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Asheville, NC — Energy company Drax planned to build a huge data center in England. The center would have run on power from burning wood. That plan has stalled. The Times reports that the project did not win government funding. The North Yorkshire Council has also pulled its support.

Earlier this year, advocates from the US South traveled to York to fight the project. The delegation included Kathy Egland, Dr. Krystal Martin, and Michél Legendre. They joined University of York students. The students opposed the project because of its environmental and public health harms.

Kathy Egland co-founded EECHO in Gulfport, Mississippi. She is its program director. Since 2010, she has also chaired the NAACP National Board’s Environmental and Climate Justice Committee. Dr. Krystal Martin leads Greater Greener Gloster. The group wants to close the Drax plant in Gloster, Mississippi. Michél Legendre is Campaigns Director at Dogwood Alliance. Dogwood is a nonprofit that protects Southern forests and communities from industrial logging.

The data center could have burned wood pellets made at Drax plants in the South. These plants cut down forests. They also release pollution linked to:

• cancer
• heart disease
• respiratory problems
• other serious illnesses

Legendre praised the UK government and the North Yorkshire Council. He applauded them for refusing to back the project.

“This is a good day for forest protection and environmental justice. It appears that more stakeholders are waking up to Drax’s dirty energy scam. Wood pellet energy is anything but clean and green. As the UK cuts Drax’s subsidies, its move to power AI data centers with biomass is a desperate attempt to save itself. Now, we need US policymakers and power companies to follow the UK’s example. We call on them to prevent any concessions to Drax in the form of subsidies. We call on them to dismiss Drax’s proposals to power AI data centers here in the South.”

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) works with Dogwood Alliance. Together they are stopping the growth of the wood pellet industry. Matt Williams is a senior forest protection advocate at NRDC. He said:

“Burning forests to run server farms was never a serious plan. North Yorkshire Council saw that. Drax’s pellet mills sit in communities across the US South, where families are already breathing the pollution. As tech companies go looking for power here, utilities and lawmakers need to shut the door on biomass. Trees are not a fuel source for the AI boom.”

Tech companies want to build many AI data centers across the South. What could happen if those centers ran on burned wood? Dogwood’s report found harm to Southern forests and to communities that already face heavy pollution.

Read the report: Fueling Destruction: How AI Data Centers May Drive a Renewed Biomass Crisis

The post UK Rejects Drax Plan to Power AI Data Center by Burning Trees appeared first on Dogwood Alliance.

CEO Patti Poppe said the company’s credit rating “is a major issue that must be solved ... [legislative] inaction will continue to get increasingly expensive for our customers.”

A starlit forest rustles in the dark. Ancient birds sleep beneath a Cenozoic moon, survivors from the age of dinosaurs just recently passed. In the velvet gloom, a small, shrew-like mammal swings on...

If we want a future of colorful springtimes, we need to make sure bees and butterflies have safe places to thrive today.

Washington has a gift for cloaking unpopular ideas in appealing names. One recent example is the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026, or BAAJA, a sweeping “permitting reform” measure introduced this September by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito, Mike Lee, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Martin Heinrich. Once stripped of its deceptive branding, the bill is an out-and-out assault on the National Environmental Policy Act, the bedrock environmental law that has for more than 50 years required the federal government to look before it leaps.

NEPA’s genius is its modesty. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly noted, it’s a purely procedural statute. It dictates no outcomes but requires agencies to stop and think — to generate, consider, and disclose the potential environmental consequences of their actions before shovels hit the ground. Often called the “Magna Carta” of environmental law, NEPA has been emulated worldwide.

BAAJA keeps NEPA’s title while hollowing out nearly everything that makes it work: detailed review of environmental risks, rigorous analysis of available alternatives with less harmful effects, meaningful public input before agencies commit to harmful actions, and — most dangerously — the ability of courts to enforce any of it.

The bill has a minor positive or two; it would restore some of the authority of the Council on Environmental Quality that two courts in 2024 appeared to strip away, allowing the Council to standardize federal agencies’ NEPA procedures. The deal, however, is terribly lopsided and devalues NEPA’s essential purposes.

BAAJA dramatically expands NEPA’s “categorical exclusions,” removing scrutiny and shutting the public out of commenting on excluded projects. It expands the categories of proposals that aren’t “major Federal actions,” reducing agencies’ responsibility to prepare in-depth environmental impact statements. The newly excluded categories could cause significant harm, including projects such as electric transmission facilities, methane gas pipelines, and water resources and geothermal energy development programs.

When review does occur, the bill guts its substance. It instructs agencies to eliminate alternatives that don’t “meet the goals of an applicable non-Federal project sponsor.” The comparison of alternatives is the heart of an EIS, but the bill would let developers define that heart out of existence. The bill then freezes the science: Agencies could ignore research that becomes available after it publishes a project’s notice of intent to prepare a NEPA document.

The bill also imposes rigid deadlines that trace back to a report the Congressional Research Service thoroughly debunked. The real culprits delaying infrastructure projects are inadequate financing, local opposition, and under-resourced agencies. Arbitrary clocks will pressure agencies to cut corners, inviting project-slowing litigation while doing little or nothing to address the most important causes of delay.

Congress passed NEPA because development-minded agencies often treated environmental concerns as obstacles. This bill hands those agencies — and the developers they serve — the keys to making the go or no-go decisions. A project sponsor could force an agency to veto deadline extensions and dictate which alternatives get studied. This is the essence of agency capture, transforming a public safeguard into a private convenience.

The most alarming provisions concern courts. Building on the Supreme Court’s vilification of NEPA in its Seven County Infrastructure Coalition decision, BAAJA forces judges to give “substantial deference” to agency determinations in NEPA documents. This ignores an important impetus for NEPA’s adoption: the incentives of development-oriented agencies to sweep adverse effects under the rug if they threaten project implementation.

Even when a plaintiff wins, courts generally could not halt projects pending preparation of NEPA-compliant documents. By the time they’re completed, the projects may already have caused irreparable environmental harm. These measures go well beyond the already restrictive judicial limits in recent permitting legislation and the Seven County decision and remove agency incentives to conscientiously apply NEPA’s requirements.

The bill also penalizes agencies for protecting the public. If an agency suspends or revokes a permit, it would need to prove that doing so “is necessary to prevent specific, urgent, substantial, and proximate harm or damage to life, property, national security, or defense” — but not, perversely, to the environment!

A defeat for a NEPA plaintiff would enable private project proponents to recover a significant percentage of all project costs they incurred. Faced with that exposure, no rational agency would ever correct a mistaken approval. A law meant to improve decisions would instead make them irreversible.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Real reform would fund agencies properly, reserve any streamlined track for projects that genuinely benefit the environment, make mitigation binding and monitored, and preserve the public’s access to courts to redress statutory violations.

We should build clean energy and critical infrastructure faster, but not bulldoze the one law that makes sure we know what we’re building before it’s too late to change course. Before Congress votes on whether to “reform” NEPA — which is scheduled to happen immediately after the midterms — its members need to heed the statute’s original vision and look before they leap.

Further reading:

• • Hundreds of Organizations Oppose Endangered Species Attacks in Permitting Legislation

Our publisher, the Center for Biological Diversity, offers an opportunity to take action against this bill.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

NEPA: The Accepted Lies and Mistakes About This Critical Environmental Law

 

The post A ‘Bipartisan’ Bill to Dismantle the Nation’s Bedrock Environmental Law appeared first on The Revelator.

Extreme weather events provide unique opportunities for misinformation to spread widely: rumors swirl on social media, telecom lines go down, and people’s worst fears and angers come to the surface.

Join Grist and Climate Central for a virtual conversation with meteorologists, journalists, and researchers about how we can communicate more accurately and thoughtfully before, during, and after extreme weather. Speakers include: Deanne Criswell, former FEMA administrator; Shel Winkley, senior engagement epecialist and chief meteorologist at Climate Central; Ginny Katz, hazard adaptation researcher and founder of HazAdapt Community Resilience Tools; and Jake Bittle, staff writer at Grist.

We’ll answer your questions and offer tips for your future conversations — whether they’re public or private, online or offline.

Date: October 28 at 1 p.m. ET
Location: Virtual
RSVP: Register here

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Event: Distorted, October 28, 2026 on Oct 23, 2026.

Baltimore, Maryland is leveraging a historic US$11 million grant to invest in holistic solutions that build resilience in the city’s food and agriculture systems.

The city’s Food Policy and Planning (FPP) Division received the funding through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to improve access to healthy food without depending on brick-and-mortar grocery stores. Taylor LaFave, Baltimore’s Chief of Food Policy and Planning sees the strategy as innovative thanks to its comprehensive approach. In total, it spans five programs covering food access, Food is Medicine, and urban agriculture education.

The strategy builds on lessons from Baltimore’s COVID-19 emergency food response between 2020 and 2022. The city led an almost US$40 million effort to distribute more than 180 million servings of fresh fruits and vegetables to residents in what it calls “healthy food priority areas.”

That experience reinforced the importance of providing foods residents needed. “They not only needed it, but they also wanted it, they valued it, and it made a significant improvement in their lives and in their health,” says LaFave.

The pandemic also highlighted the shortcomings of traditional food retailers. For more than 10 years, Baltimore operated a tax incentive program to attract and retain grocery stores. But when stores shuttered, they realized that it may not be possible to bring a supermarket to every neighborhood.

“We can’t continue to rely on large private corporations that are ultimately only interested in profit to solve our healthy food access issues, and to improve our city’s food system,” LaFave tells Food Tank.

The ARPA investment instead supports programs available across the city, with the goal of reaching residents through multiple channels.

One initiative is the Black Butterfly Teaching Farm, supported through a partnership with the Farm Alliance of Baltimore. Located in a residential neighborhood near an elementary school and a high school, the farm combines food production with community engagement. It also offers mentorship and training for emerging farmers of color.

Neighbors have responded positively to the program, asking how to get involved and where they can buy the produce, says Najahla Olumiji, Baltimore’s Food Systems Planner.

The farm is also encouraging students to learn about urban food production. One group Olumiji saw during a recent visit was “shocked at how little space it takes to grow thousands of pounds of produce,” she tells Food Tank.

Another program under the strategy is Food Rx, hosted at MedStar Harbor Hospital and Good Samaritan Hospital. It provides enrolled patients with enough produce for 10 medically tailored meals per week to improve diet-related health outcomes and reduce the costs of care.

The city is also expanding access to fresh produce through the Produce Box Distribution Program, which connected residents with the equivalent of 195 million servings of produce since 2020. And with the B’More Fresh Program, they are able to provide US$30 in monthly fruit and vegetable vouchers to recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) when they shop online at Amazon and Safeway. The fifth program of the city’s strategy expands the use of electronic nutrition incentives at Baltimore City farmers markets.

Despite the successes that FPP has celebrated, the city is preparing for the end of ARPA funding at the end of October. “None of these programs will be able to continue how they’ve been operating by relying just on city funding,” LaFave explains.

But FPP doesn’t want these programs to disappear. They have secured some funding to put toward programs including Food Rx and Black Butterfly Teaching Farm. And each fiscal year, they receive US$150,000 from the city’s general fund, which they plan to use to help cover funding gaps and leverage additional grants.

In June 2026, the Division also received a grant from the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. As part of this, the team will work with researchers from the Center for a Livable Future over the next year to evaluate the programs and explore options for continuing them.

Public-private partnerships will be particularly important to sustain this work, LaFave believes. “We need national funders to step up and work more collaboratively together across the food system.”

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of the Black Butterfly Teaching Farm

The post How Baltimore Is Rethinking Healthy Food Access appeared first on Food Tank.

EWG evaluation of food chemicals: Titanium dioxide rcoleman October 23, 2026 Dayna de Montagnac, MPH Sydney Evans, MPH Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. Jump to: What is titanium dioxide and why is it added to food? Where is titanium dioxide found in food? What is the regulatory status of titanium dioxide? Are foods containing titanium dioxide ultra-processed? Is titanium dioxide allowed in organic foods? What are the potential health harms associated with titanium dioxide? Uncertainties and where more research is needed More details about titanium dioxide Cited resources October 23, 2026 EWG’s recommendation

Titanium dioxide, or TiO₂, is an ingredient of concern in food, and EWG suggests limiting consumption of food containing this ingredient. 

Food-grade synthetic titanium dioxide contains a substantial fraction of nanoscale particles, and although systemic absorption after ingestion is low, absorbed titanium dioxide can distribute to tissues, and studies indicate that tissue elimination may be slow. 

In its 2021 assessment of TiO₂, the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA, expressed concern about immunotoxicity and inflammation, gastrointestinal effects and neurotoxicity. The EFSA concluded that a concern for genotoxicity could not be ruled out on the basis of evidence that TiO₂ particles can induce DNA strand breaks and chromosomal damage. 

Because of these findings and the remaining uncertainties, the EFSA concluded that TiO₂ could no longer be considered safe for use as a food additive (EFSA, 2021). Since TiO₂ is a food color additive, consumers can easily choose products without it. 

Science analysis

What is titanium dioxide and why is it added to food?

Titanium dioxide is a synthetically produced white color additive used in some kinds of food to brighten its appearance, create a smooth finish, enhance whiteness and provide opacity for other food colors.

Where is titanium dioxide found in food?

Most commonly used in candy, titanium dioxide can also be found in salad dressing, chewing gum, ice cream, drink mixes and many other food categories.

It is used in 15,483 of the 172,081 foods added to EWG’s Food Scores between 2023 and 2025.

The 15 food categories with the most products containing titanium dioxide (by supermarket shelf)

Image

Source: EWG’s Food Scores. Label created between January 2023 and October 2025.

What is the regulatory status of titanium dioxide?

In 1973, the Food and Drug Administration authorized titanium dioxide as a food color additive in certain types of food, as long as it does not exceed 1% of the food by weight. But particle size is not limited.

Because of recent safety reviews, in 2023 EWG and other NGOs petitioned the FDA to roll back approval of titanium dioxide.

Titanium dioxide was removed from the EU’s list of approved food additives in 2022 after a 2021 EFSA re-evaluation raised concerns about its potential genotoxicity. 

A 2025 Arizona ban on the use of TiO₂ in food sold in schools took effect at the beginning of the 2026-2027 school year. 

Are foods containing titanium dioxide ultra-processed?

TiO₂ and other color additives are common ingredients in ultra-processed food, or UPF. As an ingredient synthesized in a laboratory, it falls into the Nova framework as a UPF ingredient. (Monteiro et al 2019). 

Under a recent California law defining UPF, food containing TiO₂ qualifies as UPF because of its property as a color and coloring adjunct (Real Food, Healthy Kids Act, 2025). 

Is titanium dioxide allowed in organic foods?

Under Agriculture Department organic standards, synthetic substances are prohibited in certified organic foods. 

What are the potential health harms associated with titanium dioxide?

Food-grade titanium dioxide contains a nanoscale fraction, and although systemic absorption after ingestion is low, absorbed particles may persist in tissues. EFSA found that TiO₂ particles can accumulate in the body and noted that nanoscale particles showed particularly long half-lives in animal studies (EFSA, 2021). 

A study using the food additive TiO₂ in mice found accumulation of TiO₂ in the intestine and liver and evidence of an inflammatory response (Talamini et al., 2019). TiO₂ particles have also been detected in human placenta and meconium, and an ex vivo study using food-grade TiO₂ nanoparticles provided evidence of maternal-fetal transfer (Guillard et al., 2020). 

Experimental studies have reported the potential effects of TiO₂, particularly nanoscale forms, on the gastrointestinal, immune, neurological, reproductive and developmental systems. The EFSA identified potential immunotoxicity and inflammation, neurotoxicity, and gastrointestinal effects, including indications that TiO₂ may induce aberrant crypt foci, or ACF, in the colon, a potential marker of preneoplastic change (EFSA, 2021; Bettini et al., 2017). Studies of food-grade TiO₂ nanoparticles have also reported alterations in intestinal microbial populations, brush border membrane functionality, and intestinal morphology (Cheng et al., 2023). But these findings have not been consistently reproduced, and the EFSA found no reproductive or developmental toxicity in its TiO₂ study (EFSA, 2021).

Evidence of the genotoxicity of TiO₂ remains mixed. The EFSA concluded that TiO₂ particles have the potential to cause DNA strand breaks and chromosomal damage and that a concern for genotoxicity could not be ruled out (EFSA, 2021). A 2023 meta-analysis of 26 studies found that TiO₂ nanoparticles were associated with DNA and chromosomal damage in both in vivo and in vitro studies (Cao et al., 2023). In human intestinal cell models, exposure to digested TiO₂ nanomaterials also produced DNA damage, with some effects more pronounced after simulated digestion (Vieira et al., 2022). 

In contrast, the World Health Organization’s Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives, or WHO/JECFA, concluded that the available data did not provide convincing evidence of genotoxicity, while noting limitations in current testing methods for poorly soluble particulate materials and nanoparticles (JECFA, 2023).

Uncertainties and where more research is needed

The genotoxicity of titanium dioxide remains uncertain. While the EFSA’s conclusions regarding the possible genotoxicity of TiO₂ leading to its EU ban raise concern, the WHO/JECFA could not make the same conclusions due to study limitations.

Since these assessments, studies have produced mixed findings, with some reporting DNA or chromosomal damage and others finding no evidence of genotoxicity. 

Uncertainties remain regarding the mechanisms of potential genotoxic effects, the relevance of experimental findings to human exposure, and the potential genotoxic effects of nanoscale TiO₂ particles. 

Human epidemiological evidence is also limited. The JECFA cautioned that available studies do not allow conclusions about associations between dietary TiO₂ exposure and human health effects. 

Evidence for carcinogenicity from dietary exposure also remains uncertain. EFSA found no appropriately designed studies evaluating the carcinogenicity of TiO₂ nanoparticles. It observed that TiO₂ may induce ACF in the colon, but did not conclude TiO₂ causes cancer (EFSA, 2021). 

The JECFA subsequently concluded that TiO₂ was not carcinogenic in adequately conducted two-year studies in mice and rats and also considered studies investigating the potential initiation or promotion of colon cancer (JECFA, 2023).

More details about titanium dioxide

An exposure analysis found titanium dioxide was most common in candy, chewing gum and other sweets, so children were more likely to consume more titanium dioxide than adults (Weir et al 2012). 

In 2015, Dunkin’ announced it was phasing out titanium dioxide from the powdered sugar used on its doughnuts. In 2024 Mars removed titanium dioxide from Skittles sold in the U.S.   

TiO₂ is also added to personal care products such as toothpaste and cosmetics and is used as an ultraviolet, or UV, filter in sunscreen products. 

It is one of three active UV filters in the U.S. designed as generally recognized as safe and effective. Sunscreen products formulated with titanium dioxide have long appeared on EWG’s best lists. EWG recommends avoiding spray or powder products that contain titanium dioxide because of concerns about risks from inhaling nanoparticles and subsequent health effects. 

Cited resources

Global health and regulatory agencies

• EFSA FAF Panel (EFSA Panel on Food Additives and Flavourings), 2021. Scientific Opinion on the safety assessment of titanium dioxide (E171) as a food additive. EFSA Journal 2021;19(5):6585, 130 pp. https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2021.6585 
• Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA). (2023). Evaluation of certain food additives: Ninety-seventh report of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (WHO Technical Report Series No. 1051). World Health Organization.  https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/jecfa-risk-assessment-of-titanium-dioxide-risk-released-background-information 
• Food and Drug Administration. (2024). Titanium dioxide as a color additive in foods. https://www.fda.gov/industry/color-additives/titanium-dioxide-color-additive-foods 

Comprehensive reviews and frameworks

• Cao, Y., Chen, J., Bian, Q., Ning, J., Yong, L., Ou, T., Song, Y., and Wei, S. (2023). Genotoxicity Evaluation of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles In Vivo and In Vitro: A Meta-Analysis. Toxics, 11(11), 882. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics11110882 
• Monteiro, C.A., Cannon, G., Levy, R.B., Moubarac, J., Louzada, M.L., Rauber, F., Khandpur, N., Cediel, G., Neri, D., Martinez-Steele, E., Baraldi, L.G., and Jaime, P.C. (2019). Ultra-processed foods: what they are and how to identify them. Public Health Nutrition, 22(5), 936–941. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1368980018003762 
• Weir, A., Westerhoff, P., Fabricius, L., Hristovski, K., and Von Goetz, N. (2012). Titanium dioxide nanoparticles in food and personal care products. Environmental Science & Technology, 46(4), 2242–2250. https://doi.org/10.1021/es204168d 

Legislation

• Arizona Healthy Schools Act, H.B. 2164, 57th Leg., 1st Reg. Sess. (2025). https://legiscan.com/AZ/text/HB2164/2025 
• Real Food, Healthy Kids Act, A.B. 1264, Chapter 467, Cal. Stat. (2025). https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1264. 

Specific health impact studies

• Bettini, S., Boutet-Robinet, E., Cartier, C., Coméra, C., Gaultier, E., Dupuy, J., Naud, N., Taché, S., Grysan, P., Reguer, S., Thieriet, N., Réfrégiers, M., Thiaudière, D., Cravedi, J.-P., Carrière, M., Audinot, J.-N., Pierre, F.H., Guzylack-Piriou, L., and Houdeau, E. (2017). Food-grade TiO₂ impairs intestinal and systemic immune homeostasis, initiates preneoplastic lesions and promotes aberrant crypt development in the rat colon. Scientific Reports, 7, 40373. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40373  
• Cheng, J., Kolba, N., García-Rodríguez, A., Marques, C.N.H., Mahler, G. J., and Tako, E. (2023). Food-grade metal oxide nanoparticles exposure alters intestinal microbial populations, brush border membrane functionality and morphology, in vivo (Gallus gallus). Antioxidants, 12(2), 431. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox12020431 
• Guillard, A., Gaultier, E., Cartier, C., Devoille, L., Noireaux, J., Chevalier, L., Morin, M., Grandin, F., Lacroix, M. Z., Coméra, C., Cazanave, A., de Place, A., Gayrard, V., Bach, V., Chardon, K., Bekhti, N., Adel-Patient, K., Vayssière, C., Fisicaro, P., Feltin, N., de la Farge, F., Picard-Hagen, N., Lamas, B., and Houdeau, E. (2020). Basal Ti level in the human placenta and meconium and evidence of a materno-foetal transfer of food-grade TiO₂ nanoparticles in an ex vivo placental perfusion model. Particle and Fibre Toxicology, 17, 51. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12989-020-00381-z   
• Talamini, L., Gimondi, S., Violatto, M.B., Fiordaliso, F., Pedica, F., Tran, N.L., Sitia, G., Aureli, F., Raggi, A., Nelissen, I., Cubadda, F., Bigini, P., and Diomede, L. (2019). Repeated administration of the food additive E171 to mice results in accumulation in intestine and liver and promotes an inflammatory status. Nanotoxicology, 13(8), 1087–1101. https://doi.org/10.1080/17435390.2019.1640910 
• Vieira, A., Vital, N., Rolo, D., Roque, R., Gonçalves, L.M., Bettencourt, A., Silva, M.J., and Louro, H. (2022). Investigation of the genotoxicity of digested titanium dioxide nanomaterials in human intestinal cells. Food and Chemical Toxicology, 161, 112841. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2022.112841   

At the start of October activists staged an action at Schiphol Airport, demanding an end to KLM’s frequent flyer programme. It was the latest in a series of actions at the airport, demanding the airline take the climate crisis seriously and stop it’s attempts to incentivise people to fly more. Below, an activist explains what took place on the day and why ending frequent flyer programmes is so…

Source

Following a Section 232 probe, the president tasked cabinet officials to engage in negotiations and report on their progress within 180 days.

Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) welcomes provisional allocation, raises concerns over delays in disbursing funds and inadequate levels of support for Nepal’s flood recovery efforts

23 October 2026 – In its first-ever Extraordinary Board Meeting, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) approved a decision to set aside $21.6 million for Nepal’s recovery efforts.

Nepal will, however, not get the funding immediately. The Board has invited Nepal to submit a new funding request under the Barbados Implementation Modalities (BIM), the start-up phase of the FRLD. Before Nepal can access the funds, it must prepare a proposal and navigate existing approval processes for support to reach the affected communities.

While civil society members from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) welcomed the convening of the Board meeting, they expressed concerns over the lack of concrete and urgent action, including the lack of advancement of a rapid response or disbursement modality. DCJ warned this would hinder Nepal’s emergency response, adding that the delay raised questions on the Fund’s ability to respond rapidly, if at all.

Representatives of DCJ and its member organisations reacted to the decision:

*Note to editors: This page will be updated with additional quotes from DCJ members and allied organisations as they become available.

[Prayash Adhikari, Peoples Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ) Nepal]

“We welcome the historic decision but let’s be clear this is not enough and we have to scale up the Fund. Nepal receiving the support from FRLD marks a historic milestone, but the reality is that $21.6 million only covers just 0.45% of Nepal’s Bhotekoshi loss and damage, without accounting Non-economic Loss and Damage (NELD). To see a multilateral fund support climate impacted countries is a step in the right direction, but now it is time to scale up the Fund. The Fund must receive $1 trillion per year. Without increasing the capacity of the Fund, communities and countries will continue to suffer.”

[Arnab Chaudhary, All In Foundation/ Aalawya Foundation, Nepal]

“The Nepal disaster is fundamentally inequitable in that a country with only 0.1% of global emissions is bearing immense and tragic costs of climate crises.​ We not only lose our lives and livelihoods but also face irreparable loss of socio-cultural heritage with disproportionate impact on Indigenous Peoples, people with disabilities, and marginalised communities, particularly Dalits, who are at the frontline of the crisis. ​

Nepal is investing its scarce resources in climate adaptation, mitigation, and resilience, yet climate finance often deepens its debt burden. For every US$1 received as a grant, Nepal receives US$6 in loans. Countries that contributed least to this crisis should not have to borrow to survive it. These loans divert resources from health, education, and livelihoods, burdening future generations. Meanwhile, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage remains terribly underfunded. We demand that developed countries urgently scale up new and additional grant-based climate finance, fulfill their commitments to the FRLD, and establish predictable, accessible funding commensurate with the real needs of affected communities. Climate justice must mean resources reaching frontline people, not debt passed to future generations.”

[Jinghann Hong, Third World Network]

“Setting money aside is not the same as getting money out the door. Disappointingly, the Board missed an opportunity to be more ambitious. It could have commissioned a loss and damage needs assessment to determine the true scale of support required. It could also have explored coordination with existing delivery channels like the Green Climate Fund-supported glacial lake outburst flood project in Nepal. That could have helped get resources flowing much faster to the affected communities.

It is inequitable to request a country in the midst of a climate crisis to prove its needs through yet another proposal before funds can be released. We hope the Board treats the Nepal case as an opportunity to build the access modalities that all developing countries and communities deserve – and turn expressions of solidarity into real support that reaches people when it is actually needed.”

[Brandon Wu, ActionAid USA]

“Handcuffed by a lack of resources, today’s extraordinary FRLD Board meeting ultimately did very little for communities in Nepal affected by the devastating floods in August. Three years after being established, the FRLD has yet to send any money to countries hit by climate impacts. Today’s meeting did not change this, nor did it provide a concrete timeline for disbursing money to Nepal.

The current delays are caused in part by genuine concerns about the fairness and procedural integrity of the FRLD. But these concerns stem primarily from the fact that rich countries have refused to provide money for the FRLD at any kind of reasonable scale. If the Fund were adequately resourced, an immediate disbursement to Nepal would be an absolute no-brainer. But it seems rich countries are terrified that the Fund – which has received a paltry $500 million to date – will run dry, thus putting more pressure on them to provide the money they owe.”

[Laurie van der Burg, Global Public Finance Campaign Manager, Oil Change International]

“This is an important step towards the first ever release of funding from the FRLD, but it’s far too little, far too late. The $21.6 million does not even come close to the $4.7 billion needed for Nepal’s recovery. Meanwhile, G7 countries continue to spend five times that amount – $25.7 billion – every year propping up fossil fuels with public money, worsening the very climate disasters, like Nepal’s glacial floods, that are already causing death and destruction. Developed countries must end fossil fuel subsidies, make polluters pay and support reforms to unfair debt, trade, tax and financial rules to free up trillions. This allows them to avoid cutting public spending at home, while at the same time delivering the climate finance they owe to the Global South.”

[Rachitaa Gupta, Global Coordinator, Demand Climate Justice]

“The board’s decision is only the first step in a critical journey to helping vulnerable countries tackle the impacts of a crisis they did not cause. Nepal estimates it needs over $4 billion to get back on its feet, and with the Fund woefully underfunded the country risks being pushed deeper into debt. Yet the very countries responsible for the climate crisis continue to fund wars and hand out fossil fuel subsidies instead of paying what they owe in climate finance. Nepal, like many other Global South countries, cannot continue to pay for the climate crisis with lives and livelihoods as the Global North shirks its responsibilities.”

For media enquiries, contact:

Juliah Kibochi

juliah.dcj@gmail.com 

dcj.comms@demandclimatejustice.org 

The post Civil Society reacts to Loss and Damage Fund’s board decision on Nepal appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Search any grocery store for protein-rich food that’s good for both you and the planet, and you’re buffeted by certified labels claiming organic-grown, ocean-friendly, low-carbon, fair trade, free range, or other shining attributes. These well-meaning labels can obscure serious tradeoffs—for example healthy tree nuts that minimize greenhouse emissions while guzzling scarce water, or organic meats and cheeses that spew water pollution or planet-warming gases. A health tech scientist has proposed a new solution to this problem, in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.

The paper sketches a new rating system for high-protein foods that encompasses multiple dimensions of environmental, health, and human impacts—calculating simple overall scores that can be compared across a variety of plant- and animal-derived foods. “The goal is not necessarily to create another front-of-package label, but to foster a new literacy” that enables better-informed decision-making, writes Chris Macdonald of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Maintaining sufficient dietary protein is a major concern when it comes to reconciling modern agriculture with future climate change. Scientists have spent years searching for new, non-meat protein sources, ranging from marigold flowers to fungi to alternative cropping schemes. But currently available non-meat foods are also high in protein, and Macdonald has found that misunderstandings about protein content are a major factor preventing people from choosing these planet-friendly foods over meats and dairy.

 

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In his latest research, Macdonald is trying to provide people with information that is accurate, comprehensive, and simple, so they can make good choices on dietary proteins. He mined scientific data on the environmental impacts and nutrient contents of various foods to develop two simple ratings. A Planet Score, ranging from 0 to 16, includes measures of greenhouse emissions, water pollution, water use, and land use per hundred grams of protein. A separate People Score, ranging from 0 to 24, includes measures of cholesterol, saturated fat, sodium, essential amino acids, commercial availability, and affordability. The Planet and People scores are then combined into an overall Better Proteins Institute (BPI) score.

When Macdonald applied the system to 20 foods (10 animal and 10 plant), tofu, chia seeds, beans, and quinoa had the highest scores (30 to 36), while cheddar, mozzarella, lamb chops, and beef steak had the lowest scores (13 to 16). The highest-scoring animal foods were chicken breast and tuna, ranking 7th and 8th out of 20, based largely on their affordability, low saturated fats, low land use, and moderate greenhouse emissions. Walnuts and brazil nuts were the lowest-scoring plant foods, ranking 11th and 12th out of 20, due to their high prices, saturated fats, and water use.

Macdonald views this as a starting point, which he hopes to improve over time. Affordability and commercial availability, for example, were determined within the U.K. for this study—but they will vary substantially between regions. Future versions may also contain additional factors such as fair trade, ethical treatment of workers, or animal treatment.

Macdonald. “What are the best sources of protein? Introducing the BPI score.” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 2026.

image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

We invite you to watch these videos of "Radical Visions Reconnecting Academia and Nature: A Community Truth, Reckoning and Right Relationship" from a two-day event in March 2026.

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Other than the Australian and Turkish co-hosts, the only G20 nations to address the COP31 leaders’ summit with speakers at the “head of state or government” level will be the UK, Brazil and China, according to a provisional list released on Wednesday.

The list, which is published by the United Nations and subject to change, includes 77 countries whose leaders are listed to speak at the summit in Antalya on November 11-12. That would be nearly a third fewer than the 116 who spoke at COP28 in Dubai three years ago.

Yvo de Boer, a former head of the UN’s climate secretariat, told Climate Home News that the low turnout and “the absence of many nations that should be showing leadership on climate action and support for developing nations” sends “the wrong signal at a difficult time”.

Amid geopolitical conflicts, a struggling global economy and an inevitable overshoot of the 1.5C global warming limit, de Boer said that “climate action needs a strong show of support, not empty seats at a leaders’ summit”.

• Oct 21, 2026 News UN sets steep emission cuts to reverse 1.5C overshoot by end of century Emissions must by reduced by nearly 6% a year for the world to have a good chance of bringing global warming back down to the Paris Agreement limit, the Emissions Gap Report says Read more
• Oct 21, 2026 Investigations Turkish giant sponsoring COP31 cut climate goals then cashed in on oil boom COP31 sponsors should be screened for “climate integrity”. Yet Koç Holding has become a top partner while its oil refiner runs flat out and its climate targets slip Read more

Earlier this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said G20 countries should lead on climate action, adding that while they have varying responsibilities in tackling global warming, “all countries, especially the big emitters, must do more”. As major economies spanning developed and developing nations, G20 countries account for more than three-quarters of annual global emissions.

China is likely to be represented at COP31 by Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, as in the past three years, rather than President Xi Jinping, who has rarely left China since the COVID-19 pandemic and has not attended a climate COP since Paris in 2015.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is scheduled to speak, after telling parliament in September he would do so as part of his efforts to “meet the climate challenge” following a series of deadly heatwaves.

UK approves gas drilling despite admitting blow to “climate leadership” status

Brazil’s President Lula has also said he will attend. Depending on the result of Sunday’s election against his far-right rival Flávio Bolsonaro, he will speak at COP31 as either a recently re-elected or outgoing president.

While the COP31 summit is being hosted by Türkiye in Antalya, Australia has the formal role of President of Negotiations and its prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will speak at the summit. Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not on the UN’s speaker list but is likely to give an opening speech.

Brazilian President Lula shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang at COP30 in Belem in 2025. (Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images)

Many of the countries whose leaders are due to attend COP31 are those suffering the worst effects of climate change. About a third are African countries and a quarter are small island developing nations. Türkiye’s Central Asian and Balkan neighbours are also well-represented. 

COP31 no-shows

Among the major emitters not on the list are French President Emmanuel Macron, German leader Friedrich Merz, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, India’s Narendra Modi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Canada’s Mark Carney and Japan’s Sanae Takaichi.

Macron, who is struggling to deal with rising social unrest across France, will reportedly attend commemorations marking the end of the First World War and a European Political Community summit instead. It is not known whether the others will eventually decide to attend COP31, or what they will do instead. 

Climate change-sceptic US President Donald Trump has never attended a COP and is withdrawing the US from the UN climate convention (UNFCCC), under which COP meetings are held, after quitting the Paris Agreement for a second time.

Argentina’s Javier Milei has considered exiting the Paris Agreement but has so far not done so, although his government is one of around 30 countries yet to submit an updated national climate plan to the UN.

The post Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31 appeared first on Climate Home News.

I remember the first time I learned about Abu Ghraib in detail and being stunned at what a lacklustre aftermath took place. I felt a...

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More than a year after a devastating wildfire destroyed the Hawaiian town of Lahaina, residents were found to have high levels of arsenic and other toxic metals in their bodies.

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“For the Long Haul” diagnoses the roots of burnout among organizers and offers lessons from movement elders to combat it.

A new feeder bill for the Steady State Economy Act, the Sustainable Capital Markets Act (SCMA), is a launchpad for capital-markets reform.

Environmental struggles were still on Butler’s mind as she brainstormed in the last years of her life for what would have been her last novel, Spiritus.

These truly-through-the-looking-glass days, it seems the drunk great-uncle you really didn't wanna ask to dinner is somehow getting worse. Scarily and no longer mirthfully, the befuddled "head" of a GOP blitzed on projection daily spirals deeper into phantasmagoria - slurring words, crafting fictions, renaming oceans, rekindling grievances, losing it over trifles and consorting with imaginary friends as the world burns. An Orange-Stain plea from No Kings for the coming election: "Clean Up On Aisle USA" please. Soon.

To be clear, Trump was a lying fabulist from way back. In the glitzy 1980s and 1990s, he regularly posed as a successful businessman, savvy dealmaker and cad-about-town who'd infamously call reporters or publicists as "John Barron" to boast about his money or conquests - a ploy he admitted in later court depositions he learned from his Nazi father. In power, like "a pre-teen with a girlfriend in Canada nobody's met," he's long invented "friends," fans, sources who praise him and his dreadful policies, from cultists invariably with tears in their eyes who "thank me for saving the country" to U.S. CEOs and "one of the great people of China, from the highest echelons" who inexplicably extol his disastrous tariffs.

Lately, though, the GOP is reportedly freaking out, watching the line between fact and fiction increasingly blur in Dear Leader's mashed-potato mind as the economy keeps tumbling and vital mid-terms approach. They want him to celebrate (albeit largely imaginary) tax cuts, trade deals, safe borders, winning fights against drag shows and "transgender for everyone" (sigh). Instead, he raves about livestreamed executions, the hotness of GOP candidates, often in the wrong state - "His ass, shit, it's like a pile of muscle" - his bestie Putin who's been "fine on Ukraine," how "not a single" undocumented immigrant has entered America since he took office, how soaring gas and diesel costs are "a small price to pay," though it's unclear for what.

He garbles words or makes them up - "When we had the hurricane...We call it a watercane" - prompting excited patriots to up their expectations: "OK, cancel the Blue Wave, we want a Blue Watercane." Wearily, he jokes about creating a robot lookalike on the campaign trail- "Nobody would know the difference" - so he can stay home and watch TV, his true, small vocation. Weirdly, he fantasizes about trashing other countries: He boasts about "polling higher than anyone has ever polled in Venezuela," which is why "after I finish with this" he'll to go Venezuela, "learn Spanish quickly, it won't take long, I'm good at languages" and run for president there, and yes we are here for it.

Hopefully, Venezuela won't have pesky reporters asking him questions that drive him to melt down in "dementia anger-flare." Because he lacks both impulse control and any trace of decency, he's also lauded Vivek Ramaswamy's grotesque ad against rape survivor and Dem opponent Amy Acton, wherein her estranged, unhinged mother calls her a liar, charging the Fake News "is trying to convince everyone this Ad is bad because it’s so good!...It's called 'hitting pay dirt.’” He adds that if his "legendary" mother "said anything bad about me, (it) would go down as the Ad of the Decade — Maybe the Century!" Vivek should keep the ad up, he says, so people know Acton is "a DISASTER who, uncontrollably, lies, cheats, and steals!” Killer pot/kettle.

There are more. The racist fraudsters who got rich on corruption - and turned Minneapolis into Fallujah - want us to rat on our neighbors for...fraud under Trump's stammered "Fraud Whistle...Blower Incentive...Program" whereby "Americans (can) report theft of taxpayer dollars," with DOGE "skunk-works" stragglers helping. Turn in someone with $1 billion, you get 1%: "That's a lot of money.” Except the cap is $30K, you probs won't see it, and it's queasily akin to Nazi bounties on Jews. Stephen Goebbels was even there to smear phantom Somalis who get $30 million for a fake daycare, buy BMWs or mansions, fly their kids "first class all over the world...living the high life." What a sick fuck. Meanwhile, America urges, "Call in fraud at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

Alas, the more loopy he gets, the more openly he flies his violent, racist, crassly unfettered flag. There are more curses and more bellicose AI slop like the video of a macho white guy put in prison with three scary black guys, by one scary black cop, who takes them all down: "Bullies Can’t Break a Strong Man." (So many pots/kettles!) The rallies grow more pugnacious too: In the second assault this month, a South Carolina sheriff's office is investigating an attack on a protester - punched in the head, neck and chest - that Trump cheered on, praising the thugs' "courage." "Who's the guy that threw that punch?" he excitedly asked. "I love that." He also mocked the victim as "a very unattractive guy," for a rare combo sick fuck and pot/kettle.

That was at a rally, in a reported “livestock arena” say what, for Darlene Graham, who’s “gonna have a big win.” If so, no thanks to his shambolic speech, which roamed from renaming the Atlantic Ocean - “I was always high end” - to insisting he doesn’t ramble while rambling - “I got - I know everything I’m doing. I got aptitude they dream about” - to again whining about the prizes he didn’t win: The Pulitzer for writing - “The people that got it shouldn’t have gotten it” - and the usual Nobel, despite being “one person who deserves it more than any yuman being." ”Not that I want it - it’s just ridiculous,“ he babbled. ”How the hell do you not get the Nobel Prize? i settled like 8 wars. The woman that got it, I don’t know where the hell she comes from.“ Losingest loser ever.

Finally, amidst all the lame, foul, daft fails, there are his deeply undignified transfers: The careening burlesque of a walk to his helicopter in Alaska. The ambling approach to his beloved, million-year helipad when he suddenly stops to acknowledge, salute and wave to a crowd of supporters, aka thin air. Eventually, the camera zooms out to show...empty space. A few seconds later, aides walk out from a different direction; other angles - here and here - show the same abyss, for which Fox would've run Biden out of town. Same for last week's event, ostensibly to honor first responders where, amidst a losing war, crumbling economy, burning planet and hungry children, Nero nattered and raved about his house projects. Nothing to see here.

“You're seeing this for the first time. This used to be grass. So if we did this, you couldn't do it. It was unusable. You know, this is built on a wetland. So the grass was always wet. Even if you were in a drought, the grass was soaking wet. And especially women with the high heels, they'd be holding their shoes. They go out and buy beautiful new high heels that go into the White House and they come back and their shoes are destroyed. But we did a job with the same stone that matches the White House stone and hasn't been totally finished. We're going with the black over here, too, because the limestone doesn't hold up well. Never, never did. Never will. But what we've done here is really amazing. We put a brand new coat over the White House, brand new coat. We fixed up the walls. They were all broken, chopped, terrible shape. A lot of the ornamentation, like around the windows, was broken. And many years ago, 30, 40, 50 years ago, probably a lot during Biden three years ago because he had no idea what the hell he was doing. But you'd look at a window and you'd see ornament on the right side. And on the left side, you'd see it was it had fallen off. Some people think that's OK, but I don't think it's OK. So we had molds made of the right side. We put it on the left side. It's all perfect now. So we re-skinned. Basically, it's a re-skinning. And that building is good to go for another 100 years or at least actually. But even this, the you see the the top sections where it was so bad, I didn't even like standing under it. The thing was all cracked and broken all over the place. We put the sign up, solid brass, half inch thick, as opposed to laminate. You ever see these laminate? They they don't want to spend the money on the brass. So they have a piece of brass laminated. It's about a hundredth of an inch thick. And they put it on a piece of wood to save a lot of money. And then in about two years, it decomposes and it's laying all over the floor. We don't do that. But up there is the Rose Garden. And then we, as you know, that wall has sat for 150 years empty. And I said, something has to be on that wall. And I just had the the notion I've often thought of it because I've never seen it before. A presidential walk of fame. So we went from George Washington to Trump. And that will be extended on this wall right up here because somebody said, oh, but you have no room for anybody else. I said, no, it extends this way. And but I'm going to have to leave that because whoever it is, maybe they won't be able to figure that out. And if they don't figure it out, I don't know what they're going to do. You know, but we have we have at least one hundred and twenty five years of extension going this way. So it's fun. But everybody loves the presidential walk of fame. Nobody knows if there is any. And we have a very generic, very good description of every president from Washington all the way down. And we get a little bit more personal as we get closer to my my year. Talk a little bit about in more detail about what we've had to put up with....All I do is write the truth.” - Donald J. Trump

Ladies and gentlemen, the President (sic) of the United StatesGetty Image