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Scientists have vowed to keep working on the next flagship set of reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), after a political row over the timeline for their release saw its latest session suspended on Friday evening without agreement.

During the weekend, government officials and scientists alike expressed disappointment over the inability to reach a compromise before some delegates from developing countries and small island states had to leave the week-long meeting in Ethiopia to catch flights home.

The disagreement – which has persisted since early 2024 – turns on whether the three key parts of the AR7 assessment should all be published before the conclusion of the UN’s next Global Stocktake of global climate action, which is due to be completed in late 2028.

The IPCC issued a statement after the close of the session, saying that “key agenda items” – the timelines for the three AR7 reports, as well as the IPCC budget – remain open and under discussion. It said the IPCC’s plenary session and its deliberations on the pending agenda “will resume at the earliest opportunity”, giving no further details of when.

IPCC Chair Jim Skea told delegates in closing remarks that recent months had been some of the most turbulent for the climate science panel and that, if there were stronger words than “profound disappointment” he would use them, according to a summary published by the Earth Negotiators Bulletin (ENB). IPCC discussions happen behind closed doors. 

IPCC scientists remained committed

In an open letter, issued on Monday, a group of nearly 120 scientists – from a total of 664 AR7 authors – said they “stand committed to continue working to deliver the AR7 reports in a manner that is rigorous, timely and inclusive, in line with our mandate to be policy-relevant”. 

“An assessment that arrives after the decisions it is meant to inform cannot serve its purpose,” they emphasised. “The second Global Stocktake in 2028 is such a decision point, and the world should not have to face it without the IPCCʼs latest assessment.” 

Europe, small islands and the least developed countries, plus many Latin American and developed nations, want the IPCC to meet this deadline, arguing that the findings from the UN climate science body are irreplaceable in the UN climate policy-making process. 

However, around a dozen developing countries plus Russia have argued that the reports should come later in order to allow for greater research input from the Global South – something that, in their view, would make the findings fairer. They also claim that a shorter timeline would put excessive pressure on experts.

• Oct 16, 2026 Comment Who shapes climate science? The equity question facing the IPCC Early completion of the next global climate science assessment reports risks excluding research from the Global South, which is key to ensuring the findings are fair Read more
• Oct 12, 2026 Comment Governments that support climate science must stand firm against naysayers The IPCC is meeting to decide the timing of its next major report, as some countries try to delay it and weaken the case for faster emissions cuts Read more

The most vocal of this group at last week’s meeting were India and Saudi Arabia, according to the ENB summary and a developed country diplomat. Critics see this push for a longer timeline as an excuse to deprive government decision-makers of the latest science and ease pressure on emerging economies to raise their ambition, particularly on cutting emissions.  

Commenting on last week’s meeting, France’s ambassador for climate negotiations Benoît Faraco said a broad coalition of developed and developing countries from all five continents, “united in their support for science and the timeline proposed by scientists”, had withstood pressure “from a few countries” seeking to slow down the process of adopting the IPCC reports.

He added that France would not back down and would “continue to fight tirelessly for science, protect the integrity of information, and convince our partners that without the best available scientific data, we will be less effective in tackling climate change and protecting our populations”.

Delegates at last week’s IPCC session in Addis Ababa. Photo: IISD/ENB | Danny Skilton Delegates at last week’s IPCC session in Addis Ababa. Photo: IISD/ENB | Danny Skilton Inclusivity proposal stalled

In a bid to unlock a solution for the AR7 timeline, countries discussed ways to improve the inclusivity of the IPCC’s work. One option put on the table was for the IPCC to expand its funding for delegates from developing countries to attend some or all of its sessions from one to two participants, according to the ENB summary and a delegate speaking to Climate Home News.

That would increase the costs for the IPCC to complete AR7 by up to a quarter, according to an assessment shared by the secretariat. The panel’s budget is under severe strain and its officials have warned that, without additional voluntary contributions, it risks running out of money before it can deliver on this assessment cycle. 

Climate Home News understands that some of the IPCC’s traditional donors – which mainly include European countries, Japan and Australia – indicated a willingness to support funding for an additional developing country participant. But without an agreement over the budget or the timeline for the reports, that option was ultimately not adopted.

‘Disappointed and worried’

The three reports are managed by working groups that collate and draw overall findings from the latest scientific studies and data on the physical effects of global warming around the world, how to adapt to it, and pathways for cutting planet-heating emissions in order to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. 

Winston Chow, an urban climate professor at Singapore Management University who co-chairs Working Group II on adaptation, wrote in a LinkedIn post that he was “disappointed and worried” for the IPCC authors who have worked “extraordinarily hard” to assess the relevant climate science over the past two years.

He said he shared their concern that “the rigour, time and goodwill they’ve invested are now being put at risk by the Panel’s stalemate”. 

As science comes under attack at UN talks, climate movement splits over how to respond

For Working Group II, a meeting for 250 experts writing that report is scheduled for January 2027, followed by the approval of a special report on cities and climate change in Singapore next March. 

But because the IPCC’s budget has not been confirmed due to uncertainty about the AR7 schedule, travel support for those researchers is at risk, wrote Chow. “If they cannot participate, our assessments will lose vital expertise, perspectives and scientific breadth, and the collective effort of our authors will be undermined,” he warned.

Scientific work continues

Despite the political holdups, he – together with French climate scientist Robert Vautard, co-chair of Working Group 1 – agreed with IPCC head Skea who told the IPCC’s closing session on Friday: “The engine room of the IPCC is working, and it’s healthy.”   

Vautard commented in a separate post on LinkedIn after it ended: “The boat is at full steam.” Working groups I and II are due to start revising the first drafts of their reports, while Working Group III on reducing emissions is finalising its first draft which will be out soon, he wrote.

“The most exciting two years of the cycle are ahead, for the authors. The momentum in the engine room is here and now. Trust the engine room!” he added. 

The IPCC and some scientists report that progress has been made towards achieving an equitable balance of authors from the Global North and the Global South. 

The group of researchers who signed the open letter on Monday noted that “inclusivity is at the heart of how we work”, with author teams bringing together experts from developed and developing countries with diverse backgrounds and at different stages of their careers.

IPCC chair Jim Skea at the panel’s session last week. Photo: IISD/ENB | Danny Skilton IPCC chair Jim Skea at the panel’s session last week. Photo: IISD/ENB | Danny Skilton Plea to overcome political differences

The signatories include several scientists from some of the countries opposed to the alignment of all IPCC reports with the Global Stocktake. 

“We are committed to an assessment in which the knowledge, experience and priorities of every region are fully reflected, a commitment we share with the leadership of the IPCC.

Equity is built into how our assessment is being drafted,” they added.  

They appealed to governments that make up the IPCC “to overcome their political differences and work together as we do as a global scientific community, so that we can deliver the IPCC reports the world needs to hear”.

In a statement published on Monday, IPCC chair Skea said reaching consensus on the schedule for the reports is “vital”. He added that the assessments provide authoritative scientific evidence to inform national climate policies, strengthen adaptation and resilience and support access to climate finance, as well as helping communicate the scale of the climate crisis and the urgency of efforts to tackle it.  

The post IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock appeared first on Climate Home News.

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a Food is Medicine movement is growing as community leaders connect food, nutrition, and health.

An estimated 15 percent of households in the city experience food insecurity, according to Feeding America. And the Philadelphia Department of Public Health reports that unhealthy food stores outnumber healthy options by ten to one.

Across the city, organizations are tackling these challenges, providing medically tailored meals, operating choice-based food pantries, and helping families afford nutritious groceries. Together, their work demonstrates how community-led solutions can address hunger while supporting health and well-being.

On October 27, the Food First Health Summit Philadelphia will bring together policymakers, health experts, farmers, food system innovators, and advocates to discuss these solutions and the future of Food is Medicine. Hosted by Food Tank, FareRX, AmeriHealth Caritas, and Temple University, the event will feature conversations and interactive breakout sessions exploring how Philadelphia and communities across the country can expand access to healthy food. Join us in person by registering here or tune in online by clicking here.

Ahead of the Summit, Food Tank is highlighting 13 organizations working to advance food and nutrition security across Philadelphia.

1. Bebashi — Transition To Hope

Since 1985 Bebashi — Transition To Hope has served as a full-service healthcare organization serving low-income individuals to improve their wellbeing. The organization runs the Food First Pantry, offering produce, meats, and nonperishable foods. Modeled after a grocery store, the pantry centers client-choice, allowing people to select the foods they need and want.

2. Caring for Friends

Caring for Friends is tackling both hunger and loneliness in the Philadelphia region. They provide food and friendship to seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, by delivering a week’s worth of meals and visiting with clients. In their Caring Kitchen, they prepare sandwiches, soups, and snack bags for people facing homelessness.

3. FarmerJawn

This 128-acre farm wants to build a model of regenerative food production that’s built by and for underserved communities. Through storefronts, they provide access to fresh food grown without harmful chemicals. Their CornerJawn model of corner stores is designed to make healthy foods more accessible. “I want to make sure that nobody feels like nutrient density is above them,” Christa Barfield, FarmerJawn’s Founder, tells Food Tank. They also offer on-farm and in-school educational programming to help students and adults understand how and where their food comes from.

4. Feast of Justice

For two decades, Feast of Justice has been committed to ensuring that the Northeast Philadelphia community has access to nutritious food and other household goods. The volunteer-run food pantry operates two locations where families and individuals can pick up fresh produce, dairy, meat, baked and dry goods, and home essentials. Last year, they served close to 11,000 neighbors.

5. Food Connect

Food Connect works alongside local partners to deliver nutritious and culturally relevant foods in five regions across the United States, including the Greater Philadelphia area. Through a partnership with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, they offer home delivery for a Food as Medicine program to support patient health. They also work with Sharing Excess (also highlighted below), providing the transportation and delivery logistics that move surplus produce from the nonprofit’s warehouse to schools across the city.

6. MANNA

MANNA believes that healing starts with food. By providing medically tailored meals and nutrition education, they empower people facing serious illness to improve their health and quality of life. Thanks to their work, MANNA’s clients see reduced hospital visits, shorter stays, and an increased likelihood that they will be released to their homes instead of a long-term care facility. The organization is also part of the Food is Medicine Coalition, a national network advancing the Food is Medicine Movement.

7. Philabundance

Feeding America member Philabundance is combining short- and long-term solutions to curb hunger today and ultimately end it for good. They serve nine counties across Southeastern Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey and work with over 300 community partners to distribute food to those in need. They also run initiatives to reduce food waste, increase access to nutritious meals, and support workforce development.

8. Philadelphia Food as Medicine Coalition

The Philadelphia Food as Medicine Coalition is a new coalition working at the intersection of food and health in Philadelphia. A growing network of advocates, food businesses, practitioners, they welcome community leaders to join them and help scale Food is Medicine solutions. The Food First Health Summit on October 27 represents the Coalition’s first convening, where the people and organizations taking part will help shape what it becomes.

9. Share Food Program

In 1986, Share Food Program started as a food co-op, offering low-cost items to the Philadelphia community. Today, they are one of the leading hunger relief organizations in the region and one of the largest independent food banks in the nation. Their Senior Food Box Program delivers a monthly box of groceries to qualifying seniors. The Philly Food Rescue project focuses on food recovery and donations. And at Nice Roots Farms, they grow fresh produce that they distribute to the community, pantry partners, and mutual aid networks.

10. Sharing Excess

When Evan Ehlers was a student at Drexel University in 2016, he began using his extra meal swipes to buy and give away meals in Philadelphia. The decision helped him realize that hunger wasn’t a problem of supply, but one of access. Two years later, he started Sharing Excess to overcome the barriers that keep perfectly good food from reaching people who need it most. Since the organization’s founding, they have rescued and redistributed more than 317 million pounds of food.

11. St. Christopher’s Foundation for Children Philadelphia

St. Christopher’s Foundation for Children was founded to support the health and well-being of young people served by the St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Their Farm to Families program helps families access low-cost, high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables. They also run My Family Kitchen, an eight-week program where elementary- and middle-school-aged children learn how to prepare simple, healthy, and affordable meals.

12. The Food Trust

The Food Trust takes a holistic approach to nutrition security to ensure everyone can access healthy, delicious food. The organization runs several programs to including the Healthy Corner Store Initiative, where they help small, independently owned grocery stores increase their offerings of fresh produce and other healthy items. And their Nutrition Incentives program helps to stretch eaters’ dollars to make nutritious foods more accessible and affordable.

13. The People’s Kitchen Philadelphia

Launched at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, The People’s Kitchen is a collaborative of chefs, students, and community members fighting for food sovereignty in Philadelphia. They help build a people-centered, inclusive model and relationship to food as they tackle systemic issues of poverty and hunger in the city. Today, they combine free nutritious meals, gardening, and food education to empower and transform communities.

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 Tomas Martinez, Unsplash

The post 13 Organizations Building Health and Community in Philadelphia appeared first on Food Tank.

Retrofits can deliver in AlbertaAlberta is home to outstanding whole-building retrofit projects. These projects demonstrate how retrofits can help building owners cut operating costs, increase asset value, strengthen financing and insurance options,...

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GAIA Statement | Global Week of Action to Stop Incineration | October 2026 · Leer en español

As communities across the world mobilize against waste incineration, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) is raising the alarm about the waste-burning industry’s presence at COP31, the UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Antalya, Türkiye, this November.

At a time when the COP31 Presidency has made zero waste a priority, representatives of the incineration industry are expected to participate in discussions on circular cities, waste management, and climate finance.

These include CEWEP, the European waste-to-energy industry’s lobbying association, which actively promotes incineration as a climate and energy solution, and Kanadevia Inova, a major waste-to-energy technology provider, both listed in the COP31 official side events agenda. CEWEP has previously promoted incineration at UN climate conferences, including COP30. Meanwhile, Kanadevia Inova’s involvement in the proposed Smokey Mountain incineration project in Manila, alongside its local partner Philippine Ecology Systems Corp. (PhilEco), has raised serious concerns among human rights advocates, environmental organizations, and local residents, as documented in GAIA’s report, The Smokey Mountain Waste-to-Energy Project: Arrested Development and Environmental Justice in Urban Manila.

There is a fundamental contradiction at the heart of this participation: an industry whose business depends on burning waste is seeking to influence discussions about waste prevention, climate action, and the transition towards sustainable waste systems.

The global zero waste agenda must not become an opportunity to greenwash incineration, legitimize polluting infrastructure, or redirect climate finance away from real solutions that protect communities, support a just transition for waste workers, and deliver meaningful climate benefits.

Key findings

• Waste-to-energy incineration emits about 1.7 times more greenhouse gas per unit of electricity than coal-fired power.
• Europe’s existing incinerators could burn almost 65 million more tonnes of waste a year than they currently process.
• GAIA’s Clearing the Air research recorded fine particulate levels 5 to 8 times above WHO guidelines near sites in Indonesia, Nigeria and the Philippines.
• The proposed Smokey Mountain project in Manila: ₱26 billion, 100 MW, built to burn around 3,000 tonnes of waste a day.
• More than 550 municipalities worldwide are taking steps towards zero waste.

Burning waste fuels the climate crisis

Waste-to-energy is often marketed as clean or renewable energy. But burning waste does not make its carbon emissions disappear.

Waste-to-energy incineration produces approximately 1.7 times as much greenhouse gas pollution per unit of electricity as coal-fired power plants. Plastics, which are made primarily from fossil fuels, contribute significantly to these emissions.

Incineration also destroys materials that could otherwise be reused, recycled, or composted, creating additional emissions through the extraction and manufacture of replacement products.

Far from advancing a circular economy, incineration perpetuates a linear model of extraction, consumption and destruction.

An expensive industry that locks cities into burning waste

Incinerators are among the most capital-intensive waste management facilities. Their financial models frequently depend on long-term contracts, public subsidies, and guaranteed volumes of waste.

These arrangements can lock municipalities into decades of waste burning, even as they seek to reduce waste generation, expand recycling and introduce separate collection of organic waste.

The financial consequences are particularly serious for cities in the Global South, where scarce public resources are urgently needed for basic waste services, community infrastructure, and climate adaptation.

Meanwhile, Europe is already struggling with overcapacity. According to Zero Waste Europe’s latest update of its Enough is Enough report, existing incineration infrastructure has the capacity to burn almost 65 million tonnes more waste annually than it currently processes.

Yet incineration companies continue promoting and exporting the same infrastructure model internationally.

Why should countries facing urgent development and climate challenges invest in infrastructure that other regions have already built in excess?

Communities pay the price

Behind the industry’s promises of clean energy and modern infrastructure are communities facing pollution, financial burdens, and threats to their livelihoods.

GAIA’s Burn Book: Incinerators that Threaten the Climate, Public Health, and our Finances highlights how these concerns recur across countries and regions.

In Delhi, India, communities around the Timarpur-Okhla waste-to-energy plant have raised concerns about air pollution and the facility’s proximity to residential neighbourhoods.

In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Reppie waste-to-energy facility illustrates the risks of prioritizing large, centralized waste-burning infrastructure in cities where recycling, organic waste recovery, and inclusive waste services require investment.

In Surabaya, Indonesia, community-led air quality monitoring near waste-burning operations has documented serious pollution concerns. GAIA’s Clearing the Air research, covering sites in Indonesia, Nigeria, and the Philippines, recorded fine particulate matter levels five to eight times higher than World Health Organization guidelines.

And in Manila, Philippines, the proposed Smokey Mountain waste-to-energy project offers a stark warning about the environmental justice implications of incineration expansion.

The proposed ₱26 billion, 100 MW project, designed to process approximately 3,000 tonnes of waste per day, threatens to transform an area with a long history of environmental injustice into a new site of industrial waste burning.

GAIA’s investigation into the Smokey Mountain project documents concerns over displacement, inadequate community consultation, environmental risks, and threats to waste-picker livelihoods. Kanadevia Inova has been identified as a technology partner in the project.

These examples expose a wider pattern: communities already bearing the burden of waste pollution are being asked to accept new infrastructure that may deepen existing inequalities, while the companies promoting these projects present themselves as providers of climate solutions.

Incineration also threatens the livelihoods of waste pickers, who play a vital role in recovering materials and sustaining local recycling economies. By burning valuable recyclables, incinerators can displace workers and undermine existing recovery systems. A just transition must recognize their contributions, protect their rights and livelihoods, and strengthen their role in building inclusive zero waste systems.

Climate finance must not subsidize false solutions

At COP31, the participation of CEWEP in an event addressing the Global Zero Waste and Methane Fund raises particularly serious concerns.

Methane reduction in the waste sector is urgently needed. But replacing methane emissions from organic waste with fossil carbon emissions from burning plastics is not a credible pathway to a zero waste future.

Climate finance should support prevention, separate collection, composting, anaerobic digestion where appropriate, recycling, and the inclusion of waste pickers.

It should not be used to finance infrastructure that burns recoverable materials, creates long-term financial liabilities, and competes with the very systems needed to achieve zero waste.

The presence of industry representatives in climate policy discussions also raises important questions about conflicts of interest, transparency, and whose expertise is prioritized.

The companies and associations that stand to profit from expanding incineration should not be given privileged influence over the policies and financing mechanisms intended to accelerate the transition away from polluting waste management.

Real solutions are already here

Around the world, GAIA members are working with municipalities, waste pickers, and communities to demonstrate practical alternatives to incineration.

More than 550 municipalities worldwide are taking steps towards zero waste, demonstrating that preventing waste, recovering materials, managing organics, and protecting livelihoods can form the foundation of effective local climate action.

These approaches reduce methane emissions, prevent pollution, conserve resources, and support a just transition by recognizing waste pickers, improving working conditions, and creating opportunities for decent livelihoods.

They are the solutions that deserve international recognition, technical support, and climate finance.

GAIA calls on the COP31 Presidency and climate finance institutions to:

1. Keep the incineration industry out of climate policymaking. Establish safeguards against conflicts of interest and prevent companies with vested interests in waste burning from shaping the zero waste agenda.
2. Reject incineration as a zero waste or climate solution. Ensure that COP31 commitments prioritize waste prevention, reuse, separate collection, recycling, and organic waste management.
3. Exclude incineration from climate finance. Establish explicit safeguards preventing the Global Zero Waste and Methane Fund and other climate finance mechanisms from supporting waste burning, including refuse-derived fuels and co-incineration.
4. Put communities, waste pickers and a just transition at the center. Guarantee meaningful participation, protect workers’ rights and livelihoods, and invest in inclusive zero waste systems that improve working conditions, provide social protection, and strengthen local economies.
5. Invest in proven, community-led solutions. Direct international climate finance towards zero waste systems that reduce emissions, improve public health, create dignified livelihoods, and support local governments, waste picker organizations, and communities.

As the Global Week of Action to Stop Incineration brings together communities resisting waste burning across the world, their message to COP31 is clear:

The climate crisis cannot be solved by burning more waste.

Climate finance must not fuel incineration. Climate policy must not be shaped by the industries that profit from it. And a just transition must not leave behind the workers and communities who are already building the solutions we need.

Incinerators Out of COP31. Zero Waste In.

Frequently asked questions Why does GAIA want incinerators kept out of COP31?

Waste-burning industry groups, including CEWEP and Kanadevia Inova, are listed in COP31’s official side events on circular cities, waste and climate finance. GAIA argues that an industry that profits from burning waste shouldn’t shape the zero waste agenda.

Is waste-to-energy a clean or renewable energy source?

No. Burning waste releases its carbon, and waste-to-energy produces about 1.7 times more greenhouse gas per unit of electricity than coal. It also destroys materials that could be reused, recycled or composted.

Why shouldn’t climate finance pay for incinerators?

Incinerators rely on long contracts and guaranteed waste volumes that lock cities in for decades and compete with recycling and composting. Swapping methane from organic waste for fossil carbon from burning plastic isn’t a credible path to zero waste.

What is GAIA asking the COP31 Presidency to do?

Keep the incineration industry out of climate policymaking, reject incineration as a climate or zero waste solution, exclude it from climate finance, put communities and waste pickers at the center, and invest in proven, community-led zero waste solutions.

What are the alternatives to incineration?

Waste prevention, reuse, separate collection, composting, recycling and the inclusion of waste pickers. More than 550 municipalities worldwide are already moving towards zero waste.

Related resources

• Global Week of Action to Stop Incineration
• Waste-Burning 101: What Is Waste-to-Energy?
• The High Cost of Waste Incineration
• Lee esta declaración en español

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The post Incinerators Out of COP31: The Climate Crisis Cannot Be Solved by Burning Waste first appeared on GAIA.

Declaración de GAIA | Semana Mundial de Acción contra la Incineración | Octubre de 2026 · Read in English

Mientras comunidades de todo el mundo se movilizan contra la incineración de residuos, la Alianza Global para Alternativas a la Incineración (GAIA) alerta sobre la presencia de la industria de la incineración en la COP31, la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático que tendrá lugar este noviembre en Antalya, Turquía.

En un momento en que la Presidencia de la COP31 ha situado la basura cero entre sus prioridades, se espera que representantes de la industria de la incineración participen en debates sobre ciudades circulares, gestión de residuos y financiación climática.

Entre ellos se encuentran CEWEP, la asociación europea que representa los intereses de la industria de la valorización energética de residuos y que promueve activamente la incineración como solución climática y energética, y Kanadevia Inova, uno de los principales proveedores de tecnología de incineración con recuperación de energía. Ambas organizaciones figuran en el programa oficial de eventos paralelos de la COP31. CEWEP ya ha promovido anteriormente la incineración en conferencias climáticas de la ONU, incluida la COP30. Por su parte, la participación de Kanadevia Inova en el proyecto de incineración propuesto para Smokey Mountain, en Manila, junto con su socio local Philippine Ecology Systems Corp. (PhilEco), ha suscitado graves preocupaciones entre organizaciones de derechos humanos, organizaciones ambientales y residentes de la zona, como documenta el informe de GAIA The Smokey Mountain Waste-to-Energy Project: Arrested Development and Environmental Justice in Urban Manila.

Existe una contradicción fundamental en esta participación: una industria cuyo modelo de negocio depende de quemar residuos pretende influir en los debates sobre prevención de residuos, acción climática y transición hacia sistemas sostenibles de gestión de residuos.

La agenda mundial de basura cero no puede convertirse en una oportunidad para maquillar de verde la incineración, legitimar infraestructuras contaminantes o desviar la financiación climática de las verdaderas soluciones que protegen a las comunidades, apoyan una transición justa para las personas trabajadoras del sector de residuos y generan beneficios climáticos reales.

Datos clave

• La incineración con recuperación de energía emite unas 1,7 veces más gases de efecto invernadero por unidad de electricidad que las centrales de carbón.
• Las incineradoras de Europa podrían quemar casi 65 millones de toneladas más de residuos al año de las que procesan actualmente.
• La investigación Clearing the Air de GAIA registró partículas finas entre 5 y 8 veces por encima de las guías de la OMS cerca de instalaciones en Indonesia, Nigeria y Filipinas.
• El proyecto propuesto en Smokey Mountain (Manila): 26.000 millones de pesos filipinos y 100 MW, para quemar unas 3.000 toneladas de residuos al día.
• Más de 550 municipios de todo el mundo avanzan hacia la basura cero.

La quema de residuos agrava la crisis climática

La incineración con recuperación de energía suele presentarse como una fuente de energía limpia o renovable. Sin embargo, quemar residuos no hace desaparecer las emisiones de carbono.

La incineración de residuos con recuperación de energía genera aproximadamente 1,7 veces más emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero por unidad de electricidad producida que las centrales eléctricas de carbón. Los plásticos, fabricados principalmente a partir de combustibles fósiles, contribuyen significativamente a estas emisiones.

La incineración también destruye materiales que podrían reutilizarse, reciclarse o compostarse, lo que genera emisiones adicionales asociadas a la extracción de materias primas y la fabricación de nuevos productos para sustituirlos.

Lejos de impulsar una economía circular, la incineración perpetúa un modelo lineal de extracción, consumo y destrucción.

Una industria costosa que condena a las ciudades a seguir quemando residuos

Las incineradoras se encuentran entre las instalaciones de gestión de residuos que requieren mayores inversiones de capital. Sus modelos financieros suelen depender de contratos a largo plazo, subvenciones públicas y volúmenes garantizados de residuos.

Estos acuerdos pueden comprometer a los municipios a seguir quemando residuos durante décadas, incluso cuando intentan reducir su generación, ampliar el reciclaje e introducir la recogida separada de residuos orgánicos.

Las consecuencias financieras son especialmente graves para las ciudades del Sur Global, donde los escasos recursos públicos se necesitan urgentemente para servicios básicos de gestión de residuos, infraestructuras comunitarias y adaptación al cambio climático.

Mientras tanto, Europa ya se enfrenta a un problema de sobrecapacidad. Según la última actualización del informe Enough is Enough de Zero Waste Europe, la infraestructura de incineración existente tiene capacidad para quemar casi 65 millones de toneladas adicionales de residuos al año respecto a los volúmenes que procesa actualmente.

A pesar de ello, las empresas incineradoras siguen promoviendo y exportando este mismo modelo de infraestructura a otros países.

¿Por qué deberían los países que afrontan desafíos urgentes de desarrollo y acción climática invertir en infraestructuras que otras regiones ya han construido en exceso?

Las comunidades pagan las consecuencias

Detrás de las promesas de energía limpia e infraestructuras modernas de la industria de la incineración hay comunidades que sufren contaminación, cargas financieras y amenazas a sus medios de vida.

La publicación de GAIA Burn Book: Incinerators that Threaten the Climate, Public Health, and our Finances muestra cómo estas preocupaciones se repiten en distintos países y regiones.

En Delhi, India, las comunidades que viven alrededor de la planta de incineración con recuperación de energía de Timarpur-Okhla han expresado su preocupación por la contaminación atmosférica y la proximidad de la instalación a zonas residenciales.

En Adís Abeba, Etiopía, la planta de incineración con recuperación de energía de Reppie ilustra los riesgos de priorizar grandes infraestructuras centralizadas de quema de residuos en ciudades donde el reciclaje, la recuperación de residuos orgánicos y los servicios inclusivos de gestión de residuos necesitan inversión.

En Surabaya, Indonesia, el monitoreo comunitario de la calidad del aire cerca de instalaciones de quema de residuos ha documentado graves problemas de contaminación. La investigación de GAIA Clearing the Air, que abarca instalaciones en Indonesia, Nigeria y Filipinas, registró niveles de partículas finas entre cinco y ocho veces superiores a los valores recomendados por la Organización Mundial de la Salud.

Y en Manila, Filipinas, el proyecto de incineración con recuperación de energía propuesto para Smokey Mountain constituye una clara advertencia sobre las implicaciones de la expansión de la incineración para la justicia ambiental.

El proyecto propuesto, valorado en 26.000 millones de pesos filipinos, con una capacidad de 100 MW y diseñado para procesar aproximadamente 3.000 toneladas de residuos al día, amenaza con transformar una zona marcada por una larga historia de injusticia ambiental en un nuevo emplazamiento de quema industrial de residuos.

La investigación de GAIA sobre el proyecto de Smokey Mountain documenta preocupaciones relacionadas con posibles desplazamientos de población, consultas comunitarias insuficientes, riesgos ambientales y amenazas a los medios de vida de las personas recicladoras de base. Kanadevia Inova ha sido identificada como socio tecnológico del proyecto.

Estos ejemplos ponen de manifiesto un patrón más amplio: se pide a comunidades que ya soportan las consecuencias de la contaminación por residuos que acepten nuevas infraestructuras que pueden profundizar las desigualdades existentes, mientras las empresas que promueven estos proyectos se presentan como proveedoras de soluciones climáticas.

La incineración también amenaza los medios de vida de las personas recicladoras de base, que desempeñan un papel fundamental en la recuperación de materiales y el sostenimiento de las economías locales del reciclaje. Al quemar materiales reciclables valiosos, las incineradoras pueden desplazar a estas personas trabajadoras y debilitar los sistemas de recuperación existentes. Una transición justa debe reconocer sus contribuciones, proteger sus derechos y medios de vida, y fortalecer su papel en la construcción de sistemas inclusivos de basura cero.

La financiación climática no debe subvencionar falsas soluciones

En la COP31, la participación de CEWEP en un evento dedicado al Fondo Mundial de Basura Cero y Metano (Global Zero Waste and Methane Fund) plantea preocupaciones especialmente graves.

Reducir las emisiones de metano del sector de residuos es una necesidad urgente. Pero sustituir las emisiones de metano procedentes de los residuos orgánicos por emisiones de carbono fósil derivadas de la quema de plásticos no constituye una vía creíble hacia un futuro de basura cero.

La financiación climática debe apoyar la prevención de residuos, la recogida separada, el compostaje, la digestión anaerobia cuando resulte apropiada, el reciclaje y la inclusión de las personas recicladoras de base.

No debe utilizarse para financiar infraestructuras que queman materiales recuperables, generan obligaciones financieras a largo plazo y compiten con los mismos sistemas necesarios para alcanzar la basura cero.

La presencia de representantes de la industria en los debates sobre políticas climáticas también plantea cuestiones importantes sobre los conflictos de intereses, la transparencia y qué conocimientos y experiencias reciben prioridad.

Las empresas y asociaciones que se benefician económicamente de la expansión de la incineración no deben gozar de una influencia privilegiada sobre las políticas y los mecanismos de financiación destinados a acelerar la transición hacia sistemas de gestión de residuos no contaminantes.

Las verdaderas soluciones ya existen

En todo el mundo, las organizaciones miembro de GAIA trabajan con municipios, personas recicladoras de base y comunidades para demostrar que existen alternativas prácticas a la incineración.

Más de 550 municipios de todo el mundo están avanzando hacia la basura cero, demostrando que la prevención de residuos, la recuperación de materiales, la gestión de residuos orgánicos y la protección de los medios de vida pueden constituir la base de una acción climática local eficaz.

Estos enfoques reducen las emisiones de metano, previenen la contaminación, conservan los recursos y apoyan una transición justa mediante el reconocimiento de las personas recicladoras de base, la mejora de las condiciones laborales y la creación de oportunidades de trabajo digno.

Estas son las soluciones que merecen reconocimiento internacional, apoyo técnico y financiación climática.

GAIA hace un llamamiento a la Presidencia de la COP31 y a las instituciones de financiación climática para que:

1. Mantengan a la industria de la incineración fuera de la formulación de políticas climáticas. Establezcan salvaguardas frente a los conflictos de intereses e impidan que las empresas con intereses económicos en la quema de residuos influyan en la agenda de basura cero.

2. Rechacen la incineración como solución climática o de basura cero. Garanticen que los compromisos de la COP31 den prioridad a la prevención de residuos, la reutilización, la recogida separada, el reciclaje y la gestión de residuos orgánicos.

3. Excluyan la incineración de la financiación climática. Establezcan salvaguardas explícitas para impedir que el Fondo Mundial de Basura Cero y Metano y otros mecanismos de financiación climática apoyen la quema de residuos, incluidos los combustibles derivados de residuos y la coincineración.

4. Sitúen a las comunidades, las personas recicladoras de base y la transición justa en el centro de las decisiones. Garanticen una participación efectiva, protejan los derechos y los medios de vida de las personas trabajadoras e inviertan en sistemas inclusivos de basura cero que mejoren las condiciones laborales, proporcionen protección social y fortalezcan las economías locales.

5. Inviertan en soluciones probadas y lideradas por las comunidades. Orienten la financiación climática internacional hacia sistemas de basura cero que reduzcan las emisiones, mejoren la salud pública, generen medios de vida dignos y apoyen a los gobiernos locales, las organizaciones de personas recicladoras de base y las comunidades.

Mientras la Semana Mundial de Acción contra la Incineración reúne a comunidades de todo el mundo que se oponen a la quema de residuos, su mensaje a la COP31 es claro:

La crisis climática no se resuelve quemando más residuos.

La financiación climática no debe alimentar la incineración. Las políticas climáticas no deben estar determinadas por las industrias que se benefician de ella. Y una transición justa no puede dejar atrás a las personas trabajadoras y las comunidades que ya están construyendo las soluciones que necesitamos.

¡Fuera las incineradoras de la COP31! ¡Sí a la basura cero!

Preguntas frecuentes ¿Por qué GAIA pide sacar a las incineradoras de la COP31?

Representantes de la industria, como CEWEP y Kanadevia Inova, figuran en el programa oficial de eventos paralelos de la COP31 sobre ciudades circulares, residuos y financiación climática. Una industria que se beneficia de quemar residuos no debería definir la agenda de basura cero.

¿La incineración con recuperación de energía es limpia o renovable?

No. Quemar residuos libera su carbono y genera unas 1,7 veces más emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero por unidad de electricidad que el carbón. Además, destruye materiales que podrían reutilizarse, reciclarse o compostarse.

¿Por qué la financiación climática no debe apoyar la incineración?

Las incineradoras dependen de contratos largos y volúmenes garantizados de residuos que atan a las ciudades durante décadas y compiten con el reciclaje y el compostaje. Sustituir el metano de los residuos orgánicos por carbono fósil de la quema de plásticos no es un camino creíble hacia la basura cero.

¿Qué le pide GAIA a la Presidencia de la COP31?

Mantener a la industria de la incineración fuera de las políticas climáticas, rechazarla como solución climática o de basura cero, excluirla de la financiación climática, poner a las comunidades y a las personas recicladoras de base en el centro, e invertir en soluciones de basura cero lideradas por las comunidades.

¿Qué alternativas hay a la incineración?

La prevención de residuos, la reutilización, la recogida separada, el compostaje, el reciclaje y la inclusión de las personas recicladoras de base. Más de 550 municipios de todo el mundo ya avanzan hacia la basura cero.

Recursos relacionados

• Semana Mundial de Acción contra la Incineración
• Incineración
• Clima
• Read this statement in English

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The post Fuera las incineradoras de la COP 31: la crisis climática no se resuelve quemando residuos first appeared on GAIA.

It’s the second-most used material on Earth, it’s an environmental disaster, and it’s falling apart all around us. Meet concrete, the subject of a new feature-length documentary by John Wilson, a filmmaker with a knack for finding laugh-out-loud absurdity in the mundane.

The History of Concrete stitches together quick cuts of handheld footage and deadpan narration in the same style as How To with John Wilson, the HBO show that made the filmmaker’s career. As in his episodes on “how to make small talk” and “how to put up scaffolding,” the titular subject of the film isn’t really the point. Instead, Wilson uses the theme of concrete as a kind of connective tissue, taking the viewer on a sprawling exploration of the overlooked corners of our world. Concrete’s pervasiveness allows this film to venture anywhere — a family-run mortuary that specializes in tattoo preservation, a patriotic brick-laying competition in Las Vegas, and a 3,100-mile spiritual race in which runners circle a single block in Queens for weeks on end.

It would be a stretch to call the documentary a climate film. (In fact, it’s explicitly styled like a Hallmark movie.) But with each turn of the lens, Wilson sheds light on an unfolding environmental disaster. After all, he points out, concrete is the third biggest contributor to global warming. And although concrete is an indispensable part of modern life, its short, crumbling lifespan makes it a hazard on an increasingly disaster-prone planet. (Reader beware, there are more grim facts about concrete — and spoilers —  ahead.)

Wilson’s fascination with concrete started when the basement of his apartment building in Queens began intermittently flooding. He tried to patch the repair himself with a store-bought concrete mix, but the leak kept coming back. His frustration is widely shared: As climate change intensifies storms and raises sea levels, New Yorkers are dealing with more extreme rainfall and coastal flooding than ever before. The abundance of concrete worsens flooding by preventing stormwater from seeping into the soil and, when it cracks, fails to block the water from filling subway stations and buildings for dozens of days a year.

More on concrete A new solution for flood-prone cities? Concrete made from shellfish waste. Ayurella Horn-Muller

Wilson goes on to discover our concrete-smothered world is full of hazards, owing to the material’s surprisingly short lifespan. Structures like the Brooklyn Promenade, which makes up the upper most deck of a four-layered expressway, aren’t supposed to last more than 40 years according to Sam Schwartz, a former New York City traffic commissioner who Wilson interviews. Today, the 1,800-foot-long artery is covered in patch jobs. Schwartz tells Wilson that a mass catastrophe could be just a few years away.

With these facts in mind, any city starts to look like a morass of potential disasters. It’s no wonder that Wilson spent at least a year filming the cracks around New York. Some places, such as a public swimming pool sanitation facility that is inundated with leaks, are given a few minutes of screentime. Others, including the architecturally famous Spring Street Salt Shed, which is patched with packing tape, and a 10-year-old skyscraper in midtown Manhattan that may already need to be demolished, are presented in a quick, jaw-dropping montage. As Wilson says, it feels as though “we’re all in danger somehow.”  

Perversely, climate change is making this problem even worse. Studies show that extreme weather hastens the deterioration of concrete structures around the world. And while Wilson doesn’t say this, it’s worth noting that even structurally sound concrete is a hazard as the planet warms. The material creates an “urban heat island” effect that can cause local air temperatures to rise as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit, turning the pavement into a scalding 140 degrees F griddle and killing hundreds of people in places like Arizona every year.

More on urban heat Report: 41 million Americans are simmering on urban heat islands Katie Myers

But, as a contractor tells Wilson, “We’d be up a creek without concrete. It is used for everything.” Places like New York require vast amounts of the material to build new housing and maintain urban areas. Unfortunately, sand — the key ingredient in concrete — is vanishing as coastlines erode and humans use up some 50 billion tons of the stuff per year. While most people remain blissfully unaware, Wilson says, experts have been trying to warn us of an impending global sand shortage. 

Near the end of the film, Wilson takes a peak at a concrete recycling plant, one of the few existing solutions to these problems. These facilities exist to stop debris from demolitions going to landfills, and, ideally, to make newly usable material with fewer emissions. But the one that Wilson found near Brooklyn’s marine terminal was also filling nearby neighborhoods with dangerous amounts of airborne dust, prompting protests and the plant’s eventual closure in 2025.

For now, our dependency on concrete seems as intractable as its pitfalls. “Once you’re used to something, it becomes hard to change your lifestyle without external pressure,” Wilson says.

I was already aware of the environmental costs of concrete when I first moved to New York City as an early-career climate reporter, but I wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like to be surrounded by so much of it. I found myself questioning the commonly cited statistic that urban lifestyles have a smaller carbon footprint than suburban ones. After all, these studies generally account for the energy and materials residents consume directly, while leaving out the emissions embodied in the buildings, sewers, and other parts of the built-up environment that make city life possible.

Although my own back-of-the-envelope calculations support the idea that living here is probably the greener choice, I still rush through my commutes to spend less time amid the chaos. But walking out of the Manhattan theater where I saw The History of Concrete, my gray surroundings came into sharper focus — almost like the film had never stopped. There’s a kind of poetry in Wilson’s work: the banal becomes beautiful, the bizarre becomes delightful, and the heartbreaks become unguardedly funny. His curiosity, bordering at times on voyeurism, is an invitation to join him in the simple act of paying attention.

And so I noticed the toddler lying on her belly outside of the gum-plastered entrance to the subway station. A dumpling food truck, seemingly stuck in a pothole. Groups of women in ballgowns rushing past, their long skirts dragging into puddles — all of it part of a concrete world worth noticing.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The world is crumbling in ‘The History of Concrete’ on Oct 19, 2026.

 As billions of birds embark on their southbound journeys to their non-breeding grounds, they will encounter numerous challenges along the way. After all, migration season is statistically the...

An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.

In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.

One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.

The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion. 

Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17

Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.

Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a  non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place. 

But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?

Money going to the wrong places

The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.  

Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.

• Oct 14, 2026 News Global deforestation slowed in 2025 but Brazil’s election could undo “fragile” gains Countries remain 70% off track to meet a goal to end deforestation by 2030, as progress in Latin America offset by failures in Africa Read more
• Sep 29, 2026 Nature Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone Brazil’s environment minister said the Tropical Forest Forever Facility has raised billions in record time – which he hopes will convince more investors Read more

In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energy directives, degrading primary forest ecosystems and undermining long-term climate resilience. Pleading with private investors to fill a “finance gap” while pouring billions into ecological destruction is an exercise in futility.

Developing countries struggle with debt burden

For developing countries, reliance on private finance is further compounded by a crushing sovereign debt crisis. In 2024, public debt in developing economies reached record levels, with net interest payments alone absorbing $921 billion. A record 61 developing countries now spend more than 10% of government revenue on foreign debt service, with many climate-vulnerable nations spending twice as much servicing external debt as they receive in climate and biodiversity finance combined.

This burden acts as a structural driver of ecosystem destruction. Under pressure from external creditors and international financial institutions to avoid default and secure foreign exchange, governments are routinely forced into austerity measures and pushed to expand raw commodity exports into pristine biomes. 

Comment: World Bank and IMF should lead the financial system in responding to the climate crisis

The current negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) also offer a way forward. An estimated $492 billion in tax revenue is lost every year to offshore tax havens. Multinational corporations account for around $348 billion of this total by shifting profits away from the countries where real economic extraction and environmental degradation occur.

In the mining sector alone, developing nations lose tens of billions annually to corporate tax dodging. Furthermore, international financial secrecy shields environmental criminals, with illicit financial flows from illegal logging draining between $51 billion and $152 billion annually.

At COP17, leaders must seize the opportunity to build a bridge between the two conventions and enhance cooperation. Governments must put the world on a firm path to securing predictable, sufficient, sovereign public finance for biodiversity conservation. It’s the only path to a restorative, rights-based future for people and the planet.

The post Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity appeared first on Climate Home News.

Well that was fun. In last week's welcome bit of comic relief, we got the vapid rise and rapid fall - despite requisite blonde hair, faux smile and passing resemblance to Ivanka - of "manifestly unqualified" Barbie News Reader and fake Chinese lawyer Katie Zacharia after a brutal debut. So much for MAGA meritocracy. SAD! Zacharia set a new speed record - half a Mooch - in a job akin to Spinal Tap drummer. But the question remains: When will the incompetent male dolts get fired?

While by far not the most substantive Trump blunder, it was one of the most cringeworthy, exposing (again) the profound ineptitude of his shambolic rule just before voters go to the polls to render judgment on it. In less than a week, Zacharia managed to get plucked from right-wing obscurity, be "shoehorned" into a job far beyond her skillset, humiliate herself before millions, go on Fox and stammeringly fail to redeem herself, and get fired by a capricious, perennial loser who got famous fake-firing people on TV and now daily exposes his own clownish unfitness for his job. One astute observer: "I'm starting to think this Donald guy might not have any idea what he's doing."

Born Kate Sharon Black in 1984, Zacharia grew up in California in the "liberal cesspool” of Cambria; she was the conservative “black sheep” of her family "thanks to the great, late Rush Limbaugh, who raised me as a kid on the radio." Describing a clash with woke patrons of her "cardio kickboxing gym," she said the owner once asked her not to wear her "Trump 2024" hat but "I would never take my Trump hat off to appease the left." A Pizzagate, Qanon and Stop the Steal buff, she was a "huge fan of ICE and Border Patrol" who briefly worked for Kristi Noem and a commentator for right-wing TV before being spotted by Trump, maybe because she scheduled her gigs when she thought he'd be watching. Totally normal.

Officials looking to replace Karoline Leavitt had reportedly narrowed down the list of candidates "only to find that (they'd) said something negative about (Trump)," which of course wouldn't do for the fragile toddler. Thus did uber-obsequious, ringlet-bottle-blonde "lizard person" Zacharia take to the podium, blare "Good morning!!" in a sing-songy screech, and stumble through a smiley, halting, inflection-challenged briefing about Trump's "historic one-day war," "attendance at record highs as enthusiastic hardworking Americans are lining up and packing arenas," a "booming economy....and a, um, he, great relationship...with Venezuela...um, and...my president, excuse me, my husband, that's a good one..." Not.

After the one question on Ukraine, and the famous, “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” it was over. 14 minutes, or forever in bimbo time. It got worse. The oft-repeated claims of being a lawyer when she’d failed the bar - weirdly, thanks Hannity - and of working in China on “international transaction law” when she was basically a paid intern. The verdict: "A train wreck," "a joke hire," "talk about a public execution," "between the 3rd-grade level reading and the fake attorney in China thing, brutal." Anti-DEI,.scandal-plagued Rick Santorum's glowing review: She was "not even close to the worst." Trump's lazy excuse: "I told her, 'If I were you, I'd reconsider.'" Fox: She's "transitioning" out of the job she held for 14 minutes.

It was a made-for-the-Internet spectacle. The White House declared, "She’ll be remembered as one of the all-time greats." America proclaimed, "She's gonna be a punchline for a very long time." Democratic strategist Mike Nellis clarified, "She wasn't fired because she lied,” a Trump requisite, but because "she was a bad liar." Another requisite: Michael Steele mused no more "blonde white female pronouncing his noise in a way that makes him feel good.” Some selfishly mourned the loss: "Please let her last long enough to hold a second briefing - I need the joy." Some empathized with SNL writers stuck with Friday night rewrites. Some were shocked: "I can't believe her husband, I mean president, fired her."

Though no press secretary really matters because Trump daily lies, veers, makes things up, some speculated on the next one: Scott Jennings, Katie Miller, Melissa McCarthy doing Sean Spicer. The Borowitz Report announced it's George Santos, who was "thrilled...I will bring to this job my experience not only as a lawyer but as a doctor and astronaut.” Also, he was cutting short his reunion tour "with his fellow Beatles." Some noted Zacharia "was press secretary longer than she was a lawyer." Others asserted they'd had blueberries, bananas, takeout and lettuce in their fridge longer than she had her job. Also that the U.K's Liz Truss lasted longer, as did the head of lettuce that often competed with her.

Some mulled Zacharia's future: "Next: memoir and book tour," "Now she can go back to studying for the bar, or at least its cocktail menu," "She is leaving 'to spend more time with my children, who will teach me how to read.'" A guy met her years ago on a cruise ship: She was telling a friend she'd partied the night before and slept in. They told her she'd missed them crossing the equator that morning. She said, "Oh, what did it look like?" Some waxed lyrical: "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives." Some lamented inflation: "I remember when you could get a few months of work out of a press secretary. Now they're like those new batteries - they look like they'll last but whoosh and they're gone."

In honor of her historic reign, Wikipedia’s “List Of Humorous Units Of Measurement” was updated to include the “Zacharia,” a “fractional unit of a Scaramucci,” the previous record for Anthony Scaramucci's 11 days as press secretary in Trump's first term. The change prompted heated debate, pained mathematical equations, admiration: "Nobody thought anything could go faster than the speed of Mooch, but here we are." There were questions - Are Mooches a metric system? Would that be 45 centi-Mooches? - and answers: "They convert at a 5/11 ratio." Talk turned existential: "A Scaramucci was a measure of time. A Zacharia is more ethereal, a measure of being, a disconnect between one’s story and one's purpose...Beautiful really."

And there was anger Zacharia got fired but Trump's still here, that the media and GOP have let him "get away with LYING ABOUT EVERY GODDAMNED THING...from 2015 SPOUTING THAT OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE SHIT AND EVERY OTHER FUCKING LIE HE’S TOLD SINCE." And, in the last few months, that half of eight female officials have resigned or been fired, all replaced by men. That consistently inept, unhinged, corrupt, sick idiots like Hegseth, Patel, Lutnick, Goebbels, Vance etc lie, cheat, rave, royally screw up yet keep their jobs. What the fuck. Meanwhile Zacharia, still sketchy, posts altered photos from the Oval Office and declares the guy who threw her under the bus "kind, wonderful, gracious, thoughtful, enthusiastic and hard-working...No one will ever make America great the way he has and continues to." Damn, we hope not.

Helpful Press Secretary conversion table.Image from Bluesky

The extractivists of the Foreign Office Channel News brendan 19th October 2026 Teaser Media

Plan to expand the big battery built at the site of what was once the country's most polluting coal plant go ahead after gaining key licence and reaching financial close.

The post Expansion of first coal country big battery reaches financial close as key licence awarded appeared first on Renew Economy.

When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico’s electricity grid in 2017, communities went without power for months. They turned to rooftop solar, battery storage, and microgrids to ready their homes and businesses with low cost, local energy supply....

Back by request! CELDF is hosting Part 3 of People's Assemblies & The Revolutionary Potential of Grassroots Power on Nov 10 at 6:00 PM ET. Registration required.

The post PART 3 TRAINING NOV 10 AT 6PM ET: People’s Assemblies and The Revolutionary Potential of Grassroots Power appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Andrew Forrest's iron ore miner says a demo plant in Brisbane that strips arsenic from copper is doing so at a fraction of the energy used in other processes.

The post Fortescue claims technology breakthrough to unlock potential of copper key to green energy transition appeared first on Renew Economy.

Queensland LNP's first major energy tender in a long time - for fossil gas generators - attracts 10 bidders with four short-listed.

The post Queensland LNP gets excited as it shortlists companies competing in its first energy tender – for fossil gas appeared first on Renew Economy.

South Korea unveils a $A1.1 trillion energy transition strategy, aimed at expanding renewables and transforming the country’s heavy industry, and the opportunities for Australia are huge.

The post South Korea unveils trillion-dollar green energy transition plan, and the opportunities are huge for Australia appeared first on Renew Economy.

The Premier has announced that the NSW Government intends to introduce laws to allow the Mount Pleasant mine to increase its annual production by nearly a third. 

State to introduce bill allowing mine at centre of High Court ruling to continue with its planned expansion, increasing its annual production limit to 16.5 million tonnes.

The post Coal lobby applauds, Greens horrified as premier promises to protect mine from High Court ruling appeared first on Renew Economy.