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Just a day after MPs voted against taxing fossil fuel profits in the 2027 budget, TotalEnergies is today reporting obscene profits. Civil society stands united to denounce this handout to oil companies while a large share of French households are struggling to make ends meet. This morning, 350.org, Action Justice Climat Paris, Attac France and Extinction Rebellion – Carnage Total staged a visual action near the National Assembly to say loud and clear that yesterday’s vote does not settle the debate. Taxing fossil fuel profits remains an urgent priority.

Today, TotalEnergies reported a net income of $8.2 billion for the third quarter of 2026 (opens in a new tab), up 124% year on year. Since January, the multinational has raked in $19.5 billion in profits, nearly twice as much as over the same period in 2025, without these windfall gains being subject to any additional tax whatsoever.

350.org has criticised TotalEnergies for using household affordability as leverage against taxation while pursuing a strategy of expanding oil and gas production and increasing shareholder payouts.

Against a backdrop of energy price volatility and escalating climate impacts, the figures raise urgent questions about who benefits from fossil fuel markets and who pays when prices rise. While households face higher costs and governments are left to fund public support, essential services and climate recovery, fossil fuel companies retain considerable control over production decisions and the distribution of their profits.

Joined by feminist organisations, students, trade unions and yellow vest activists, 350.org calls on political leaders to tax profits of fossil fuel companies without delay, in order to free up resources to fund public services, speed up the ecological transition and support households facing the rising cost of living. Yet every amendment to this effect was rejected by MPs yesterday in the vote on the 2027 budget for France.

Fanny Petitbon, France Manager, 350.org

“Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets across France this month because they can no longer afford to live. Their anger is rooted in our dependence on fossil fuels. Every time oil and gas prices spike, households pay more at the pump and on their bills. And every time, TotalEnergies cashes in.

“In a year of war, price shocks and social anger, TotalEnergies is making a fortune and doesn’t even pretend to be embarrassed about it. It claims to support households with affordability while threatening to withdraw fuel discounts if it is taxed, expanding fossil fuel production and promising shareholders ever-bigger payouts. When prices rise, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts and governments are expected to pick up the bill.

“Yet the government still refuses to tax TotalEnergies’ soaring profits, and yesterday MPs rejected every amendment that would have done so in the 2027 Finance Bill. That vote was a missed opportunity, not the end of the fight. Political leaders must make polluters pay, so that those profiting from the crisis help protect people and fund a fair transition to affordable, renewable energy.”

Rukiya Khamis, East Africa Programme Manager, 350.org

“TotalEnergies’ years of impunity while driving human rights and climate violations across Africa must end. To add insult to injury, Total continues to announce record profits while frontline communities face an escalating climate and social crisis. France must take a strong stance by taxing Total’s super profits, creating a precedent for every region where the company operates. Big polluters like Total must be held accountable and pay for the harm they inflict on people and the planet.”

Photos from the action are available here (opens in a new tab).

In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”. 

The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.

The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.

• Oct 23, 2026 News Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31 Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak Read more
• Oct 28, 2026 News Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash Read more

To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.

Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).    

The same on the surface 

Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.

Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause. 

But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.

Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.

Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes, including food systems, urban resilience and nature. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.

COP30 roadmaps off the cuff

Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised. 

With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.

Saudi Arabia raises a point of order during the closing plenary at COP30 in Belem, Brazil on November 22, 2025 (Photo: IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis) Saudi Arabia raises a point of order during the closing plenary at COP30 in Belem, Brazil on November 22, 2025 (Photo: IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis)

Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.

“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan. 

COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives

This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.

Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.

COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’

None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight. 

UNFCCC reform process in the shadows 

Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.

Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed. 

Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.  

Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation

The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.

A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.

In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye. 

The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.

It starts with a single drop of rain. Where does it go once it falls from a cloud? For students in Moss Point, the answer is close to home: it ends up in their bayous and rivers, right where they can...

The acquisition of Trench Group will help GE Vernova capitalize on rising electricity demand, company executives said.

Listening to Our Communities, Moving Toward Cleaner Water Heating sf-sarah Thu, 2026-10-29 10:34

Across the Bay Area contractors, labor, clean air advocates, and local governments have been preparing for a clean water heater transition. On November 4th, the Bay Area Air District will vote on proposed amendments to Rule 9-6 to provide exemptions for financial hardship and challenging installations, ensuring an equitable transition for all. We are ready, and the time is now!
 

By Tracy Flor Figueroa

At community events across the Bay Area, I’ve joined conversations about building electrification, decarbonization, and what cleaner water heating would mean for our homes. As an organizer, these conversations are essential to my work. They also make clear that supporting cleaner air and having questions about the transition go hand in hand.

    “How much will this cost me?” 
    “What if I have space constraints?”
    “Why am I getting such different installation estimates from contractors?”

These are practical questions from people balancing household budgets when affordability is a challenge. Along with navigating home repairs and trying to make informed decisions. They deserve clear answers and policies that recognize their circumstances.

The proposed amendments to the Bay Area District’s Rule 9-6, released October 2, offer important changes to how the region would move toward cleaner water heating. As Board members prepare to vote on November 4, three provisions deserve attention. 

Financial Flexibility for qualifying homeowners. The proposal would allow exemptions for property owners who meet specified income or housing-cost criteria. These provisions recognize that the financial burden of replacing a water heater varies by household. They would offer qualifying owners an alternative, although they would not directly fund installations or resolve differences in contractor pricing.

Options for homes with specific installation challenges. The amendments would provide one-time exemptions for certain spaces, ventilation, ceiling height, or electrical constraints. Not every small space would qualify, but these provisions acknowledge that homes differ and that some installations present substantial obstacles.

A temporary replacement when residents need hot water. With an exemption certificate, a licensed contractor could install a temporary gas water heater while arranging a permanent replacement that meets the standards. Generally, that temporary unit would need to be removed within 12 months unless another exemption allows it to remain. This would give households time to plan a permanent installation while maintaining access to hot water.

The rule does not aim to evict functioning appliances, but rather to require replacement when the appliance reaches the end of its life. The proposed dates apply to newly manufactured equipment covered by the standards; they are not deadlines to replace the working water heater already in your home. That distinction matters. Residents need accurate information about what the rule would require, when it would apply, and what options would be available. 

This transition is not starting from scratch. Community choice energy providers, contractors, local governments, and community organizations have spent years building the foundation for cleaner water heating. Through outreach, education, and preparation, that work is already underway.

A clear standard can give those efforts direction and drive effective change as the market shifts and new technologies and standards roll out. The proposed exemptions and additional preparation time can help address real barriers while preserving the goal of reducing air pollution in our homes. Continued work on affordability, reliable installation information, and accessible assistance will remain essential.

On November 4, Bay Area Air District Board members need to hear from the communities this decision will affect. Join us in person to support clean-air standards and a practical, equitable transition. You can give pubic comment or simply attend to show your support. Online participation is also welcome.

RSVP FOR THE NOVEMBER 4 AIR DISTRICT MEETING
 

Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World is critical reading for anyone seeking to understand and push back against the far-right coalitions wielding considerable state and corporate power around the world.

Klein and Taylor posit that today’s fascists believe that end times have arrived, and have made it their mission to profit from cascading global crises, while hunkering down and protecting themselves as the world burns around them.

The book details three factions of end times fascists, united by their shared apocalypticism. The religious fundamentalists believe end times are upon us, but they will be saved by their messiah. The Silicon Valley technologists are building technologies they say could be world-ending, that in the meantime are killing jobs, consuming vast resources, and polluting communities. The ethno-nationalists espouse conspiratorial ideas about cultural replacement and treat immigration as an existential threat.

DeSmog Canada editor/reporter Mary Stuart spoke with Astra Taylor about how climate change fits into end times fascism, the importance of AI data centre fights, and how we can understand Canadian Prime Minister Carney’s neoliberal moves in response to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Taylor is a writer, documentarian, and activist. She co-founded the Debt Collective, a membership-based union for debtors, and is the author of several books, including The Age of Insecurity and Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It is Gone.

This interview was conducted by phone and has been edited for length and clarity.

Mary Stuart: I want to start by asking how your book can help us understand some recent elections. Jair Bolsonaro’s son Flávio won the first round of voting in Brazil’s election and nearly became president. The far-right AfD recently won in Saxony-Anhalt. How do these wins fit into your analysis of end times fascism?

Astra Taylor: One phenomena we describe in End Times Fascism relevant here is the role of Pentecostal religious communities in turning out the vote. To paraphrase reporting from Brazil, a voter said “my heart’s with Lula, but my pastor told me to vote for Flávio”.

The incredibly difficult conditions that we’re living under created fertile terrain for prophecy and religion, for kinds of pentecostalism, a faith that is focused on prosperity, individual advancement and banking on the idea that life is suffering here on earth, but you will be rewarded in the afterlife.

There’s also interference from Tech oligarchs. We don’t know the half of it at this moment, but the way the platform [Meta] refused to run ads for Lula’s party and beyond is certainly a factor. And the Trump regime [is playing a role] as well.

AfD is a similar. Naomi and I wrote a piece in the Financial Times and we open with the images that went viral this summer of the Danube River drying, and Nazi warships emerging. Hundreds of Nazi warships sank during WWII, and as the river receded, this paraphernalia was coming out of the mud. We thought it was a powerful metaphor for today. What’s really striking is the riverbed— the fact that it’s drying because of climate change. Our point is that fascism always emerges from crises. And we cannot separate the ecological and economic crises people are facing.

People are really struggling with affordability. People are feeling that they don’t have a future. And actually quite strikingly, rates of immigration are quite low, right? So [Saxony-Anhalt is] one of the places with the least immigration, but [the AfD] step in and say “the problem is the immigrants, it’s not a larger economic system.” This is a classic fascist move that we describe throughout the book.

MS: What role do climate change and climate denial play in end times fascism?

AT: Naomi and I are insistent that the planet is a player in our politics. Fascism always surges in moments of crisis.

We are in a world that is being roiled by disasters and shocks. We’ve reached a point where the consequences [of climate change] are undeniable. You cannot deny a heat dome when you’re inside it. You cannot deny a hurricane when it’s blowing the roof off your house. Of course, you can still deny why the storm is coming. You can embrace a Marjorie Taylor Greene perspective and say that it’s due to space lasers or you can say “the climate has always changed, this is nothing new, we don’t know if it’s human causing it.”

The far-right is adapting to circumstances … where ecological catastrophes are the norm, people can’t pay their property insurance bills anymore because the rates have been jacked up or because the insurers have pulled out, or where people have to pay the cost of fixing their homes or moving because of disasters.

The far-right is having to acknowledge that there are fires, there are storms, that people are suffering. They’re responding by deflecting, by saying, “don’t blame the fossil fuel companies and the politicians who take their money, blame the globalists in the EU and their climate policies, or blame the immigrants”.

We saw this really vividly after Hurricane Helene, a tropical storm that hit Appalachia. Trump and Elon Musk were going around saying “FEMA has no money for you because the Democrats spent it on immigrants.” So they use the hurricane to advance the Great Replacement Conspiracy. It’s an amazing pivot to go from a storm destroying tens of thousands of houses to say, “the problem is the globalists are importing immigrants to replace you”. But it’s working.

People have been warning for many years about ecofascism being the consequence of climate change. Ecofascism is the consequence of decades of denial, not just from the far-right, but by liberals who insisted that we could address this crisis through market policies that were doomed to fail.

It’s absolutely criminally irresponsible to not talk about climate change right now because that will create a vacuum for this pivot from the real arsonists to the immigrant victims. And we need to insist on robust climate policies. Not just renewables. It’s investments in care work and in all sorts of low carbon important initiatives. It needs to be at the centre of our politics.

There was a time when liberals could think people will stop denying climate change when they experience it firsthand. We’re seeing that is not true. People in that state of vulnerability and shock are more susceptible to strongmen and scapegoating, and we need to be right there with a different plan and a different story.

MS: In the book you talk about a number of site fights and bright spots, one of them being the AI data centre backlash. What is the importance of AI data centre fights in defeating end times fascism? Can these fights be sites of expansion for movements to touch on other issues as well?

AT: The data centre fight is an amazing opportunity to weave together all of these issues that we know are interconnected. People aren’t fighting data centres in their backyard for just one reason. They are fighting them because they care about their air and water, because they don’t want a future where all the jobs are gone and every bit of economically valuable work, as OpenAI calls it, is performed by robots. It’s also a democracy fight. These data centres are coming in under the cover of non-disclosure agreements, often with little input from even the city council and no input from the community.

But it’s more than that. There’s such intensive capital expenditure, like borrowing on capital markets right now. That’s part of why interest rates are being jacked up around the world, which increases the cost of borrowing for ordinary people. Rates are going up, it’s making homes more unaffordable. The fact that the population is buried by debt is a huge part of what drove Flávio Bolsonaro’s surge in recent months.

All of these factors are compounding, and so it would be foolish for environmentalists not to intervene and try to connect those those dots. The data centre fight has to be connected to affordability.

MS: In Canada, our Prime Minister Mark Carney is a former investment banker who Naomi recently referred to as the ‘paragon of liberalism’. He’s privatizing key pieces of Canadian infrastructure, doubling down on fossil fuels, other extractive projects, and AI, while using the language of standing up to Trump. His approval ratings are incredibly high. How are we to understand this?

AT: Naomi might call him a paragon of liberalism. I call him Sir banks a lot. I don’t trust bankers, especially those who are committed to the kind of neoliberalism and financialization that he’s proposing.

It’s dangerous to say “peer into the window, asset managers of the world. Canada has lots of resources that you can purchase and we have a healthcare system that can still be privatized and higher education system that still has some public funding that we could siphon off to the private sector.”

These are the policies and conditions that created fertile terrain for the far-right. Carney does not seem to have learned that lesson. It was striking when he gave that speech at Davos, about there being a rupture. The world was so ready for Canada to lead, and to project onto that speech that he was actually standing up for true universalism and for international law.

Instead he’s doing this nostalgic hyper-nationalist neoliberalism that isn’t really nationalist, because it was reported by the the Toronto Star that the amount of money going to [the] American tech sector from the Department of National Defense has doubled in the last year. He’s spending Canadian money to enrich the very companies that are behind Trump. You cannot fight oligarchy with oligarchy. You definitely can’t fight fascism with oligarchy. You fight it with solidarity and with democratic socialism, with addressing the root crises.

People want to believe that this figure can protect them when the truth is protection is in building collective power and insisting on a deep economic and political transformation. What he’s doing is incredibly dangerous. And the fact that he’s rolling back already weak climate policies when Canada’s main export is wildfire smoke, is just incredibly insulting and incredibly dangerous. The world needs Canada to stand firm against fascism.

MS: You talk about the power of stories, and detail the stories that the end times fascists are telling. What’s a counter story that’s been missing?

AT: In the book we talk about how we need to tell stories not of end times but of better times. We are entering a period where there are going to be roiling crises. We need to figure out how to live together well under these conditions.

I think we need stories that just remind us of how critical this fight is and that ground us in a love of this world. Naomi and I want stories that connect people to that, that remind people that we do live in a planetary paradise. It’s worth defending.

Ultimately, the organizer in me says we need more than stories. I think it’s incumbent on all of us to try to find a political home, to face the fact that fascism is not something that we can fight alone, we can only fight it together. If there’s not something for you to join, where you live, then start something … It takes not just stories, but actions, however imperfect, however small, however inadequate, but when we all take them, it adds up.

End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World can be ordered in Canada, the U.S. And UK.

The post How the Far-Right Uses Climate Disasters to Build Political Power appeared first on DeSmog.

High above downtown Hazard, Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Church sits on a hillside overlooking the community it has served for more than a century. The church’s location tells a story of resilience. After the catastrophic flood of 1927 devastated much of the city below, Catholic leaders chose high ground, establishing a home for the parish dedicated to serving Eastern Kentucky. 

This summer, the church made another decision to further its resiliency into the future. 

A rooftop covered in 142 new solar panels is dramatically lowering energy costs at Mother of Good Counsel, to the tune of $12,500 per year. These savings will support its community partnerships and outreach programs largely centered around food ministry, whether it’s stocking their weekly emergency food pantry, providing fresh food deliveries for local families, or sustaining Christmas gifts for children in need. 

The project reflects the same spirit that has guided the parish for generations: caring wisely for both people and resources so that its mission can endure for years to come.  

A History of Service in Hazard 

In 1913, there was no Catholic church in Perry County. A small number of Catholic families, many of them stone masons who had come to the mountains to build coal mines, gathered in homes for Mass when Father James Massa traveled from Letcher County once a month to minister to them.  

After the historic flood of 1927, Bishop Francis Howard purchased a small five-room cottage on a hill overlooking downtown Hazard. The cottage became Saint Mary Chapel, serving as both a church and a priest’s residence. In the years that followed, parishioners purchased additional land and, despite the economic hardships of the Great Depression, worked toward building a permanent church. In 1939, Mother of Good Counsel was dedicated, named for Mary under the title Mater Boni Consilii, or “Mother of Good Counsel.”  

Benedictine Sisters who arrived in Hazard in 1947 helped establish Mount Mary Hospital on the campus, improving access to healthcare across the region. They also launched a kindergarten program that eventually became Mother of Good Counsel School. The parish later supported religious education programs, hospice care, community outreach efforts, and the Little Flower Free Clinic, which continues serving residents today and has spun off outside of the church. 

In 2000, Mother of Good Counsel began hosting a popular annual International Dinner and in 2019 a beloved pig roast fundraiser that draws people from across the region. Today, volunteers operate an emergency food pantry on Thursdays and Fridays, sponsor Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares through North Fork Local Food, and partner with other nonprofits to expand assistance efforts. They also provide Christmas gifts for about 35 children through the Ready to Work program. 

Stewardship for the Next Generation 

For Mother of Good Counsel, stewardship is woven into the parish’s history and in the wider Catholic practice in the region. As the Appalachian bishops wrote in their landmark 1975 pastoral letter, “The land is the Appalachian people’s basic resource and should be held in trust for future generations.” 

Just as earlier generations invested in hospitals, schools, healthcare ministries, and social outreach programs, today’s parish leaders are investing in the long-term sustainability of the region’s small Catholic churches. Following Pope Francis’ 2015 call in Laudato Si’ to care for our earth, together, the Diocese of Lexington and churches across the region began looking for ways to reduce energy use in the churches.

“Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis called the Church to respond to the environmental crisis with urgent and decisive action,” said Josh Van Cleef, Director of the Office of Peace and Justice for the Diocese of Lexington. “His encyclical letter on caring for God’s creation, Laudato Si’, states ‘technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels needs to be progressively replaced without delay.’ Reinforcing the call of his predecessor, more recently Pope Leo XIV has stated, ‘Now is the time to follow words with deeds.’ Catholic communities across the diocese, like Mother of Good Counsel, are responding to this call with concrete, faith-filled action. “

Mountain Association’s Role

Through a partnership with the Mountain Association’s Energy and Lending Teams, we are working with the Diocese and churches across Eastern Kentucky help identify opportunities to lower operating expenses and provide low-interest financing as needed through our solar loans. 

At Mother of Good Counsel, our team provided technical assistance and facilitated the solar energy installation this summer, completed by Appalachian EnergyWorks based out of the Red River Gorge. 

“When organizations lower their energy costs, they create more room in their budgets for the work that matters most: serving their community,” said Josh Bills, Mountain Association Senior Energy Analyst. 

Before the solar installation, the church’s electric bill had risen to approximately $1,600 a month. After the system was installed, the parish’s first bill dropped to about $70. The solar array is expected to save approximately $12,500 annually.

Energy use at Mother of Good Counsel before and after solar

“Solar takes some of the burden off local parishes to raise money,” said Lori Helfrich, the Mother of Good Counsel parish life director. “There’s always something that needs attention, whether it’s maintenance projects, building repairs, or supporting ministries. These savings make it much easier to keep up with those needs while continuing to serve the community.” 

For more than 100 years, Mother of Good Counsel has adapted while remaining rooted in its founding values. From worship services in living rooms to healthcare initiatives, educational programs, food ministries, and now renewable energy, the parish continues to find new ways to serve. 

The post Stewardship in the Mountains: How Solar Savings Support Mother of Good Counsel’s Mission  appeared first on Mountain Association.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the wildest places left in America, a vast landscape of mountains, rivers, wetlands, and tundra that sustains caribou, polar bears, migratory birds, and the Indigenous communities whose lives and cultures are deeply connected to this land. 

But this winter, that landscape could face a familiar and deeply damaging threat: seismic exploration. 

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA), a state-owned agency, could move forward this winter with plans to search for oil beneath the Refuge’s coastal plain. We expect AIDEA to seek federal authorization for seismic testing this winter, potentially bringing heavy equipment back onto a landscape that has been recovering from earlier exploration for decades. The permitting process would likely include an application for an Incidental Harassment Authorization (IHA), which would allow certain otherwise prohibited disturbances to marine mammals, including polar bears, subject to specified conditions. 

The stakes are enormous. Seismic testing threatens the fragile tundra itself, but the potential disturbance of polar bears during their denning season makes this proposal especially alarming. In a warming Arctic where these animals already face mounting pressure, the Refuge should be a place where they can raise their young safely rather than butting up against another industrial frontier. 

The scars of seismic testing are still visible 

Seismic exploration is often described as a preliminary step toward oil development. In practice, it brings an industrial footprint into one of the most ecologically sensitive landscapes in the country. 

To map underground geological formations, seismic crews move heavy vehicles across the tundra in carefully planned grids. Modern three-dimensional seismic surveys can involve massive “thumper trucks,” bulldozers, fuel trucks, support vehicles, and mobile camps. Thumper trucks use heavy plates to send vibrations into the ground, with the returning signals collected by sensors to help create an image of what lies beneath the surface. 

The machinery may only operate during winter, but the damage does not necessarily disappear when the snow melts. 

We know this because seismic exploration has happened in the Arctic Refuge before. During the winters of 1984 and 1985, crews conducted two-dimensional seismic surveys across the coastal plain. The resulting vehicle trails and disturbed vegetation left marks on the tundra, some that have stuck around for decades. Some tracks remain visible today, long after the machinery that created them has disappeared. 

Arctic tundra is exceptionally vulnerable to this kind of disturbance. Its vegetation, soils, and underlying permafrost are closely connected, and damage to the surface can alter drainage, accelerate thawing, and change the conditions that plants need to grow. Recovery is slow, particularly in a region where the growing season is short and temperatures remain low for much of the year. 

Research examining the landscape impacts of seismic surveys in the Arctic Refuge has documented the persistence of these disturbances. Even when crews operate in winter, frozen ground and snow do not guarantee that the landscape will be protected. 

And the proposed exploration would use a more intensive approach than the older surveys. Three-dimensional seismic testing requires a denser network of survey lines to produce a more detailed picture of underground geology. More passes across the landscape mean more opportunities to damage vegetation and soils, while modern equipment can be substantially heavier than that used in earlier exploration. 

The Refuge is still living with the consequences of the last round of seismic testing. We cannot assume it will recover quickly—or fully—from another. 

AIDEA wants to bring the trucks back 

The renewed threat comes as Alaska doubles down on its push to open the Arctic Refuge to oil development, even as major oil companies have shown limited interest in pursuing the opportunity. 

In July 2025, AIDEA issued a request for proposals seeking support for a multiyear seismic exploration program in the Refuge’s coastal plain. In May 2026, its board approved a budget of up to $175 million for the effort, including permitting and regulatory work. 

AIDEA has been moving through the preparatory stages of the project, and we expect an application for seismic operations as the winter season approaches. Federal authorizations will be required before the proposed work can proceed. The exact timing and scope of any operations will depend on the applications submitted and the decisions made by the responsible agencies. 

This is a significant escalation. AIDEA is using public resources to pursue oil exploration in a place where the industry itself has repeatedly failed to demonstrate strong commercial interest. The agency is betting that better geological data could attract future investment, but the environmental risks begin long before a single barrel of oil is produced. 

Seismic exploration is not the final stage of oil development. It is a step toward making future drilling possible. The data gathered could help companies identify promising locations, setting the stage for additional industrial activity in a landscape that has so far avoided the extensive infrastructure found elsewhere on Alaska’s North Slope. 

The question is whether that speculative promise is worth risking lasting damage to a globally important wildlife refuge. 

Polar bears could face a dangerous winter 

The damage to tundra is reason enough to oppose seismic exploration. But the threat to polar bears makes the prospect of this winter’s operations even more troubling. 

The Arctic Refuge’s coastal plain is important habitat for the Southern Beaufort Sea population of polar bears, including females that come ashore to build maternity dens and give birth. As sea ice changes and becomes less reliable, land-based denning habitat has become increasingly important for some bears. 

A den may be buried beneath snow, making it difficult to detect from the surface. Inside, a mother bear gives birth to her cubs and cares for them during the vulnerable first months of their lives. The den provides shelter from extreme weather and a protected space where newborn cubs can survive before emerging into the Arctic. 

Heavy machinery moving across this landscape creates a frightening set of risks. Vehicles could pass near or over hidden dens, potentially causing physical damage or disturbing mothers and cubs. Even when a den is not directly struck, noise and activity may disrupt the animals at a critical point in their life cycle. 

Finding dens is also difficult. Infrared surveys and other detection methods can help identify potential denning sites, but they are not foolproof. A failure to detect a den does not mean a den is absent. 

That is why the prospect of an Incidental Harassment Authorization is so concerning. 

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, an IHA can authorize certain incidental, nonlethal harassment of marine mammals associated with specified activities, provided the legal requirements are met. It is not a blanket exemption from wildlife protections, and it does not automatically authorize seismic testing. But if an IHA is sought for this project, it could establish a framework under which certain disturbances to polar bears are permitted. 

For bears sheltering in dens, the consequences of getting those protections wrong could be devastating. A mother disturbed while caring for newborn cubs may face circumstances that threaten their survival. And once a den has been missed or a disturbance has occurred, the harm cannot necessarily be undone by changing the route of a vehicle or ending operations. 

We should not treat the potential disturbance of denning polar bears as an acceptable side effect of oil exploration. The burden should be on the agencies and project proponents to demonstrate that wildlife and their habitat will be adequately protected—not on the animals to survive another industrial incursion. 

Photo: Dave Shreffler The public stopped this before 

This is not the first time seismic exploration has threatened the Arctic Refuge. 

In 2021, a previous effort to secure authorization for seismic testing failed to obtain the necessary federal approvals before the relevant window closed. The proposal drew extraordinary public attention, including more than five million comments during the federal review process addressing potential impacts to polar bears. 

That response demonstrated something powerful: people across the country understand that the Arctic Refuge matters, even if they have never set foot on its tundra. They understand that this landscape is irreplaceable, that polar bears deserve a chance to raise their cubs undisturbed, and that the consequences of industrial development extend far beyond the boundaries of a single project. 

Now, the threat could be returning. 

As we approach another winter, the public must be ready to respond to new applications and opportunities to weigh in. Federal agencies must carefully scrutinize any proposed operations, examine the cumulative impacts on the Refuge, and ensure that the best available science informs decisions about wildlife and habitat. Any proposed authorization involving polar bears requires particular scrutiny because of the difficulty of locating dens and the potentially severe consequences of disturbance. 

The future of the Arctic Refuge should not be determined by a state agency’s willingness to spend public money searching for oil that the industry itself has been reluctant to pursue. 

Alaska Wilderness League will continue fighting to keep seismic exploration out of the Arctic Refuge. We cannot allow decades-old scars to become the beginning of a new cycle of destruction, and we cannot accept the risk of disturbing polar bear mothers and cubs for the sake of oil exploration. 

The Arctic Refuge is worth protecting. This winter, we must make sure it is. 

This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Naama Blonder to talk about the book she wrote (with Misha Bereznyak), “Building Charm: A Hyper Practical Guide to Developing Outstanding New Neighborhoods.” We chat about the book’s focus on human scale and how it radically rethinks street design.

This is not for the faint of heart.

Now, you know the Talking Headways drill:

• Listen to the podcast by clicking on the player below.
• Read the full transcript by clicking here.
• Or read an edited excerpt below the player to get the gist.

Edited segment:

Jeff Wood: This is a transportation book, and this is a radical book, and you guys buried the lede with the book cover and the title being about “charm.”

But really it’s about rethinking the functional classification system of roads and basically the street hierarchies to form a place that is more people-oriented. And this blew my mind because I’ve been in this space for 20 years. I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about transit-oriented development over many, many years. And I’ve just never quite put my finger on, like you have, why the neighborhoods that we are building now can’t quite match up to the places that everybody loves. And your thinking about buildings and stuff is great.

But it comes down to the basic foundations of the street, and I found that fascinating. I was kinda yelling at the book, “This is amazing. This is something different. This is something we don’t hear about a lot.”

Naama Blonder: OK, here’s the truth. First of all, it’s our first book. Not a day goes by with me not thinking, “Was it the right title?” …. We wanted to make this book bigger and greater and we wanted the title of the book to be the prize.

What is the prize of the book? We first named the book, “Dense and Charming.” I did English as my second language, and I didn’t know that “dense” means an idiot or stupid. And then someone told us, “Uh, I don’t think that’s a good title.” And I was like, “What are you talking about? That’s a great title, ‘Dense and Charming.'” And he’s like, “No, ‘dense’ means ‘stupid.'” And I was like, “Oh, OK. So maybe I do need to change the title.” We wanted the title to be the prize with it, with this, like the outcome, a, a positive result.

And when you say it’s about streets, I agree with you, because at the end of the day, I also need to translate this to clients. What does it actually mean? And it means that I need to go to your municipal team and tell them that their engineering standards need to be revised. And today’s standards are that the most intimate residential street is 20 meters wide. That’s very wide. We don’t need that width for our most-intimate residential streets.

So a lot of it comes down to that. It’s not just about streets, but it is how we overly accommodated car convenience over people. And I think we have five decades that we need to correct now because we inherited that, and we have not questioned the status quo.

Jeff Wood: I didn’t mean to like rag on the book because I do think there is something to be said about the wording that you can get into more people’s heads. But if you’re thinking at it from my perspective — deep in the weeds — there’s something to be said about how this is a radical transportation book. Ultimately what you’re doing is breaking down what “human scale” means in a building format, and putting that into a plan.

But it is going to be hard because of all the things that you mentioned: Service access, car access, the size of streets, etc. One of the interesting things that you talked about in here is, like, trying to get pedestrian-oriented streets, and then saying, “Well, maybe you don’t have to have them on all streets. You could just say that they’re the open space, and then make them the walkable street that you want them to be because then you don’t have to deal with all the standards.”

So you’re pushing back against something that’s very deeply ingrained, but it needs to be pushed back against because we can’t just focus on these two-ton vehicles that take up 250 square feet of space for one person. A people-orientation is what makes these neighborhoods charming. It’s what makes you love going to old parts of a city. I live in San Francisco in the center part of the city. My house was built in 1892. It was before cars even existed. And I love it. It’s amazing, and it creates those social ties that you talk about in the book.

I know my shopkeepers. I know the people around me. I know all of my neighbors. I know goes on on my street, and I think that’s kind of the thing that we, as a profession, are missing out of our designs is, like, creating that people-oriented center, and it starts with the street grid or the street network as you all have imagined it.

Naama Blonder: Thank you. Was there a question?

Jeff Wood: This is a conversation

Naama Blonder: I’m kidding, but, you know, I did receive one email that says, “Your book is wonderful, each and every part of it, but the transportation part of it where you are not radical enough.” Listen, we call this hyper-practical — not practical, but the hyper-practical. We wanted this to be something implementable. We’re not talking about the day when we live car-free or self-driving cars will be around. No, we want you to have a tool to design with it.

In the book, we are proposing a system of streets, the service streets and the people streets, and we’re saying right now we’re treating a new development. There’s this term complete streets, which is another term for let’s have everything under one street, the car, and the parking, and the bike lane, and the transit, and the sidewalk.

And here, you end up with just something between 38 and 45 meter right of way, which is again 135 feet, right? Let’s just put or load everything that we need on every street. And let’s have a hierarchy of streets. In our plans, we use the through street, the mews or the car-light street, and the pedestrian street.

And even the car-light street we design it much narrower than most standards require. And yes, I have only positive experience with municipalities when I approach them. Did I work with every municipality in North America? No, but the ones that I have worked with were very positively accepting what we are trying to do, and agree to work with us, because the standards are a recommendation.

They’re a starting point. They’re not the zoning necessarily that you need to change. With that, we are trying to offer a menu of streets. Yes, we accommodating the car. Yes, there are services. Yes, you need an Amazon delivery. Yes, you need fire safety, and you need emergency, and you need, here, not in San Francisco, you need snowplowing machines and we, we accommodate all of that.

But right now, we are overly accommodating that with, a lot of asphalt. And, uh, going back to why focusing on charm, when we are spending so much land on asphalt, we’re not using the land for the things that we need, which is more housing right now.

A thorn in the side and a hole in the pocket for Alaska. 

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, also known as AIDEA, is a public corporation of the State of Alaska housed as a political subdivision within the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development (DCCED). Founded in 1967 by the Alaska State Legislature, AIDEA’s statutes guide the agency “to promote, develop, and advance economic growth and diversification in Alaska by providing various means of financing and investment.”  

But in the 59 years since its inception, AIDEA has become like no other state economic development agency. Instead of acting in an advisory role, as a strategic facilitator, or providing market-based investment, AIDEA has deviated from its original purpose by choosing to directly invest in capital intensive, risky, and politically contentious projects. If you’ve heard of the Ambler Road and oil & gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge , you should know AIDEA’s the chief culprit.  

AIDEA’s not just using state money to prop up the oil, gas, and mining industries; it’s costing the state billions of dollars in the process. AIDEA may pay a dividend to the state every year, but set at just $17 million for fiscal year 2027 with AIDEA’s asset base totaling $1.7 billion, it begs the question of whether the state might have better uses for AIDEA’s money.  

As our schools fall apart, class sizes breach 40 students, energy costs skyrocket, and the Alaska Marine Highway System flounders, Alaskans should wonder if the best use of AIDEA’s money is building new mining roads when the state can’t maintain its current road system, and purchasing oil leases in the Arctic Refuge which all other major oil and gas companies withdrew from.  

To “serve at the pleasure of the governor.” 

So how does AIDEA get away with wasting state money, with no legislative oversight, and all while ignoring the public?  

The answer lies in AIDEA’s unique statutes, which give AIDEA “separate and independent legal existence” from the state. AIDEA has used these statutes to justify their choices to invest millions of dollars of state money without legislative oversight or approval. However, legal review has confirmed that AIDEA is indeed a public corporation, and one that is subject to the Alaska Constitution and the legislative appropriations process.  

AIDEA’s governing board also helps the agency get away with its costly decisions. Consisting of seven members, AIDEA makes its investment decisions by the directive of the board. Both the commissioner of revenue and the commissioner of commerce, community, and economic development serve on the board. The other five members are members of the public appointed by the governor. Each public member serves “at the pleasure of the governor” in statute. Each commissioner is a member of the governor’s cabinet. You can see how AIDEA has become a slush fund for the current administration.  

Not only does the board cater to the governor’s wishes, it lacks any real transparency and repeatedly ignores the public. Board meetings happen monthly, with an agenda posted approximately a week before they happen. Public comment opportunities are noticed, but it is common for the board to change timing last minute. At the AIDEA board meeting in September in Kotzebue, Alaska, public commenters were sent away so the board could go into an “emergency” executive session. This is unfortunately common for the agency as they spend the majority of board meetings in executive session.  

The continued saga of AIDEA & the Arctic Refuge 

By now, AIDEA has been involved in lease sales in the Arctic Refuge for 5 years. The 2017 Tax Act mandated two lease sales in the Coastal Plain area in the Refuge within 10 years. The first occurred on January 6, 2021, in which AIDEA was the primary bidder. The only industry interest the first lease sale garnered was later withdrawn.  

Later that year, the new administration’s Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland suspended AIDEA’s leases on the grounds that there was insufficient environmental review. This decision was upheld in U.S. District Court. In 2023, Secretary Haaland cancelled the remaining oil and gas leases.  

This was not the end of the saga. Both AIDEA and the State of Alaska brought forward legal challenges regarding the canceled oil and gas leases. While these cases remained active, DOI held a second lease sale in the Refuge, receiving no bids. Eventually, in March of 2025, the District Court ruled that Biden-era lease cancellations were unlawful.  

Enter the next Trump administration and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. This prompted the Bureau of Land Management to reinstate the Coastal Plain Oil & Gas Leasing Program and restore canceled leases to AIDEA in October of 2025.  

Now, AIDEA is actively pursuing a seismic exploration program in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge. They approved themselves to spend $190 million to send massive “thumper” trucks across the tundra. Only the first step towards drilling, this seismic exploration harms wildlife, ecosystems, and the people that rely on them. AWL continues to defend against development in the Refuge by fighting AIDEA’s seismic push.  

AIDEA & the Ambler Road 

AIDEA is also behind the financing of the Ambler Road, a 211-mile mining road south of the Brooks Range, connecting the Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District in northwest Alaska. The road is not only a massive threat to the land, waters, and livelihoods of the Alaska Native Tribes of the region, but it also has an exorbitant price tag. The road is likely to cost the State of Alaska more than $2 billion.  

Despite this steep price tag, AIDEA continues to pursue a project that many local communities and Alaska Native Tribes oppose. Enough is enough.  

The tide is turning 

AIDEA under the Dunleavy Administration is coming to an end. Alaska’s next governor might support AIDEA’s current trajectory of risky investments in extractive megaprojects, or one who might appoint an entirely new board. In either post-election day scenario, AIDEA will still serve “at the pleasure of the governor.”  

AIDEA’s investments, particularly over the last eight years, show us that the agency needs more oversight, from both the legislature and the people of Alaska. The purpose of the authority is to promote the prosperity and economic welfare of Alaskans. It’s time for AIDEA to fulfill this promise and stop wasting state money on poor investments in extractive mega projects.  

The Trump administration is attempting to authorize data centers on public lands before anyone has determined whether federal law allows it. In a new Westwise blog post, CWP Communications Director Kate Groetzinger explains that data centers aren’t on the list of uses the Federal Land Policy and Management Act authorizes through rights-of-way, so BLM would have to rely on a catch-all provision in the law for facilities “in the public interest.”

BLM’s first approval, near Boulder City, Nevada, reused a 2023 solar right-of-way with no new environmental review or public comment period. In September, an Interior department administrative judge froze the project, finding that BLM “acted arbitrarily or capriciously when it determined that the data center project is ‘substantially the same’ as the solar plant project for purposes of its NEPA analysis.” Groetzinger argues that the Interior department should pause approvals until a public review settles whether data centers belong on public lands at all.

BLM spent years on programmatic planning for wind and solar before approving projects at scale. Data centers have undergone no such review process and have not received congressional authorization, yet BLM is currently considering authorizing a data center in Idaho. CWP has identified at least 17 active data center proposals on BLM land across six Western states.

Trump hasn’t been advancing new wind farms during permitting talks

As lawmakers negotiate a permitting deal, the White House has promoted its progress in clearing a backlog of wind projects stalled in airspace reviews. Every project advanced so far is a repowering of an existing wind farm, and two were single turbines, Heatmap reported. Politico reported in September that the administration committed to approving about 30 projects awaiting a Pentagon countersignature. In an October 20 court filing, wind trade groups said none of those 30 had cleared Pentagon review. “To date, the administration has moved forward only a handful of the total number of projects they agreed to approve,” said Frank Macchiarola, American Clean Power’s chief advocacy officer. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has warned that attacks on wind projects could undermine a final deal.

Quick hits Opinion: Grand County’s future depends on keeping public lands public

Moab Times-Independent

How much are Trump’s pro-coal policies costing us?

Canary Media

What will BAAJA do? Whatever the Trump administration wants

Earthjustice

New Mexico students walk out of classes to protest data centers, permitting bill

Source NM

North Dakota’s federal oil and gas leasing, and what it has cost taxpayers

Taxpayers for Common Sense

Editorial: Hands off public lands

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Big Bend is going to the Supreme Court

National Park History

Hegseth says Trump’s arch will be ‘generational national defense opportunity’

Washington Post | Politico

Quote of the day

You, the adults, the ones supposed to be fighting for us, you may get the privilege of dying of old age, but our children will die from climate change.”

—Isabelle Taylor-Ault, high school student at New Mexico School for the Arts, Source NM

Picture This @whitesandsnps

They say “take only pictures, leave only footprints” – and, boy, do we have a lot of footprints!

Eventually though, all are wiped away by the wind and the dunes start fresh. The renewal of the dunes is one of the most magical things about White Sands National Park. That does mean though, that you should never rely solely on your tracks to get you back to your vehicle! Footprints can get wiped away in a matter of minutes on a windy day, and you’re going to want a man-made object in sight to navigate yourself.

For more information on how to hike smart, please visit our website: https://www.nps.gov/whsa/planyourvisit/safety.htm

Photo credit: NPS

 

Featured photo:The Utah Data Center at Camp Williams in Bluffdale, Utah. Source: ParkerHiggins (Electronic Frontier Foundation)

The post Is the Trump administration illegally authorizing data centers on public land? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Between 2017 and 2022, only Texas and Oklahoma lost more farms than Missouri, which saw 8 percent of its farms disappear during the period of the last national agricultural census.

That continued a 30-year trend of lost farms in the Show Me State, as older farmers retired or died and had few heirs to carry on the family work. During that period, most of Missouri’s rural counties lost population.

Almost all the lost farms were family-run operations, according to the American Farm Bureau. The average age of Missouri farmers in 2022 was 57.9 years, an increase from 57.4 in 2017.

Farm loss and consolidation may reduce the number of farm families and agricultural jobs, which can worsen existing population loss and weaken sales-tax receipts, school enrollment and demand for local businesses, a University of Missouri Extension study showed.

New Madrid, Maries, Howard, Cooper, Scott and Boone suffered the highest percentages of lost farms between 2017 and 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Maries County in Central Missouri lost 16.2 percent of its farms in that period, while New Madrid County in Southeastern Missouri lost 16 percent of its farms.

Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.

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The post Missouri near the top in the number of lost farms appeared first on Checks and Balances Project.

Open access notables

Are Modern Droughts Unprecedented?, Helpap et al., AGU Advances

Global drought variability of past centuries remains poorly understood due to sparse instrumental records and limited paleoclimate reconstructions. Yet, quantifying long-term forced and unforced variability is key for assessing the extremeness of modern (2000–2024) drought events. Here, we combine 20 ensemble members from a 600-year climate simulation (ModE-Sim, 1420–2009) and modern reanalysis data (ERA5-Land, 1950–2024) to place recent droughts in a multi-century context. Drought magnitude and timing are measured using the annual maximum potential cumulative water deficit (PCWD), which integrates atmospheric moisture demand and supply, the daily timing of precipitation events, snow melt, and radiation. We analyze the deviation of modern annual, multi-year mean, and 30-year extreme PCWD from alternative reference periods that sample forced and unforced variability to a variable extent. We find a strong decline in the number of regions with unprecedented modern (2000–2024) single-year and 25-year mean PCWD as the reference is extended into the past and with the additional consideration of unforced atmospheric variability. This is not the case for extreme droughts. 30-year extreme PCWD has increased beyond the range of variability of the last 600 years in over half of all regions globally. This suggests that drought extremes are intensifying more rapidly beyond the range experienced in the past than mean conditions. While individual droughts in the modern era may not appear unprecedented when viewed against a century-long record, the shift in their frequency distribution indicates a rising risk of damaging impacts and an increasing likelihood of droughts reaching unprecedented magnitudes in the near future.

Declining spring production in the Barents Sea ice zone under climate forcing, Zhang et al., Nature Communications

Under anthropogenic forcing, Barents Sea greening and increased annual production are well-documented, yet seasonal differences in production trends are less clear. Here, using satellite ocean color data, we report a 45% decline in spring (April-May) primary production in the nitrate-limited Barents Sea ice zone between 1998 and 2023, corresponding to a reduction of 90.43 mg C m−2 day−1 per decade (p < 0.05). This decline is driven by reduced spring nitrate availability, resulting from slower winter nitrate replenishment rates, increased upstream consumption, and net nitrate export linked to Atlantification. Moreover, a North Atlantic-Arctic atmospheric wave train and reduced freshwater input have deepened the mixed layer, lowering light availability and further limiting production. These findings indicate that continued warming will likely suppress spring production in the Barents Sea ice zone, triggering nutrient-driven cascading effects on Arctic food webs and biodiversity.

Future Decline of Ice-Algal Primary Productivity in the Arctic Ocean: Model Intercomparison, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans

In polar oceans, ice algae grow within and beneath sea ice, supporting marine food web and contributing to the marine carbon cycle. This study compares three sea ice–ocean models developed in Japan, Canada, and Australia to estimate the changes in Arctic ice-algal primary production (ice-PP) from the mid-20th century to the end of the 21st century under a high greenhouse-gas emission scenario. All three models show that ice-PP is high in shelf seas, such as the Chukchi and Laptev Seas, and lowest in the central Arctic Ocean. Two models project an overall ice-PP decline in all Arctic sub-regions, because reductions in sea ice and nutrient availability outweigh the benefits of increased light penetration. However, one model projects a temporary increase in ice-PP in Pacific-side and central Arctic regions during the mid-21st century, when the improved light condition dominates. Additional model experiments demonstrate that inter-model differences are strongly influenced by the representation of light utilization. These results highlight the need for improved observations and experiments to better constrain future Arctic ice algae projections.

Accounting for global carbon dioxide production from human metabolism between 1985 and 2015: a modelling study, Gonzalez et al., The Lancet Planetary Health 

Human activity is a dominant driver of global carbon emissions, yet one universal source–human metabolism–has never been quantified using free-living measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) production at scale. We aimed to describe the contribution of human metabolism to global CO2 emissions between 1985 and 2015. In this modelling study, we used the largest available database of doubly labelled water (DLW) measurements from 1986 to 2019. The other data sources comprised WHO Global Health Observatory, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Non-communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration. We first allometrically modelled human CO2 production (kg per year) using measurements available for 4479 female and 2277 male participants from the International Atomic Energy Agency DLW database to derive predicted estimates of human CO2 production adjusted for differences in body mass and sex. Second, by combining predicted estimates based on allometric scaling of CO2 production for body mass with available population demographic information, generalised additive models were used to describe the 30-year progression of human body mass and per capita and global CO2 production. We used the time-series country-specific measurements from 1985 to 2015 with population-level global human metabolic CO2 production summarised as cumulative sum for the progression analyses. Data were collected between 1986 and 2019. Mean ± SD (range) participant age was 40 ± 26 (0 to 101) and body mass was 63.3 ± 27.8 (2.4 to 101.9). 9006 measurements from 6756 participants (4479 women and 2277 men) from the DLW database were used to derive estimates of human CO2 production adjusted for differences in body mass and sex. We observed that human metabolic CO2 production approximately doubled over a 30-year period, from 1·18 Gt per year to 2·05 Gt per year. This increase was driven mostly by population growth (>60%) with a minor contribution from increases in body mass. Per capita sex differences equalised at the population level, and continental differences reflect population shifts rather than physiological differences, with Asia accounting for the majority of human metabolic CO2 production among all continents. Our findings suggest that human metabolism is a quantitatively important component of the fast carbon cycle and should be accounted for in carbon system modelling to enhance precision and fidelity. With a projected peak global population in the mid-to-late 21st century, metabolic CO2 production will increasingly contribute to global carbon fluxes. Does populist anti-climate rhetoric drive public opposition to climate policy? Testing socio-cultural and economic frames, Bolet et al., Environmental Politics Right-wing populist (RWP) parties increasingly oppose climate policies, framing them as economically costly or imposed by an out-of-touch elite. Yet, little is known about the impact of such rhetoric on individuals or whether counter-frames can mitigate its effects. Using a pre-registered, UK-based survey experiment, we test whether exposure to either of these anti-climate frames influences attitudes and behaviour towards the UK’s ‘net-zero’ goal. We also test whether a counter-frame could alleviate these effects. We find both negative frames reduce support for net zero, with the economic frame showing stronger, more robust effects than the socio-cultural frame, and the counter-frame was ineffective. Still, even among those exposed to the negative economic frame, a majority supported the net zero goal (58%) and related policies (55%). Nonetheless, this study highlights the challenge to climate policy posed by RWP parties and suggests mere promises of compensatory benefits may be insufficient to build popular support. Does climate policy kill jobs? Assessing the gap between the measured and perceived job transition risk in Western Canada, Rhodes et al., Energy Policy Compulsory climate policies, including carbon taxes and regulations, have been framed in terms of threats to employment. The ‘job-killing’ narrative has been particularly strong in Canada, where economic concerns have been tied to the consumer carbon tax, leading to its elimination in April 2025. Using a representative web-based survey of communities with fossil fuel-dependent employment in Western Canada (n?=?1665), our study aims to: (1) introduce and validate an empirical measure of the perceptions gap between perceived and measured job risk from climate policy, (2) identify the socio-economic, political, and regional determinants of the perceptions gap, and (3) assess how measured risk, perceived risk, and the perceptions gap are associated with support for specific climate policies. We find that perceived and measured job risk are positively correlated, but respondents systematically overestimate risk. Perceived job risk is highest in oil- and gas-producing Alberta, Saskatchewan, and northeastern British Columbia. Sectoral emissions intensity is the strongest predictor of perceived risk. The perceptions gap narrows with higher education and trust in scientists, but widens with income insecurity, right-leaning ideology, and especially engagement with climate delay discourses, which has the largest association. Both measured and perceived risk, and the gap between them, reduce support for most climate policies, particularly industry-focused policies. In contrast, perceived risk and the gap are not significantly associated with support for the fossil fuel consumption tax, suggesting industry policies are seen as more direct threats to employment. The study helps support climate-energy communication and decision-making. From this week's government/NGO section:

Protecting Health in the Age of Climate Disinformation: Safeguarding information integrity in the context of climate change and health, Schran et al., WHO Civil Society Working Group on Climate and Health

The authors discuss how climate disinformation directly and indirectly harms human health around the world, from undermining emergency warnings and public-health guidance to delaying policies on air pollution, clean energy and fossil fuels. Case studies highlighted in the report show that climate disinformation interacts with existing inequalities and power structures. The case studies include wildfire misinformation in Canada and Maui, backlash against London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, cascading climate and information risks during floods in South Sudan, fossil fuel greenwashing, development narratives affecting Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia, and attacks on scientists, journalists and environmental defenders. Those trying to provide evidence can also become targets.

The 2026 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: a decade of escalating health harms and a decisive moment for all, Romanello et al., Lancet

The authors found that health effects are escalating faster than climate action with experts calling for climate change to be declared a global health emergency. While progress has been made to deliver real health gains through clean energy investment, health system leadership and health-protecting legislation, these positive signs are not enough to offset the harm from the impacts of fossil-fuel driven climate change. The report represents the work of 146 experts from 71 collaborating institutions, monitoring progress across 54 indicators, including four new indicators introduced this year, providing the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health. 214 articles in 80 journals by 1137 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Atmospheric Adjustments Drive Long-Term Weakening of the Zonal Sea Surface Temperature Gradient in the Tropical Atlantic, Liu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jd046795

Drivers of Compound Marine Heatwaves and Acidity Extremes in the Southern Ocean, Wong et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access 10.1029/2026gb009430

Earth’s east–west albedo symmetry, Zhang et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-026-10624-2

Inter-hemispheric contrast in the sensitivity of polar amplification to sea-ice coverage conditions, Chung et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04185-5

Responses of extreme fire weather to CO2 emission reductions and underlying mechanisms, Kim et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adw4705

The circulation and water mass (trans)formations in the Arctic Mediterranean Sea and their implications for the deep ocean circulation: a narrative, Rudels & Carmack, Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-3287-2026

Towards a theory for Earth’s albedo stability and hemispheric symmetry in the 21st Century, Feldman et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03817-0

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report II: ozone interactions with climate change: drivers and long-term trends, Szopa et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences Open Access 10.1098/rsta.2025.0272

Why was the mid-to-late summer precipitation variability in the Yangtze River abnormally enlarged since late 1990s?, WANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.10.005

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: In silico modelling of radiative efficiencies of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, Atmospheric Environment, 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2024.120839 14 cites.

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Observations of climate change, effects

Are Modern Droughts Unprecedented?, Helpap et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2026av002536

Changes in Climatic Seasons and Climate Comfort in the Tibetan Plateau and Its Eastern Adjacent Regions Under Global Warming, Shang et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70633

Climate Change Impacts on Wind Extremes: What Are the Trends and What Should Wind Engineers Do?, Turner & Wu, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-26-0193.1

Extensive glacier loss in the coterminous United States, Fountain et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2600941123

Late Holocene reexpansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, Young et al., Science 10.1126/science.aed3379

Recent Trends of Utah’s Changing Wintertime Weather and Climate Characteristics, Meyer et al., Journal of Climate 10.1175/jcli-d-25-0543.1

Sharp rise of autumn heat extremes over southern China in a warmer climate, Wang et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109406

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: The fastest-growing and most destructive fires in the US (2001 to 2020), Science, 10.1126/science.adk5737 108 cites.

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Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

Choosing the Right Sea Surface Temperature Datasets: Benchmarking and Guidance for Climate Applications, Chan et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society pdf 10.1175/bams-d-25-0210.1

Inconsistency in assessments of fire frequency and severity dynamics across Canada’s boreal ecosystems, Fu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology Open Access 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111372

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Characterizing heatwaves based on land surface energy budget, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01784-y 22 cites.

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Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

AMOC weakening across latitude and time in CMIP6 future scenarios, Ashton-Key et al., Ocean science Open Access 10.5194/os-22-3245-2026

Circulation Pattern Associated With Record 2025–26 North American Winter May Become More Common, Johnson et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef009943

Does the Evolution of Indian Ocean Acidification Follow CMIP6 Projections Under a High-Emission Scenario?, Ghoshal et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans 10.1029/2026jc024515

Increased southward swings of the South Indian convergence zone under greenhouse warming, Wang et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02767-x

Quantifying Projected Hydroclimate Changes per Degree of Global Warming over the Contiguous United States, Stebbins & McCrary, Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-26-0057.1

Tropical Cyclone Activity in the Vicinity of Hawai‘i in Present and Future Climates, Murray et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0198.1

Two components underlie the mixed-type El Niño: quantification and future projection, Lianyi et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access 10.3389/fclim.2026.1969365

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Historical and Future Asymmetry of ENSO Teleconnections with Extremes, Journal of Climate, 10.1175/jcli-d-23-0619.1 20 cites.

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Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

Does the Beaufort Gyre Freshwater Storage Directly Respond to Changes in Bering Strait Inflow? Insights From NEMO Modeling Experiments, Fu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023782

Emulating absent land processes reduces carbon budgets in CMIP6 models, Liddicoat et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04111-9

Evaluation of Dust Optical Depth in CMIP6 Simulations over the Middle East–North Africa Region, Dayanandan et al., Atmospheric Environment 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122431

Stratospheric aerosol forcing for CMIP7 – Part 2: Volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions, Aubry et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-10155-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Evaluating the phase evolution of CMIP GCMs for agricultural climate-change impact assessments in China, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.110282 6 cites.

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Cryosphere & climate change

Can a simple geoengineering approach restore dwindling Arctic ice?, Irfan, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2630778123

Extensive glacier loss in the coterminous United States, Fountain et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1073/pnas.2600941123

Inter-hemispheric contrast in the sensitivity of polar amplification to sea-ice coverage conditions, Chung et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04185-5

Regime shift in high arctic fjord signals the vulnerability of the Arctic’s Last Ice Area, Bonneau et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-68201-6

What Is the Observed Sensitivity of Arctic Sea Ice?, Rauschenbach et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124943

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Review article: Retrogressive thaw slump characteristics and terminology, The Cryosphere, 10.5194/tc-18-4787-2024 62 cites.

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Sea level & climate change

Enhanced risk to India’s west coast: Bias-corrected high-resolution CMIP6 projections of regional sea level rise, Joseph & Manoj, Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans 10.1016/j.dynatmoce.2026.101696

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry

A transient global warming event during Earth’s penultimate icehouse, Yao et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2601643123

Assessing the MIS 5.3 and MIS 5.1 sea-levels along the Tyrrhenian Sea coast of central Italy: A challenge for ice volume models?, Bulian et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105585

Impact of Ocean Physical Conditions on Oceanic Carbon Pumps and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide at the Last Glacial Maximum, Nishida et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026pa005487

Net Carbon Transfer From Ocean to Land During the Last Deglaciation Synchronous With Sea Level Rise and Lagging Atmospheric CO2 by Several Millennia, Köhler & Mulitza, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123828

Ocean carbon sequestration during glacial climates due to combined Antarctic sea ice expansion and ocean circulation change, Grégorio et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.ady6777

Past abrupt changes in Atlantic Ocean currents controlled the Earth’s energy balance, [authors did not process], Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-02086-y

The Franks Model CO2 Proxy: Do Assimilation Rate Values or Isotopic Corrections Optimize CO2 Reconstruction Accuracy?, Morck et al., Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Open Access 10.1029/2025pa005350

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Artificial intelligence reveals past climate extremes by reconstructing historical records, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-53464-2 27 cites.

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Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Can oxygen supersaturation enhance thermal resilience in marine organisms?, D'Aniello et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108358

Changes in species composition of South Georgia seabirds and mammals 1985–2023: decrease in opportunities for local enhancement?, Monier et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences Open Access pdf 10.1098/rstb.2025.0363

Climatic variability and trends in Sudan’s savannah woodlands: implications for ecosystem resilience, Saeed et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1863836

Declining spring production in the Barents Sea ice zone under climate forcing, Zhang et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-79272-4

Elevated CO2 Increases the Canopy Temperature of Mature Quercus robur (Pedunculate Oak), Brown et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.70565

Environmental stress amplifies midday depression of photosynthesis across global ecosystems, Liu et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111540

Functional restructuring of kelp forest macroinvertebrate communities under tropicalisation, Attlan et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108465

Future Decline of Ice-Algal Primary Productivity in the Arctic Ocean: Model Intercomparison, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jc024067

Has drought limitation on Larix principis-rupprechtii growth expanded to higher altitudes in semiarid northern China?, Yang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111547

How is climate change affecting conifers and their ability to sequester carbon?, Abraham, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02847-0

Marine heat waves in vulnerable coral reef regions are skillfully predictable on multi-year timescales, Karwat et al., Nature Communications Open Access 10.1038/s41467-026-78279-1

Net primary productivity in the Gulf of California: spatio-temporal patterns and drivers in a warming climate (2003–2024), González-Rodríguez et al., Ocean science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-22-3385-2026

Persistent seasonal deoxygenation alters benthic metabolic processes and accelerates hypoxia feedbacks in the Baltic Sea, Alampalli et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04120-8

Putting a time scale on emerging climate change stressors: a Vulnerability Index for Atlantic Ocean marine ecosystem services, Loveridge et al., Global Environmental Change Open Access 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2026.103251

Recovery without resilience? Contrasting benthic recovery trajectories six years after a mass coral bleaching event, Elma et al., Marine Environmental Research Open Access 10.1016/j.marenvres.2026.108223

Shrinking windows: Asymmetric climatic drivers shorten phenological intervals in subtropical plants, Zhang et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111514

The future of tanner’s sumac (Rhus coriaria) in a warming world, Ç?v?a, Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-72862-8

Vegetation increasingly controlled by atmospheric dryness rather than soil moisture, Williams, Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2008jd009930

What Does the Future Hold? Habitat Suitability and Conservation Implications for Rare and Widespread Plant Species Under Climate Change, Lopes et al., Diversity and Distributions Open Access pdf 10.1111/ddi.70252

What’s cooking? The effect of temperature on the immune response, Lied, Journal of Gastrointestinal & Digestive System 10.4172/2161-069x-c1-061

Will the Mediterranean Sea Be a Cul-de-Sac for Marine Gastropods Under Climate Change?, Giannini et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access 10.1002/ece3.73677

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: No Future Growth Enhancement Expected at the Northern Edge for European Beech due to Continued Water Limitation, Global Change Biology, 10.1111/gcb.17546 57 cites.

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GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

A hybrid artificial neural network approach to forecasting CO? emissions in the United States under policy uncertainty and energy consumption, Athari et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-77197-y

Are ghost forest trees a substantial source of methane from reservoirs?, Dittmann et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-4893-2026

Assessment of methane emissions from European countries using satellite and surface observations, Sun et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-14981-2026

Can radon help to improve methane emission estimates? Results from a dual-tracer inversion, Maier et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-14699-2026

Can the Carbon Storage Function of a Degraded Mountain Wet Meadow Be Restored?, Cooper et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jg009823

CH4 emissions from Northern Europe wetlands: compared data assimilation approaches, Monteil et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-25-14251-2025

China’s lake expansion amplified rapid CO2 emissions, Feng et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.aea4657

China’s lakes remain carbon sources: Insights from the balance between intrinsic carbon sequestration and emissions, Wang et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.aed7393

Combined water table and temperature dynamics control CO2 emission estimates from drained peatlands under rewetting and climate change scenarios, Denager et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-441-2026

Constraining African Fire CO2 Emissions During 2015–2016 Using Satellite XCO2 Retrievals, Lv et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025gl117400

Dark CO2 fixation in soils: A meta-analysis of mechanisms and controlling factors, Maree et al., Animal Frontiers Open Access 10.1093/af/vfae050

Development of a parametrised atmospheric NOx chemistry scheme to help quantify fossil fuel CO2 emission estimates, Schooling et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-25-15631-2025

Diel variability affects the inorganic carbon system in the sea-surface microlayer and influences air-sea CO2 flux estimates, Lopéz-Puertas et al., Ocean science Open Access pdf 10.5194/os-21-3471-2025

Drivers of CO2 emissions during the dry phase in Mediterranean and Temperate ponds, Aragón et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-181-2026

Dynamics and burial of sedimentary organic carbon in the changing Arctic shelf seas, Hu et al., Earth-Science Reviews 10.1016/j.earscirev.2026.105737

Enhanced Carbon Sink Through Medium-Level Tropical Cyclones in the Offshore East China Sea, Ma et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2026gb009070

Fine-scale spatial variability of winter CO2 and CH4 fluxes in Arctic tundra derived from snowpack gradient measurements, Gosselin et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-23-7447-2026

How is climate change affecting conifers and their ability to sequester carbon?, Abraham, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02847-0

Intertidal mussel–symbiont associations act as CO2 sinks during daily emersion, Spilmont et al., Biology Letters 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0498

Partitioning Methane Sources and Diffusive Flux Along the US Cascadia Margin Reveals Dominant Influences of Localized and Ephemeral Features, Dugan et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2026gb009143

Quantifying European SF6 emissions from 2005 to 2021 using a large inversion ensemble, Vojta et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access 10.5194/acp-25-15197-2025

Reforestation dominated China’s forest carbon sink from 1986 to 2019, Xu et al., Nature Geoscience 10.1038/s41561-026-02074-2

Regionalized greenhouse gas emissions and infrastructure requirements for future global iron and steel production, Terlouw et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04129-z

Response of the Southern Ocean Air-Sea CO2 Flux to Positive and Negative Emissions, Keppler & Landschützer, Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-019-43826-y

Restoration-induced litter accumulation caused a CO2 leakage in a Tibetan alpine steppe, Qi et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111530

Seasonal trends in China’s net ecosystem productivity: Offset characteristics and shifts in driving forces against the background of abrupt changes, Zhang & Xia, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111428

Silent Alarms? Unveiling Destabilization Risk in Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Fluxes, Andrade et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.71100

Source or Sink? Precipitation Shapes Future Terrestrial Carbon Uptake in Australia, Bennett et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jg009820

Spatial Variation of Post-Fire Aboveground Carbon Accumulation Rates in Young Forests North of 45°N, Zhou et al., Global Biogeochemical Cycles Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gb009207

Synoptic Features Driving the CO2 Sink in the Mediterranean Sea in Winter, Reale et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres Open Access pdf 10.1029/2025jd044310

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report II: ozone interactions with climate change: drivers and long-term trends, Szopa et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences Open Access 10.1098/rsta.2025.0272

Unexpected Inter-Annual Variability in Methane Emissions From Western Siberia’s Oil and Gas Sector, Taguchi et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl122886

[Articles] Accounting for global carbon dioxide production from human metabolism between 1985 and 2015: a modelling study, Gonzalez et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101546

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Spatio-temporal effects of urbanization on CO2 emissions: Evidences from 268 Chinese cities, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113569 77 cites.

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CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Artificial upwelling via Stommel pipes under present and future climate conditions: an Earth system model assessment, Jürchott & Kemper, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1938661

Co–Cu Bimetallic–Modified ATP Catalysts for Efficient and Low-Energy CO2 Capture, Jiang & Han, Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.2391

Distinguishing the gas and water sides of the gas–water interface: Where do amines capture CO2 in microdroplets?, Zhang et al., Atmospheric Environment 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122261

Vortex Flow: A Green Process Intensification Strategy for Absorption-Based CO2 Capture, Zhao et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70010

Wellbore Interface and Cement Defects in CO2 Geological Storage: A Review, Citalingam et al., Greenhouse Gases Science and Technology 10.1002/ghg.70012

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Comprehensive review of CO2 geological storage: Exploring principles, mechanisms, and prospects, Earth-Science Reviews, 10.1016/j.earscirev.2023.104672 413 cites.

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Decarbonization

Against all odds? Explaining the new clean hydrogen strategy of the European Union, Eikeland et al., Energy Research & Social Science 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104921

Analysis of low carbon transformation strategy and CO2 emission metabolism in the steel industry, Li et al., Journal of Industrial Ecology 10.1111/jiec.70110

Beyond degrees Celsius: Mapping competing justice scenarios in Australia's energy transition, Velge et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.105040

From least cost to more just: Exploring the ability of optimisation models to represent energy justice considerations in low-carbon transitions, Laes et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104514

Green energy transition in China’s primary aluminum industry: economic evaluation and pathways, ZHANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.accre.2026.06.031

How has the public in the United States supported renewable energy? ?A longitudinal study from 2010 to 2023, Hao, Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2026.2711921

Is there enough trust for a low carbon transition in the Arctic? Exploring public expectations for renewable energy in Longyearbyen, Julsrud & Standal, Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2026.2691435

Leveraging existing grid infrastructure for rapid US renewable and storage deployment, Chojkiewicz et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2603919123

Where to charge? A data-driven national framework for locating and sizing electric freight charging infrastructure in Colombia, Gil et al., Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2026.102044

Wind Energy Futures: Which Locations Across the Western U.S. Are Most Resilient to Environmental Change?, Liu et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008184

Would you let your car feed the grid? Comparing vehicle-to-grid smart charging preferences across six European countries, Jensen et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104855

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Transition to zero-net emissions for Qatar: A policy based on Hydrogen and CO2 capture & storage development, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113256 30 cites.

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Geoengineering climate

Impacts of water advection and CO2 exchange on the carbon dioxide removal potential of ocean alkalinity enhancement, Moras et al., Biogeosciences Open Access pdf 10.5194/bg-23-7523-2026

Lethal by Design? Resolving Differences Between Experimental and Real-World Alkalinity Perturbations in Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, Bach et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2025jc023598

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Ocean alkalinity enhancement approaches and the predictability of runaway precipitation processes: results of an experimental study to determine critical alkalinity ranges for safe and sustainable application scenarios, Biogeosciences, 10.5194/bg-21-4587-2024 46 cites.

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Black carbon

Black carbon aerosols intensified India’s 2015 mega heatwave and expanded heat stress exposure, Tiwari et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-04157-9

The Hidden Health and Climate Burden of Black Carbon under China’s Dual Carbon Strategy, Xu et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-77632-8

Aerosols

Aerosol–cloud interactions influence the climate response to AMOC weakening, Vella & Lohmann, Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-26-14939-2026

Stratospheric aerosol forcing for CMIP7 – Part 2: Volcanic sulfur dioxide emissions, Aubry et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-10155-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Increasing cross-border dust storm from Mongolia to China during 1987–2022, Global and Planetary Change, 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104578 23 cites.

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Climate change communications & cognition

Assessing the integration of climate change education in Sri Lanka’s secondary education system, Senavirathna, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2725470

Can Moral Framing Reduce Climate Change Polarization? Textual and Experimental Evidence from Norway, Enstad & Thorbjørnsrud, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2026.2623481

Climate Change Perception and Eco-Anxiety among Young Adults in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Environmental Literacy Play a Role?, Odo et al., Global Social Welfare 10.1007/s40609-026-00468-z

Do climate change knowledge and risk perceptions drive flood preparedness? Evidence from New Orleans, Jayasinghe et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100852

Do climate emotions matter? Investigating their role in pro-environmental behavior, Blumenschein et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103092

Do weather-related extreme events influence climate-related opinions? The case of the 2019–2020 Australian Black Summer bushfires, Andreotta et al., Royal Society Open Science Open Access 10.1098/rsos.251450

Does populist anti-climate rhetoric drive public opposition to climate policy? Testing socio-cultural and economic frames, Bolet et al., Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2026.2731598

Engaging through enraging: Does inciting anger about climate change increase support for climate action?, Stanley et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103074

Framing Climate Change in Children’s Picture Books: A Qualitative Study of Authors and Illustrators, Shelford, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2026.2716354

Global warming and the National Cattlemen’s Association 1986–1996, Jacquet & Loy, PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001061

Greenwashing the future? Computational text analysis of environmental reporting from the fossil fuel industry, Rauner, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2025.2603031

Hacking adaptation: What role can policy hackathons play in understanding and adapting to climate change impacts?, McEvoy et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104516

What Makes Climate Change Feel Distant? Evidence from Eight Countries in the Global North and South, Ejaz et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103180

What’s next? How arts-based and creative participatory methods can address the problem of climate assembly follow-up, Carrick et al., Climate Policy Open Access 10.1080/14693062.2026.2685651

Whispers of Change: Positive Climate Communication Through ASMR and Its Potential for Climate Engagement, Blessing & Kalch, Environmental Communication Open Access 10.1080/17524032.2026.2753498

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Demographics shape public preferences for carbon dioxide removal and solar geoengineering interventions across 30 countries, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01800-1 13 cites.

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Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

A bottom-up quantification of greenhouse gas emissions and mitigation potential in Kenya's crop and livestock systems, Kakai et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1920404

Advancing agricultural risk assessment through entropy-weighted TOPSIS and the IPCC framework: Insights from the Eastern Himalayas, Sonowal & Malakar, Environment Development and Sustainability 10.1007/s10668-026-08204-5

Can seaweed mitigate methane from cows on a global scale?, DiCorato, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2626533123

CO2 Rise Directly Impairs Crop Nutritional Quality, Kakaraparthi et al., Frontiers in Public Health Open Access pdf 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1674328

Heterogeneous impacts of fire-sourced ozone (O3) pollution on global crop yields in the future climate scenarios, Li et al., Atmospheric chemistry and physics Open Access pdf 10.5194/acp-25-14501-2025

How much climate-smart agriculture is enough? A dose-response analysis of technology adoption effects on farmer welfare in Ghana, Prah et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000886

Potential distribution of the cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) in the Caatinga under CMIP6 climate projections from EC-Earth3-Veg and MIROC6, Vieira et al., Frontiers in Earth Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/feart.2026.1751554

Quantifying the contribution of cultivar parameter variation to uncertainty in future warming impacts on wheat yields across China's major winter wheat regions, Liujun et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111559

Spain’s seafood futures to 2050 under climate change and contrasting transition scenarios, Saralegui-Díez et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-60217-2

Sustainable or maladaptive? A systematic review of climate adaptation strategies among smallholder farmers in SADC and South India, Wynsberghe, AI and Ethics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s43681-021-00043-6

Towards realistic representation of forest management and stand age dynamics in a terrestrial biosphere model (DLEM): impacts on forest carbon dynamics in the Southeastern United States, Li et al., Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 10.1016/j.agrformet.2026.111539

Win-win or window dressing? Opportunity and opposition to agrivoltaics in the United States, Donnison et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104940

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Long-term carbon storage in shelf sea sediments reduced by intensive bottom trawling, Nature Geoscience, 10.1038/s41561-024-01581-4 54 cites.

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Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Anthropogenic groundwater declines may exert far-reaching climatic impacts, Paldor & Paldor, Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-75635-5

Are Modern Droughts Unprecedented?, Helpap et al., AGU Advances Open Access 10.1029/2026av002536

Attribution of Changes in European Flood and Drought Magnitudes to Climatic and Socioeconomic Drivers, Tilloy et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007858

Disentangling climate change and urbanization effects on future tropical cyclone compound flood hazards, Liu et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103199

Enhanced extremes without intensification of South America’s water cycle from 1980 to 2010, Zarei & Destouni, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-03661-2

Improved climate services in Hawai‘i: the collaborative development of drought-related decision support tools, Longman et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1768549

Integrating machine learning to assess climate risks on reservoir’s inflow and hydropower generation across West African basins, Akaffou et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000986

On the Stability and Sensitivity of Climate-Informed Flood Frequency Models, Bae et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124039

Quantifying Projected Hydroclimate Changes per Degree of Global Warming over the Contiguous United States, Stebbins & McCrary, Journal of Hydrometeorology 10.1175/jhm-d-26-0057.1

Tropical Cyclone Activity in the Vicinity of Hawai‘i in Present and Future Climates, Murray et al., Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology 10.1175/jamc-d-25-0198.1

Why Does a Shallow Land Model Underestimate the Dryland Drying Trends?, Zhang et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd046571

Why was the mid-to-late summer precipitation variability in the Yangtze River abnormally enlarged since late 1990s?, WANG et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.10.005

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Strong Linkage Between Observed Daily Precipitation Extremes and Anthropogenic Emissions Across the Contiguous United States, Geophysical Research Letters, 10.1029/2024gl109553 5 cites.

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Climate change economics

Balancing climate ambition and price stability: The case of South Africa’s carbon tax, Lartey, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115483

Bridging innovation and investment: the Paris Agreement’s effect on green and brown US-listed energy stocks, Barrales-Ruiz & Neudörfer, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2713884

Climate at what cost? A survey experiment on trade-offs between decarbonization ambitions and socioeconomic costs, Duin et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104877

Climate finance and women’s employment in the CEMAC region: a catalyst for gender equality?, Zitou & Zitou, Climate and Development Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2026.2691368

Closing the climate–economics communication gap, Rosenthal, ISLE Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment 10.1093/isle/isz105

Does climate policy kill jobs? Assessing the gap between the measured and perceived job transition risk in Western Canada, Rhodes et al., Energy Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115628

Obstacles to Sub-Saharan Africa’s clean energy transition: the ‘tyranny of sovereign ratings’, Kruger et al., Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2026.2719104

Sustainable finance taxonomies – Designed to support the transition to a net-zero economy?, Marchewitz et al., Climate Policy Open Access pdf 10.1080/14693062.2026.2703374

The clean energy trade war: assessing the climate costs of U.S. solar tariffs on China’s PV sector, Yuan & Zheng, Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1835650

Undermining climate action? Challenges of public-private co-financing of carbon removal in the Global North, Christiansen et al., Environmental Science & Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104447

Unmasking the dark side: how does fossil fuel financing hurt the carbon neutrality targets?, Anwar et al., Environmental Sciences Europe Open Access 10.1186/s12302-026-01509-2

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Analysis of decoupling between CO2 emissions and economic growth in China's provincial capital cities: A Tapio model approach, Urban Climate, 10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101885 55 cites.

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Climate change mitigation public policy research

A stochastic policy assessment of Spain’s 81% renewable electricity target for 2030, Orive & Blanco, Energy Sustainable Development/Energy for sustainable development Open Access 10.1016/j.esd.2026.102068

China’s petrochemical plants’ CO2 emissions and high-impact contributors for carbon-neutrality production, chen et al., Science Advances Open Access pdf 10.1126/sciadv.adx7784

Coordinated development of the “water-energy-land-carbon” system in nine provinces and regions of the Yellow River Basin and analysis of obstacle factors, Wang et al., Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.3389/fevo.2026.1932520

Do credible climate transition plans matter for carbon performance? Evidence from Fortune Global 500 firms, Silvia et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1907357

How can energy policy support a just transition for countries in the global South? Insights from South Africa's renewables procurement, Taylor et al., Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115443

How could the government support the spread of alternative energy projects?, Czipf, Energy Policy Open Access 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115513

How does knowledge utilization influence climate policy innovation? Energy modelling and the legitimization of the 55% target in the European Union, Huber et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104947

Spatial governance of China’s data-center expansion as a climate-action lever under resource and digital lock-in, Chen et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1990264

Strategic discharge or full reuse? Circular water economy assessment under WEFE-Climate Change Nexus, Yapan et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104442

The double materiality of Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund: An irreconcilable case of aligning the ‘oil fund’ with Net Zero?, Jackson, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104730

The double-edged sword of carbon offsets: Can it cut in favor of health and energy equity?, Tzankova et al., Energy Research & Social Science Open Access 10.1016/j.erss.2026.104798

What money can’t buy: Company experience and community resistance to renewable energy infrastructure, Ratan & Vega-Araújo, Energy Policy Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115473

Who is who? Competing coalitions in climate-AFOLU politics in Argentina, Ryan & Laguna, Climate Policy 10.1080/14693062.2026.2636026

“Inward efficiency gains” or “carbon leakage”? regional carbon emission efficiency effects and spatial spillovers of China’s emissions trading system, Kong et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1932454

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Study on the synergistic effect of air pollution prevention and carbon emission reduction in the context of "dual carbon": Evidence from China's transport sector, Energy Policy, 10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113370 194 cites.

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Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

A Proof of Concept for Rapid Evaluation of Urban Climate Adaptations Using Simplified Simulations over an Indian City, Brousse et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Open Access 10.1175/bams-d-25-0197.1

Adapting to the risk of Atlantic circulation change, Jongman & Hall, Nature Sustainability 10.1038/s41893-026-01961-1

Are communities in a cyclone-prone area more vulnerable than those in a flood-prone area? towards a climate vulnerability index for rural households in Bangladesh, Ahmed et al., Figshare Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.33282103

Beyond climate migration: the right to remain and the right to development as complementary frameworks for climate mobility governance in Africa, Addaney, Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1928809

Distributive effects of climate change: How does rising temperatures affect energy allocation between cities?, Dong et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103183

Do climate-Adaptive City pilot policy effectively mitigate climate risks? — a quasi-natural experiment from Chinese prefecture-level cities, Cheng & fang, Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100867

Engaged research and its implications for transformation in climate adaptation sciences, Cann, PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001093

FEMA phase-out? Catastrophic extremes challenge decentralization of US flood insurance, Nayak et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2537388123

Heatwave-induced capacity bottlenecks in European electricity grids, Liang et al., Nature Energy Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41560-026-02151-1

How Do Adaptation Practices Become Climate Maladaptive? A Scoping Review of Empirical Scholarship, Shah et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70074

Managing climate risks through adaptation policy: Evidence from China’s climate-adaptive city pilots, Gao et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100823

Reviving connections: Dene wellbeing and climate adaptation in Tthets'éhk'edél??, Ireland et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2025.1694811

Systemic collapse emergence from climate-induced perturbations in transportation networks, Faccin et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2532180123

The production of adaptation results: how does the Green Climate Fund turn adaptation projects into impact?, Barnes & Fisher, Figshare Open Access 10.6084/m9.figshare.33269217

Translating national climate policies to resilience actions at the subnational level in low resource settings: Lessons from Ghana’s health systems, Abugnaba-Abanga et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000779

What leads to equitable adaptation intentions in city practitioners?, Goto et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100819

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Effects of ocean acidification and polystyrene microplastics on the oysters Crassostrea gigas: An integrated biomarker and metabolomic approach, Marine Environmental Research, 10.1016/j.marenvres.2024.106434 26 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human health

Climate change and malaria in west Africa: a review of strategies to handle one of the world’s most prominent anthroponoses, Filho et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101484

Heatwave-attributable Parkinson’s mortality is projected to increase by the 2080s in China under a high-emissions scenario, (13940) et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access 10.1038/s43247-026-03589-7

Heatwaves have killed millions. Here’s how scientists tally lives lost, Glickman, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02430-7

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: A framework for ageing and health vulnerabilities in a changing climate, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02156-2 52 cites.

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Climate change & geopolitics

When diversification fails: Geopolitical contagion and hidden vulnerabilities in Europe’s energy transition, Pokou & Kamdem, Energy Policy 10.1016/j.enpol.2026.115520

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: The politics of countering climate change in Southeast Asia, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1486796 9 cites.

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Other

Canadian lakes show contrasting phosphorus trends across climatic regions, Guo et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04113-7

Fires in Europe are breaking records: here’s what the future holds, Schwab, The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care 10.1097/ta.0b013e31802f734a

Is Deep-Sea Mining the New “Green Frontier”? A Corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis of Arguments on the Climate Crisis and Deep-Sea Mining in the Pacific, Skiveren et al., Environmental Communication Open Access pdf 10.1080/17524032.2026.2723746

Navigating while contesting COP28’s paradoxes with international solidarity actions: a youth delegation’s collaborative and feminist auto-ethnography, Robitaille et al., Climate and Development Open Access pdf 10.1080/17565529.2026.2718467

Repurposing Illegal Coca Cultivation in Colombia to Unlock Large Climate Benefits and Support Legal Livelihoods, Rodríguez-Martínez & Cherubini, Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef008712

Three Decades of Scientific Debate on the Additionality of Forest Carbon Offsets: Are We Going in Circles?, Christiansen et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change Open Access 10.1002/wcc.70085

What comes after social tipping? Perspectives from transitions towards net-zero, Binder et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000982

What is energy literacy? From prerequisite for participation to social practice, Kools & Höffken, Energy Research & Social Science Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.erss.2026.105020

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Long-term variabilities in thermal structure, CO2 concentration and associated cooling rates in the Earth's middle atmosphere: Observations and model simulations, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 10.1016/j.jastp.2023.106070 7 cites.

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Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

Colloquium: Manabe’s legacy of simulating and understanding global warming, Shaw, Reviews of Modern Physics 10.1103/mfpg-3th9

Europe’s record heatwave: does the continent have a new climate?, Chen, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02046-x

Future-proofing interpretations of the Paris Agreement’s limit of well below 2 °C, Lamboll & Rogelj, Nature Climate Change Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41558-026-02685-y

Nepal’s disaster is an urgent wake-up call, Huggel et al., Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-03314-6

The fragility of splendid isolation: Imminent global threat for the world’s island life, Lomolino, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2623374123

The worst El Niño in recorded history is brewing — here’s how governments must prepare, Hausfather, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02939-x

We Are in the Anthropocene—Now What?, Rockström et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007730

[Comment] Different futures ahead: why does 1·5°C matter?, Tong et al., The Lancet Planetary Health Open Access 10.1016/j.lanplh.2025.101388

[Editorial] Climate overshoot, Schleussner et al., Nature Open Access 10.1038/s41586-024-08020-9

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago: Forest definitions require a re-think, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01779-9 23 cites.

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Book reviews

Sustainability or dystopia? What past patterns tell us about where society is heading, Wynsberghe, AI and Ethics Open Access pdf 10.1007/s43681-021-00043-6

Why climate policy misses the forest for the trees, Fleischman et al., BioScience Open Access pdf 10.1093/biosci/biaa094

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Water Year 2026 In Review (Colorado River), Mazurek et al., Colorado Climate Center and the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

Water Year 2026 was one for the record books in Colorado. It was the warmest on record by a substantial margin, and it was also one of the driest. Colorado also recorded its lowest snowpack, which strained water resources and contributed to widespread drought. This year’s climatic conditions had substantial effects across numerous sectors: from agriculture and wildlife to human health and recreation. The researchers found that, statewide, temperatures were 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit above the averages seen between 1991-2020. The 2026 average was also more than 2 degrees warmer than the previous record-warm water year of 1934. Overall, Colorado saw its warmest December, February, March and August on record. Those temperatures contributed to the state’s record-low mountain snowpack totals. The 2026 snowpack-peak was just 51% of the average usually seen statewide, and the high point arrived about a month earlier in the cycle than average. The total snowpack also faded away faster because of unprecedented early season melting in the March heat. The authors explain how the low snowpack totals resulted in record-low streamflow for parts of Colorado. The limited supply there ultimately clashed with high demand for water by users and mandatory storage reductions across the state’s reservoirs. The largest, Blue Mesa Reservoir located on the upper reaches of the Gunnison River, reported summertime storage well below the previous record minimum. Meanwhile, Lake Powell and Lake Mead – both crucial reservoirs for storing water from the Colorado River – also reported record-low levels this year.

State of the Park, Adirondack Council

The 45th annual Adirondack Council State of the Park tracks the decisions and actions taken by public officials at every level over the past year — and their potential to help or harm the Adirondack Park. For example, the Governor rolled back provisions of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and the State Environmental Quality Review Act, eroding the state’s national leadership on climate action and environmental oversight. The Governor imposed a one-year moratorium on new state-authorized data centers due to concerns about energy use, water consumption, and impacts on natural resources. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation created a new roadmap to help lake associations identify, prevent, and address harmful algal blooms, supporting cleaner water throughout the Adirondacks.

Key findings from fall 2026 poll among Black and Latino registered voters in battleground states, HIT Strategies, Climate Equity Action Fund and the League of Conservation Voters

The authors found that overwhelming majorities of Black and Latino voters in seven battleground states want candidates to address climate change, pollution and energy costs, even though those issues are not necessarily what voters name first when deciding who to support. 72% of respondents selected the cost of living as one of their top three voting issues, followed by access to healthcare (42%) and discrimination (30%). The findings show that Black and Latino voters overwhelmingly want candidates to address climate change. With household costs and health taking priority, the poll underscores the importance of talking about climate policy in terms of what matters most to voters, including affordable energy, clean air and safe drinking water.

Rising Incidents, Lax Oversight. Ohio Oil and Gas Incidents, Inspections, and Enforcement, 2015–2025, Gwen Klenke, FracTracker Alliance and the Buckeye Environmental Network

Ohio’s oil and gas incident records document spills, leaks, equipment failures, and other potentially harmful events. These incident reports should help the public understand where these incidents occur, the risks to safety, health, and the environment, and how regulators and operators respond. But the author's analysis of Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) records from 2015 through 2025 found that, even as ODNR has improved some aspects of its data collection, major gaps remain. Incident classifications are often unclear, key details are buried in narrative descriptions, and records do not consistently show whether an event led to inspection, cleanup, enforcement, or corrective action. These gaps are particularly notable amid growing problems with oil and gas wastewater disposal, including releases and oil and gas wastewater migration associated with injection wells. However, one thing is clear: incidents are increasing in frequency on an annual basis. Without an understanding of the severity and complexity of these increasing oil and gas incidents, the public and policymakers may be lulled into a false sense of complacency and may be less likely to address serious problems until they threaten to become a crisis. 2,529 oil and gas incidents were recorded in Ohio from 2015 through 2025. Incidents are generally increasing, rising from 103 in 2015 to 268 in 2025, despite year-to-year variation.

The Community and Economic Impacts of Data Centers, US. Chamber of Commerce

Data centers are economic engines powering America's future. They are long-term community investments creating permanent jobs and tax revenue that support community schools, roads, and parks without increasing taxes on residents. A single facility delivers thousands of jobs; hundreds of millions in local tax revenue that fund schools, roads, and public safety; and sustained economic growth for decades. Data center growth and community interests are not competing goals. Communities deserve transparency, early engagement, and confidence that developers will pay for the infrastructure needed to support new growth. When that happens, data centers become a powerful source of jobs, investment, and long-term economic opportunities.

Vermont Climate Assessment 2025, Galford et al., Climate Measurements Center of Excellence, Gund Institute for Environment at the University of Vermont

Vermont is experiencing unprecedented weather extremes. Vermont’s climate is becoming warmer, wetter, and more variable. Shifting seasons are transforming how Vermonters live, work, and play/ A hotter Vermont increases risks to people, farms, and infrastructure. Water is a central climate challenge for Vermont, across all seasons and sectors. Climate risks are interconnected and compounding—requiring action now.

The Debt Discount: A study evaluating the financial track record of companies with transition plans, McGlynn et al., International Transition Plan Network and SCS Consulting Network

The International Transition Plan Network (ITPN) was launched at COP29 to support the development of global norms for private sector climate transition plans and drive climate policies that leverage the full potential of these plans. The research presented here is, to the best of the authors knowledge, the most comprehensive analysis undertaken to date of the financial implications of private sector climate transition plans. The authors found that companies that develop and disclose transition plans experience a lower cost of debt, and that investors appear to reward companies that implement their transition plans. They also found that disclosing a transition plan does not negatively effect profits or stock outperformance over the long run, addressing one of the key concerns for companies weighing the decision to publish.

Reducing green gas costs with bioCO2, Cadent Gas Limited

While the biomethane sector currently requires Government subsidy to scale, early evaluations suggest that selling bioCO2 greenhouse has removals (GGRs) to the private sector could reduce the level of Government support for biomethane by up to one-third compared to today. BioCO2 lowers the costs of renewable energy for consumers while encouraging new investment in domestic green gas production. The technology to capture, liquefy, transport and store bioCO? exists, but policy and infrastructure access have not yet been designed around smaller, geographically dispersed biomethane producers which require their CO2 to be transported by road rather than pipe. The Government’s recently launched Non-pipeline transport (NPT) Pathfinder process is an important first step, but there is more work to do to fully evaluate this opportunity and how it links to the current regulatory landscape. The sector and Government can work together to unlock bioCO2 capture and storage at scale.

Enhancing Ocean-Climate Resilience in Asia and the Pacific, Jeon et al., United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

Strengthen ocean science, data and observing systems by expanding ocean monitoring networks, integrating satellite, on-ground equipment and climate models to promote science based decision-making. Strengthen early warning systems for marine heatwaves, coastal flooding, storm surges, high waves and tsunamis to enhance preparedness, protect marine ecosystems, and reduce economic losses and disaster effects. Improve coastal hazard assessments and zoning by incorporating high-resolution topographic data, locally observed sea levels, sand intrusion and land subsidence to support effective coastal planning and adaptation. Develop risk-informed guidelines and build community resilience by identifying risk hotspots, developing a framework for climate-induced human mobility and relocation, developing evacuation plans and conducting regular emergency drills, improving emergency shelter and services, and improving community-based risk management and public awareness.

Climate stress reshapes youth migration in Ethiopia, Sørensen et al., Danish Institute for International Studies

Ethiopia’s rural economy and livelihoods depend on seasonal rainfall. When rains fail or fall out of season, crops fail, livestock die and household income collapses. For young people watching this unfold, migration may seem the immediate solution. Understanding locally specific climate vulnerabilities and young people’s mobility aspirations is therefore key to developing adequate policy responses.

Offshore Wind: Status and Issues, Comay et al., Congressional Research Service

During the second Trump Administration, federal policies toward U.S. offshore wind have shifted from those in place during the Biden Administration. President Trump halted Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) wind leasing and permitting and has directed other actions to reverse prior federal support for offshore wind. Also, in P.L. 119-21, the FY2025 budget reconciliation law, Congress limited offshore wind tax credits and rescinded unobligated balances for federally funded activities related to interregional and offshore wind electricity transmission. The industry has also faced economic challenges in recent years related to rising costs and supply chain delays, as well as lawsuits from coastal homeowners, the fishing industry, tribes, and those concerned about potential impacts to marine wildlife. Congress continues to consider issues related to offshore wind leasing, permitting, transmission, tax credits, and related matters through oversight and legislation.

Taking the temperature of EU climate policy, Colli et al., Trans European Policy Studies Association

A debate is raging in Europe about the European Green Deal. Launched with broad political support in 2019, it shaped the mandate of the first von der Leyen Commission. Seven years later, that consensus has eroded. Competitiveness, economic security and defense have moved up the political agenda, while increasingly difficult questions are being asked about who should bear the costs of the green transition. This edition of TEPSA Experts’ Debrief wants to take a fresh look at the debate and make sense of what is happening. Ten experts were invited to give their assessment of the European Green Deal and their ideas on the way ahead. None is complacent about the difficulties confronting Europe. But, with one exception, they argue for staying the course and pressing ahead with the Green Deal, while adapting its implementation to the obstacles encountered and to a profoundly changed political and economic environment.

Breaking the Cycle: Making Somaliland’s Rural Water Systems Climate Resilient, Nasir Ali and Kedir Jemal, Toda Peace Institute

The authors examine Somaliland’s water crisis, which reflects a policy gap between the scale of climate and demographic pressures and the capacity of current institutions to plan, finance and maintain rural water services. It will not be solved by emergency water delivery alone. The Government should treat rural water access as a climate adaptation and local governance priority, with groundwater protection, service standards and accountable financing implemented together. The authors present three key messages, and concludes with policy recommendations and implementation priorities.

AI Data Center Siting on Federal Lands. An Energy View, Rueda et al., RAND

The U.S. government, spurred by a 2025 executive order, is moving quickly to open federal land for artificial intelligence (AI) data center development and directing agencies to identify suitable sites. But energy availability—not just available acreage—is a binding constraint that will determine which sites can realistically support large-scale AI infrastructure. The authors evaluated 12 U.S. Department of Defense sites offered for data center leases, compared them with 17 U.S. Department of Energy sites, and developed a cost model to estimate energy infrastructure expenses across 31 candidate locations. A stakeholder workshop stress-tested these findings and informed public-private partnership guidance.

Connecting capital to capability: An energy security investment framework to optimize the NATO 1.5 percent investment commitment, Dockery et al., Atlantic Council

NATO’s 1.5 percent commitment can be the catalyst that connects capital to capability across the alliance. This broad mandate, applying across thirty-two member states with differing political considerations and priorities, requires a capability-based framework grounded largely in lessons from Ukraine’s defense of its energy system but also in other recently exposed vulnerabilities. Meeting this mandate will require building an energy system that can serve civilian and military energy demands and is resilient to physical and digital threats. This undertaking will be a generational challenge requiring long-term investment.

Dry, dark, and empty, Dunn et al., Atlantic Council

Growing threats to US national interests make a comprehensive review of installation infrastructure and power, fuel, and water systems increasingly urgent. This review could identify the tools needed to keep military departments ready for the next conflict and guide strategic investments in force-multiplying capabilities that strengthen mission readiness. Because US forces operate in combined and joint environments with allies, partners, and host nations, this effort should also integrate additional evaluation tools, funding resources, and long-term strategic planning to sustain military capabilities.

From Climate Science to Climate Governance, Joseph Ingram and Augusto Lopez-Claros, Canadian Global Affairs Institute

The authors argue that climate change has evolved from primarily a scientific and technological challenge into one of governance, requiring governments such as Canada’s to mobilize finance, align market incentives and strengthen international institutions capable of accelerating the green transition at the scale and speed required to meet this challenge.

Climate Mobility, Rights and Resilience in Africa, Jegede et al., International Organization for Migration

This special collection brings together policy briefs examining recent developments in climate mobility research and governance across the continent. The collection reflects the diversity and complexity of climate mobility, covering themes including community resilience, mobility dynamics, food security and agroecological transitions, green sovereignty, governance, human rights and climate finance. Together, the briefs highlight the importance of understanding mobility not only as a consequence of environmental change, but also as a potential adaptation and development strategy. They examine persistent challenges, including data gaps, fragmented policy responses, limited implementation capacity and protection gaps, while identifying opportunities to strengthen evidence-based and inclusive approaches.

Distributed Capacity Procurement Framework. Addressing Grid Needs, Affordably and Reliably with Distributed Energy Resources, McDonnell et al., Solar Energy Industries Association

Utility regulators, grid operators, and energy policy leaders around the country broadly agree that distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar and storage are important for developing a reliable and affordable electric grid. The real question is: what’s the best way to procure and deploy DERs to maximize their benefits to utility customers and the grid? The authors provide a practical roadmap for regulators and policy leaders working to build a 21st-century grid that can meet the needs of the 21st-century economy. The authors outline three procurement pathways that can bolster available resources, respond to growing loads, and provide a faster, more cost-effective response to infrastructure needs.

Asleep at the Switch: How the ACC (Arizona Corporation Commission) is Letting Utilities Fleece Ratepayers, Sierra Club

It can be hard to imagine that a five-person commission can dictate the future of Arizona’s energy landscape, but that is exactly the case. The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) has the power to regulate public utilities, set rates for service, and ensure reliability. It’s an incredibly important job and one that affects every Arizonan in some way, despite how little its role is recognized. What Arizonans do notice, however, are the rising costs of their utility bills. Behind those increases is the Commission, whose job is to act as a check on monopoly utilities to protect customers. But over the past several years, the ACC has done the opposite, siding with utilities at the expense of ratepayers, and making decisions that result in significant rate increases and threaten our air, our drinking water, and Arizona families’ health. Rather than acting in the best interest of customers, the ACC has fast-tracked utility projects and side-stepped established processes in its effort to prioritize utility profits over people.

Disaster Divide. How climate chaos deepens inequality and enriches the few,, Lawson et al., Oxfam

Billionaires and the super-rich are burning carbon at an extraordinary rate — the richest 0.1%, or 8 million people, have more emissions than the bottom 3.5 billion. The carbon pollution of the richest 1% is directly contributing to increased climate disasters such as floods, fires, droughts and food crises. Their yearly emissions will cause an estimated 1.9 million excess deaths from heat. In turn, these climate disasters are not experienced equally. Climate disasters drive up inequality and are also far more lethal because of it. Deaths from flooding, for example, are seven times higher in more unequal countries. Rich people can insulate themselves, paying more for food or moving to safer places, whereas most people cannot. The super-rich are also actually cashing in on climate pain — making huge profits from sky-high food prices and profiting from disasters. Meanwhile, ordinary people, hit by successive climate shocks, struggle to recover. They are more exposed, more vulnerable, and have less savings to rebuild their lives.

Protecting Health in the Age of Climate Disinformation: Safeguarding information integrity in the context of climate change and health, Schran et al., WHO Civil Society Working Group on Climate and Health

The authors discuss how climate disinformation directly and indirectly harms human health around the world, from undermining emergency warnings and public-health guidance to delaying policies on air pollution, clean energy and fossil fuels. Case studies highlighted in the report show that climate disinformation interacts with existing inequalities and power structures. The case studies include wildfire misinformation in Canada and Maui, backlash against London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone, cascading climate and information risks during floods in South Sudan, fossil fuel greenwashing, development narratives affecting Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia, and attacks on scientists, journalists and environmental defenders. Those trying to provide evidence can also become targets.

Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report 2026, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank

Off-grid solar is reaching more people than ever. Off-grid solar is creating jobs and boosting incomes. The industry is consolidating and diversifying, while continuing to prioritize commercial sustainability. Scaling up the productive use of energy (PUE) has become a key priority for governments and development partners seeking to leverage energy access to achieve job creation and economic growth. Ensuring that access is sustained is also an emerging area of focus. Political recognition of off-grid solar continues to grow, and the challenge now is to convert it into stable, enabling policy environments and consistent delivery.

Energy Technology Supply Chains in Southeast Asia, Jaensch et al., International Energy Agency

The authors examine recent trends in clean energy technology manufacturing, trade and investment in Southeast Asia, building on analysis conducted for Energy Technology Perspectives 2026. The analysis draws on the latest information on energy, climate, trade and industrial policies – as well as manufacturing project announcements – to inform projections for clean energy technology manufacturing and trade in the region and put forward key considerations to guide effective industrial strategy design.

Reforming Federal Forest Management to Advance Fire Resilience, Eric Biber and Dave Owen, Social Science Research Network

Wildfire is simultaneously one of the largest air pollution sources in the United States, causes billions of dollars of property damage each year, and can produce significant ecological harm. Wildfire will only worsen because of climate change, the legacy of logging and fire suppression, and increased development in the wildland-urban interface. The authors provide a detailed proposal for addressing land management issues on national forests, a key to addressing the legacy of logging and fire suppression. Their detailed proposal builds on, and is a companion to, another article (Fixing Wildlife Law), in which they explain the policy problems that wildfire presents and provide a conceptual framework for a response that cuts across many legal areas implicated by wildfire, including land-use regulation in the wildland-urban interface, insurance law, air quality law, and forest management. The additional contribution of this paper is specificity; it takes the conceptual proposals from Fixing Wildlife Law and uses them to articulate the details of reforms for management of national forests. They propose the use of outside expert panels to synthesize the relevant science for forest management to reduce fire risk and empowering the Forest Service to rely on those syntheses to develop management strategies to reduce fire risk. Projects consistent with those management strategies would be exempt from most environmental review and consultation requirements.

Climate and Health in Oregon 2025 report, Carpenter et al., Oregon Health Authority

Accelerating climate change is directly affecting the health of people in Oregon, and those effects are not felt equally. Increasing instances of extreme heat, wildfire smoke, and water insecurity worsen public health across the state, while exacerbating existing health inequities. The authors summarize information about climate change hazards in the state in 2025 and recent decades. Moreover, they discuss related effects to people’s health, and actions of the public health system, partner agencies and local communities to protect everyone in the state from these risks no matter where and who they are.

The 2026 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: a decade of escalating health harms and a decisive moment for all, Romanello et al., Lancet

The authors found that health effects are escalating faster than climate action with experts calling for climate change to be declared a global health emergency. While progress has been made to deliver real health gains through clean energy investment, health system leadership and health-protecting legislation, these positive signs are not enough to offset the harm from the impacts of fossil-fuel driven climate change. The report represents the work of 146 experts from 71 collaborating institutions, monitoring progress across 54 indicators, including four new indicators introduced this year, providing the most comprehensive assessment yet of the links between climate change and health.

State of the UK Weather and Climate Sector 2026, Derek Swannick, Royal Meteorological Society

The meteorology sector remains strategically important to public safety, national resilience, economic productivity, environmental stewardship, defense, transport, energy, agriculture, and climate adaptation. As climate risk increases and societal dependence on weather and climate intelligence grows, meteorological expertise is becoming more important. The findings demonstrate a sector characterized by exceptionally high levels of professional commitment, strong scientific capability and deep public service motivation. This is reinforced by the survey data, with 93.3% of respondents rating their passion for the sector highly, and by qualitative responses describing meteorology as a vocation rather than simply employment. Respondents expressed strong pride in the sector’s societal importance, scientific standards, and its contribution to safety, resilience, climate adaptation and public wellbeing. However, this commitment sits alongside a significant strategic tension: nearly four in ten respondents had considered leaving the sector, and more than two in ten anticipate leaving the sector within 5 years, not primarily because of a lack of interest in the work, but because of the conditions surrounding it. Open-text responses linked this risk to a combination of workload, pay, progression, job security, shift-working pressures, recognition, management quality and workplace culture. Taken together, these findings point to a clear commitment–conditions gap, in which the sector’s greatest strength may also be masking longer-term risks to workforce sustainability and readiness for change. Technological transformation emerged as one of the defining themes of the research. Respondents were broadly optimistic about advances in data science, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-supported forecasting, Earth observation, automation and interdisciplinary collaboration, seeing significant opportunities to strengthen forecasting, analysis and decision support. At the same time, AI was identified as both one of the sector’s greatest future opportunities and one of its greatest uncertainties. About New Research

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Today, Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) Chair Rep. Greg Casar (TX-35) and House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-43) co-led the introduction of a resolution warning of the economic risks posed by an artificial-intelligence-related asset bubble, opposing a bailout of corporations or their business executives impacted by the collapse of an A.I. bubble, and affirming their support for aggressive federal action to protect workers, retirees, and low-income communities who will be harmed by an economic downturn.

They were joined by Representatives Danny Davis (IL-07), Chris Deluzio (PA-17), Valerie P. Foushee (NC-04), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Analilia Mejia (NJ-11), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), André Carson (IN-07), Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), Brad Sherman (CA-32), and Rashida Tlaib (MI-12).

“Big Tech billionaires are making increasingly reckless bets on A.I. They got richer off Trump’s deregulation and Republican tax breaks. Now they expect taxpayers to bail them out if those bets go bad. We won’t let them," said CPC Chair Casar. "A.I. companies that fail should go bankrupt, and executives who commit fraud should be held accountable. Federal help should go to workers and retirees.”

“Big tech and Wall Street are taking enormous risks with billions in borrowed money to fuel the AI boom, despite growing warning signs of a dangerous bubble and if it all comes crashing down they should not expect taxpayers to rescue them,” said Ranking Member Waters. “We saw what happened in 2008 when reckless Wall Street practices brought our economy to its knees. The banks got bailed out while millions of hardworking Americans lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings. We cannot let history repeat itself. The American people should never again be forced to foot the bill for billionaires’ reckless bets.”

In the resolution, the Democratic lawmakers note that “artificial intelligence-related firms hold trillions of dollars in debt, much of which is raised in opaque and unregulated private credit markets,” and “the price-to-earnings ratio of the stock market is currently almost as high as it was at the peak of the 1990s tech bubble.”

The Democratic legislators also point out that “federal regulators have avoided applying robust scrutiny and oversight regarding enormously complicated debt and equity schemes used by artificial intelligence firms” and highlight the Trump White House’s deregulatory focus and conflicts of interest related to A.I.

The resolution’s cosponsors commit to avoiding a federal response similar to what occurred during the financial crisis of 2008, where the financial sector received trillions of dollars in liquidity without accountability for senior executives involved in illegal and fraudulent behaviors. Meanwhile, 10 million homeowners lost their houses and tens of millions of workers went years without adequate employment while too-big-to-fail banks enjoyed a massive bailout.

The resolution urges the Federal Government, including Congress and key Federal agencies to oppose:

• Any measure to rescue insolvent artificial intelligence-related firms or to shield their senior executives from accountability for reckless conduct;
• Special assistance like emergency lending or direct capital infusions to prop up insolvent A.I. companies’ operations or prevent their orderly resolutions through ordinary bankruptcy processes;
• “Golden parachutes” for corporate executives involved in risky or illegal behaviors that lead to their firms’ insolvency, instead requiring them to be held fully accountable under civil and criminal law and be obligated to return ill-gotten gains like mansions, vacation homes, private planes and yachts, and other assets.

The resolution also calls on the Federal Government to support:

• Aggressive, direct federal action to support ordinary Americans through federal spending to create jobs, protect state and local government services, and robust unemployment insurance, nutrition support, and housing assistance;
• The protection of pension and retirement fund holders who may face devastating losses in the event of a collapse of an A.I. bubble;
• Far-reaching reforms to prevent future speculative bubbles, including additional transparency and accountability requirements;
• Automatic economic stabilizers—investments in people that start to flow immediately in the event of an economic downturn—that support workers and consumers when financial crises, asset bubbles and other harms create downturns and recessions.

The resolution was endorsed by American Federation of Teachers, American Economic Liberties Project, Americans for Financial Reform, the Center for Responsible Lending, Demand Progress Action, Future of Life Institute, Guardrails Action, Indivisible, Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility, Investor Alliance for Human Rights, Jobs With Justice, P Street, and Social Security Works.

“Americans are already paying for the AI build-out through higher power bills and a stock market propped up by a handful of companies,” said Morgan Harper, Director of Policy & Advocacy for American Economic Liberties Project. They should not pay a second time with a bailout. When Wall Street’s bets went bad during the financial crisis, the banks got rescued and ordinary people got foreclosure notices. Congressional members are right to reject AI bailouts in advance, and commit to saving real help for those who will be left holding the bag—the American people.”

“Tech billionaires and their Wall Street backers are using dangerous tactics reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis to make trillion dollar bets on AI—and they are putting working people’s money at risk,” said Maya Jenkins, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform. “This resolution charts a critically important path for defending people’s economic security from the bubble’s blast radius, opposing billionaire bailouts, and holding corporate executives to account. This is the kind of approach needed to confront mounting financial risks and emerge from the aftermath of the AI bubble with an economy that is fairer and more stable.”

“When the housing market collapsed in 2008, the financial industry was prepared to act to ensure that there was a bailout that benefited them,” said Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “It is important that the Congressional Progressive Caucus is stepping forward to make sure that any bailout from the collapse of the AI bubble is designed to benefit the country as whole, rather than the billionaire AI boys who created the problem in the first place.”

“Chair Casar, Ranking Member Waters, and the Progressive Caucus should be praised for this resolution and recognized as being at the tip of the spear in ensuring that AI policy focuses on working-class impacts and isn’t simply left to the desires of the handful of billionaires and their courtesans in Congress, said Maya Handa, Senior Advisor, Guardrails Action. “The AI industry is trying to buy our elections and write their own regulations while its biggest players line up IPOs at record valuations. If this turns into a bubble, working-class Americans must not be forced to pay the tab for big tech CEOs’ recklessness and greed. Simply put: there can be no bailout for big AI execs or their financial enablers.”

“AI companies and their billionaire executives shouldn’t get to gamble with our economy and democracy, then expect working people to bail them out when their bets on AI go bust,” said Andrew O’Neill, National Advocacy Director of Indivisible. “We learned in 2008 what happens when the government puts impunity for corporate corruption ahead of working families. This resolution draws a clear line: will lawmakers protect AI tech bros or the people they’re supposed to represent?”

Read the resolution here.

Read and subscribe to our monthly newsletter and support our work.

The post Latest Newsletter first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Jessica “Jess” Blane (they/them/she) is the Organizing Director at Climate Justice Alliance and is a bold community organizer, abolitionist, facilitator, orator, and writer. Born and raised in the mighty Midwest, they are a proud alum of Kentucky State University.

Jess’ passion for organizing is carried out as a core organizer for Indy10 Black Lives Matter, Queering Indy, and co-founder the Circle City Community Bail Fund, a recognized formation of the National Bail Fund Network. Their political home is with Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity (BOLD), which provides leadership development, political education in the Black radical tradition, accountability and care, and capacity building for Black organizers. Jess has led local, statewide, and regional initiatives in corporate accountability, policy reform, resource reallocation to support a Guaranteed Basic Income, transformative and restorative processes and justice, and conflict transformation. As CJA’s Organizing Director, Jess enthusiastically leads the Organizing Team in connecting members to resources and strategies that expand, strengthen, and sustain their work. In Jess’ role, they oversee the strategies and implementation of programming, member and member space development, local site fights and campaign support, and building the capacity to prepare members for climate crisis and disaster.

Jess labors to remind people of their past, discern with people their present, and strategize within community their future power.

The post November 2026 LNS Spotlight: Jessica Blane first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

We’ve got some exciting announcements to share! There’s a brand-new lunarpunk anthology seeking submissions, our special horror-themed issue of Solarpunk Magazine is available for preorder, we’re going to start publishing solarpunk novellas and novels, and our complete 2027 submissions schedule is now up on our website’s submissions page. So whether you’re a reader looking forContinue reading "Solarpunk Horror, Lunarpunk Submissions, and 2027 Magazine Submissions"

By Joshua Dedmond, LNS Executive Director

Connecting labor rights, environmental justice, and direct action to build a regenerative future for workers and communities.

During NYC Climate Week 2026, the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS) brought worker power to the center of global climate discussions. From high-impact roundtable convenings to direct actions on Wall Street, LNS helped to advance a bold multi-movement strategy to challenge corporate extraction, deepen labor and environmental justice partnerships, and fight for a truly Just Transition.

Aligning Mass Movements Roundtable

Location & Partners: Hosted at The Tishman Center at The New School alongside The Chisholm Legacy Project, US Climate Action Network (USCAN), Just Transition Alliance (JTA), Taproot Earth, and Flint Rising.

Strategic Focus: Scaling up cross-movement coordination to protect democratic institutions and build a regenerative economy.

Launched in 2024, the Aligning Mass Movements initiative centers labor and environmental justice at the core of our broader movement ecosystem. Participants discussed actionable ways a unified Just Transition framework can resist corporate exploitation, protect democratic space, and build a regenerative economy controlled by workers and frontline communities.

Climate Critical Townhall

LNS leaders joined movement allies at a vibrant town hall hosted by Climate Critical. The panel shared crucial strategies for sustaining movement leadership, organizing effectively across diverse sectors, and safeguarding activists on the frontlines of high-pressure climate campaigns.

Wall Street Direct Action: Mining Accountability in Brazil

Action Leadership: LNS Board Chair Jen Krill, Earthworks and frontline allies.

Demands: Supply chain justice, indigenous rights protection, and strict corporate accountability.

Earthworks quickly convened a protest against Sigma Lithium’s destructive mining practices in Brazil. Organizers highlighted the severe environmental and human costs of unvetted mineral extraction, making it clear that a true clean energy transition cannot replicate extractive capitalism—it must uphold high labor standards and respect frontline and indigenous rights.

Movement for Black Lives: The Black Hive 5th Anniversary

Event Focus: Celebration of 5 years of Black-led climate organizing and global solidarity.

Host: Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) / The Black Hive.

To wrap up NYC Climate Week, LNS stood in solidarity at the 5th anniversary celebration of The Black Hive, the climate and environmental justice arm of M4BL. The all-day showcase featured inspiring art installations, political education sessions, and presentations celebrating Black-led environmental justice victories worldwide.

The post LNS On the Ground: Power, Solidarity & Action at NYC Climate Week 2026 first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Heavy equipment cutting fireline around the Gifford Fire, CA, August 2025. Photo by Los Padres National Forest. Photo credit: Public Domain

A recent opinion piece co-authored by Edgar Franks, LNS board member and political director for the farmworkers union Familias Unidas por la Justicia, says:

“Someone has to pay for disaster recovery, and for future climate harms. That burden should not fall on workers, families, and overburdened communities. It should fall on the Big Oil corporations that knowingly created this mess and continue to profit from pollution and war.”

Franks points out that more than 70,000 people were evacuated as wildfires engulfed Spokane WA, reducing entire neighborhoods to ash. Hundreds lost their homes. Damage is expected to exceed $1 billion, the most expensive wildfires in Washington’s history. The damage wouldn’t be nearly so destructive without the dry, hot conditions fueled by climate change.

“When fires, floods, and heatwaves strike, the costs fall disproportionately on taxpayers, workers, small businesses, and vulnerable communities. Meanwhile the major fossil fuel corporations most responsible for the emissions warming our planet get off scot-free.

“Workers bear the impacts in ways that don’t often make the headlines. Firefighters, heavy equipment operators, and foresters risk their lives, with long-term health consequences from exposure to carcinogens.

“And as climate disasters strain state and municipal budgets, public sector workers — teachers, transit operators, service workers — face wage suppression, shrinking benefits, and hiring freezes. We are in the era of climate change where unions and communities alike are being forced to absorb the costs of a crisis they didn’t create.”

Next year the state of Washington will be considering climate “superfund” legislation that would require the largest fossil fuel corporations to pay their fair share for climate damages caused by their historical greenhouse gas emissions.

Rebuilding Spokane, retrofitting homes, schools and community centers for clean air and cooling, hardening the grid, and other resilience measures will all require skilled labor. Franks says, “The sooner polluters pay, the sooner local workers can get to work protecting communities.”

Read the full article: https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/workers-and-communities-shouldnt-foot-bill-big-oils-mess

The post LNS Board Member Says: “Make Polluters Pay” for Climate Damage first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

The Labor Network for Sustainability has joined a broad coalition of national organizations including Climate Justice Alliance, GreenLatinos, Indigenous Environmental Network, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, and Western Environmental Law Center to oppose a “dangerous deregulatory permitting reform” proposal, disingenuously titled the ‘Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act’, currently being negotiated in Congress.

LNS executive director Joshua Dedmond said,

“People power is worker power — for too long, labor has been pitted by politicians and corporations against the very people protecting the long-term future of our communities and neighborhoods, like those working to ensure we have clean air, safe water, and healthy neighborhoods, as if we are not all united in a commitment to better futures.”

According to the coalition,

“The Bipartisan Affordability and Jobs Act is not about affordability or jobs — it’s about sacrificing our time and energy, our health, our families’ health, and our current and future generations’ ability to live in a stable economy and healthy environment — just to line the pockets of the super-rich and fast-track dangerous, polluting projects we don’t want.

“The package would further limit communities’ ability to protect themselves from harmful projects by completely gutting the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act, among other bedrock environmental laws.”

The coalition also laid out key ways to protecting workers and communities in the permitting process:

“Communities have already shared practical and evidence-based policy solutions for building clean energy while safeguarding our rights, health, environment, and democratic participation, including:

1. Investing in federal agency capacity through funding and training to build expertise on clean energy development and community engagement;
2. Embedding early and meaningful community engagement into permitting processes;
3. Establishing robust environmental and public health analysis that includes cumulative impacts;
4. Addressing transmission barriers acceleration directly rather than weakening environmental review; and
5. Increasing transparency via publicly accessible information on permitting status, project details, environmental and public health impacts.”

The post A Call to Halt “Dangerously Deregulatory Permitting Reform” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.