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Felix Horne is a senior expert with Climate Rights International.

When The Washington Post laid off more than 300 staff last week, including journalists who covered climate and the environment, it was more than another grim headline about the state of the media. The cuts marked the loss of expertise and sustained scrutiny at one of the world’s most influential newsrooms, at precisely the moment when the climate crisis demands more reporting, not less.

These decisions do not simply downsize a business. They weaken public understanding of how climate change impacts lives, how cause and effect connect, and how power can be held to account.

Without expertise and experience, wildfires are reported without the underlying climate context that fuels them. Energy stories lose their climate dimension. Pollution is treated as an unfortunate accident rather than a foreseeable harm from fossil fuel dependence.

The facts still exist – but fewer people are paid, protected, or empowered to surface them, and with that goes people’s understanding of how climate is intimately intertwined with our lives.

These cuts follow a broader pattern across mainstream media in the United States, Europe and beyond. In 2024 and 2025 alone, major US outlets announced thousands of job losses.

CBS, CNN, NBC and other broadcasters cut newsroom staff. The Guardian has acknowledged sustained financial strain and has reduced or consolidated reporting capacity in recent years.

Meanwhile, local newspapers, the primary source of reporting on nearby floods, heatwaves, refineries, pipelines and mines, continue to disappear. In the US, more than 3,200 local newspapers closed since 2005, leaving large parts of the US without consistent, on-the-ground reporting.

Threats and harassment

Beyond closures, climate journalists face numerous threats. Journalists covering climate and environmental issues report rising harassment, legal threats and violence, particularly when reporting on fossil fuels, mining and land conflicts. One study found that 39% of journalists and editors covering the climate crisis had been threatened because of their work.

Online abuse, often coordinated and sustained, has become a routine tool for silencing climate reporting. And this doesn’t count the many fixers, translators, drivers and other local employees who face threats because of their role in this reporting, many of whom face a further loss of their livelihood because of these cuts.

At Climate Rights International (CRI), we document climate harms and human rights abuses linked to fossil fuels, mining and deforestation, among many other subjects. But our investigations do not exist in a vacuum.

They are often strengthened, and sometimes made possible, by local journalists who first uncover these harms, and by climate reporters who amplify our findings, connect them to broader patterns, and further our investigations by focusing on new angles, ongoing efforts at accountability or updated findings over time. They are indispensable to what we do and the impact we are trying to have.

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When journalism retreats, misinformation fills the gap. In the absence of trusted, verified reporting, false or misleading climate narratives spread quickly online. Confusion replaces clarity about the reality of climate change: its links to energy choices, connections with the food we eat, and the scale of action required. Urgency erodes.

Climate change becomes less politically important when it becomes less visible. What is not reported is not discussed. What is not discussed does not become an issue for most voters, and therefore for politicians. The climate crisis can be manipulated by politicians as just another issue of special interest groups to balance with other interests, rather than being treated as the existential threat it is.

Fragile progress

To be clear, progress has been made. In recent years, climate considerations have been more consistently integrated into mainstream coverage of energy, economics, and geopolitics. Energy costs, rising food costs, migration, extreme weather and supply chains are now more often reported with climate dimensions in view.

But that progress is fragile. It depends on reporters and editors with climate expertise sitting in newsrooms, able to ask the second question, to connect today’s flooding with the climate crisis, and to connect today’s energy story to tomorrow’s climate harm.

This matters profoundly for fossil fuels, deforestation and transition minerals. Who is reporting on LNG terminals, new gas fields, lithium or nickel mining, the burning and clear-cutting of remote forests, or rising energy costs determines whether these developments are understood as narrow economic stories, or as climate and human rights choices with long-term consequences.

West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal 

Independent platforms, newsletters and Substack writers now produce some of the best climate coverage anywhere. They matter deeply. But they often reach audiences already paying attention to these issues. Mainstream media still plays a unique role: introducing climate realities to people who did not set out to read about climate change at all.

The erosion of climate journalism is unfolding alongside broader efforts to silence climate voices – through laws restricting protests, lawsuits aimed at stifling dissent, surveillance of activists and attacks on environmental defenders. CRI and others have documented how these tactics work together to suppress inconvenient facts.

Fewer journalists and fewer activists lead to less understanding of why climate is the story right now. The climate crisis will not pause because fewer people are paid to document it.

The question is whether societies choose to face our unfolding reality with evidence or allow silence and distortion to take its place. Supporting climate journalism is an investment in truth, accountability and a liveable planet for our children and future generations.

The post Why cutting climate journalism is a risk we can’t afford appeared first on Climate Home News.

Support workers with OPSEU Local 249 are in their twelfth week of a strike. They are fighting for better wages and have not seen a raise since 2020.

The post Worth striking for: Oakville care home workers fighting for decent pay  first appeared on Spring.

Last week, President Donald Trump announced the United States would temporarily increase the amount of beef the nation imports from Argentina — by 80,000 more metric tons this calendar year.

In an executive order, the president stated these beef imports would not be subject to tariffs, and that he came to the decision after discussion with Brooke Rollins, U.S. agricultural secretary. The White House described the move as part of its push to lower beef prices at the grocery store for American consumers. But almost as soon as the trade deal was announced, Trump was met with backlash from key allies and constituents, including ranchers who say that buying more beef from Argentina hurts U.S. producers.

“The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and its members cannot stand behind the president while he undercuts the future of family farmers and ranchers by importing Argentinian beef in an attempt to influence prices,” Colin Woodall, head of the trade group, said in a statement. Deb Fischer, a Republican senator from Nebraska, also stated that the trade deal will “sideline” cattle ranchers in the U.S.

Trade groups, lawmakers, and economists agree that the increased imports from Argentina are unlikely to lower the record-high beef prices in the U.S. That’s partly because Americans already consume so much beef, according to David Ortega, professor in the Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics department at Michigan State University. 

“The added volume is rather small relative to what Americans consume each year, under 1 percent of total supply,” Ortega said in an email, adding that this “probably won’t move retail prices much.”

But regardless of how unpopular the trade deal is, it almost certainly will spell trouble for the environment, especially in Latin America. 

“I don’t see how Argentina can meet its climate commitments by expanding its beef production for the United States,” said Stephanie Feldstein, the population and sustainability director at the Center for Biological Diversity. 

Raising cattle — ruminants that emit methane as part of their digestive process — for human consumption has a huge climate footprint, both in terms of land use and greenhouse gas emissions. Whether the additional cattle Trump is seeking are raised in North or South America, it will still lead to more methane and other emissions in the atmosphere. “By importing Argentina’s beef to the U.S., this administration is exporting its disregard for the climate crisis,” said Feldstein.

Around the world, climate change has scrambled the economics of growing food and raising livestock. In Argentina and the U.S. alike, cattle ranches have been hit hard by unprecedented droughts and rising temperatures. These factors, along with producers facing higher prices for inputs like fertilizer, labor, and machinery have caused the U.S. supply of cattle to plummet to a 70-year low.

Javier Milei, the far-right Argentinian president, spoke highly of the trade deal, saying it signaled the nation’s trustworthiness as a trade partner. But boosting beef production in Argentina to meet Trump’s new quota will force ranchers in the Latin American country to make difficult decisions. 

A herd of cattle stand at their stockyard before a cattle auction in Argentina. Tobias Skarlovnik / Getty Images

Currently, Argentina devotes a tremendous amount of land to raising cattle in pasture-based systems. Unlike the confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, found in the U.S. and other parts of the world, these pasture-based systems allow cattle to graze on a variety of grasses until the “finishing” stage, when they are fed corn- and soy-based feed before they are slaughtered.

Even despite the role it plays in deforestation, raising cattle on pasture is often considered to be a more sustainable practice than feedlots. But Silvia Secchi, natural resource economist and professor at the University of Iowa, pointed out that how you measure sustainability depends on how you define it — and when it comes to beef, both pasture-based and CAFO systems come with drawbacks for the planet.

CAFOs, which are also referred to as factory farms due to how little space livestock are afforded, pollute nearby air and waterways; local communities will often report manure and fertilizer runoff as well as noxious odors. These feeding operations are terrible for both the farmed animals and the laborers who work there. However, CAFOs are sometimes touted as climate-efficient — in essence, because the livestock have such short lifespans before slaughter that they emit less methane relative to cattle who live longer grazing on pasture.

Producing more beef means choosing between two flawed systems, noted Secchi. “To me, the only answer is, we need to eat less beef,” she said.

The evolving trade relations between the U.S. and Argentina demonstrate some uncomfortable truths about animal agriculture, and our food systems more broadly. First, it shows how farming and ranching are industries that are both on the frontlines of the climate crisis and contributors to it. 

Second, it reflects the toll that meeting the rising demand for animal protein has on critical ecosystems. In addition to its impact on ranchers, drought in Argentina has also slashed soybean production. Feldstein added that this has forced Argentinian farmers to import soybeans from Brazil, where their production is a driver of deforestation, particularly in the Cerrado, a savannah heralded for its biodiversity. 

These knock-on effects have implications for the planet as a whole, as areas like the Cerrado are major carbon sinks. 

As the Trump administration and MAHA leaders gear up to promote even higher animal protein consumption in the U.S., Feldstein agrees with Secchi’s assessment that consumers should strive, actually, to do the opposite. “There is no form of beef production that can be considered sustainable at our current consumption levels,” she said. 

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump’s beef trade deal is a lose-lose gamble that won’t lower prices on Feb 12, 2026.

Two new studies have identified an alarming connection between exposure to wildfire smoke during pregnancy and autism in young children. The unprecedented findings suggest the neurological consequences of breathing smoke are more profound than previously thought. 

The research builds on a robust body of evidence that shows wildfire smoke is supremely unhealthy — about 10 times worse than inhaling car exhaust and other pollution emitted by burning fossil fuels. The ultra-fine particles that trees and vegetation release during combustion penetrate deep into the lungs and bloodstream, exacerbating preexisting conditions like asthma and, recent studies suggest, damaging internal organs. 

In recent years, researchers have also begun to suspect that conflagrations like the one that leveled swaths of Los Angeles County last year impact neurological health, but the effects of smoke on brain development are comparatively poorly understood. Two new studies shed light on the complicated web of genetic and environmental factors that contribute to autism spectrum disorder, building on previous research that found connections between the developmental disability and exposure to air pollution in general.  

The first study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology, analyzed data on more than 200,000 children born in southern California between 2006 and 2014. It found that those born to mothers exposed to 10 or more days of smoke in their third trimester had a 23 percent greater risk of being diagnosed with autism by age 5. Pregnant women who endured between six and 10 days saw a 12 percent higher risk of such a diagnosis in their kids.

Notably, the study found that average wildfire smoke concentration across the entire pregnancy or individual trimesters had no material effect on autism diagnoses. What did make a difference was the number of days a person in their third trimester inhaled the pollutant. Even one day of exposure had an effect. 

“The more you get exposed the worse it is,” said David Luglio, a postdoctoral fellow at Tulane University and the lead author of the study. “But we can’t necessarily answer why that is the case.” Luglio said he hopes future research will help untangle why prolonged inhalation made such a big difference. Future studies may also help refine these results by incorporating information on how much time the subjects spent outside during fires and whether they wore masks that help filter particulate matter.

The second study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International, examined a much bigger sample — some 8.5 million births in California between 2001 and 2019. It, too, found a link between wildfire smoke exposure and autism diagnoses, though its different methodology yielded more nuanced results. When researchers looked at average smoke exposure across all births, the association was relatively weak. But among women who experienced intense smoke episodes — particularly those in the top 10th percentile of exposure — the link was substantially stronger. And it was strongest in people who live where population centers meet undeveloped land and who are not exposed to very high levels of general air pollution normally.

For women in the highest percentile of wildfire smoke exposure who otherwise lived in areas with relatively little background air pollution — such as car exhaust and urban smog — the odds of having a child diagnosed with autism were 50 percent higher than among those with lower wildfire smoke exposure. The researchers adjusted their analyses for non-wildfire related sources of air pollution.

“It’s a really huge study,” said Rebecca Schmidt, a professor of public health at University of California Davis and the paper’s lead author — referring to the many millions of records her team analyzed. The earlier study was also quite large, she said, a sign that both findings are well-founded. “There’s more evidence when there’s replication of similar findings,” she said. 

Autism spectrum disorder affects 1 in 31 8-year-olds in the United States. The extent to which the neurological condition, which researchers widely agree is largely determined by genetics, may also be influenced by environmental factors remains an active area of research. In recent years, as wildfires have burned with more severity and frequency in some parts of the world, researchers have been considering their impact on the disorder. 

At the same time, public interest in autism and its causes has mounted since the late 1990s, when the esteemed British medical journal The Lancet published what was later found to be a fraudulent paper that claimed to find a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. secretary of health and human services and one of the world’s most prominent vaccine skeptics, has long championed that theory. Under his leadership, the agency has radically remade the childhood immunization schedule, stacked an expert vaccine safety panel with his skeptics, and wound down mRNA vaccine development, among other moves that public health experts say undermine confidence in vaccines and threaten disease elimination status. 

There is no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism. Even the two studies on autism and wildfire smoke do not indicate that wildfire smoke specifically causes autism. Credible experts who study the disorder, including the authors of these studies, agree that a diagnosis is very likely the result of several factors working in tandem. 

“All we can point out is this association in the third trimester,” Guglio said. “It takes other people down the line to investigate those pathways more directly.”

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Growing evidence points to link between autism and wildfire smoke on Feb 12, 2026.

South America is emerging as the most stable and politically viable option for Western countries trying to rebalance critical mineral supply chains away from China, according to new research from Verisk Maplecroft.

The study comes as the United States and its allies intensify efforts to secure supplies of lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, graphite and rare earth elements, driven by concerns over technology dependence, supply-chain resilience and geopolitics. 

Recent moves include US plans to expand strategic stockpiles and a 55-country push to establish a preferential critical minerals trade bloc.

Verisk Maplecroft assessed 10 emerging markets with major reserves using its Resource Nationalism Index and Political Risk Data, finding that Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru stand out for combining large resource endowments with comparatively moderate levels of state intervention and political risk. Other countries in the analysis included the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, the Philippines and Tanzania.

Low-risk Andes

Most South American producers do not rank among the world’s highest-risk jurisdictions for resource nationalism. Peru, Chile and Argentina are among the strongest performers globally, while DR Congo, Indonesia and Tanzania sit within the top 20 most exposed countries out of 198 assessed.

“What differentiates South America is not the scale of reserves, but the distribution of risk,” Verisk Maplecroft’s chief analyst Jimena Blanco said. “Producers consistently combine large endowments of tech-critical minerals with comparatively moderate levels of resource nationalism and political risk.”

The firm rates the region’s overall risk-adjusted opportunity as distinctly favourable, although it cautions that exposure to higher-risk jurisdictions will remain unavoidable for certain minerals. 

This is already reflected in recent Western initiatives, such as the EU’s free trade agreement with India, partly tied to rare earth ambitions, and the US Strategic Minerals Cooperation Framework with DRC launched in December 2025.

US Assistant Secretary of State Caleb Orr recently disclosed that the US is actively negotiating with Brazil to develop critical mineral processing capabilities, focusing on heavy rare earths. The announcement follows Serra Verde Group giving the US an option to acquire a stake in the company as part of a financing deal.

When political instability is considered alongside state intervention, many countries with major critical mineral reserves still fall into a medium-risk category, suggesting relatively supportive conditions for long-term investment. However, some producers combine high political volatility with assertive government control, increasing the likelihood of export restrictions, state ownership or domestic value-addition requirements.

India’s rare earth policies, as well as conditions in DR Congo and Indonesia, highlight this dynamic. The findings suggest that while Western governments cannot fully avoid higher-risk suppliers, South America offers a comparatively stable anchor in an otherwise constrained global landscape.

West-friendly tilt

The research also challenges assumptions about geopolitical alignment. Using its Geopolitical Alignment Tool, which tracks factors such as UN voting, trade agreements and security ties, Verisk Maplecroft found that most of the 10 countries analyzed sit on the pro-Western or neutral end of the spectrum.

Argentina and the Philippines rank as close US allies, while Chile, Madagascar and India show strategic alignment. Peru and Indonesia are broadly neutral. Only Brazil, Tanzania and DR Congo tilt further away from Washington, largely due to stronger ties with US rivals.

According to the report, the overlap between sizeable reserves, manageable political risk and favourable geopolitical alignment makes South America central to Western diversification strategies.

“Securing tech-critical minerals is no longer just an economic challenge,” Blanco said. “The race will be won not by eliminating risk, but by managing it better than competitors.”

RELATED: Bolivia’s lithium gamble tests US realignment in Latin America

In the absence of a reconsideration of total slaughter and structural protective measures for farmer incomes the unions has decided to boycott the inauguration of the Agriculture Show.

The post France: Confédération Paysanne will boycott the inauguration of the Agriculture Show by President Macron. appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The hidden cost of beef Channel News brendan 12th February 2026 Teaser Media

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Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) says it will idle the remaining operating train at its Kemerton lithium hydroxide processing plant in Western Australia and place it into care and maintenance, effective immediately.

The news follows actions in July 2024 to place Train 2 operations into care and maintenance and to cease expansion plans for Trains 3 and 4, part of a broader strategy to reduce costs amid weak lithium prices.

The Kemerton plant processes spodumene from Greenbushes, the world’s biggest hard-rock lithium mine. Albemarle holds ownership interest and half of the offtake rights from Greenbushes through an Australian joint venture.

Kemerton, with its proven technology and commercial scale lithium hydroxide production, was built to enable the development of a Western lithium supply chain, said Albemarle, currently the world’s largest producer of lithium.

“Idling operations at Kemerton was a difficult decision. It follows significant actions we have taken over the past two and a half years to reduce operating costs during an extended period of price volatility in the market,” Albemarle’s CEO Kent Masters said in a news release on Wednesday.

Albemarle swings to quarterly loss on charges tied to Ketjen sale

“Unfortunately, recent lithium price improvements alone are not enough to offset the challenges facing Western hard-rock lithium conversion operations,” Masters continued. “This decision improves our financial flexibility and preserves optionality.”

The decision is expected to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA beginning in the second quarter of 2026 with no impact to projected 2026 volumes, Albemarle said, adding that it will meet customer demand for lithium hydroxide through other production channels.

Albemarle’s mining interests in Australia, including Greenbushes and Wodgina, are not expected to be impacted by the decision as they remain core components of the company’s strategy, it added.

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 1% in the final quarter of 2025, likely securing a decline of 0.3% for the full year as a whole.

This extends a “flat or falling” trend in China’s CO2 emissions that began in March 2024 and has now lasted for nearly two years.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that, in 2025, emissions from fossil fuels increased by an estimated 0.1%, but this was more than offset by a 7% decline in CO2 from cement.

Other key findings include:

• CO2 emissions fell year-on-year in almost all major sectors in 2025, including transport (3%), power (1.5%) and building materials (7%).
• The key exception was the chemicals industry, where emissions grew 12%.
• Solar power output increased by 43% year-on-year, wind by 14% and nuclear 8%, helping push down coal generation by 1.9%.
• Energy storage capacity grew by a record 75 gigawatts (GW), well ahead of the rise in peak demand of 55GW.
• This means that growth in energy storage capacity and clean-power output topped the increases in peak and total electricity demand, respectively.

The CO2 numbers imply that China’s carbon intensity – its fossil-fuel emissions per unit of GDP – fell by 4.7% in 2025 and by 12% during 2020-25.

This is well short of the 18% target set for that period by the 14th five-year plan.

Moreover, China would now need to cut its carbon intensity by around 23% over the next five years in order to meet one of its key climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Whether Chinese policymakers remain committed to this target is a key open question ahead of the publication of the 15th five-year plan in March.

This will help determine if China’s emissions have already passed their peak, or if they will rise once again and only peak much closer to the officially targeted date of “before 2030”.

‘Flat or falling’

The latest analysis shows China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 21 months, starting in March 2024. This trend continued in the final quarter of 2025, when emissions fell by 1% year-on-year.

The picture continues to be finely balanced, with emissions falling in all major sectors – including transport, power, cement and metals – but rising in the chemicals industry.

This combination of factors means that emissions continue to plateau at levels slightly below the peak reached in early 2024, as shown in the figure below.

China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, million tonnes of CO2, rolling 12-month totals until September 2025. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2024. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration. The consumption of petrol, diesel and jet fuel is adjusted to match quarterly totals estimated by Sinopec.

Power sector emissions fell by 1.5% year-on-year in 2025, with coal use falling 1.7% and gas use increasing 6%. Emissions from transportation fell 3% and from the production of cement and other building materials by 7%, while emissions from the metal industry fell 3%.

These declines are shown in the figure below. They were partially offset by rising coal and oil use in the chemical industry, up 15% and 10% respectively, which pushed up the sector’s CO2 emissions by 12% overall.

Year-on-year change in China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, for the period January-September 2025, million tonnes of CO2. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2024. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration. The consumption of petrol, diesel and jet fuel is adjusted to match quarterly totals estimated by Sinopec. 

In other sectors – largely other industrial areas and building heat – gas use increased by 2%, more than offsetting the reduction in emissions from a 3% drop in their coal consumption.

Clean power covers electricity demand growth

In the power sector, which is China’s largest emitter by far, electricity demand grew by 520 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2025.

At the same time, power generation from solar increased by 43% and wind power generation by 14%, delivering 360TWh and 130TWh of additional clean electricity. Nuclear power generation grew 8%, supplying another 40TWh. The increased generation from these three sources – some 530TWh – therefore met all of the growth in demand.

Hydropower generation also increased by 3% and bioenergy by 3%, helping push power generation from fossil fuels down by 1%. Gas-fired power generation increased by 6% and, as a result, power generation from coal fell by 1.9%.

Furthermore, the surge in additions of new wind and solar capacity at the end of 2025 will only show up as increased clean-power generation in 2026.

On the other hand, the growth in solar and wind power generation has fallen short of the growth in capacity, implying a fall in capacity utilisation – a measure of actual output relative to the maximum possible. This is highly likely due to increased, unreported curtailment, where wind and solar sites are switched off because the electricity grid is congested.

If these grid issues are resolved over the next few years, then generation from existing wind and solar capacity will increase over time.

Developments in 2025 extended the trend of clean-power generation growing faster than power demand overall, as shown in the top figure below. This trend started in 2023 and is the key reason why China’s emissions have been stable or falling since early 2024.

In addition, 2025 saw another potential inflection point, shown in the bottom figure below. It was the first year ever that energy storage capacity – mainly batteries – grew faster than peak electricity demand in 2025 and faster than the average growth in the past decade.

Top columns: Year-on-year change in annual electricity generation from clean energy excluding hydro, terawatt hours. Left solid and dashed line: Annual and average change in total electricity generation, TWh. Bottom columns: Year-on-year change in energy storage capacity, gigawatts. Right solid and dashed line: Annual and average change in peak electricity demand. Sources: Power generation and demand from Ember; peak loads from China Electric Power News since 2020; peak loads until 2019 and pumped hydro capacity from Wind Financial Terminal; battery storage capacity from China Energy Storage Alliance; analysis for Carbon Brief by Lauri Myllyvirta.

China’s energy storage capacity increased by 75GW year-on-year in 2025, while peak demand only increased by 55GW. The rise in storage capacity in 2025 is also larger than the three-year average increase in peak loads, some 72GW per year.

Peak demand growth matters, because power systems have to be designed to reliably provide enough electricity supply at the moment of highest demand.

Moreover, the increase in peak loads is a key driver of continued additions of coal and gas-fired power plants, which reached the highest level in a decade in 2025.

The growth in energy storage could provide China with an alternative way to meet peak loads without relying on increased fossil fuel-based capacity.

The growth in storage capacity is set to continue after a new policy issued by China’s top economic planner the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in January.

This policy means energy storage sites will be supported by so-called “capacity payments”, which to date have only been available to coal- and gas-fired power plants and pumped hydro storage.

Concerns about having sufficient “firm” power capacity in the grid – that which can be turned on at will – led the government to promote new coal and gas-fired power projects in recent years, leading to the largest fossil-fuel based capacity additions in a decade in 2025, with another 290GW of coal-fired capacity still under construction.

Reforming the power system and increasing storage capacity would enable the grid to accommodate much higher shares of solar and wind, while reducing the need for new coal or gas capacity to meet rising peaks in demand.

This would both unlock more clean-power generation from existing capacity and improve the economics and risk profiles of new projects, stimulating more growth in capacity.

Peaking power CO2 requires more clean-energy growth

China’s key climate commitments for the next five-year period until 2030 are to peak CO2 emissions and to reduce carbon intensity by more than 65% from 2005 levels. The latter target requires limiting CO2 emissions at or below their 2025 level in 2030.

The record clean-energy additions in 2023-25 have barely sufficed to stabilise power-sector emissions, showing that if rapid growth in power demand continues, meeting the 2030 targets requires keeping clean-energy additions close to 2025 levels over the next five years.

China’s central government continues to telegraph a much lower level of ambition, with the NDRC setting a target of “around” 30% of power generation in 2030 coming from solar and wind, up from around 22% in 2025.

If electricity demand grows in line with the State Grid forecast of 5.6% per year, then limiting the share of wind and solar to 30% would leave space for fossil-fuel generation to grow at 3% per year from 2025 to 2030, even after increases from nuclear and hydropower.

Such an increase would mean missing China’s Paris commitments for 2030.

Alternatively, in order to meet the forecast increase in electricity demand without increasing generation from fossil fuels would require wind and solar’s share to reach 37% in 2030.

Similarly, China’s target of a non-fossil energy share of 25% in 2030 will not be sufficient to meet its carbon-intensity reduction commitment for 2030, unless energy demand growth slows down sharply.

This target is unlikely to be upgraded, since it is already enshrined in China’s Paris Agreement pledge, so in practice the target would need to be substantially overachieved if the country is to meet its other commitments.

If energy demand growth continues at the 2025 rate and the share of non-fossil energy only rises from 22% in 2025 to 25% in 2030, then the consumption of fossil fuels would increase by 3% per year, with a similar rise in CO2 emissions.

Still, another recent sign that clean-energy growth could keep exceeding government targets came in early February when the China Electricity Council projected solar and wind capacity additions of more than 300GW in 2026 – well beyond the government goal of “over 200GW”.

Chemical industry

The only significant source of growth in CO2 emissions in 2025 was the chemical industry, with sharp increases in the consumption of both coal and oil.

This is shown in the figure below, which illustrates how CO2 emissions appear to have peaked from cement production, transport, the power sector and others, whereas the chemicals industry is posting strong increases.

Sectoral emissions from fossil fuels and cement, million tonnes of CO2, rolling 12-month totals. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and cement, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2024. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration.

Even though chemical-industry emissions are small relative to other sectors – at roughly 13% of China’s total – the pace of expansion is creating an outsize impact.

Without the increase from the chemicals sector, China’s total CO2 emissions would have fallen by an estimated 2%, instead of the 0.3% reported here.

Without changes to policy, emission growth is set to continue, as the coal-to-chemicals industry is planning major increases in capacity.

Whether these expansion plans receive backing in the upcoming five-year plan for 2026-30 will have a major impact on China’s emission trends.

Another key factor is the development of oil and gas prices. Production in the coal-based chemical industry is only profitable when coal is significantly cheaper than crude oil.

The current coal-to-chemicals capacity in China is dominated by plants producing higher-value – and therefore less price-sensitive – chemicals such as olefins and aromatics, as feedstocks for the production of plastics.

In contrast, the planned expansion of the sector is expected to be largely driven by plants producing oil products and synthetic gas to be used for energy. For these products, electrification and clean-electricity generation provide a direct alternative, meaning they are even more sensitive to low oil and gas prices than chemicals production.

Outlook for China’s emissions

This is the latest analysis for Carbon Brief to show that China’s CO2 emissions have now been stable or falling for seven quarters or 21 months, marking the first such streak on record that has not been associated with a slowdown in energy demand growth.

Notably, while emissions have stabilised or begun a slow decline, there has not yet been a substantial reduction from the level reached in early 2024. This means that a small jump in emissions could see them exceed the previous peak level.

China’s official plans only call for peaking emissions shortly before 2030, which would allow for a rebound from the current plateau before the ultimate emissions peak.

If China is to meet its 2030 carbon intensity commitment – a 65% reduction on 2005 levels – then emissions would have to fall from the peak back to current levels by 2030.

Whether China’s policymakers are still committed to meeting this carbon intensity pledge, after the setbacks during the previous five-year period, is a key open question. The 2030 energy targets set to date have fallen short of what would be required.

The most important signal will be whether the top-level five-year plan for 2026-30, due in March, sets a carbon intensity target aligned with the 2030 Paris commitment.

Officially, China is sticking to the timeline of peaking CO2 emissions “before 2030”, which was announced by president Xi Jinping in 2020.

According to an authoritative explainer on the recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party for the upcoming five-year plan, published by state-backed news agency Xinhua, coal consumption should “reach its peak and enter a plateau” from 2027.

It says that continued increases in demand for coal from electricity generators and the chemicals industry would be offset by reductions elsewhere. This is despite the fact that China’s coal consumption overall has already been falling for close to two years.

The reference to a “plateau” in coal consumption indicates that in official plans, meaningful absolute reductions in emissions would have to wait until after 2030. Any increase in coal consumption from 2025 to 2027, before the targeted plateau, would need to be offset by reductions in oil consumption, to meet the carbon intensity target.

Moreover, allowing coal consumption in the power sector to grow beyond the peak of overall coal use and emissions implies slowing down China’s clean-energy boom. So far, the boom has continued to exceed official targets by a wide margin.

In addition, the explainer’s expectation of further growth in coal use by the chemicals industry indicates a green light for at least a part of its sizable expansion plans.

The Xinhua article recognises that oil product consumption has already peaked, but says that oil use in the chemicals industry has kept growing. It adds that overall oil consumption should peak in 2026.

Elsewhere, the article speaks of “vigorously” developing non-fossil energy and “actively” developing “distributed” solar, which has slowed down due to recent pricing policies.

Yet it also calls for “high-quality development” of fossil fuels and increased efforts in domestic oil and gas production, suggesting that China continues to take an “all of the above” approach to energy policy.

The outcome of all this depends on how things turn out in reality. The past few years show it is possible that clean energy will continue to overperform its targets, preventing growth in energy consumption from fossil fuels despite this policy support.

The key role of the clean-energy boom in driving GDP growth and investments is one key motivator for policymakers to keep the boom going, even when central targets would allow for a slowdown. It is also possible that the five-year plans of provinces and state-owned enterprises could play a key role in raising ambition, as they did in 2022.

About the data

Data for the analysis was compiled from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Energy Administration of China, China Electricity Council and China Customs official data releases, as well as from industry data provider WIND Information and from Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner.

Electricity generation from wind and solar, along with thermal power breakdown by fuel, was calculated by multiplying power generating capacity at the end of each month by monthly utilisation, using data reported by China Electricity Council through Wind Financial Terminal.

Total generation from thermal power and generation from hydropower and nuclear power were taken from National Bureau of Statistics monthly releases.

Monthly utilisation data was not available for biomass, so the annual average of 52% for 2023 was applied. Power-sector coal consumption was estimated based on power generation from coal and the average heat rate of coal-fired power plants during each month, to avoid the issue with official coal consumption numbers affecting recent data. 

CO2 emissions estimates are based on National Bureau of Statistics default calorific values of fuels and emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, for the year 2021. The CO2 emissions factor for cement is based on annual estimates up to 2024.

For oil, apparent consumption of transport fuels – diesel, petrol and jet fuel – is taken from Sinopec quarterly results, with monthly disaggregation based on production minus net exports. The consumption of these three fuels is labeled as oil product consumption in transportation, as it is the dominant sector for their use.

Apparent consumption of other oil products is calculated from refinery throughput, with the production of the transport fuels and the net exports of other oil products subtracted. Fossil-fuel consumption includes non-energy use such as plastics, as most products are short-lived and incineration is the dominant disposal method.

分析：清洁能源2025年为中国GDP增长贡献超过三分之一

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05.02.26

Analysis: Clean energy drove more than a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025

China energy

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05.02.26

‘Rush’ for new coal in China hits record high in 2025 as climate deadline looms

China energy

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03.02.26

Explainer: Why gas plays a minimal role in China’s climate strategy

China energy

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22.01.26

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On the day before the Atitlán Christmas Bird Count (CBC) in western Guatemala, the group chat created to coordinate the event began to fill with messages. Eager birders first shared news of a...

The post From Farm to COP30: A Nurse’s Journey to Sustainable Food Systems appeared first on ANHE.

• The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) invites CFS actors to submit  their feedback on the zero draft by 18 March 2026.

The CFS has recently published the zero draft of the Policy Recommendations for Building Resilient Food Systems in English and reported that official translations will be available by the end of February 2026.

Throughout 2026, the CFS will develop these recommendations through a policy convergence process that includes open consultations on the drafts, meetings of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) and two rounds of negotiations scheduled for June and July. The final text is expected to be adopted during the plenary session of CFS 54 in October 2026.

The CSIPM Working Group on Resilient Food Systems facilitates the participation of civil society and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations in this process. In an initial analysis, the CSIPM highlighted as central elements the human rights-based approach, the creation of effective mechanisms for the participation of rights holders, and policies capable of strengthening the agroecology and addressing different structural vulnerabilities, such as poverty, socio-economic marginalisation and gender inequalities, among others.

We invite all interested organisations to join the working group and actively contribute by completing this form: https://www.csm4cfs.org/policy-working-groups/join-the-working-groups/

Read the zero draft of the CFS Policy Recommendations

Related links

• CSIPM Working Group on Building Resilient Food Systems website
• Policy priorities identified by the CSIPM Working Group
• HLPE Report No. 20

The post CFS publishes zero draft of Policy Recommendations on Resilient Food Systems appeared first on CSIPM.

US battery recycler Aqua Metals (NASDAQ: AQMS) announced Wednesday it has entered into a term sheet to acquire energy storage systems provider Lion Energy LLC.

Aqua Metals said in a press release that it plans to leverage Lion Energy’s brand, intellectual property, capital, technical talent and manufacturing capabilities to transform the company into a domestic player capable of managing the entire battery lifecycle.

Founded in Utah, Lion Energy has built a growing presence in the US energy storage market through the deployment of software-enabled residential and commercial energy systems.

“This transaction is intended to add meaningful revenue to Aqua Metals while expanding our participation in the rapidly growing energy storage market,” CEO Steve Cotton stated in the release.

In late 2025, Aqua Metals signed a letter of intent with Westwin Elements, the only major US nickel refinery, to supply up to 1,000 metric tons of recycled nickel carbonate a year starting in 2027.

“Energy storage is a natural extension of our battery materials strategy, and Lion Energy has built a complementary platform that spans systems, software and customer relationships,” Cotton said.

“Together, we believe this combination would strengthen our path toward a more vertically integrated, US-based battery supply chain, and supports our long-term vision for a robust domestic battery materials industry led by our new combined entity.”

“From the beginning, Lion Energy has focused on building more than batteries,” Tyler Hortin, CEO of Lion Energy, said in a press release. “We have invested heavily in a US-based energy management platform combining software, firmware, hardware and cloud connectivity designed to give customers intelligent control over their energy systems. This transaction could accelerate that vision.”

Under the term sheet, Aqua Metals would acquire Lion Energy through an all-stock transaction that preserves executive and board control of the combined company. At the closing, Lion Energy owners would receive approximately $25.8 million of Aqua Metals shares, and are entitled to receive up to $65 million in additional shares (for a total of $87.8 million) based on the company’s performance over a 12-month period after completing the transaction.

By market close in New York, Aqua Metals was down 6.9%. The company has a $12.8 million market capitalization.

An Indigenous-led partnership seeks to move the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor from a long-running idea into a defined infrastructure project, pitched as both a critical-minerals enabler and a sovereignty play, Northwest Territories Deputy Premier Caroline Wawzonek said.

The corridor is to connect the territory’s all-season road network to an Arctic Ocean port via the Grays Bay Road and Port project in Nunavut, creating a link from global markets to the North. The push is gaining traction as Ottawa seeks to diversify supply chains and improve access to mineral-rich areas that are costly to reach and develop, Wawzonek said.

“In an ideal world, it would be for the federal government to give the signal that this is no longer an if, but a how,” Wawzonek told The Northern Miner’s Western Editor, Henry Lazenby, during a recent industry conference.

For miners, the payoff is year-round access, fewer stand-alone road builds and a better platform for power transmission to cut operating costs across the Slave Geological Province. The shutdown of Rio Tinto’s (ASX, LSE, NYSE: RIO) Diavik diamond mine next month, one of the territory’s three operating diamond mines, sharpens the project’s urgency.

Watch the full interview:

Homeland Uranium (TSXV: HLU; US-OTC: HLUCF) is drilling in northwest Colorado to turn two forgotten uranium-vanadium deposits into a first compliant resource, president and CEO Roger Lemaitre said.

The 10-month-old company is advancing the Coyote Basin and Cross Bones projects in the past-producing Maybell district at the northern end of the Colorado Plateau. The focus is on Coyote Basin, where a 35-hole program budgeted at $4 million is testing about 5,600 metres of drilling aimed at an inferred resource by midyear.

Coyote Basin carries a historical estimate of 8.9 million tons grading 0.2% uranium oxide and 0.1% vanadium oxide for 35.4 million lb. uranium and 17.7 million lb. vanadium, while Cross Bones has a historical estimate of 7.1 million tons at 0.3% for 44.2 million lb. uranium.

“The absolute truth is by 2040 we need to find 11 Cigar Lake mines to meet the demand that’s coming,” Lemaitre told The Northern Miner’s Western Editor, Henry Lazenby, during a recent industry event. “In the world’s history in the last 50 years, we’ve only found six equivalents.”

Cigar Lake – Cameco’s (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) flagship, high-grade mine in Saskatchewan – runs at about 18 million lb. uranium per year (100% basis), making it a common yardstick for the scale of new supply required. By comparison, Homeland sees the U.S. market running an annual deficit of about 48 million lb. of yellowcake.

Watch the full interview below:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: Feb 11, 2026
Contact: Anja Semanco | 724-967-2777 | anja@alaskawild.org 

Lease Sale in Western Arctic Proves No Corner of Alaska’s Arctic Is Off-Limits to Industrialization 

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration released final details for a sweeping federal oil and gas lease sale in the Western Arctic (National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska), opening millions of acres of globally significant wildlife habitat the size of New Jersey to industrial development. The Detailed Statement of Sale—and specifically how it offers up areas of the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area that have not been made available for leasing for decades—demonstrates that no place is too sacred to drill for the Trump administration. 

“The details of this lease sale show that companies like ConocoPhillips won’t stop with Willow and that this administration will always put profit over people,” said Kristen Miller, executive director of Alaska Wilderness League. “Just weeks after the complete collapse of an oil rig in the nearby village of Nuiqsut, this administration is throwing open the doors to some of the most sensitive, wildlife-rich places in the Arctic and gambling with landscapes that sustain communities, caribou herds, and millions of birds. The financial and environmental risks here far outweigh any speculative profits. Fortunately, smart companies and investors know a bad bet when they see one.” 

The Western Arctic sale offers tracts that surround the vast majority of Teshekpuk Lake, including areas in the far north of the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area that haven’t been offered for sale in decades. Careful consideration of science and community input by past administrations deemed these areas too sensitive to drill, making this sale an outlier from other lease sales that occurred in the past three decades.   

The agency will accept minimum bids as low as $5 per acre in western parcels, setting a small price for the potential industrialization of Alaska public lands. This reflects a long-standing pattern of decline in the region dating back to the large 1999 lease sale, when ConocoPhillips acquired the leases that now underpin the Willow project. Details of past sales can be found at this link. 

The lands targeted in this lease sale have long been recognized for their irreplaceable value to clean water, wildlife, and Alaska Native subsistence communities—including areas that past administrations of both parties deemed too sensitive to lease. The sale offers vast acreage within the former Colville River Special Area, further impacting some of the most ecologically important landscapes left in the Arctic. Additionally, tracts surrounding the community of Atqasuk are also being put up for sale, along with a few final parcels near the community of Nuiqsut, where drilling continues to get closer to the community each year. 

Today’s detailed notice of sale was posted the week after an agency error in public notice took place, with the Federal Register failing to publish the lease sale notice last Friday.  The result of this error is the delay of the sale by nine days, with results now due to go public on March 18. 

Additionally, the announcement comes just weeks after Doyon Rig 26 toppled over on the tundra near the Western Arctic, spilling diesel fuel and catching fire after unstable, warming conditions reportedly compromised the ice road beneath it. Cleanup has only just begun. As the Arctic warms three to four times faster than the rest of the planet, thawing permafrost, melting ice roads, and extreme weather are making industrial accidents more frequent and more dangerous, underscoring the growing risks of operating heavy infrastructure in this fragile environment. 

 

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Photo Credit: Richard Spener