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The following presents a snapshot of Cuban society during the Che Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade’s visit in May 2026. Singing “The Internationale” together with sugarcane...

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Jerry Arnold stands in a patch of cleared land, his combine idling behind him. To the west, acres of freshly cut grain reveal rolling hills, and to the east, 3-foot stalks of wheat pulse in the wind. Arnold’s sweat-stained baseball cap is coated with fine golden dust after a day of harvesting at his farm near Opheim, Montana, a town with a population of 72 near the Canada border. 

Last year’s warm, dry winter hit Arnold’s unirrigated farm hard. Record-low snowpack left moisture in short supply, stunting crops’ growth. But he could soon see some financial relief. Arnold is one of nearly 300 Montana landowners in the path of a proposed pipeline that would traverse nine counties in eastern Montana and an expanse of eastern Wyoming. 

“We’re coming off of two, three bad years,” Arnold said, “and that’s going to be a good-size check.”

Wyoming-based Bridger Pipeline LLC plans to build a 650-mile pipeline to move tar sands oil — a dense mix of sand, clay, water, and a molasses-like form of petroleum that generates about 20 percent more greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional crude. The route would connect to an existing Canadian pipeline and run through Montana to an oil refinery hub and trading center in Guernsey, Wyoming. The company has said it plans to break ground within a year. This spring, President Donald Trump granted the project a presidential permit authorizing it to cross the Canadian border.

Bales of hay dot the landscape, photographed in Fallon County. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Arnold has farmed in this region all his life. He’s seen droughts come and go, and expanded his operation to remain profitable in an industry that runs on razor-thin margins. In the 1980s, when a trifecta of drought, heat, and grasshoppers decimated his crops, he wasn’t sure if he could afford to keep going. Then a pipeline came to town. 

The Northern Border Pipeline moves gas from Canada to the American Midwest, with 105 miles running through Montana. The check Arnold got for letting that pipeline cut through his land enabled him to continue farming. 

“It was the greatest thing ever,” he said. 

Decades later, when the Keystone XL was proposed to move tar sands oil from Alberta through the U.S. to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico, Arnold was excited to see another pipeline come into his community, but disappointed to find he wasn’t along the path. The pipeline was never constructed after then-President Joe Biden terminated the project in 2021.

Now, Arnold has another chance. Standing in his grain fields, he said he was excited when Bridger first approached him about an easement more than a year ago. 

“My first thought was, ‘I’m not gonna let you come through unless you do circles out there,’” Arnold said, noting that he wanted to maximize the length of the pipeline crossing his land. The more pipe on his property, the more he stands to earn.

Bridger’s proposed pipeline runs through farm and rangeland where volatile cattle markets, skyrocketing diesel prices, and multiyear droughts have made a challenging industry even harder in recent years. Farmers and ranchers who own land along the route say a payment from Bridger could provide meaningful stability. 

Cows watch Kent Kleeman drive in September 2026 in Peerless, a community in eastern Montana. The Bridger Pipeline’s preferred route from Canada to Wyoming would cross Kleeman’s property. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Pipeline companies often negotiate deals with individual landowners, paying them a one-time sum for an easement on their land. Landowners are also compensated for survey access or preliminary legal fees to consult a lawyer about an easement proposal.  

The amount a pipeline company pays depends on the length of pipe and individual negotiations, which are often private. In 2012, some landowners reported offers of up to $38,000 from the Keystone XL pipeline. Landowners in Nebraska who held out said they were offered tens of thousands of dollars in signing bonuses, with some reporting offers of more than $150,000.

With President Donald Trump back in office, many landowners in eastern Montana are cautiously optimistic that a new pipeline could deliver the economic opportunities Keystone once promised. Still, the project has multiple milestones to pass before it can be built. 

First, the company must identify potential routes. Bridger has proposed three, with one defined as the preferred route. Next, the company must survey the route, examining topographical challenges and environmental impacts. Bridger spokesperson Bill Salvin told Grist and Montana Free Press in October that the company has paid each of the roughly 450 landowners on the preferred route for the right and access to conduct surveys. Salvin declined to say what collective payments to landowners might add up to. 

The Bureau of Land Management will then publish its own environmental review for public comment. Pending that process, Bridger has to secure state and federal compliance permits, negotiate with landowners, and pay them for easements. Only then can construction begin, Salvin said. 

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Landowners along the pipeline’s proposed routes have varying levels of information about the company’s plans. Many still have basic questions about what the pipeline will carry, where it will end up, and how it might help them with rising fuel costs. But the Montana Department of Environmental Quality has hosted regular meetings with Bridger and county commissioners along the route, and as a result, local commissioners are largely championing the project. 

Daniels County Commissioner Tammi Fladager said a project like Bridger would provide a much-needed economic boon. Fifty miles of Bridger’s preferred route run through the county, which is home to roughly 1,600 people, 11 percent of whom live in poverty. 

“We’re kind of desperate,” Fladager said, sitting in a purple rocking chair in her living room in September. “Anybody that comes with a big check, it’s ‘Where do I sign?’ You don’t want the lottery ticket to walk out the door.”

Bridger anticipates hiring anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 construction workers to build the pipeline, and those workers, Salvin said, would stay in temporary housing provided by the company, commonly referred to as “man camps.” Salvin said Bridger expects to create 50-100 full-time jobs in Montana to maintain the pipeline once it’s built. 

Economic impacts at that scale are meaningful in rural eastern Montana. The Continental Divide separates more than just the forests from the prairie. Most of the state’s income-generating population centers, tourism destinations, and growth are located in the western half of the state. It’s a different story in the east. The oil and gas industry is a major economic driver for eastern Montana, and one of the region’s primary avenues of revenue. Carter County commissioners said existing oil and pipeline infrastructure accounts for the vast majority of the county’s property tax receipts. The pipeline’s promise to consistently fill county coffers, Fladager said, carries a lot of weight in the eastern half of the state. 

“It almost feels like western Montana is eating off of a banquet table, and we’re down here picking up scraps,” Fladager said. “And this [pipeline] is like a pork chop falling on the floor. That’s what it is to us.”

Daniels County is also uniquely poised to benefit from Bridger because it doesn’t have any existing pipelines paying into county tax accounts. In 2025, neighboring Valley County collected more tax revenue from centrally assessed properties, which include everything from pipelines to power lines, than from any other real estate. 

Valley County Commission Chair Paul Tweten said the community was hopeful when Keystone announced it was coming through the area. He said residents built new shops, bought new pickups, and approved a $16.8 million school bond with the expectation of leveraging Keystone tax revenues.   

Asked how he felt when Biden signed the executive order ending Keystone, Tweten paused. “You don’t want to know,” he said. 

Paul Tweten, Valley County Commission chair, photographed in Glasgow in September 2026. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Bob Thielen ranches outside Plevna, about 250 miles southeast of Valley County. His land is on the pipeline’s preferred route, and he supports the project. 

“There’s a couple old Bridger pipelines that were put in way before I was born,” Thielen said, standing beside the county road running through his property. “I don’t even know what year. Probably in the ’50s, maybe.” 

His property was also on the path of Keystone XL. Having watched Keystone’s death, Thielen said he’s skeptical about Bridger’s chances.   

“I’m going to call this the annoying stages of it,” he said. “When all the negotiations are going on, and when you got all the surveyors and environmentalists, and everybody is wanting to come through your property and do all this and do all that, really before anything’s even set in stone.”

Bridger has local offices in the area, and Thielen said he trusts the company. But he has questions. 

“Where’s the oil going? It’d be really nice to know,” Thielen said. “I don’t know why we have to keep sending oil out of our country when we’re in a struggle right now.”

He said he’d like to see more transparency from company and government officials about what the pipeline will carry, and whether it will help drive down gas prices. 

“What is the benefit to the American people?” Thielen said. “The counties might get a little revenue, us ranchers are going to get a little revenue — the American people are going to get absolutely zero from it if it’s just coming in and going out.”

A dog waits in a truck outside the Four Buttes Supper Club in Scobey, a rural city in eastern Montana, in September 2026. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Several landowners on the pipeline’s route told Grist and Montana Free Press they are in the dark about what the pipeline will carry and its final destination.

While Wyoming may mark the end of the pipeline, it’s not necessarily the last stop for the crude it will carry. Bridger, in collaboration with South Bow, another energy company, plans to build a pipeline to move tar sands crude from Guernsey, Wyoming, through Colorado and Kansas to a refinery in Cushing, Oklahoma. From there, it could be stored or moved to the Gulf of Mexico to be globally exported. 

Salvin said it’s impossible to say how or whether the Bridger pipeline might impact the cost of fuel but noted that more supply in the market is a good thing. 

“This is scheduled to start at 550,000 barrels a day; that gives additional security and stability to a market that can be unstable at times,” Salvin said. “And when you have a secure market, and you have a security of supply, that can help even out some of those shocks.”

The pipeline also comes with risk. At full capacity, it could carry more than a million barrels daily. A spill could pose serious environmental and health hazards. 

The preferred route skirts just north of the Fort Peck Reservation boundary, coming within 2 miles of the reservation at its nearest point. Tribal leaders have said that even though the pipeline wouldn’t cross their land, a spill could put thousands of people’s drinking water at risk. 

Krystal Two Bulls, executive director of Honor the Earth, an Indigenous-led environmental advocacy organization, said plotting a pipeline’s path just beyond a reservation boundary is a “familiar tactic.” The Dakota Access pipeline skirts around the northern border of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and Enbridge’s Line 5 is being rerouted to avoid the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin. 

“It’s an extremely common practice,” she said. “It’s like, ‘We’ll put the pipeline just close enough where you don’t have rights. And you can’t say that it’s on the reservation, so, legally, you don’t have the same protections or the same ability to fight it.’ But it’s close enough where it’s going to have an impact.”

Bridger’s Salvin said the company prioritized a route that does not cross reservation land because of tribal opposition. 

“Their tribe has made it clear they don’t want additional pipelines,” he said. “We are of the mind that if people don’t want our pipelines, whether it’s Fort Peck Tribes or an individual landowner, we don’t want to put it there. We’d rather have someone amenable to the pipeline willing to have it cross their property.”

Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board member Jestin Dupree listens as Bureau of Land Management officials answer questions from tribal representatives about the proposed Bridger Pipeline in September 2026 in Poplar, Montana. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Sitting beside his colleagues in the Fort Peck tribal chambers on a Thursday morning in late September, Tribal Executive Board member Jestin Dupree addressed two U.S. Bureau of Land Management representatives. Because the pipeline would cross more than 50 miles of BLM land, the federal agency is a major player in the planning process. 

“I want to know about worst-case scenarios,” Dupree told agency leaders.

The pipeline would run near several water systems that treat and deliver water from the Missouri River to thousands of Native and non-Native people on the reservation and in surrounding counties. It would also cross the Poplar River, a tributary of the Missouri.

What would happen, Dupree wanted to know, if it were to spill? 

In 2015, a different pipeline owned by Bridger spilled at least 30,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil into the Yellowstone River. About 6,000 Glendive residents, whose water treatment plant was downstream of the spill, were directed not to consume drinking water at the time. Bridger ultimately settled a civil lawsuit with the Montana Attorney General’s Office over the spill for $2 million in 2021. According to data from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Bridger pipelines have spilled 12 times since 2012. In 2023, Bridger and pipeline company Belle Fourche agreed to pay a $12.5 million civil penalty under the federal Clean Water Act and pipeline safety laws following oil spills in Montana and North Dakota. 

Slavin told Grist and Montana Free Press the company has improved its safety protocols since the 2015 spill.

“We build the pipelines today better than they were built in the past,” he said. “They are designed for safety and 24/7 monitoring with multiple leak detection systems, including one that we invented using AI.”

In the same September meeting, tribal leaders asked BLM representatives if the agency’s environmental analysis will consider the lifetime emissions produced by processing and burning tar sands oil. 

The refining and burning of fossil fuels releases planet-warming emissions. In addition to the higher greenhouse gas footprint compared to other types of crude, tar sands oil requires large amounts of water and gas for heating and mining to extract the bitumen.   

Marva Chapman, member of the Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board, listens as Bureau of Land Management officials answer questions about the proposed Bridger Pipeline on Sept. 24, 2026, in Poplar. Lauren Miller / Montana Free Press / CatchLight Local / Report for America

Phillip Blundell, the pipeline project lead for the BLM, cited a recent Supreme Court decision that federal agencies are not required to analyze such environmental impacts. He told tribal leaders that the BLM’s environmental analysis “will only look at emissions from construction.”

Council members also asked what an emergency response would look like in the event of a spill. They wanted to know how to document potential harm to the tribes’ natural resources and asked if there are plans to mitigate possible violence at man camps.

BLM representatives provided council members with little in the way of specifics, repeating several times that Bridger’s delay in providing logistical information about the pipeline has stalled the agency’s progress on its environmental analysis. 

Dupree said he left the council meeting with more questions than answers.

“We met with the BLM twice and Bridger Pipeline twice in the last year and a half, but you know, the same questions come about with no answers,” he said. “It’s just a lot of lip service, it seems.”

Asked about plans to meet with the tribal council, Bridger spokesperson Salvin said the company is preparing technical assessments to address the tribes’ questions and plans to meet in December. 

Dupree told Grist and Montana Free Press that, as of mid-October, he was unaware of any scheduled meeting. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In eastern Montana, a new oil pipeline comes with perils and a potential payday on Oct 29, 2026.

Nick Reece is Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Australia, and co-chair-elect of C40, a global network of nearly 100 major cities working to address climate change. Claudio Castro is Mayor of Renca, Chile. Both are board members of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy.

When we talk about the green economy, we often think nationally: industrial strategies, renewable-energy targets, subsidies and rules for electrification. But much of the investment needed to deliver the green transition will be decided closer to home – in our cities.

City authorities determine where and how buildings are built and renovated, how public transport develops, how land is used, what municipalities buy and what gets built in terms of infrastructure.

These decisions have the power to go beyond cutting emissions and strengthening resilience. They create new opportunities for businesses and investors.

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• Oct 6, 2026 News Race to host High Seas Treaty HQ heats up as Chile reaffirms bid Chile’s ocean protection record and concerns over a rival Chinese bid keep it in play, despite questions over the Kast government’s environmental policies Read more

A new analysis by C40 Cities and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM) shows just how large these new markets could become.

Across 151 cities, annual spending on key green products could rise from $293 billion in 2025 to $2.78 trillion by 2050, as cities implement the climate commitments they have made. That figure would place them among the world’s five most valuable companies by market capitalisation.

Reliable source of rising demand

The supply of these green products will need to increase dramatically to meet booming demand. With Smart City Expo in Barcelona, Spain, and COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, on the horizon, these projections highlight an unprecedented investment opportunity that decision-makers cannot afford to ignore.

Beyond the global headline figure, it represents millions of local decisions and investments and, crucially, a growing source of market certainty. The analysis shows that fulfilling existing city climate plans could drive demand for key green products to eight times current levels by 2050, creating a reliable pipeline for businesses and investors.

A worker installs solar panels on a rooftop in the city of Nakhon Pathom in central Thailand (Photo: Peerapon Boonyakiat) A worker installs solar panels on a rooftop in the city of Nakhon Pathom in central Thailand (Photo: Peerapon Boonyakiat)

Because these markets are shaped locally, the same national policies can produce very different outcomes from one city to another. But cities determine how quickly markets take off through planning, permitting, procurement, infrastructure and the targets they set.

Over the past decade, GCoM has brought together more than 14,000 cities and local governments across 150 countries under the premise that tackling the climate and energy crises head-on requires municipalities of all shapes and sizes to act – alongside their national governments.

And we have seen firsthand how local climate action can create new investment opportunities. Renca and Melbourne offer two very different examples of this dynamic in practice.

Greener future for city living

Melbourne is creating a pipeline of green investment across the city. In its 2025-2026 budget, Melbourne committed approximately $31 million to new parks, streetscape improvements and thousands of trees, while planning to electrify 11 municipal sites, including Melbourne Town Hall, and move its buildings towards 100% renewable electricity. Its 4-km Greenline project is also delivering promenades, parks, native planting and environmental renewal along the Yarra River – Birrarung. Together, these investments are creating demand across construction, clean energy, urban design and other green industries.

In Renca, climate investment is tackling local challenges while bringing public and private partners together. Between 2018 and 2025, about $7.6 million in public and private investment funded a reforestation effort that has planted more than 85,000 trees in the Renca Hills Metropolitan Park. An assessment supported by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) now puts a number on what that investment returns: once the park matures, around 2035, its ecosystem services could be worth about $8.9 million a year.

A Water Master Plan, designed to reuse treated industrial water, will help sustain it. Renca has also attracted clean-energy investment through a 1.6-MW solar plant at a site run by manufacturer Tehmco. The project, which involved cooperation with the Japanese city of Toyama, includes more than 3,400 panels and expected annual emissions savings of about 1,000 tonnes of CO2.

Stepping up to meet cities’ climate needs

For us, as mayors, the lesson is clear: climate resilience is also economic resilience.

This is why the message ahead of COP31 should be straightforward: the world does not need a new market for climate action. It is already emerging in cities across the globe. What we need now is the push to take it to scale and turn local demand into a global investment boom.

COP31 has made implementation central to its Global Climate Action Agenda, with targets including raising the share of final energy demand met by electricity to 35% by 2035 and reducing building energy-consumption intensity by at least 25%. It has also highlighted green industrialisation, circularity and resilient cities.

Comment: Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action

These are ambitious targets and delivering them will require investment at a scale that matches the ambition. Cities are already putting projects into motion. The task now is to ensure that national policies and global finance scale up supply to meet demand.

But governments and global institutions cannot do this alone. The private sector must respond, too. The $2.78-trillion opportunity will be built on thousands of local climate and energy projects, like those in Melbourne and Renca. Companies need to look to cities as a source of long-term demand, while markets need products that can reach smaller projects and businesses, not only mega-infrastructure.

As members of C40 and GCoM, we strongly believe city and business leaders must work together to scale solutions faster. We need predictable, affordable finance and the capacity to turn local priorities into investment-ready projects. COP31’s Climate Implementation Bridge can help connect national commitments with these city-level investment pipelines and place local governments where they belong: at the centre of implementation and investment.

The businesses best positioned for the next decade will be those that see local governments not simply as stewards for climate solution deployment, but as the markets driving growth at speed and scale – from villages and towns to cities and metropolises. The opportunity is already there. Now we need to invest in it.

The post From Australia to Chile, our cities are driving a green investment boom appeared first on Climate Home News.

Last August, Christine Burton got an unexpected call from her sister, an employee at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak, Alaska. The state-owned facility was about to conduct an unannounced test launch of what was likely a hypersonic missile and would be closing the only road that runs from the center of town to the site. Burton knew the drill. She and her husband, Buck, owned and operated a 140-acre bison ranch that abuts the Spaceport and, for the last couple of years, had had to deal with the many disruptions that came with it: road closures, accidents — at least five rockets have exploded or malfunctioned during takeoff, releasing debris and toxic material into the surrounding environment — and last-minute changes for clients hunting game on their land. Plus, their home is on the same two-lane road to the facility. When the road is shut down, the Burtons and their six children are effectively stranded. 

Usually, they’d get a couple of days’ notice, allowing them time to make any necessary arrangements. But this time there was no such buffer. Her sister had called to let her know that the road would be closed that evening for the test launch, so Burton left work early and drove home. Then, about a half hour later, she observed an unmarked security vehicle blocking her driveway. This, more than anything, she found infuriating. Her 6-year-old was sick, and whoever was overseeing the launch was essentially telling her not just that she couldn’t drive into town, but also that she couldn’t leave her house.

A sign marks part of “Burton Ranch,” owned by Christine and Buck Burton. Nathaniel Wilder

The launch, it turned out, was delayed until the following night. On August 21, 2025, around 10 p.m., a massive rocket streaked across the sky before breaking up somewhere over the Pacific. Videos posted to Facebook, X, and other social media captured its flight path, with one viewer wondering if it had been a nuclear weapon fired from Russia. 

The Alaska Aerospace Corporation, which operates the Spaceport facility, later released a statement explaining that it had carried out “a successful government rocket launch,” and that the people of Kodiak (with a population of over 12,000) should be proud of their role in “the United States’ space legacy.” But the information blackout the U.S. military required for this launch was unprecedented and even ruffled feathers within Alaska Aerospace. The Spaceport had prepared a press release and public notice that it wanted to share with the local media a few days before the launch. But government officials wouldn’t allow it. They wouldn’t even let Spaceport staff tell Alaska’s Department of Transportation about the road closure.

“It was the government that put the handcuffs on us,” Alaska Aerospace’s CEO, John Oberst, told colleagues at a board meeting in Kodiak a few weeks later. 

For the Burtons, it was an ominous sign, the beginning of a new era of secrecy around the launch facility and militarization of Kodiak Island itself. Founded by the state of Alaska in 1991, Alaska Aerospace was originally billed as a “public corporation” that would focus primarily on “space-related economic growth” and “space-related educational and research development by encouraging and assisting the University of Alaska,” according to the state statute establishing it. Unlike Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California — two of the country’s busiest launch facilities — it was the first commercial spaceport not affiliated with a federal installation. 

Stacy Studebaker, a Kodiak resident and longtime critic of the facility, said that officials used to tout its public-facing nature and potential to contribute to the local economy. “They claimed from the beginning that this would be a commercial launch site,” Studebaker said.

Longtime Kodiak resident and former Audubon chair Stacy Studebaker at her cabin at Pasagshak Bay nearby to the rocket launch sites. Nathaniel Wilder

But in the last couple of years, the tone has shifted. Alaska’s proximity to Russia and China, viewed as the U.S.’s primary threats and competitors in the region, and existing Cold War-era infrastructure, have made places like Kodiak highly attractive to military planners. At the same time, a rapidly warming Arctic is accelerating the competition for resources, including minerals and rare earth metals, and for control of shipping lanes, while also exposing infrastructure to the threat of worsening storms and sea level rise. This quest for “Arctic dominance” has heightened the risk of accidents — an oil tanker capsizing in the Arctic Ocean, for example — or outright military conflict.  

The Trump administration is planning to invest billions of dollars in Arctic security, including its Golden Dome missile defense system — a complex, layered defense shield incorporating “space-based sensors and interceptors,” designed to protect the United States from incoming missiles.

Much of the project has been cloaked in secrecy. But in September, the Air Force announced for the first time that it had deployed weapons in orbit to guard against “hostile adversary action.”

All of this means a potentially dramatic increase in launches from the Spaceport. In July, Rocket Lab, a private aerospace company, announced that it had signed a $266 million contract with the U.S. Air Force for missile defense testing, which will entail up to 18 suborbital launches at the facility over the next two years. And in the last year, the Spaceport was allocated up to $45.5 million from the federal government to upgrade the facility. It plans to modernize several of its launch pads and build a new 10,000-foot airstrip as well as a large lodging facility to accommodate government employees and private contractors, according to Oberst.

Construction on a new launch site at Narrow Cape where the Alaska Aerospace Corporation has rocket launch pads. The sites are built near the Gulf of Alaska, which would absorb fallout from a launch failure or explosion. Nathaniel Wilder

Alaska Aerospace’s 2025 annual report states that the Spaceport is “actively planning for increased launch cadence” and could see an exponential increase in activity — from one to three launches per year to one to three per month. Since opening nearly three decades ago, the Spaceport has performed a total of 35 launches. Now, it could potentially exceed that figure in a single year. 

Alaska Aerospace also has ambitions to grow beyond Kodiak. It has partnered with the University of Alaska Fairbanks to facilitate orbital and suborbital launches out of the university’s Poker Flat Research Range, north of Fairbanks, and is looking at a possible launch site on Alaska’s North Slope at Oliktok Point.  

“Spaceports are like beachfront property,” Oberst said in a press release announcing the agreement with the university in June 2025. “Very few and in high demand.”

This activity comes as the Trump administration is loosening regulations for commercial space operations and speeding up the permitting and review process for launches. The goal is to expand the number of launches nationwide from roughly 200 last year to 1,000 every year by the end of the decade (and as many as 10,000 launches a year by 2035), as outlined in a recently released National Security Presidential Memo, and marks the beginning of what President Donald Trump has called the “golden age of space transportation.” Achieving that goal will require not only new infrastructure, but also fast-tracking the environmental review process for launches and the construction of new spaceports.

The integrated processing facility at Narrow Cape where rockets are assembled. Rockets are assembled inside structures, which are later removed to expose the completed rocket. Nathaniel Wilder

In an executive order issued last year, Trump called for streamlining the licensing requirements for commercial launches. More recently, the Federal Aviation Administration announced a new rule that would allow private companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to bypass more than a dozen regulations, including longstanding environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Water Act when applying for launch permits or construction of new spaceports. 

Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy group that has criticized the FAA’s rule, says the rapid increase in launch activity poses risks to public health and the climate, many of which have yet to be studied. 

“One of the main goals of this deregulatory push is just to massively increase commercial space activity,” said Scott Stern, a senior attorney at Earthjustice. “And the whole point of our environmental review statute is not necessarily to impede activity. It is to make sure that it’s being done safely and that it is not unduly harming the human environment, wildlife, clean air, clean water, and our own communities.”

A cooling pool outside a rocket launch site, left, is designed to capture some of the heat from a launch so that it doesn’t burn the local terrain. Some locals complain that the rocket launches are disruptive and could contaminate the surrounding environment.​ Along the 35-mile road between the Kodiak airport and rocket launch facility, a brown bear, right, walks through the landscape. ​Nathaniel Wilder​

The scientific community has only recently begun revisiting the impacts of air pollution from rockets — including black soot and other toxic chemicals released during takeoff. One study published by researchers at University College London in 2022 found that a surge in rocket launches on a scale being proposed by the Trump administration could threaten progress in restoring the ozone layer over the past four decades and accelerate global warming. An emissions tracker created by the research team estimates that in the last five years alone, the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere from rocket launches has increased by more than 300 percent. 

Eloise Maraise, a professor of atmospheric chemistry and air quality at the university and the study’s lead author, said interest in the subject is now starting to attract significant funding opportunities because there’s been a realization that the impacts could be far-reaching. She described herself as being in the unenviable position of “forecasting an upcoming environmental disaster.”

It’s not just missile defense that is driving investment in Kodiak. The U.S. Coast Guard, which operates its largest base on the island, is slated to receive two new 328-foot polar icebreakers in the coming years (a third will have its home port in Seward, just to the north). The government is already building 30 new housing units, a child development center and playground, and other infrastructure improvements to accommodate the influx of personnel. There’s also been a flurry of construction at the highly secretive Navy Seal cold-weather training base in Kodiak, fueling rumors about what may be coming. All of this new activity is raising concerns among residents and local officials that the island’s energy grid, which is already nearing capacity, will not be able to accommodate the new development.

The Narrow Cape Lodge, known locally as the “space hotel,” is owned by a developer in Fairbanks. The Alaska Aerospace Corporation has worked with the lodge in the past to house spaceport employees. Nathaniel Wilder

Meanwhile, Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, has advocated for reopening the U.S. base on the island of Adak, part of the Aleutian archipelago southwest of Kodiak, which served as a staging ground for the Navy during World War II. The flight path over these islands is being turned into what Alaska Aerospace has dubbed the “Pacific Test Range,” which will be used to pilot “hypersonic vehicles, orbital launch, and other advanced aerospace systems.” 

Given these changes, the Burtons sold most of their property, which had been in the family since the 1960s, to Alaska Aerospace for $2.4 million in February. (They kept their home and 20 acres.) Christine Burton said it no longer made sense to hold onto the land. The increase in launches would have made it too difficult to operate their game ranch, and she feared the Spaceport’s new military focus meant the government would have found a way to seize the property by eminent domain. 

“We saw the writing on the wall,” Burton, who grew up in a military family, told me. 

Bison graze on land that was recently sold to the Aerospace Corporation, which plans to ramp up rocket launches in the coming years. Nathaniel Wilder

Alaska Aerospace hasn’t said much about what it plans to do with the 139.5 acres of land, close to popular hiking trails and beaches where visitors can watch gray whales make their way north in the summer. More than 150 bird species, several of which are at risk of extinction, also frequent the area along the island’s eastern edge, known as Narrow Cape. In addition to the new lodging complex, Alaska Aerospace officials have also resurrected a controversial plan to install a barge dock at the mouth of the Pasagshak River that would allow them to get heavy equipment to the site, but which could impact salmon and other species. 

Taken together, the expansion of the Spaceport and other defense installations on Kodiak will transform this rugged island into a hub of military activity in just a few short years. What Kodiak Mayor Jared Griffin described to me as a “sleepy working-class fishing town” is poised to become the tip of the spear in a new battle for control of the Arctic.

A monument stands just outside of the Alaska Aerospace Corporation launch facility at Narrow Cape. Nathaniel Wilder

Kodiak is the second largest island in the United States and one of Alaska’s most important commercial fishing hubs. A one-hour flight from Anchorage, it flanks the eastern edge of a volcanic island chain that extends more than 1,000 miles into the Bering Sea along the Russian border. 

Although the Trump administration has been fixated on exerting more control over Greenland, and the president himself has frequently referred, falsely, to the ubiquitous presence of Russian and Chinese ships in the North Atlantic, there’s been far more tension and potential for conflict along Alaska’s coast. The U.S., Russia, and China are all competing for control of these waters and the riches that lie beneath them, including oil and gas, rare earth metals, and highly lucrative commercial fish stocks such as crab and pollock. China, which declared itself a “near Arctic State” in 2018 and is rapidly expanding its own fleet of icebreakers, now routinely sends research vessels to the Bering Sea near the U.S. border on the way to the Arctic.

As warming waters melt the sea ice that once blanketed much of the Arctic Ocean — the Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet — shipping access will only increase. Russia has already invested tens of billions in developing the Northern Sea Route, which runs along its roughly 3,500-mile-long Arctic coastline and would slash the amount of time it takes for oil and gas to reach East Asia. The world’s superpowers also have their sights set on commercial fishing opportunities in the Arctic Ocean, though it is currently protected by an international treaty.

A river that flows into Pasagshak Bay just below the rocket launch sites draws fishermen for its salmon runs throughout the season.The Aerospace Corporation is considering building a barge landing in the Bay. Nathaniel Wilder

Tensions have already spilled out into the open. In 2023, a Chinese spy balloon entered U.S. airspace north of the Aleutian Islands and drifted across the continental United States before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina. And the U.S. has intercepted several Russian fighter jets — and one joint Russian-Chinese mission — in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone near the Bering Strait. One encounter in 2024 came dangerously close to an outright collision.

These sensitivities extend to the Spaceport. Oberst, the Alaska Aerospace CEO, said last year’s launch was kept quiet until the last minute because the government “didn’t want anybody, especially the adversaries, to be aware of the timing or the detail of it.” 

Though Democratic and Republican administrations have both sought to project power in the Arctic — the Army released a report in 2021 titled “Regaining Arctic Dominance” — Trump has placed a premium on reasserting U.S. primacy in the region. 

The Golden Dome project, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will cost more than $1 trillion, is the crown jewel in his plans. The system, which Lockheed Martin has described as a “Manhattan Project-scale mission,” would use land, air, and space-based sensors and interceptors to stave off an incoming attack.  

“Golden Dome is the main driver for business for the next three-to-five years,” Oberst told colleagues at Alaska Aerospace’s annual board meeting last year. “It’s the national imperative. So it supersedes other missions.”

President and CEO of the state-owned Alaska Aerospace Corporation, John Oberst, in his office in Anchorage. Nathaniel Wilder

Commercial launches aimed at environmental research or scientific discovery, the suggestion seemed to be, would have to take a back seat.

Money has already begun to flow into Alaska, and Kodiak in particular. Beyond the tens of millions of dollars for upgrades to the Spaceport, the facility is also one of hundreds of contractors considered eligible for up to $151 billion in government funding related to Golden Dome over the next decade. Alaska Aerospace has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Moonshot Space, an Israeli aerospace start-up whose CEO helped develop the Iron Dome, Israel’s missile defense shield. The company is currently developing an electromagnetic launch technology that would operate out of Poker Flat. 

Shahar Bahiri, one of Moonshot’s co-founders and its chief operating officer, told me Alaska is attractive precisely because of its large open spaces and low population density. “What we want to have is an area which is open sea … very low air traffic, very little sea traffic, not a lot of civilians around the launch area, and not a lot of nature,” he said. 

Meanwhile, the Defense Authorization Act for 2027, which still has to get through Congress, would provide $2.6 billion for military assets across the state, including the continued expansion of Kodiak’s launch capacity. Sullivan, in an op-ed published earlier this year, said Alaska is “in the midst of the most significant military buildup … since World War II.”

The integrated processing facility at Narrow Cape where rockets are assembled. Nathaniel Wilder

Cold War-era military development and infrastructure is still visible in parts of Alaska. Distant Early Warning Line radar stations were set up across the Arctic, from the Aleutians to Greenland, and served as a kind of trip wire for Soviet bombers. The U.S. also tested nuclear weapons in Alaska in the 1960s and ’70s, including a series of underground explosions on Amchitka Island in the Bering Sea — despite opposition and a lawsuit from Native Aleuts — which killed up to 2,000 sea otters as well as thousands of sea birds and other wildlife. (In an editorial published a few days before the final test in 1971, the New York Times wrote, “The folly of Amchitka is the folly of a species that burns and poisons and blows up its only home.”)

Today, some of the most direct impacts of this new military buildup will be felt by people in places across Alaska. At board meetings and in op-eds, residents of Kodiak have expressed worries about the disruption and potential harm from new weapons testing, but also more mundane concerns such as what all the activity will mean for housing, roads, and the island’s energy supply. 

A couple of days before I first spoke with Kodiak Mayor Jared Griffin in July, he’d toured the Spaceport with the undersecretary for energy, Kyle Haustveit, who was in town to learn about the island’s energy needs. Griffin, who was elected a year ago, grew up in Alaska in a military family and teaches English and literature at the University of Alaska at Anchorage’s Kodiak College. A self-described “space nerd,” Griffin believes Kodiak will benefit from the defense-related investments. He lobbied for the expansion of the Coast Guard base, which he said could bring an additional 300 to 500 people to the area, which has seen a decline in its population over the last decade. But he also recognizes that the infusion of federal dollars and personnel has the potential to change the character of the island.

Kodiak borough mayor Jared Griffin in the town of Kodiak. Griffin’s job is to facilitate communication between the borough and the Alaska Aerospace Corporation. Nathaniel Wilder

Griffin said that when he was campaigning for office last fall, most of these concerns weren’t really on the table. Over the past six months, however, interest in Kodiak’s role as a central military outpost in the Arctic has intensified. “Things are just exploding,” Griffin said.

Dan Menth, CEO of the Kodiak Electric Association, the island’s main electric utility, expressed a similar sense of disbelief in just how quickly the mood has changed. Over the past year, Menth said, the cooperative started receiving inquiries from federal agencies about Kodiak’s grid capacity as rumors swirled about new development, whether it was tied to Golden Dome or a broader military buildup in the Arctic. 

“It’s kind of like the year ended and the floodgates opened,” Menth said.

Sign at Narrow Cape where the Alaska Aerospace Corporation has rocket launch pads. Nathaniel Wilder

It was also unclear to Menth, and the rest of the island’s residents, what specifically the federal government had in mind and what it would mean for Kodiak. “What’s coming?” Menth asked when I spoke to him in August. “I don’t know.” 

Secrecy surrounding construction at the Navy Seal training base has added to the sense that government officials are not being fully transparent. “Something was definitely happening last summer, and they were cryptic about it for sure,” said Natura Richardson, executive director of the Island Trails Network, which promotes access to Kodiak’s hiking trails, including a loop that skirts the naval base. (In a written statement, the Navy said it is constructing a new “operational facility,” that will be powered from the existing grid with backup generators for emergencies.) 

The new projects will be an added challenge for the island’s electrical grid, which at certain times of the year, especially the height of fish processing in February and March, is nearly maxed out.

Kodiak relies on a mix of hydro and wind power that provides residents with affordable clean energy and can draw on backup diesel generators if necessary. Indeed, Kodiak has some of the least expensive electricity in Alaska, which is notable considering that Kodiak is an island in the Pacific Ocean. 

“It takes years to add generation to our system,” Menth said. “It’s not like the Lower 48 where you just show up and you plug it in. We’re an island. And, unfortunately, we’re right on the verge of being tapped out.”

The Pillar Mountain wind farm is located above the town of Kodiak as seen here from across Chiniak Bay. Nathaniel Wilder

A representative from the Department of Energy said the federal agency is “focused on leveraging Alaska’s abundant energy resources and advancing practical solutions to deliver more affordable, reliable, and secure energy for Alaskan communities, including Kodiak.”

Some locals also worry about the island’s fragile ecosystems. There are rare and endangered bird habitat, grey whale migration corridors, and salmon streams — already facing threats from rapidly warming water. Marine mammals are especially sensitive to noise pollution, which will increase with more launches and shipping traffic. The Spaceport’s expansion will fragment important wildlife habitat. And with significantly more launches, there’s a greater chance that something will go wrong — as happened in 2014 when the Army’s experimental hypersonic missile exploded four seconds after takeoff, raining debris on the surrounding area. The mishap led to a multiyear $34-million reconstruction project, according to an Alaska Aerospace presentation. (There have been at least five launch failures that have ended in explosions or accidents.)    

Stacy Studebaker, who moved to Kodiak in 1980 after working for the National Park Service, says her biggest fears are that the military buildup and increase in launch activity will block access to public lands and beaches and result in environmental contamination. She also worries about the proposed barge landing dock at the mouth of the Pasagshak River, not far from where she and her husband have a seasonal cabin.

Longtime Kodiak resident and former Audubon chair Stacy Studebaker at her cabin at Pasagshak Bay nearby to the rocket launch sites. Nathaniel Wilder

This past May, Studebaker, who is conservation chairperson of the local chapter of Audubon Alaska, arranged a meeting with Oberst, who gave the group a tour of the Spaceport and answered questions. Studebaker presented a recent inventory of bird species in the area compiled by Audubon; they identified 185 in Narrow Cape, including two dozen considered species of conservation concern. 

“We really wanted them to know they are on hallowed habitat,” Studebaker said. 

By all accounts, Oberst has been much more engaged with the community than previous Alaska Aerospace leaders: After the missile launch last August, he sent Christine Burton flowers and a note apologizing for the disturbance. But his relationship with the town could soon be strained. The military’s insistence on secrecy and the rushed timeline for developing a Golden Dome prototype — the Pentagon has scheduled the first major test before the 2028 presidential election — will likely take precedence over the concerns of the community. 

That seems to be the emerging pattern. In August, General Michael Guetlein, who oversees the Golden Dome project, told an audience at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, that the government had already carried out two secret tests of the missile defense system, one of them at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico (the other site remains undisclosed). But the program largely remains a black box. At the 2025 symposium, government officials were barred from talking about Golden Dome. More recently, David Mosher, national security division director for the Congressional Budget Office, which produced its own estimate of the program’s cost, said that the Pentagon initially refused to share any information with him, and he only received a briefing on the program after intervention by Senate Armed Services Committee staff.  

Launch site at Narrow Cape where the Alaska Aerospace Corporation has rocket launch pads. Nathaniel Wilder

Oberst, for his part, said he intends to be as transparent as he can be with the community. He hopes the new hotel and land acquired from the Burtons will eventually create more opportunities for residents and the public to explore that part of the island. But as the military presence on Kodiak grows and tensions between the U.S. and its adversaries escalate, there will be limits to what he can tell his neighbors.

As Oberst said only half-jokingly during our conversation, he’s not even supposed to say the words “Golden Dome.”    

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The new Cold War comes to Kodiak on Oct 29, 2026.

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Article Contents Expand menu

• Clean-tech exports
• Solar exports are the biggest enabler
• Global South dominates avoided emissions
• Clean-tech exports span the globe
• Overseas clean energy projects double over three years
• China’s exports enable market growth
• Electrification export implications
• About the data

China’s exports in 2026 of clean-energy technologies, such as solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, are on track to cut emissions beyond its borders by 2%, reveals new analysis.

This guest post is by:

Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute

The impact of these Chinese exports on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions around the world grew by 26% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2026, having already risen by 36% in 2025.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief is based on detailed data for clean-tech product exports, the electricity system in destination countries and emissions during manufacturing in China.

If the latest trends continue for the rest of the year, then Chinese clean-tech exports in 2026 alone will avoid around 450m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) – roughly equivalent to Brazil’s annual emissions.

Other key findings from the analysis include:

• Electric car and heavy vehicle shipments grew by 61% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2026, wind-turbines by 45%, batteries 39%, solar 22% and electric two-wheelers by 21%.
• Over the lifetime of the equipment, exports in 2026 are on track to avoid 8,400MtCO2, equivalent to the annual emissions of the US and India combined.
• This lifetime avoided emissions total for exports in 2026 is up by a quarter from 6,800MtCO2 in 2025 and up by two-thirds from 5,000MtCO2 in 2024.
• Wind- and solar-equipment exports from China in 2026 will generate as much electricity each year as roughly 100 coal-fired power plants.
• While the majority of clean-tech exports by value went to the global north in the first three quarters of 2026, some 76% of lifetime avoided emissions were in the global south.
• This includes 52% of lifetime avoided emissions being in south and south-east Asia, reflecting solar shipments from China being installed onto high-carbon power grids.
• Chinese-owned clean-energy projects built in other countries doubled from 2022-25, but the amount of CO2 avoided remains small compared to equipment exports.

The analysis shows that most of China’s clean-energy exports have been built on new or expanded markets, enabling other producers to maintain their own sales volumes.

In addition, clean-energy sales within China are larger than exports for most technologies, but a domestic solar slowdown could exacerbate trade tensions, if it continues.

Clean-tech exports

China has become the pre-eminent producer of clean-energy technologies, from solar panels and wind turbines through to batteries and electric vehicles.

The majority of China’s clean-tech production is destined for the domestic market. But it has also become a major exporter – and these exports are avoiding significant amounts of CO2.

Previous analysis for Carbon Brief showed that these clean-energy exports in 2024 would cut emissions in countries outside China by around 1%.

The latest analysis shows that China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 are on track to avoid around 450MtCO2, as shown in the figure below, which is nearly 2% of global emissions outside China. It is also roughly equivalent to Brazil’s annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.

The estimate for the final quarter of 2026 is projected from the year-on-year growth rate in the first three quarters. CO2 emissions outside China from Energy Institute data. For further details see: About the data.

The analysis accounts for the impact of the clean-tech exports in the destination country, as well as the emissions due to manufacturing the products in China.

Looking at the full-year data for 2025, manufacturing clean-energy equipment resulted in emissions of around 170MtCO2 within China, while avoiding 370MtCO2 in other countries. This implies that, in aggregate, it takes six months for the exported goods to pay back the CO2 from manufacturing.

Solar exports are the biggest enabler

China’s solar-equipment exports continue to be the biggest enabler of decarbonisation in other countries, according to the analysis.

In the full-year data for 2025, China exported finished solar panels and intermediate products that correspond to a total generating capacity of 436 gigawatts (GW) once assembled and installed.

(Note that this is measured in gigawatts DC, which reflects the capacity of the panels, whereas capacity measured in AC refers to the size of the wire that connects them to the grid.)

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In addition, China exported 8GW of wind turbines. Together with the solar equipment, this will generate approximately 720 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity per year, based on the average output per unit of capacity for solar and wind in each destination country.

For 2026, China’s exports of wind and solar equipment are on track to generate approximately 800TWh of electricity, equivalent to the generation from around 100 coal-fired power plants.

Over their lifetimes, based on the power sources expected to be displaced in each destination country, the solar exports in 2025 will avoid an estimated 6,400MtCO2.

(For more details on the basis for these calculations, see: About the data.)

Solar is therefore the largest source of lifetime avoided CO2 emissions by far, with wind-turbine exports in second place displacing just 180MtCO2, as shown in the figure below.

Note the variable y-axes. Avoided emissions are net of manufacturing and assume lifetimes of 20 years for solar and wind, 10 years for cars and batteries or 5 years for two-wheelers. For further details see: About the data.

The 39m electric vehicles exported from China in 2025 included 36m two-wheelers, 2.2m battery electric cars, 160,000 plug-in hybrid cars, 15,000 buses and 30,000 trucks.

In addition, China exported batteries with a capacity of 305 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2025, enough to power another 5m battery electric cars once installed, based on typical battery sizes.

Based on typical driving distances and fuel consumption for corresponding fuel-burning vehicles, as well as the CO2 intensity of the electricity grid in destination countries, the EVs and batteries exported in 2025 will avoid an estimated 170MtCO2 over their lifetimes.

Given the sheer number of electric two-wheelers, the amount of oil and resulting CO2 they displace is a key uncertainty. Real–world e-bike studies support an assumption that roughly half of e-bike travel displaces the use of motor vehicles, either cars or motorbikes depending on location.

This suggests that, when taking into account the electricity grid in importing nations, China’s electric two-wheeler exports in 2025 will avoid an estimated 40MtCO2 over their lifetimes.

Global South dominates avoided emissions

In 2025, some 73% of the lifetime emissions avoided by China’s clean-tech exports were in global-south countries, which also accounted for 87% of the growth year-on-year.

In the first three quarters of 2026, global-south countries were responsible for almost all of the increase in avoided emissions compared with a year earlier, as shown in the figure below.

Final destinations for solar exports account for re-export, including post-tariff re-routing to the US via assembly or transit in third countries. For further details see: About the data.

The high share of the global south in avoided emissions reflects large export volumes and power grids that are more carbon-intensive on average, as well as better average solar conditions that result in larger avoided emissions for each gigawatt of solar exported.

Clean-tech exports span the globe

On the regional level, South Asia has the largest avoided emissions due to imports of Chinese clean-tech, with strong year-on-year growth both in 2025 and the first three quarters of 2026.

Other top regional destinations in 2026 to date, in terms of lifetime avoided emissions, include south-east Asia, North America, Europe and the Middle East.

However, the exports span the globe, as shown in the map below, avoiding billions of tonnes of CO2 across every continent and in nearly every country of the world.

Among countries, the US has the second-largest avoided emissions after India. It registered a further increase of 12% in 2026, despite increased tariffs, and exceeds the EU as a bloc. The US is followed by Thailand, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Australia.

The EU imports more of every clean energy technology than the US, but the US has higher avoided emissions. This is because average US solar output per unit of capacity is higher – as is the average CO2 intensity of power generation. As a result, every gigawatt of solar installed in the US results in three-times more avoided CO2 emissions than in the EU.

The resilience of Chinese clean-tech exports to the US indicates strong demand for the technology, despite the Trump administration’s steps to slow down deployment and discourage imports.

The data suggests that reducing reliance on technology supply from China – a policy aim of recent administrations from both parties – is likely to require scaling up of domestic and third-country manufacturing of the key technologies, in order to meet that resilient demand.

The largest change in the national rankings for avoided emissions from clean-tech exports in 2026, compared with the previous year, has been a fall in exports to the Gulf countries affected by the war in the region.

For electric cars and heavy vehicles, western Europe was the largest destination in the first three quarters of 2026, followed by Latin America and south-east Asia, both of which more than doubled, reflecting the impact of the oil crisis. Exports to the EU gained 39%.

Regional aggregation according to UN subregions, including “western Asia”, which encompasses Turkey, the Caucasus and the Middle East Final. Destinations for solar exports account for re-export, including post-tariff re-routing to the US via assembly or transit in third countries. For further details see: About the data.

When including batteries and electric two-wheelers, North America and Europe are the largest destinations for avoided emissions due to EV-related exports, followed by Latin America and south-east Asia.

Exports of Chinese solar equipment to the US rose 13% year-on-year in the first three quarters of 2026, once re-routing through different channels is considered. This is a reversal of the dip early in the year, due to a sharp increase in tariffs in June 2025. Exports of EVs and batteries to the US also increased slightly, by 3% in the first three quarters of 2026.

Overseas clean energy projects double over three years

In addition to its clean-tech exports, China is also increasingly becoming directly involved in the development of overseas clean-energy projects.

This can be traced back to the 2021 pledge by Chinese president Xi Jinping, in which he said:

“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.”

As of July 2026, some 69GW of China-linked renewable energy projects were in operation overseas. An additional 100GW are being built, with 280GW in planning but not yet under construction. This renewable energy capacity is supported by 3.5GW of China-linked energy storage projects in operation, with a further 21.4GW of storage in the pipeline. 

China has also financed and built six operating nuclear reactors overseas, with a total capacity of 3.3GW. These are all located in Pakistan and, in 2023, they had a total generation of 26TWh. China began construction on the 1.2GW Chashma-5 reactor in 2024, also in Pakistan, with the plant expected to be operational around 2030.

The expected electricity output of China’s newly operating overseas clean-power projects doubled from 2022 to 2025, with a further 6% year-on-year increase in the first seven months of 2026.

The countries with the largest estimated generation from China-linked clean-power capacity are Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Zimbabwe, Laos, Turkey and South Africa.

The list looks slightly different when considering the impact of operating, under construction or planned China-linked capacity on avoided CO2 emissions.

As shown in the figure below, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Pakistan are expected to see the largest avoided CO2, once under-construction projects are completed.

Based on renewable project data from DCore, nuclear data from World Nuclear Association and grid CO2 intensity data from Ember.

The increase in overseas clean-energy projects has changed China’s role in the power-sector development of other emerging countries. Having previously been the main financier of coal-power projects, it is now an important force in developing clean-power generation.

Nevertheless, there are gaps in the implementation of Xi’s pledge to end overseas coal-power development, which could be seen to affect its effectiveness and credibility. These gaps are particularly with respect to “captive” coal-power plants linked to industrial projects in Indonesia.

China’s overseas clean-energy project portfolio is growing, but remains small compared with the country’s equipment exports. For example in 2025, some 8.4GW of solar-power projects with Chinese financing or involvement entered operation and 18GW were newly announced. That year, China also exported 436GW of solar panels and intermediates.

This implies that financing, project development and construction using solar panels and other clean-tech from China is overwhelmingly carried out by local and other non-Chinese actors.

China’s exports enable market growth

A key concern in countries around the world is that Chinese industrial “overcapacity” is crowding out domestic industries, from automotive to steel or chemicals.

However, analysis of China’s clean-tech exports suggests that they have generally been additional, meaning they have not displaced exports by other producers. This could be a sign that China’s exports have either captured or enabled market growth for these clean-energy technologies.

For example, the value of EV exports from other countries has grown much more than those from China, as shown in the figure below. These EV exports have been led by the EU27 – particularly Germany – as well as Mexico, Japan, the UK and South Korea.

Similarly, there has been growth in the value of exports of heat pumps, solar inverters and electrolysers from both China and from other countries.

This pattern has not been universal. In the case of wind, China’s exports have grown while exports by other producers have declined, representing displacement on the global level.

However, on the level of importing countries, there has not been displacement. China’s wind-turbine exports have mostly headed to countries with growing markets, while incumbent producers have seen a decline in sales, in some of their previously important markets.

For some clean-tech, exports from other producers have displaced Chinese supply. For example, tariffs and restrictions on the use of Chinese components have seen other producers expanding into existing markets for solar panels, solar inverters and heat pumps.

At the same time, China’s exports of these technologies have been redirected into new markets, which previously imported little solar equipment.

Another indication of additionality is that Chinese clean-tech exports often target different market segments. For example, in the case of EVs, solar inverters and heat pumps, Chinese exports have much lower unit prices than equivalent exports from other producers.

Finally, it is worth noting that there has been much clearer displacement in the case of fuel-burning vehicles, where low-cost products from China have replaced exports from other suppliers.

Electrification export implications

China’s clean-tech exports have become a key enabler of the global clean-energy transition, driving down the cost, opening up new markets and responding to the rapid increase in demand.

China’s role as a major supplier of electrification technologies could give it a reason to support a push by the COP31 presidency for a global electrification target.

The country also has a large and growing role in financing and building clean-energy projects in many emerging countries, although this remains much smaller in scale than its exports.

When analysed on the country level, China’s clean-tech exports have, by and large, not displaced exports by other producers in absolute terms. Rather, it has captured market growth and opened up clean-energy development in countries that previously did not import the technologies at all.

However, the sharp drop in clean-tech prices means that exporters that have only held their sales volumes steady have seen the value of their exports dwindle. They have also lost market share to China’s exports. To retain market share, other exporters would need to expand production capacity.

Clean-energy technology has also become a cornerstone of China’s economy, responsible for 16% of all net growth in total exports in the first half of 2026, although the share fell in the third quarter due to the broad surge in exports, even as cleantech growth accelerated as well.

More broadly, clean energy sectors contributed a third of China’s GDP growth in 2025. This means that the country has a clear economic self-interest in the success of the global energy transition.

EV and wind deployment has continued to grow also in China domestically, but for solar and battery energy storage, the domestic market has dived after record volumes in 2025.

China’s domestic clean-energy market is larger than the export market for most technologies. Only 43% of solar cells and panels, 13% EVs, 17% of batteries and 7% of wind turbines produced in China were exported in 2025, highlighting the importance of the home market for producers.

For solar, however, exports continue to expand and could outweigh China’s domestic deployment after a slowdown in the sector in 2026. This could exacerbate overseas concerns about “unfair” trade practices, unless the domestic market picks up again.

About the data

This analysis estimates the fossil fuel and CO2 emissions avoided outside China as a result of China’s exports of solar, wind, electric-vehicle and battery technology.

Each exported unit of generating capacity is assumed to displace electricity from the grid of its destination country. Similarly, each exported electric vehicle is assumed to displace fuel in an equivalent internal-combustion vehicle.

Export volumes: Solar exports include finished modules as well as intermediates (wafers and cells), each expressed by Ember as finished-panel-equivalent gigawatts, with data taken from Ember’s China solar exports tracker. Wind and battery export totals are taken from Chinese industry bodies the China Wind Energy Association (CWEA) and the China Automotive Battery Innovation Alliance (CABIA). They are distributed across destination countries and months using customs-value shares from Ember’s China clean-tech exports tracker. Electric-vehicle volumes use vehicle counts from China Customs. Exports to Hong Kong are excluded and replaced with Hong Kong’s onward re-exports, treated as Chinese exports.

Avoided emissions: For each technology, the analysis combines the destination country’s average capacity factor and grid CO2 intensity, both derived from Ember’s yearly electricity data. Missing or implausible values are filled with UN sub-regional and then global medians, while all EU destinations are assigned the EU-average grid to correct for re-export hubs such as the Netherlands. For vehicles and batteries, avoided oil and CO2 is estimated based on per-vehicle assumptions compiled from the literature, net of charging emissions at the destination grid. Electric two-wheelers are credited with displacing conventional two-wheeler use for 48% of their travel. Lifetime figures multiply annual avoided emissions by assumed operating lives of 20 years for solar and wind, 10 for vehicles and batteries, or five for two-wheelers. “Embodied” manufacturing emissions are subtracted from these totals. Manufacturing emissions are calculated using average Chinese emission intensities compiled from the literature. National emissions used for comparison are from the Energy Institute statistical review of world energy.

Attributing solar exports to final markets: Because customs data records only a shipment’s first destination, the analysis traces Chinese wafers, modules and cells to their final destination using UN Comtrade bilateral import data. It identifies countries that import large amounts of solar modules and intermediates from China and export them further, classifying these onward exports as exports of Chinese goods, as long as they do not exceed the volume each country imported from China. It converts customs values to capacity using Ember’s monthly module and cell prices. 

Experts: What China wants from the COP31 climate talks 29.10.2026 China policy Chart: A record two-thirds of car sales in China are now electric vehicles 23.10.2026 China policy Interactive: What China’s dozens of ‘five-year plans’ say about climate and energy 24.09.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s CO2 emissions fall in Q2 2026 due to plummeting oil use 03.09.2026 Emissions

The post Analysis: China’s clean-tech exports in 2026 to avoid as much CO2 as Brazil emits in a year appeared first on Carbon Brief.

A framework for peace in Ukraine Channel Comment brendan 29th October 2026 Teaser Media

Bruce Hardy from the Energy Futures Foundation on the fast track to electric transport, and Snowy seeks to explain away its latest cost blowout and delays.

The post Fast lane to electric, and Snowy blowouts | Energy Insiders appeared first on Renew Economy.

A strong state target for renewables sends the message that WA is a stable market. Investors are ready and waiting, with over 10 GW of projects with development approval in the pipeline.

The post WA renewable energy target sends investors the signal they need – at a critical time appeared first on Renew Economy.

Online rating tool that ranks renewable energy developers and transmission companies against seven key criteria, including engagement and conduct, goes live.

The post Ratings system designed to restore trust in wind and solar developers goes live, with first batch scoring well appeared first on Renew Economy.

• President Trump announced that the EPA is “terminating” the Biden administration’s limits on methane produced by oil and gas drilling — the largest source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. (Associated Press)
• From makeup and appliances to highways and subdivisions, the fossil fuel industry in the mid-20th century used advertising and PR campaigns to create demand for its products. It’s an outdated vision of the American Dream that the Trump administration still shares today. (Grist)
• Noah Kaufmann says that economists are being shortsighted by recommending policies that cut greenhouse gas emissions the most cheaply. Such incremental changes achieve diminishing returns, even when added up, and ignore long-term effects. (The Argument)
• Billy Cooney dismantles Randal O’Toole’s argument that public transit should not be subsidized because people prefer to drive by pointing out that people probably wouldn’t prefer to drive if driving weren’t so massively subsidized. (Flaneurbanist)
• ClimatePlan put together a playbook for California’s next governor to boost funding for transit and encourage more walkable, bikeable communities.
• The Detroit city council’s Green Task Force is advocating for complete streets. (Bridge Detroit)
• The Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority started construction on its first “arterial rapid transit” line, which the agency is touting as being faster and cheaper to build than bus rapid transit, utilizing signal priority rather than dedicated lanes. (Urbanize Atlanta)
• Seattle’s Sound Transit is considering allowing dogs on buses and trains. (KING)
• New interactive kiosks at Philadelphia bikeshare docks will help users navigate the city. (NBC 10)
• Before the advent of automobiles, Houston prioritized sidewalks over carriageways. (What Are Streets For?)
• Bloomberg Originals produced a video explaining how Hong Kong transit turns a profit using land-value capture.

A proposed federal surveillance ban may threaten speed and red light camera programs across the country, which some advocates say would force cities to pick between privacy and street safety.

Following months of rumors, The Flock-Off Act was officially introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in September, with promises to withdraw all federal funds from any municipality that contracts with a surveillance camera operator. And that’s not just limited to the notorious technology company for which the bill is named, which has deployed an estimated 116,000 motion-triggered cameras in neighborhoods across the US.

Massie claims that his bill prohibits the surveillance of “law-abiding citizens”, not drivers running red lights or speeding. But some advocates fear that the bill’s wide-reaching language about automatic cameras intended to facilitate the “recording of a motor vehicle” would effectively ban all automated traffic enforcement nationwide.

I’ll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law abiding citizens. pic.twitter.com/FGzE69psxS

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 25, 2026

Of course, many street safety advocates do want lawmakers to do more to confront Flock — even if they don’t agree with sweeping bans on other, less-intrusive camera technology.

Since its founding in 2017, the company has faced criticism for offering a near-constant stream of motion-activated footage to law enforcement, tracking every car it sees using the vehicle’s license plate, model, and even characteristics like paint scratches or dents. And people outside cars aren’t immune from its gaze, either.

“A pedestrian, bicyclist, or animal who happens to be caught in the frame of a Flock camera can be swept up in the vast and unregulated Flock surveillance network,” wrote the Oregon ACLU.

Speed and red light cameras, by contrast, are only triggered to record when drivers speed, run red lights, or otherwise break roadway laws. In San Francisco, excessive speeding is down 84 percent where cameras are installed.

Even where collisions do still occur, those lower speeds translate into much better outcomes for victims. Pedestrians struck at 40 miles per hour have an 85 percent chance of dying, but at 20 miles per hour, the probability decreases to five percent.

Automated red light enforcement has a similarly positive impact. Cameras are shown to decrease red-light running overall, and reduce injury crashes by 20 percent.

Advocates like McKenzie Ortiz, who creates content about street safety under the Instagram account @pedestrianpride, say it’d be a shame if Massie’s bill makes those types of programs illegal.

“I feel like the red light and speed cameras caught a stray,” she said.

Dr. Kelcie Ralph, a researcher at Rutgers University who studies traffic enforcement, was also disappointed by the bill’s conflation of two vastly different types of camera programs.

“It’s such a same,” she said. “[Automated traffic enforcement] is so … different than what’s happening with [Flock].”

Recommended S.F. Advocates Mark One Year of Speed Cameras Roger Rudick April 29, 2026

Some advocates suspect that the benefits of automated enforcement can extend even farther for Black Americans — and that Massie’s bill would be doubly harmful for their communities.

Police are more likely to use force against Black drivers during traffic stops. Ortiz, a Black woman herself, supports using speed and red light cameras as a substitute for road patrols.

“We already feel the effects of over-policing,” she said. “If it meant less police officers on our streets … but still the level of enforcement that could encourage people to drive more safely, that would be a sacrifice that I would be willing to make.”

Even Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Ca.), a co-sponsor of the Flock-Off Act, acknowledged how automated traffic enforcement differs from Flock.

“I’m for speed and red light cameras,” he said in an interview with Streetsblog. “You don’t have speed and red light cameras being abused by police officers.”

Recommended Street Safety and Police Reform Are Two Sides of the Same Coin Kea Wilson May 18, 2026

Khanna did not clarify what, if any, steps he was taking to exempt street safety programs from the bill. He did suggest that he viewed the legislation as a temporary measure to address Flock in the immediate term.

“What we’re saying is to shut off that federal funding until we get some privacy regulation,” he added.

If the Flock-Off Act is indeed a pause, its sponsors are not alone in wanting one.

Kelsey Huse, is a Memphis, Tennessee-based organizer behind the Instagram account @MemphisUrbanism. She generally supports automated traffic enforcement, but feels that a moratorium on camera surveillance is necessary to address the Flock problem.

“It’s just a messy topic right now,” she said.

Recommended Is Automated Enforcement Making U.S. Cities Safer or Just Raising Revenue? Kea Wilson March 20, 2024

Huse’s concerns aren’t limited to Flock, either, since speed and red light cameras have room to grow, too. For starters, cities must address the financial incentives driving how programs are managed.

Despite Rep. Khanna’s contention that police don’t “abuse” automated enforcement, reports show that some police departments do site cameras on speed-inducing roads specifically to raise the traffic fine revenues on which their budgets over-rely. A 2024 Fines and Fees Justice Center analysis even argued that “the expansion of automated traffic enforcement simply creates a new and more effective way to fine exponentially more people.”

Huse has the same concern.

“Is our goal to reduce traffic violence events, or is our goal to make money off of tickets?” she added.

Ralph, who led a 2022 study on improving automated enforcement programs, says that the concern is valid — and has implications for safety outcomes, too. Amongst them is a scenario in which a speed camera operator, receiving a share of the revenue of each ticket issued, places cameras where they are likely to catch a maximum number of violations, not where they are most needed.

“When a speed limit shifts from 35 to 25 [miles per hour], you post up there, you get a lot of drivers in the transition — but maybe there are no crashes there,” she said.

Recommended UIC Study: Speed cams save lives, but drivers from POC communities get more tickets John Greenfield January 11, 2022

Some advocates also cite the potential for racial discrimination as a key drawback of automated systems. A 2022 study found that automated enforcement cameras in Chicago issued a disproportionate number of tickets in the city’s majority-Black neighborhoods.

Though the study could not identify the race of the drivers themselves, the findings raise significant concerns about a technology touted as a fair alternative to traditional enforcement.

The Flock-Off Act, though, doesn’t attempt to address any of those concerns, instead banning them outright.

Ralph says that’s a shame, considering how many levers cities have available to them to ensure cameras are used fairly. For example cities could invest ticket money back into infrastructure to improve street safety — preferably close to the camera’s location, so no one gets hurt there again.

“How you spend the [revenue from tickets] matters a ton,” she said.

Recommended Four Ways To Build A Better Automated Enforcement Program Kea Wilson December 14, 2022

Ralph also encouraged cities and towns to reconsider how they use monetary fines as a punishment.

“There’s a real concern that [automated traffic enforcement] is a tool for the … pipeline from poverty to prison,” she said. Rather than creating a flat-rate for fines, she suggests a smaller fee for a first infraction, to mitigate excessive punishment of drivers who are unlikely to be repeat offenders.

On the other hand, some drivers may not be dissuaded by a ticket at all.

After repeat violations, Ralph suggests that governments consider non-monetary punishments like mandatory speed governors. One 2022 study from New Zealand found the devices to be incredibly effective at limiting recurring speeding, providing some hope for the strategy’s viability in the US.

Recommended ANALYSIS: When Speed Cameras Are Racist Kea Wilson January 18, 2022

If nothing else, advocates say the architects of automated enforcement programs need to learn from Flock’s mistakes and warn communities that they’re about to installed – while offering education about their potential to save lives.

Shawn Joseph, a transit advocate and software engineer in Irvine, California, says Flock cameras cropped up in his neighborhood with minimal to no public input.

“People want the technology in their communities to be a choice,” Joseph said.

With proper enforcement, catching dangerous drivers in the act can deter the behavior in the future. But Joseph, Huse, Ortiz and Ralph all emphasized that designing streets for lower speeds can deter bad driving before it happens. Narrowing 10 to 13 foot travel lanes to nine feet, for instance, can reduce crashes on higher-speed roads.

“We should really start with how we’re designing our streets,” Ortiz said. “Make it uncomfortable to speed and uncomfortable to run red lights.”

Preventative design can even mitigate concerns of surveillance by taking punishment out of the equation altogether.

If you are worried about privacy, just drive the speed limit,” Ralph stated.

Polling by Squadron Energy finds higher support than expected in western Victoria and central NSW, as renewable developers begin to use activist playbook.

The post “Anti-renewables populism is the largest unpriced risk:” But poll data shows support is growing, even in hot zones appeared first on Renew Economy.

Contracting for huge pumped hydro project has reportedly been suspended by the state treasurer and energy minister in light of cost blowouts of Snowy 2.0.

The post LNP hits brakes on pumped hydro project, spooked by Snowy 2.0 cost blowout appeared first on Renew Economy.

Even now, with $12 billion sunk, stopping Snowy 2.0 may be the least-worst decision. It needs a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, but will one be done?

The post Snowy 2.0: The potentially $50 billion shambles that really needs a proper cost-benefit analysis appeared first on Renew Economy.

Electricity market rule changes could see data centres forced to power down to assist grid stability.

The post Data centres without sufficient firm power could be switched off under Bowen rule change proposal appeared first on Renew Economy.

New battery project is competing for a sweet spot on the Queensland grid, between an "accommodation village," a substation, and two other battery proposals.

The post Coal giant seeks green tick for another very large, four-hour battery to the north of a very small town appeared first on Renew Economy.

Campaigners backing attempts to sue Shell over a typhoon in the Philippines have launched an online archive showing that the British oil major knew that burning fossil fuels could harm the climate as early as the 1960s. 

ExposeShell.com features documents including a 1966 memo Shell commissioned from British scientist James Lovelock and the ‘Greenhouse Effect’, a confidential 1988 report predicting that human-caused warming could trigger “dramatic” changes in sea level, ocean currents, weather and precipitation — “larger than any that have occurred over the last 12,000 years.” [Read these and other documents in the DeSmog series #ShellKnew]

The interactive site went live as Shell announced the latest figures showing that oil majors are enjoying bumper profits as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran pushes oil prices higher. Shell said its adjusted third-quarter earnings had doubled to £10.8 billion in comparison to the same period last year.

“We don’t need any more reports to us that this big oily industry has been creating disaster,” Robin Wells, director of Fossil Free London, one of the groups behind the website, said in a statement. “Shell researched the reality but tore up the truth and locked it in the dark. Now, we are all facing the disastrous consequences.”

Fossil Free London protesters took to the streets outside Shell’s head office in London on Thursday, dressed in 1960s-style suits and holding banners that read “Shell Knew.”

ExposeShell.com is also backed by The Odette Case, a campaign group supporting more than 100 survivors of Typhoon Rai — known in the Philippines as Typhoon Odette — who began seeking damages from Shell last December in a first-of-its-kind case in the UK courts. 

The typhoon tore through the Philippines in December, 2021, killing 400 people, injuring more than 1,000, and forcing almost 3.2 million people from their homes. 

The survivors argue that Shell should be held liable for its historic contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions fuelling extreme weather events and its support for climate science denial via its past membership of industry groups such as the Global Climate Coalition — despite its early knowledge of the risks posed by burning its products.  

Filed by UK law firm Hausfeld, the case draws on recent advances in attribution science that enable scientists to assess the degree to which climate change has contributed to an extreme weather event. Through Shell’s contribution of more than 2.5 percent of historical global greenhouse gas emissions, the suit alleges that Shell contributed to both the likelihood and severity of Typhoon Rai. It is the first civil claim to link the climate impacts of an oil and gas company’s activities with death, personal injury, and damage to property that has already occurred in the Global South.

Shell has dismissed the lawsuit as “baseless” and said that it had no “unique knowledge about climate change.”

(This story was updated at 12:44 GMT on October 29, 2026 to include Shell’s third-quarter earnings)

The post Interactive Archive Shares Secrets of Shell’s Early Climate Research appeared first on DeSmog.