We look forward to working with incoming members of Congress and continuing our work to reform our food chemical safety system, strengthen pesticide protection and help farmers lead the transition to regenerative agriculture. 

###

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 November 4, 2026

International funding to help developing countries protect their communities, infrastructure and economies from climate impacts remains far below what is needed, a new United Nations report has found, leaving vulnerable nations increasingly exposed as global warming heads past 1.5C.

The UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) 2026 Adaptation Gap Report estimates that developing countries will need about $305 billion a year to adapt by 2035 in today’s prices, or around $420 billion once inflation is taken into account. Yet international public adaptation finance from developed countries reached only $28.2-31.7 billion in 2024, a modest increase on the previous year.

The estimate is slightly below last year’s $310-365 billion, mainly because UNEP now relies more on countries’ own assessment of costs reported through their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs).

• Oct 28, 2026 News Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash Read more
• May 21, 2026 Finance New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance OECD figures suggest developed countries have not met a target to deliver $40 billion a year to help poorer nations adapt to climate change, as aid cuts bite Read more
• Nov 22, 2025 News COP30 fails to land deal on fossil fuel transition but triples finance for climate adaptation Instead of a global agreement to create roadmaps to shift away from fossil fuels and end deforestation, Brazil announces voluntary initiatives Read more

UN secretary-general António Guterres said the gap in adaptation finance is not measured in money alone but in the lives, livelihoods and futures that are lost in the process. 

He called on developed countries to deliver “fast, simple, accessible support” to vulnerable countries, adding that development banks must also scale up their financing. “We know who is most at risk. We know what works. What is missing is the money and the political will. The choice is simple – invest in adaptation today or pay for catastrophe tomorrow,” he said.

At COP30 last year, countries agreed to at least triple adaptation finance for developing nations by 2035. Depending on whether that is measured from current flows or from the $40 billion that rich nations were meant to reach in 2025 under an earlier pledge, tripling would deliver $85-120 billion a year. Even if it is achieved, UNEP says, that would cover only 20-29% of developing countries’ needs in 2035.

The report warns the pledge may be less ambitious than it looks. The COP30 decision sets no baseline year, does not adjust for inflation and allows money that developing countries channel through multilateral development banks (MDBs) to count towards the target. Taking all of this into account, developed countries’ own contribution in 2035 could be as low as $45-66 billion a year in 2025 prices.

“The world is not ready to adapt to current climatic conditions, never mind what overshoot of 1.5°C will bring,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, calling on governments to intensify efforts to increase adaptation finance.

Global South countries step up

While funding from rich nations flatlines, adaptation finance flowing between developing countries is growing, though it is nowhere near enough to close the gap.

What’s on the climate calendar for November 2026?

The UNEP report estimates that developing countries contributed $9.65 billion towards international public adaptation finance in 2024, more than double the $3.81 billion recorded in 2019. That is about a quarter of all international public adaptation finance.

The report does not break the figure down by country. “These are voluntary contributions that capacitated developing countries provide via their shares in the MDBs but also through direct South-South cooperation,” said Henry Neufeldt, the report’s lead author, at a press conference on Wednesday.

Fatima Denton, the report’s co-author, said it is “comforting” to see South-South learning and cooperation because countries with similar ecosystems face similar challenges.

Loss and damage mounting

Without stronger action to cut emissions and adapt, climate-related losses and damages will keep rising, the report says, overwhelming the limited resources of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), whose complex procedures also make support hard to access.

Last month, the fund’s board agreed to set aside $20 million for Nepal’s recovery from the devastating climate-driven flood it suffered in August. It is the first money the fund has allocated since its creation, but Nepali officials called the sum symbolic against estimated recovery costs of $4.8 billion. Nepal must now submit a proposal setting out how it will use the money.

The FRLD has yet to approve any projects from its first funding round, when it received nearly 180 submissions, requiring around $2.8 billion – an amount that dwarfed the around $350 million available to allocate.

Loss and damage fund delays first project approvals as needs dwarf resources

Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at DanChurchAid, said the risk of loss and damage grows when adaptation falls short, as communities become more exposed to increasingly severe climate impacts.

“When we fail to invest in adaptation today, we risk paying a much higher price tomorrow. And that price is not only measured in dollars. It is measured in lives lost, homes destroyed and futures taken away,” Söderberg added.

A failure to match climate ambition

Ahead of COP31 starting on Monday in Antalya, climate campaigners are calling on rich governments to set out how to close the remaining gap and meet developing countries’ full adaptation needs.

Pooja Dave, adaptation lead at Climate Action Network International, said COP31 must agree a credible plan to deliver at least US$120 billion a year in adaptation finance well before 2035, through new and additional public, grant-based funding that reaches the communities most at risk.

“People have a right to a climate safe world and protection from climate impacts. Adaptation is not charity. It is a legal and moral obligation,” Dave said.

Mohamed Adow, director of Kenya-based climate change think tank Power Shift Africa, said COP31 must establish a clear starting point, milestones and a credible delivery plan, especially on how public finance, in the form of grants not loans, must reach those most at risk

“Communities facing floods and droughts cannot wait until 2035 to find out what this promise means,” he said.

The post COP30 adaptation pledge would meet under a third of poorer nations’ needs, UN warns appeared first on Climate Home News.

By: Morgen Snyder, Director of Policy and Programs

On September 30, 2026, Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Lee, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Martin Heinrich introduced a sweeping permitting reform bill that threatens to undermine the bedrock environmental laws protecting tribes, communities, and ecosystems across the country. The “Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026” would set the stage for weakened oversight of industry-caused environmental impacts by gutting key provisions of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Heritage Preservation Act, and the National Environmental Protection Act.

These foundational environmental laws were hard-won and are critical to ensuring the health of our communities and ecosystems. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught on fire due to the toxins, oils, and waste clogging the waterways. That same year, Santa Barbara’s beaches were stained black from the worst oil spill in U.S. history at the time. Polluters went unchecked, dumping toxins into our rivers and streams. Only one third of all waterways were safe to swim in. Because of this crisis, Congress took action with the creation of the Environmental Protection Act in 1970. Only two years later, seeing the growing threats facing our waterways, the federal legislature came together to override President Nixon’s veto of the Clean Water Act, reaffirming the need to safeguard  waterways, communities, and ecosystems across the country.

Fifty years after the Clean Water Act was established, over 50% of U.S. waterways remain impaired. That means over half of our waterways are not swimmable, fishable, or drinkable due to continued contamination. Yet today, federal legislators threaten to rollback critical protections by loosening environmental permits, and limiting legal challenges and state authority over water and energy projects. The proposed legislation would rollback critical Endangered Species Act protections and significantly limit what challenges can be brought under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Importantly, this bill also jeopardizes Tribal sovereignty, limiting and creating exemptions for review processes central to protecting Tribal cultural sites, introducing federal oversight of Tribal Heritage Preservation Officers that far oversteps, and creating significant limits to judicial review.

Energy and water development cannot come at the expense of environmental safeguards, state and Tribal authority and the health and wellbeing of Californians. Just over 50 years ago, we vowed never to allow another U.S. river to catch fire. There is no reason for Legislators to fold to the whims of this administration. Legislators must reject this proposal and instead ensure any permitting reform goes hand in hand with the protection of our environment and communities.

Find your representative here and urge them to oppose SB 5653.

26553Audubon is thrilled to welcome Julie Shapiro as Vice President of the Rockies region! Julie brings more than 20 years of experience in natural resource and environmental policy, strategy, and...

Alex Maitland, Nafkote Dabi and Pubudini Wickramaratne work on climate and inequality for Oxfam International.

Few places on Earth have escaped the deadly effects of climate breakdown in 2026. In the early half of the year, devastating floods swept through Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and other West African countries while August flash floods in Nepal, caused by a glacier collapse, affected over 80,000 people.

India endured a prolonged extreme heatwave in May, followed by the weakest monsoon in 20 years. Excess deaths from the European heatwaves are likely to have topped 50,000. And 2026 is on track to be one of the hottest years on record.

The effects of these disasters have not been caused nor felt equally. Disasters discriminate: the less you have, the more you stand to lose. 

While everyday people died in heatwaves, the super-rich built snow rooms in their mansions. As families fled from wildfires, the rich were evacuated by helicopter to five-star hotels. As flash floods wiped out entire villages, luxury properties stood protected by high-end private flood defence systems.

What’s even more galling is that the same people that have done the most to drive climate chaos can pay to insulate themselves from its effects and are now finding new ways to profit from disaster.

Oxfam’s latest report “Disaster Divide” sets out exactly how climate breakdown is deepening inequality and enriching a tiny few.

Unequal emissions

Billionaires and the super-rich are destroying the planet at a wildly disproportionate rate. The richest 0.1% (roughly 8 million people) emit more carbon than the poorest 3.5 billion people, almost half of humanity. 

There is perhaps no starker symbol of wasteful emissions than travel by private jet. Every two seconds, the world’s private jets pump out more carbon than someone in the poorest 50% of the world will emit in an entire year. 

But the climate impacts of the super-rich go far beyond their luxury lifestyles. How they invest their fortunes helps determine which high-carbon infrastructure gets built. 

About 70% of billionaire investments are in “high climate-impact sectors” such as oil, gas or chemicals. The economic damage linked to individual billionaires’ investments can run into billions of dollars. Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim’s investments, for example, caused $3.7 billion of environmental damage in 2024, and French fashion titan Bernard Arnault, owner of Louis Vuitton, was responsible for $1.7 billion in damage, our calculations show.

Emissions of the rich drive climate disasters 

For the first time, Oxfam combines the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)’s carbon inequality data with climate attribution models to link the emissions of the super-rich to extreme weather events. 

The richest 1% are responsible for 20% of global warming since 1990, 100 times more per person, than someone in the poorest half of humanity.

The data also shows how the rich increase the likelihood of extreme heat occurring: a person from the richest 0.1% has contributed 125 times more than the average person to extreme heat events.

Inequality is what turns extreme weather events into disaster. In more unequal countries, disasters cause higher death tolls, inflict greater damage and affect more people. 

Inequality also determines who can survive, endure and recover. A study of floods in Mumbai, India, found that lower-income households had to spend 15 times more than rich households to repair and replace damaged assets.

Billionaires escape climate consequences

Climate impacts are also deeply unequal along gender lines. A review of 130 studies found that women and girls were more affected than men and boys by climate-related health impacts in 68% of cases. Climate disasters exacerbate pre-existing gender inequality: gender-based violence increases during and after extreme weather events, with two-thirds of studies identifying increases in intimate partner or domestic violence following floods, storms or droughts.

“Coordinated backlash”: Activists say COP30 gender spat reflects wider threat

For millions of people, the consequences of climate chaos go further still: being forced to leave their homes and communities. UN Migration projects that, if the international community fails to act, as many as 1 billion people (around 10% of the world’s population) will have been displaced by 2050. The majority of those displaced will be in the Global South, but rich people are quietly joining their ranks.

Billionaires are buying islands and building fortified compounds and underground bunkers — tech billionaires are increasingly at the forefront of this trend. This is a form of climate apartheid: the super-rich use their wealth and power to escape the consequences of the crises they largely helped create.

Destroying the food system

Climate change is lowering food production and pushing food prices higher. Low-income households are more exposed to high food prices because it makes up the greatest share of their overall spending. People in low- or lower-middle-income countries spend almost three times as much of their income on food as people in high-income countries.

Some of the richest people in the world and their corporations are directly benefiting, exploiting rising food prices and uneven food production to reap large profits.

In 2024, extreme weather damaged West African cocoa harvests, resulting in prices jumping around 230% year-on-year but accruing no gains to cocoa farmers. The same year, heavy rains in Indonesia and droughts in Brazil and Vietnam contributed to a surge in coffee prices, with a 39% increase on the previous year’s average. Coffee-trading corporations, the intermediary traders of the supply chains, made huge profits as a result. 

A farmer walks on his cocoa farm in Gabeadji near San Pedro, Ivory Coast, January 31, 2023. (Photo: Reuters/Ange Aboa) A farmer walks on his cocoa farm in Gabeadji near San Pedro, Ivory Coast, January 31, 2023. (Photo: Reuters/Ange Aboa) Profiting from disaster

Corporations have long made massive amounts of money from wrecking the planet. Now, the wreckage itself is becoming a lucrative market. The global disaster recovery market is forecast to grow from $70 billion to $92 billion a year by 2029, driven in part by increasingly frequent climate-related extreme weather events.

Often, the very same people profiting from fuelling climate breakdown are also cashing in on disaster clean-ups. To investigate this trend, Oxfam created a sample of 217 corporations which profit from business activities that either drive climate disasters, build resilience before they hit, or work on repairing the damage. We coined it the “Destroy and Rebuild” Index.

The corporations in the “Destroy and Rebuild” Index made $1.8 billion on average in 2025, paying out more than $1 billion on average to their shareholders. Ten asset managers have investments in over 90% of these corporations, with BlackRock and Vanguard invested in 92% of the corporations in the index: the pair’s total investments in these companies exceed$1 trillion.

Coalition set sights on taxing luxury air travel to fund climate action

The lengths the super-rich go to exploit disasters doesn’t stop at cynical profiteering. Recovery efforts have also been used to push through the privatisation of public services and deregulation, reshaping communities in ways that benefit private interests rather than the people affected. 

After Hurricane Irma devastated Barbuda in 2017, reconstruction made way for luxury residences and a golf course on land that included natural coastlines and wetlands. This restricted access to the sea for many fisherfolk and local people. In Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria’s aftermath was used to advance the privatisation of the island’s electrical grid. Since then, the grid has suffered widespread failures, including a blackout in April 2022 that left the entire country without power.

A man stands in a home where the roof was ripped apart, in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, in St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, July 5, 2024. REUTERS/Maria Alejandra Cardona A man stands in a home where the roof was ripped apart, in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, in St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, July 5, 2024. REUTERS/Maria Alejandra Cardona Make rich polluters pay

Climate breakdown is the result of political choices and an economic system that protects the wealth and power of polluters while leaving others to pay the price. This is neither just nor sustainable. It must change.

Governments meeting at COP31 must commit to curb the excessive emissions of the super-rich through taxes on wealth, income and carbon-intensive luxury consumption, like private jets and mega-yachts. These measures will help generate the public climate finance urgently needed for Global South countries to adapt, recover and rebuild without being pushed deeper into debt. 

Governments must also draw a hard line against disaster capitalism, refusing to let corporations turn human suffering into shareholder value.

The post The great disaster divide: How the super-rich are profiting from global climate suffering  appeared first on Climate Home News.