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Open Letter: Climate crisis affects every First Nation, every community, and future generations alike

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Amidst the profound sadness of Javier and Esther's loss, we believe that their example and legacy will continue to beat strongly throughout the peasant movement for food sovereignty.

The post Until Always, Javier and Esther appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Oceans globally recorded their hottest July ever last month, according to a new analysis. The severe ocean heat was evident around Europe, which is coping with a scorching summer.

Read more on E360 →

Climate campaigners warned that record high temperatures and a strong El Niño is resulting in severe drought in many countries, hitting crop yields and raising food prices. 350.org urged governments to move fast to protect farming communities and consumers, and mobilize the necessary funds through higher, permanent taxes on fossil fuel profits.

As the world’s top oil and gas companies banked $93 billion in second quarter profits, the UN warned that 49 million people may be facing acute hunger due to an exceptionally strong El Niño fueled by climate change.

Anne Jellema, 350.org Executive Director said:

“Our leaders’ response has to be swifter and stronger than El Niño. We already know that global heating is supercharging extreme weather damage, and the public wants polluters to pay for it. With Big Oil’s earnings skyrocketing while a global food crisis looms, now is the time to act. The only way to stave off a humanitarian disaster is to make those causing it pay upfront — before even more damage is done.”

Most of the Caribbean is currently suffering a moderate to severe drought triggered by El Niño, with conditions expected to get worse in the next few months lasting until early 2027.

Amira Odeh Quiñones, 350.org Caribbean Organizer said:

“Here in Puerto Rico, some households only have water three days a week. Historic amounts of sargassum seaweed due to record ocean temperatures are reducing fishermen’s catches. We’re already experiencing dramatic losses in agriculture due to drought and extreme heat. Local farmers are harvesting less, and the price of imported food is rising. Even if we contributed the least to the climate crisis, we are suffering from its harshest effects.”

In Indonesia, nearly 93% of the country had recorded low rainfall by mid-July and droughts have been recorded in almost 500 locations amid El Niño. An increase in forest fires has also been observed, even though Indonesia has yet to enter its wildfire season.

Sisilia Nurmala Dewi, 350.org Indonesia Manager said:

“Water scarcity is resulting in crop failures, and food price increases will soon follow. El Niño has been forecast since March — the government must be able to deliver a reliable, well-governed early warning system to farmers and at-risk communities before impacts hit. We urge the Prabowo government to impose a permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel companies to help raise funds for affected communities. Our leaders can’t just watch people go hungry while fossil fuel companies gorge on profits.”

In the United Kingdom, farmers are experiencing their worst harvests in years as a result of a heatwave gripping many parts of Europe. Farmers have warned that the country may be facing shortages in certain foods due to drought conditions.

Ellie May, 350.org UK campaigner said:

“Britain is baking, and farmers are paying the price. This punishing heatwave isn’t a one-off — it’s constantly rising food bills and food shortages we’ll face again and again unless we act. The oil and gas giants driving this crisis are raking in record profits. It’s time the UK government made polluters pay their fair share, so farmers and communities can weather what’s coming.”

In East Africa, Uganda’s worst drought in decades has already caused 19 deaths and a food crisis, while meteorologists warn that El Niño will trigger severe flooding in the region in October.

Ruth Agala, 350.org East Africa Organizer said:

“Farms are drying up, families are going hungry. Women and girls carry a double burden as they trek for long distances in search of food, water and firewood. While oil and gas giants rake in massive second-quarter profits and push forward with planet-heating projects like the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, ordinary Africans are left to pay the price. African governments must hold fossil fuel companies accountable with a windfall profits tax that can be used to finance a community-centered, just energy transition. We need public money to solve the problem, not subsidize it.”

Using the waste created by one of the world’s staple foods, researchers have made a filter that can clean water. They converted discarded rice husks into a sponge-like filter that can remove polluting industrial dyes such as the ones released by textile, leather, and other industries.

The low-cost material could help clean waterways while reducing agricultural waste. The researchers published their findings in the journal Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy.

Many industries such as textile manufacturing, leather processing, paper production and aquaculture use synthetic dyes. These industrial dyes persist in aquatic environments for a long time, “diminishing light penetration, disturbing aquatic ecosystems, and polluting drinking water sources,” the researchers write in the paper. Many of these dyes are toxic and some can be carcinogens.

Manufacturers can remove these dyes from wastewater before it is released into the environment. One of the most promising, cost-effective, and sustainable method for the removal of dyes are materials that can adsorb dyes, that is, soak them up on the surface via physical or chemical mechanisms.

 

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The team at Florida International University set out to make such an adsorbent from waste rice husks. Rice is the most-eaten food globally. The world produces over 540 million tonnes of rice every year, and discards some 136 million tonnes of the outer husk of the grains.

To make the water filter, the researchers first heat waste husks in a low-oxygen environment. This converts the organic material into biochar, a sponge-like material with a very high surface area and a porous network that can trap contaminants.

But the researchers boosted the performance of the biochar by combining it with special materials called layered double hydroxides, which are clay-like minerals composed of layers of magnesium and aluminum hydroxide sheets with charged ions and water molecules trapped in the spaces between the layers.

In laboratory tests, the material captured brilliant green and malachite green dyes, two commonly used industrial dyes. The material was also reusable. The researchers found that it could be reused at least five times without losing its efficacy. They now plan to test the material on other dyes, heavy metals and various contaminants found in real-world water samples.

Source: Noel Abhick Lawrence et al, Waste-to-resource approach: Sustainable synthesis and life cycle assessment of rice husk char-supported Mg–Al layered double hydroxide for dye biosorption, Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

Headline News:

• “AI Making Renewable Energy Generation More Reliable” • Through real-time analysis of rainfall, wind, solar conditions, and other data, an AI “commander” is making renewable energy generation in China more stable and reliably dispatchable. The model aims to help tackle challenges such as intermittency and instability facing green power output. [China Daily]

Wind turbines in Hunan (Huangdan2060, public domain)

• “Western Europe Sets New Temperature Record As Heat Waves Continue To Pummel Region” • Western Europe experienced its hottest June-July on record as climate change fuels an historic summer of heat, drought, and wildfires across the region, the EU’s global warming monitor said. Europe is warming faster than any other continent. [Euronews]
• “Cadeler In €805 Million Deal For Two New Installation Vessels” • Cadeler signed firm contracts with COSCO Shipping Offshore shipyard for two new T-class offshore wind installation vessels for about €805 million together. Cadeler said the vessels will be built at the shipyard in Qidong, China, with delivery scheduled for 2030 and 2031. [reNews]
• “As Extreme Heat Spreads To The Midwest, The East Coast Remains Hot And Sticky” • Continuing high temperatures in Colorado caused 72 people to be treated for heat-related illnesses at the Tacos and Tequila festival in Colorado Springs, including seven who had to be hospitalized, the Colorado Springs Fire Department said. [ABC News]
• “Are Heat Domes Getting More Common In North America?” • Yes. The number of heat domes in North America has increased every year since 1940, a study found. The rise in heat domes comes with an increase in extreme heat due to human-caused climate change. Their number in northwestern North America is projected nearly to double by 2080. [The Colorado Sun]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Decades ago, in order to build up a solid foundation for I-95 through southeast Georgia, construction crews dug some earth near the town of Midway, Georgia, about 50 miles south of Savannah, and left a deep pit. There’s now a public park in that spot, bounded by a tidal creek on one side and the leftover dredge pit on the other. Although the park is more than 15 miles from the ocean, high tide washes up the creek twice a day. Lush marsh grass fills the space between solid ground and the creek, but it’s a different scene along the other bank, where the salt water has steadily eaten away at the land while depositing sediment in the basin. Now, what was once a deep pit is a shallow mudflat with little islands of marsh grass cropping up in the middle, naturally moving in now that the ground is suitable for it.

But the grasses halt abruptly where they reach the small, muddy cliff of the bank — shorn away sharply where the tide has battered it.

“If we walk that way, you’ll be able to see some of the, well, just plain erosion,” said Phil Odom, chairman of Liberty County’s Consolidated Planning Commission, on a recent afternoon. “This is how much it has collapsed. We’ve lost about 6, 8 feet right here.”

Local leaders are hoping to fix that erosion at the water’s edge, and they’re approaching it in a way that considers the lessons of the I-95 construction and prior, failed attempts to address the problem. Instead of putting up a wall or using chunks of concrete to hold the soil in place, the county is attempting to restore the marsh grasses that grow here naturally. Their roots will help hold the soil in place.

“We hope for it to replicate nature,” said Shannon Marino with Zulu Marine, which builds what are known as living shorelines. “When our solutions are done, you should look at it and not really recognize it as a repair or a bulkhead or a solution. It should just look like nature.”

It’s an increasingly popular way to address coastal erosion in the face of rising seas. Georgia is home to more than a third of the connected marsh habitat along the coast of the Southeastern U.S. — hundreds of thousands of acres. It serves as a critical buffer against storms, and it’s broadly protected under state law. But as sea levels rise due to climate change, protecting the existing marsh plants is only one step. 

With the sea level on Georgia’s coast projected to rise 1 to 2 meters in the next 75 years, the marshes will need to move inland too. They’re well equipped to do that, according to University of North Carolina wetland scientist Lori Sutter.

“Because of the magic of salt marshes,” she said, “they’re able to persist in this environment where they’re flooded twice a day, every day.”

But that magic of salt marshes only works if they have somewhere to go. Once a migrating marsh encounters a paved road or a building, they hit a dead end. There’s nowhere for new grasses to take root, which means the rising tide can sweep in unabated, flooding both the marsh and that road or building. 

That’s why a new action plan by a coalition of conservation groups, scientists, government agencies, and coastal communities calls for protecting not just the salt marsh itself, but also the adjacent land. The plan has identified more than 56,000 acres of land in Georgia where marshes will likely migrate that are also currently open to development. 

“That creates this really vast area that you’re trying to conserve, which can be overwhelming,” said Courtney Reich, the coastal director for Georgia Conservancy. Her group is working with Phil Odom and the other stakeholders in Midway and is spearheading the Georgia work under the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, a multi-state effort to restore and protect coastal salt marshes. 

It’s a roadmap, not a binding policy or seizure of anyone’s land. Instead, the plan’s authors hope it can help landowners and public officials make informed decisions.

“You know, do we want to build up to the edge of the water or do we want to leave room?” Reich said. 

Short-term needs often drive land use conversations, she said. This plan aims to get people thinking about the long view.

Salt marshes by their very nature are always moving. Odom, an avid fisher, has watched Georgia’s dynamic coast change in slow motion over the last 75 years: deep salt water moving into areas that once teemed with marsh grass, marshes in new places, the tide creeping ever higher and leaving the ghostly skeletons of salt-choked trees in its wake. But sea level rise driven by climate change is forcing them to move faster — and adding urgency, because if the marshes can’t respond, Georgia’s coast will be left that much more vulnerable.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A new plan to preserve Georgia’s marshes: Give them space to migrate on Aug 10, 2026.

Last week, as wildfires tore through southern Europe, TotalEnergies did something that made headlines for all the right reasons. The company announced it would cover fuel costs for French firefighters – both ground vehicles and the aircrafts dropping water on the flames. Nearly 200 employees who volunteer as firefighters were also given paid leave, no holiday days docked, to go help.

It’s the kind of story that writes itself: oil giant steps up for the heroes on the front lines. Except it isn’t a coincidence that the company setting fire to the planet is also the one paying for the water trucks.

No amount of PR pays for a life turned into ashes

TotalEnergies has spent this year positioning itself as the good guy. Back in March, as the war in Iran and Lebanon sent oil prices spiking, the company capped gasoline and diesel prices at its French stations – and kept extending that cap, month after month, through June. It even ran special discounted pricing on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day weekends. The government publicly thanked them for “doing their bit.”

Here’s what that PR campaign conveniently sidesteps: TotalEnergies wasn’t shielding the French public from an unfortunate energy crisis. It was cushioning them from a price shock that its own industry helps manufacture and profit from. And this isn’t generosity: it’s brand management.

The firefighter fuel donations follow the identical logic. At the same time TotalEnergies is filling up water bombers for free,Europe is tallying wildfire damage bills are already projected to be between €15 – 19 billion across France, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Romania – and that figure is expected to climb well higher once the full toll is counted.

As someone born and raised in the South-West, who lived through this year’s Gironde fires and had to be evacuated, let me say it plainly: there is no check Total can write that will bring back my memories, or resurrect the firefighters who died defending our land, or regrow our forests, our land, and the wild animals that the flames reduced to ash.

Wildfires raging in Southern France. Photo: France 24

The real dimension of numbers

Covering firefighters’ fuel bills costs TotalEnergies nothing next to what fossil fuel-driven heat, drought and fire are costing everyone else. And also, it costs them cents if compared to what they are making out of the climate and energy crises they are fueling.

In July, TotalEnergies posted another blockbuster quarter, with adjusted net income around $6 billion for the three months from April to June – a jump of roughly two-thirds compared to a year earlier.

At 350.org, we put it plainly: this isn’t an ordinary earnings report, it’s a receipt for climate chaos. Every spike in fossil fuel prices functions as a kind of tax on ordinary people – driving up the cost of transport, electricity, and food. While governments spend billions subsidizing fossil fuel companies or responding to extreme weather disasters, companies like TotalEnergies reap the windfall from the very volatility they help sustain and pay basically nothing for the climate chaos they feed every day.

So put the numbers next to each other in the equation:

Three months with a $6 billion profit + a wildfire season with a several-billion-euro damage bill and counting = a free tank of gas for the fire trucks.

Something is wrong with this math, isn’t it? This is not “doing its bit.” This is a company spending a fraction of a fraction of its profits to make sure the story people remember is the fuel donation, not the emissions. 

A firefighter battles a wildfire in San Martin de Valdeiglesias, west of Madrid, on Sunday. (Manu Fernandez / Associated Press)

This is not new

The fuel donation and the price cap aren’t the first time TotalEnergies has shown up with a check right after helping create the disaster. The company runs the same playbook again and again: a highly visible, low-cost gesture, timed to a crisis, that gets far more attention than its price tag deserves while the operation actually driving the harm keeps growing in the background. 

Take Mozambique. In February 2026, TotalEnergies donated food and hygiene kits worth around $500,000 to communities hit by devastating floods – less than a dollar per person for the more than 700,000 people affected while leading a $20 billion liquefied natural gas project in Cabo Delgado, in that same country. This is a project which is set to produce billions of tonnes of carbon pollution over its lifetime and one that’s already displaced communities and fueled insecurity in the region. 

You see the same move in its sports sponsorships: campaigners have called out its backing of the Africa Cup of Nations and the 2023 Rugby World Cup as a way to wrap the brand in African pride and sporting joy, even as its fossil fuel expansion across the continent – including the East African Crude Oil Pipeline – drives the very climate breakdown those communities are living through. Even the company’s own rebrand fits the mold: dropping “Total” for “TotalEnergies” and plastering train stations and airports with ads about reinvention and renewables, while fossil fuels still make up the overwhelming majority of what it actually produces and invests in.

 It’s the same trick every time: something cheap enough to repeat, photogenic enough to spread, and warm enough to stick in people’s minds. More importantly, it is built to outshine a business model that keeps expanding the exact crises it shows up to look good after.

Where the real accountability lives

This is exactly why the conversation needs to move from PR gestures to policy – specifically, to strong and permanent taxation. Governments are, right now, negotiating at the UN Convention on International Tax Cooperation, aiming for a global tax treaty by 2027. It’s a genuine opportunity to make oil and gas majors pay not through donated fuel and capped prices, but through binding, permanent contributions that fund the transition out of these crises, for good. 

A global tax on polluters isn’t just about collecting a bigger bill from Total, Exxon or Chevron and calling it justice. Done right, it’s a funding mechanism for the way out. Revenue from a binding global tax can flow directly into scaling up renewables, into grid upgrades, into the transition infrastructure that’s currently starved of investment while fossil fuel majors funnel billions into dividends and buybacks instead. 

And there’s a second, quieter win buried in that shift: every dollar that moves from financing fossil fuel expansion to financing renewables is a dollar that makes oil and gas reserves less economically viable to extract. A global tax that funds the transition doesn’t just make polluters pay for the damage behind them; it accelerates the moment their entire business model stops making financial sense.

The planet, and the people losing their homes and their loved ones to it, don’t need another goodwill press release. They need the money to go where the damage already is but also to weed out the system behind this crisis, and where the future needs it most.

Soraya Fettih is the Global Campaigns Coordinator at 350.org. 

The post A Total Greenwash appeared first on 350.

by David Spratt, first published at Safe Climate Australia

The claim that four billion people could die in a 3°C warmer world has become a powerful climate narrative. But what does the science actually support, and where does evidence end and speculation begin?

The proposition that four billion people or more would be dead if — and more likely, when — global warming reaches 3 degrees Celsius (°C) has gained some currency, mainly due to the 4DB (four billion dead) website and associated activities.

Now, that is half the current global population, and on current warming trends of 0.3-0.35°C/decade, the world will hit 3°C around 50 years from now, perhaps earlier, in part because there is little prospect of a rapid decline in fossil fuel emissions.  So that’s a mind-blowing average of 80 million people a year dying due to climate impacts every year from now to 2075? Is that realistic?

The number of greater than four billion dead at 3°C first appeared in a 2025 report on Planetary Insolvency: Finding our balance with nature, published by the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) and the University of Exeter.ing our balance with nature, published by the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and the University of Exeter.

The number appears in Figure 12: Planetary solvency risk impact and likelihood definitions (illustrative) on page 32 of the report.  In this figure, the scale of impacts listed for 2°C of warming include mortality of “>2 billion deaths” and GDP losses of 25%, as well as “>4 billion deaths” and GDP of 50% for 3°C of warming (Figure 1).

Figure 1:  Planetary solvency risk impact and likelihood definitions   (Planetary Insolvency) 

The 2°C estimate is even more startling, because Earth has already hit 1.5°C for all practical purposes, with the average for 2023-25 above 1.5°C, and a strong El Nino likely on the way for later this year which could push annual warming towards 1.7°C for 2026-27. At the current, accelerated warming rate, the Earth will reach 2°C around 2040, just fifteen years from now.

So the figure of two billion dead at 2°C would mean an average of 130 million people a year dying every year from now till 2040 due to climate change?  To my mind, that is simply not credible, and nothing I have read tells me that is a remotely-likely estimate.

Likewise, the risk matrix gives a figure of 1-5% dead (80 to 400 million deaths) for 1.5°C, a level of warming Earth has already reached. Estimates of actual mortality are difficult due to the direct and second- and third-order impacts, such as: hotter-climate > drought > food-shortage > displacement > conflict > mortality, and so on. The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change estimated heat-related mortality has increased to an average 546,000 deaths per year, though not all are specifically related to climate heating, and that is only one element of the story.

So it is important to understand what these numbers are, and are not, and where they came from.

There is no qualitative indication in the report as to their source. On page 27, the report acknowledges that “very limited research has been carried out on the potential for large-scale loss of life in relation to these interconnected risks on which to base an assessment”.

I asked a colleague in the UK who had worked with the authors of the report, and he was told that the figures came from the Climate Endgame paper. But its author, Luke Kemp, said this was not the case, and “he confirmed that he does not make any forecasts about mortality in the paper” (emphasis added).

As the caption to Figure 12 says, it is a risk assessment matrix that illustrates general levels of risk. I was told that the authors have now privately clarified that the mortality numbers “are absolutely NOT forecasts or predictions and we don’t use them as such” (emphasis added). But this is now the way that sites like 4BD are using it.

One interpretation would be that the risk matrix was simply indicating orders of magnitude rather than specific projections. So either it was too subtle in its distinctions, and/or it was a bit of a stuff-up in that it was assumed that the four billion figure came from somewhere, but it did not. So there is still a question of how the four billion figure was derived.

I understand there have been suggestions that a correction or clarification be issued, at least saying that the figures “are absolutely NOT forecasts or predictions”. And I had conversations with people working on the 4BD project outlining the story above and why some nuance was necessary in using such numbers, but the die had been cast.

So how can we think about this? One guess is the table was saying that at 3°C, an expert elicitation would find that mortality would likely be in the billions, rather than tens or hundreds of millions. Or alternatively, this was a plausible worst-case scenario, but not derived from models.  As discussed below, that is a reasonable proposition based on other literature. As for two billion dead at 2°C, I can see almost no credible evidence that is even in the ballpark, just half a degree warmer than at present.

Another, likely interpretation is that Figure 12 had used some numbers for GDP loss (in column 1) and had simply applied the same number for mortality (in column 2), so 50% loss in GDP equals 50% mortality. This in itself is a brave assumption: in one case, during the Great Depression — when, for example, US GDP fell 30% between 1929 and 1933 — mortality rates did not increase, and in some cases improved, though there were later adverse outcomes for children born at that time.

So there is no mortality analysis in the table at all, and no epidemiology; it simply flows from GDP impacts.

So where did the 50% decrease in GDP at 3°C come from? An earlier IFoA report in 2023, The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios, whilst recognising that “climate change is complex, nuanced and characterised by deep uncertainty”, provided a chart of damage functions relating temperature and GDP loss (Figure 9, page 25), and asks “at what point do we expect 50% GDP destruction – somewhere between 2070 and 2090 depending on how you parameterise the distribution”, and that’s around 3°C. Depending on assumptions about when GDP hits zero (called the ruin parameter), the figures could be higher (80%) or lower (30%) because these are abstract models of possible damage functions. So it looks like a 50% loss of GDP was a figure of choice.

So what is the basis of the damage functions? The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios says that  “Insurance leaders have unequivocally stated that if climate change raises average temperatures to 4˚C above pre-industrial levels most assets will be uninsurable”, and that “without insurance, investment, finance, business slow to a halt – we will no longer have an economy.” (page 27). I find this assumption highly problematic. As insurance premiums rise right now, in some cases dramatically due to extreme climate impacts, many households and small businesses are making decisions to continue to operate without asset insurance.

The only footnote to these statements is a view by one insurance CEO, Thomas Buberl of AXA at a Davos panel, reported by Bloomberg, that at 3-4°C “it’s not insurable anymore”, but what he said was much more specific: he was talking about basement retail premises in New York and Mumbai and that is what the headline said: “Climate change could make your basement uninsurable within a decade”. That is a very narrow and specific base on which to draw a global conclusion.

Now, how much of an economy would be left at 3, 4 or 5°C is a good question, but the method used here is far too narrow. I remember a long time ago James Lovelock saying at 4 or 5°C there may be 500 million people left eking out a miserable existence at the poles, or words to that effect.

To reiterate, it is almost impossible to put specific numbers on such future impacts, due to the radical uncertainty about the social impacts of a physical system that itself is non-linear in many important aspects, characterised by abrupt changes whose specific human consequences are somewhere between difficult and impossible to model, and where quantifying social impacts is of limited efficacy.

Vulnerability and adaptation

Even if future (non-linear) physical changes are well known, mapping their human impacts involves several more degrees of difficulty because the risk (potential damage) varies with exposure and vulnerability. There are three factors:

• Hazard: the physical changes in a climate system subject to abrupt change;
• Exposure: the presence of people, livelihoods and ecosystems in that physical space; and
• Vulnerability: the propensity of these human systems to be negatively impacted due to their sensitivity and/or limited adaptive capacity.

In the uber-rich, low-rainfall Gulf states, for example, whilst unlivable heat is becoming the norm, adaptation paid for by stupendous oil and gas revenue — desalination, 24/7 air conditioning, using flood-lit beaches at night rather than during the day, irrigating date palms, importing almost all the food and most of the labour — reduces vulnerability, even though the whole project seems a bit crazy.

So mortality in a hotter climate will be affected a great deal by adaptation capacities to reduce vulnerability, and that is largely a product of national income, and international assistance.

But there are also hard boundaries that cannot be easily adapted to, for example rice yields diminish once temperatures exceed 35°C at the time of flowering, and by 37°C the damage becomes critical.  By 2050, between one-quarter and two-thirds of rice production capacity will be subject to high or extreme heat stress risk (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Percentage of Rice production 
capacity exposed to heat stress risk 
(PWC: Climate risks to nine key commodities)

Smart adaptation would include moving to a plant-based diet to free a great deal of agricultural land now used to grow livestock and grow feed for livestock, and to reduce methane emissions. A well-planned and managed retreat from low-lying coastal land would also help, rather than just waiting for the inevitable to happen.  And it depends on the nature of international politics. A coordinated global mobilisation to face the coming crisis would yield a very different result from states pretending that climate collapse was simply not on the agenda. Will states cooperate in the face of unprecedented adversity, or close borders and go to war?

The timeline

Another unresolved issue is the time frame. Many impacts do not manifest immediately once a certain temperature level is reached. For example, climate history teaches us that every one degree of warming will likely result in 10-to-20 metres of sea-level rise in the longer term, over many centuries. The fastest rises in the paleoclimate record are three-to-five metres in a century, so the full sea-level rise from 3°C of warming could take a thousand years to manifest, perhaps less and perhaps a good deal more.

So when the figure of “4 billion dead” is raised, is that when the thermometer ticks past the figure “3°C” later this century, or over a thousand years as coastlines, agriculturally-rich deltas and low-lying states drown?  My hunch is that it would be the latter.

A similar issue is the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. Whilst a number of recent research papers conclude this tipping point is close at hand, models suggest the process is likely to take 100 years, so once again the exposure increases over that time, and so does the opportunity to reduce vulnerability with adaptive measures, though only up to a point.

Many other system-level changes have similar characteristics.

The world at 3°C

In a 3°C hotter world, large parts of the tropics will suffer “near-unlivable” extreme heat conditions, there will be less rainfall over significant parts of the dry subtropics, and this combined with increased evaporation rates will lead to drying out and desertification across the dry subtropics. New extremes — of rainfall and heat, flooding and drought — beyond human experience and beyond model expectations will occur. And a committed sea-level rise of many metres will be in the slow process of inundating coastal cities and deltas.

Some research, which is contested, suggests 3°C could cut global GDP by half. Last year, Australian researchers concluded that at 3°C, by the end of the century, the estimated harm to the global economy would be 40%, which “could devastate livelihoods in large parts of the world”.  Coral reef systems would be gone, and that alone means coastal ecosystems would only be able to provide 20–50% of the fish protein that they do today for half a billion people around the world.

In 2021, the Australian Academy of Science published a report co-authored by David Karoly on Risks to Australia of a 3-degree warmer world. Amongst other things, it said that at 3°C, heatwaves would happen as often as seven times a year, with events lasting 16 days on average, “fire risk (driven by record heat, dryness and fuel) will increase by 30 per cent or more in south-eastern Australia”, and yields of key crops would reduce “by between 5 and 50%, depending on crop and location”.  Other research estimates that “beyond 2°C warming, the declines in suitable areas for the 30 crops [analysed] become more pronounced – in some cases approaching and passing 50%”.  That in itself would cause global chaos.

A 2020 study on extreme heat found that at 2.7°C, up to 3.5 billion people will be exposed to temperatures outside the “human niche”, that is, the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6000 years. Further research published in 2023 described a zone of near unlivable heat, “a situation found in the present climate only in 0.8% of the global land surface, mostly concentrated in the Sahara, but in 2070 projected to cover 19% of the global land” (Figure 3). Prof. Marten Scheffer said those pushed outside the climate niche might consider migrating to cooler places: “Not just migration of tens of millions of people but it might be a billion or so.” 

Figure 3: Projected zone of heat of “near-unliveable conditions” at 2.7°C global average warming (“Quantifying the human cost of global warming”)

And at 2.7°C, scientists say that  the Arctic would be “transformed beyond contemporary recognition: the Arctic Ocean would be essentially ice free for several months in summer, the area of Greenland that reaches melting temperatures for at least a month would roughly quadruple, and the area of permafrost would be roughly half of what it was in preindustrial times.”

Potsdam Institute Director Prof. Johan Rockstrom says that such a level of warming is “something that humanity has absolutely no evidence that we can cope with… Push ourselves to 2.5°C – we’re in unknown terrain. It would lead to a complete melting of the big ice sheets, which would be a 10-metre sea level rise… There would be a collapse of all the big biomes on planet Earth – the rainforest, many of the temperate forests – abrupt thawing of permafrost, we will have complete collapse of marine biology, we will have a shift of large parts of the habitability on Earth.”

Twenty years ago, a group of US security analysts constructed a 3°C scenario:

“Massive nonlinear events in the global environment give rise to massive nonlinear societal events. In this scenario, nations around the world will be overwhelmed by the scale of change and pernicious challenges, such as pandemic disease. The internal cohesion of nations will be under great stress, including in the United States, both as a result of a dramatic rise in migration and changes in agricultural patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world, especially in the Netherlands, the United States, South Asia, and China, has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities. Armed conflict between nations over resources, such as the Nile and its tributaries, is likely and nuclear war is possible. The social consequences range from increased religious fervour to outright chaos. In this scenario, climate change provokes a permanent shift in the relationship of humankind to nature’ (emphasis added).”

So how many would die, and how many would survive in this 3°C world?

Displacement and mortality 

The “human niche” papers on near-unliveable heat found that these extremes are projected to envelop 1.2 billion people in India, 485 million in Nigeria and more than 100 million in each of Pakistan, Indonesia and Sudan. Many would be forced to move to a more liveable climate. Another study from the same year of 2020 concluded that warming of 2°C could provide more than 500 million people additional incentive to emigrate, whilst warming of 3°C could provide additional incentive-to-emigrate to well over a billion people.

The idea that a billion people may be displaced may seem fanciful, but the UN also agrees with this figure: “Unless we change the way we manage our land, in the next 30 years we may leave a billion or more vulnerable poor people with little choice but to fight or flee.”

The figures may be much, much higher than this, but there are so many variables, so many social unknowns, that any figure can only be a guesstimate by social scientists and security analysts, based on a scientifically-credible scenario.

Climate disruption kills people in many ways, including by direct physical impacts (heat stress, floods, cyclones and other extreme events), by severe food insecurity, through displacement and conflict, by increased disease and poorer health outcomes, and so on.

The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change reported a 63% increase in heat-related deaths since the 1990s, reaching an estimated 546,000 yearly deaths on average in 2012–21. The higher number of heatwave days and drought months in 2023 compared with 1981–2010 was associated with 123.7 million more people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity in 124 countries analysed. As hotter and drier weather increases the risk of wildfires, 2024 had a record-high 154,000 deaths from wildfire smoke-derived small particulate matter (PM2·5) air pollution.

What about future mortality rates? Joshua Pearce of the University of Western Ontario says if warming reaches or exceeds 2°C, it is likely that mainly richer humans will be responsible for the death of roughly one billion mainly poorer humans over the next century. This is based on a review of the literature by Pearce and Parncutt, which found mortality costs of carbon emissions converged on the “1,000-ton rule”: an estimate that one future premature death is caused every time approximately 1,000 tons of fossil carbon are burned. Their best- and worst-case figures were 300 million and three billion for 2°C.

By this logic, the mortality range at 3°C would be in the range of 450 million to 4.5 billion.  Of course, this assumes a linear relationship between emissions and mortality, but that assumption is based on observed conditions that are far different from those humans will face in the second half of the century.

It should also be noted that in 2019, Rockström told The Guardian that in a 4°C-warmer world: “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or maybe even half of that. There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world.”

So four billion dead at 3°C? Immediately or when the full physical and social impacts are realised over many centuries?  Depending on deeply uncertain adaptation and other political responses? Between expert estimates of degrees of magnitude and worse-case conjecture, it’s anybody’s educated guess.

 

 

 

 

Since 2018, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) has provided an unprecedented framework to protect their collective rights, seeds, lands, and knowledge.

The post The UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) will soon present its reports on land and seeds in Geneva appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Bagi sebagian pemain, memilih permainan slot bukan sekadar mencari tampilan menarik atau tema yang sedang ramai dibicarakan. Ada satu angka yang sering menjadi perhatian sebelum menentukan pilihan: RTP atau Return to Player. Istilah ini kemudian ikut mendorong popularitas situs slot yang menawarkan permainan dengan persentase RTP tinggi.

Di balik angka tersebut, sebenarnya ada cerita yang lebih sederhana. Pemain ingin memahami permainan yang mereka pilih sebelum mengeluarkan uang. Mereka membandingkan informasi, membaca keterangan permainan, lalu mencoba menentukan pilihan berdasarkan data yang tersedia. Kebiasaan itu menunjukkan bahwa semakin banyak pemain mulai melihat permainan digital dengan pendekatan yang lebih rasional.

RTP menggambarkan persentase teoritis dari total taruhan yang dikembalikan kepada pemain dalam jangka panjang. Misalnya, permainan dengan RTP 96 persen secara statistik dirancang untuk mengembalikan sekitar Rp96 dari setiap Rp100 yang dipertaruhkan dalam periode yang sangat panjang. Angka tersebut bukan jaminan bahwa seorang pemain akan memperoleh kembali 96 persen modalnya dalam satu sesi.

Perbedaan tersebut penting dipahami. Hasil setiap putaran tetap ditentukan oleh mekanisme permainan dan unsur acak. Karena itu, RTP tinggi tidak otomatis berarti seseorang pasti menang, apalagi menghasilkan keuntungan secara konsisten.

Meski demikian, informasi RTP tetap memiliki nilai. Pemain dapat menggunakannya sebagai salah satu bahan pertimbangan ketika membandingkan berbagai permainan. Selain RTP, mereka juga sebaiknya memperhatikan volatilitas, aturan permainan, batas taruhan, serta reputasi penyedia permainan.

Di sinilah pengalaman pengguna turut berperan. Situs yang menyajikan informasi permainan secara jelas membantu pembaca mengambil keputusan dengan lebih terukur. Sebaliknya, promosi yang hanya menonjolkan istilah seperti “pasti menang” atau “cuan tanpa batas” patut disikapi secara kritis karena tidak ada angka RTP yang dapat menghapus risiko kerugian.

Popularitas situs dengan permainan RTP tinggi pada akhirnya tidak hanya berkaitan dengan angka. Ada kebutuhan pemain terhadap informasi yang mudah dipahami, transparansi, dan pengalaman bermain yang tidak membingungkan. Pemain modern cenderung mencari referensi sebelum menentukan pilihan, bukan sekadar mengikuti tren.

Pada titik ini, literasi menjadi bagian penting. Memahami cara kerja RTP membantu seseorang membedakan antara informasi statistik dan janji promosi. Semakin baik pemahaman tersebut, semakin mudah pula pemain menetapkan batas pengeluaran dan menyadari bahwa permainan berbasis peluang tetap memiliki risiko.

Pada akhirnya, istilah “situs slot RTP tinggi” mungkin terdengar menarik, tetapi angka persentase bukanlah tiket menuju kemenangan. RTP lebih tepat dipahami sebagai informasi statistik untuk membantu mengenali karakter sebuah permainan. Sikap bijak justru muncul ketika pemain mampu membaca informasi tersebut secara kritis, memahami risikonya, dan tidak menjadikan permainan sebagai cara untuk mendapatkan penghasilan yang pasti.

Eco-populism or barbarism? Channel Comment brendan 10th August 2026 Teaser Media

A new documentary highlights the impact of Pamilo hydropower station to lake Koitere and other water bodies, land locked salmon and local communities in Koitajoki.

This documentary contains materials of community-based observations of hydropower impacts and ecological change in Koitajoki catchment, North Karelia. It is the home of a large Snowchange restoration project funded by Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme.

Impacts have accumulated since 1950s, including the loss of the migratory routes and habitat for the unique land locked salmon. A new restoration plan has been developed to address some of the issues.

You can see the film here.

Closing borders and resorting to security measures involving beatings and assaults is the only option European governments have in response to the right to migrate.

The post Ceuta: Another Painful Chapter in the Suffering of Migrants appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

• Flock had a plan to turn hundreds of thousands of Uber, Lyft and delivery vehicles into rolling, easily hacked surveillance cameras to collect data that it could turn around and sell to repo agencies. (404 Media)
• A study published in the Journal of Transport and Sustainability came to the surprising conclusion that places where people drive less have fewer traffic deaths.
• Transit agencies should be more willing to take on loans to met pent-up demand for service, particularly automation and electrification, which save money in the long run, says the Center for Public Enterprise.
• On a party-line vote, U.S. senators approved four of the Trump administration’s transportation appointees before leaving town for their August recess. (Eno Center for Transportation)
• Ride-hailing services grew GDP in cities where they launched in the 2010s, but the gig-economy jobs created mostly replaced more traditional permanent jobs, according to a Carnegie Mellon study. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Debate is reopening on Reddit about whether cyclists are safest with protected infrastructure or riding with cars, as the late John Forester believed. (The Cool Down)
• A 12-year, $90 billion Pennsylvania infrastructure plan includes $13 billion for transit in the first four years. (PennLive)
• Utah’s Frontrunner light rail double-tracking project took another step toward receiving a $1.3 billion federal grant. (KSL)
• With gas prices of more than $4 per gallon, few Utah drivers even noticed that the state’s six-cent gas tax was suspended. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• The downtown Oklahoma City streetcar will remain fare-free indefinitely after a pilot program boosted ridership 74 percent. (Free Press)
• An Oregon transportation committee is looking to other states for inspiration on how to fill a $200 million funding gap. (Capital Chronicle)
• Dozens of countries are using the video game Minecraft to educate children about urban design. (New York Times)

Summer at the Audubon Center at Debs Park comes in many forms, from rust-colored California Buckwheat to the trill of Hooded Orioles. For the Public Programs team, it also means the return of Audubon...

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES SLF-2007-024 The Sakhalin Papers XIV: The Whales, the Scientists and the Financing Test

Archive reference: SLF-2007-024
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal record: IUCN Independent Scientific Review Panel report, Shell Sustainability Report 2005, International Whaling Commission Resolution 2005-3 and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development records
Supporting record: Contemporaneous press reporting, Parliamentary material and the later High Court record concerning ECGD scrutiny of Sakhalin-2
Evidence standard: Scientific findings, corporate statements, lender records and judicial material are distinguished from campaign claims and editorial interpretation. No court is represented as having adjudicated the underlying whale science.

Introduction

By early 2005, one of the smallest surviving populations of great whales had become entangled with one of the largest energy projects then under construction anywhere in the world.

The Western North Pacific gray whale population using the waters off north-eastern Sakhalin was estimated at only about 100 animals. IUCN described the population as critically endangered and said the surviving whales’ known feeding grounds lay alongside existing and proposed oil and gas development. Its scientific review identified potential threats including disturbance, underwater noise, ship collisions, oil contamination and changes to the prey habitat on which the whales depended.

The uncomfortable feature of this story is that the scientists were not imposed upon Sakhalin Energy from outside.

Sakhalin Energy itself asked IUCN to convene them.

What followed produced one of the clearest examples in the Sakhalin archive of independent science changing the physical design of Shell’s project — while simultaneously exposing how serious the unresolved risks remained.

And behind the science stood another question.

Could Sakhalin-2 still satisfy the environmental standards of the international institutions being asked to finance it?

1. Sakhalin Energy Calls In the Scientists

In 2004 Sakhalin Energy Investment Company asked IUCN — then commonly known as the World Conservation Union — to establish an independent scientific review of the project’s potential effects on the Western gray whales.

IUCN convened an Independent Scientific Review Panel, chaired by cetacean specialist Randall Reeves. The panel met four times between September 2004 and January 2005, including a meeting and site visit on Sakhalin itself. Its mandate was scientific: evaluate risks to the whales and related biodiversity, examine mitigation options and assess the adequacy of monitoring.

That provenance matters.

This was not simply an environmental pressure group preparing a report attacking Shell.

It was an independent scientific process established under IUCN auspices at Sakhalin Energy’s request. IUCN subsequently described the review as the beginning of a longer relationship with the company on whale conservation.

2. The Population Was Already at the Edge

The February 2005 report opened with an exceptionally stark assessment.

The panel described a population of roughly 100 animals, potentially including only about 23 reproductively active females. Commercial whaling had reduced the population so drastically that it had once been thought extinct. The surviving animals faced threats throughout their range, while the north-eastern Sakhalin feeding grounds placed them directly beside major offshore hydrocarbon development.

The International Whaling Commission later incorporated the essential population concern into its own formal resolution.

At its 57th meeting in 2005, the IWC recorded that the review panel had found fewer than 30 reproductive females and noted a population model under which a hypothetical additional death of just one female whale each year could result in extinction before 2050.

That model was not a prediction that extinction would occur.

It was a risk scenario illustrating how little additional mortality such a depleted population might be able to absorb.

That distinction is essential.

3. The Feeding Grounds Were the Problem

The whales were not merely migrating past Sakhalin.

They were feeding there.

The IUCN review identified the nearshore feeding ground around Piltun as particularly important, including for mothers and calves. Construction noise, pipelines, vessel traffic, spills and physical disturbance therefore presented a different class of risk from activity occurring in an incidental transit area.

The scientists also identified substantial uncertainty.

Their report said better information was required concerning underwater-noise propagation, exposure from multiple noise sources, whale behaviour and physiological responses. It regarded significant physiological stress from industrial noise as plausible, while acknowledging that further study was required.

This is one of the recurring themes of the Sakhalin environmental record:

uncertainty itself became part of the risk assessment.

The scientists were not saying that every feared effect had already been demonstrated.

They were saying that, for a population this small, waiting for definitive proof of serious harm could itself be dangerous.

4. The Panel Had Problems With Sakhalin Energy’s Risk Method

Sakhalin Energy applied an engineering risk-reduction concept known as ALARP — reducing risk to a level “as low as reasonably practicable.”

The panel did not reject that concept outright.

Its problem was transparency.

The scientists said they were often unable to determine exactly how Sakhalin Energy had applied the standard or how considerations such as conservation and cost-effectiveness had been weighed. According to the report, this lack of specificity prevented a rigorous independent evaluation of some important project decisions, including mitigation options associated with the offshore development.

That finding is significant because it goes beyond disagreement about a particular pipeline route.

It concerns how environmental risk decisions were being made.

A mitigation programme can contain sophisticated modelling, extensive monitoring and substantial expenditure and still be difficult to audit scientifically if the underlying decision criteria are unclear.

5. The Report Was Not a Simple “Stop Shell” Document

The panel’s conclusions need to be described accurately.

Its terms of reference did not require it to determine whether Sakhalin-2 should proceed as an economic or political proposition. The scientists expressly said they had not been asked to evaluate the strategic, economic, social or security implications of Sakhalin development. Their role was to analyse risks and options and provide evidence that could inform decision-makers.

Nevertheless, the scientific conclusion was severe.

Given the identified risks, uncertainty and doubts about the effectiveness of some proposed mitigation measures, the report said the “most precautionary approach” would be to suspend existing operations and delay further oil and gas development near the whale feeding grounds.

If development nevertheless continued, the panel said decisions needed to be conservative from the perspective of the whales and their habitat, with substantial monitoring and the ability to alter operations when necessary.

That is considerably stronger than saying merely that Sakhalin Energy should monitor the whales.

But it is also different from a legal prohibition on the project.

6. The Pipeline Became the Immediate Test

One of the clearest disputes concerned the offshore pipelines linking the Piltun-Astokhskoye facilities with the shore.

The panel examined several routing alternatives. Its analysis concluded that one alternative offered significant advantages because construction would create less disturbance to the nearshore foraging habitat and any release would occur farther from the Piltun feeding ground and lagoon. It also recognised a disadvantage: the longer route somewhat increased the probability of a pipeline leak or rupture simply because more pipeline would be installed.

This is worth emphasising.

The scientists did not pretend there was a risk-free option.

They compared competing risks.

A longer route could increase one category of pipeline risk while reducing potential consequences for the whales and their principal feeding habitat.

That is genuine risk analysis rather than slogan.

7. March 2005: Sakhalin Energy Changes the Route

On 30 March 2005, Sakhalin Energy announced that it would reroute the offshore pipelines.

Contemporaneous reporting described the pipelines as being moved approximately 20 kilometres south of the original route to take them farther from the Western gray whale feeding grounds. The decision followed publication of the IUCN review.

The company later incorporated the decision into Shell’s own official account.

The Shell Sustainability Report 2005 states that Sakhalin Energy had initiated the independent panel and then:

“took the Panel’s advice”

by moving the offshore pipelines 20 kilometres farther from the feeding ground.

That Shell document is particularly important for the archive.

There is no need to infer whether the independent scientific process influenced the design.

Shell itself said that it did.

8. Shell’s Own Version of the Whale Story

Shell’s 2005 Sustainability Report devoted substantial space to Sakhalin-2.

It acknowledged that the summer feeding grounds of approximately 100 endangered whales lay nearby and said harm needed to be avoided. Shell presented the rerouting decision as part of a broader programme involving acoustic modelling, external scientific observers, vessel speed restrictions and designated ship lanes.

Shell also stated that installation of the bases for two production platforms had been monitored externally and completed without signs of whale disturbance.

That is Shell’s corporate account of the monitored construction activity.

It should be recorded as such rather than converted into an independent finding that all project effects were harmless.

The same report said Sakhalin Energy was working with IUCN to establish a permanent Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel that would continue providing independent scientific advice during construction and beyond.

That longer-term panel was subsequently established in October 2006.

9. The International Whaling Commission Was Not Satisfied Yet

The reroute did not end international concern.

In its 2005 resolution, the International Whaling Commission expressly welcomed both the cooperation between Sakhalin Energy and IUCN and the proposed rerouting of pipelines around rather than through the feeding ground.

But the same resolution said the Commission remained concerned that noise from pipeline work, platform emplacement and onshore construction would affect the Piltun feeding ground.

The IWC called for industrial organisations to minimise received noise levels, supported development of a comprehensive conservation strategy and urged oil companies, governments, scientists and other organisations to cooperate and share relevant data.

That produces another important evidential distinction.

The reroute was a recognised improvement. It was not regarded as the end of the conservation problem.

Both propositions are supported by the official record.

10. Oil-Spill Risk Remained

Noise was only one issue.

The IUCN report examined possible oil spills, pipeline failures and blowouts.

Using information contained in Sakhalin Energy’s own Comparative Environmental Assessment, the panel calculated that different offshore pipeline options carried differing lifetime spill probabilities. It also emphasised that probability alone was insufficient: the location and consequences of a release mattered greatly because spilled oil entering the feeding areas could affect the whales directly or damage the benthic prey on which they fed.

The report criticised gaps in parts of the spill analysis, including the absence of calculations quantifying how much of the feeding areas might lie inside projected spill trajectories in particular scenarios.

Again, this was not a prediction that a catastrophic spill would occur.

It was an assessment that consequences potentially affecting such a vulnerable population required unusually conservative treatment.

11. The Scientists Were Working With Incomplete Information

There is another revealing detail buried inside the review process.

The panel said its work had been complicated because Sakhalin Energy’s Comparative Environmental Assessment — described as important to Phase 2 decision-making — was not completed and supplied until 30 November 2004.

By then, the panel’s original review period was largely over.

Its contracts therefore had to be extended and the final report delayed until February 2005.

This does not establish that Sakhalin Energy deliberately withheld information.

The panel explicitly explained that the relevant documentation had not yet been completed.

But it does establish a timing problem:

independent reviewers were being asked to assess a rapidly advancing industrial project while some of the central environmental analysis was itself still being finalised.

That fact becomes particularly significant when the financing timetable is added.

12. The Whales Meet the Banks

Sakhalin-2 required enormous amounts of capital.

Among the institutions considering Phase 2 financing was the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Shell’s own Sustainability Report stated in 2005 that the EBRD and other institutions were considering funding and that, late that year, the Bank had judged Sakhalin Energy’s environmental, social and health-and-safety approach “fit for the purpose of public consultation.”

Those words require care.

“Fit for the purpose of public consultation” was not an EBRD financing approval.

The distinction is confirmed by EBRD’s own later records.

13. EBRD: Due Diligence Was Still Open

At a May 2006 meeting of the EBRD’s Environmental Advisory Council, Bank staff reported that Sakhalin-2 remained in due diligence.

No decision had been taken to submit the project to the EBRD Board for financing approval.

The Bank identified numerous significant matters still requiring work, including the status of the Western gray whales, oil-spill planning, river crossings, fisheries, indigenous peoples, resettlement, cultural heritage, stakeholder relations, consultation and legal issues. EBRD staff also discussed the Bank’s commitment to applying the precautionary principle to biodiversity.

This is a crucial documentary correction to a common shorthand account.

The late-2005 milestone did not mean:

“EBRD approves Sakhalin-2.”

It meant that the documentation had reached a stage at which formal public consultation could proceed while due diligence continued.

That difference matters enormously in reconstructing the financing history.

14. Why the Whale Question Became a Financing Question

By this stage, the Western gray whale issue was no longer simply a dispute between conservationists and an oil company.

It was embedded in institutional finance.

The EBRD was examining environmental performance while considering whether to participate financially. UK export-credit officials were separately considering support. The IUCN process had generated independent scientific recommendations. The International Whaling Commission had adopted a formal resolution. Sakhalin Energy had altered its pipeline design.

The result was a form of external leverage that does not fit neatly into the categories of regulation or litigation.

No international scientist had the legal power to order Shell to move the pipeline.

But lenders could insist upon environmental standards.

Governments considering export-credit support could demand environmental assessment.

And a project seeking billions of dollars in external finance had strong commercial reasons to demonstrate that internationally recognised concerns were being addressed.

That is an inference from the documented financing and review structure, rather than a finding that any single lender forced the March 2005 reroute.

15. What the Contemporary Press Saw

The press immediately recognised the connection.

Contemporaneous reports in March 2005 described Shell and Sakhalin Energy moving the offshore route after intense concern over the whales. The Guardian reported that the change did not end the campaign against the project, with environmental organisations continuing to press prospective lenders and the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department not to provide support.

Other contemporary reporting noted the commercial importance of satisfying the environmental requirements attached to international financing. Energy-industry coverage explicitly linked the reroute with Sakhalin-2’s effort to obtain loans from international financial institutions.

Those articles are contemporaneous interpretations.

They support the proposition that financing pressure formed part of the public context.

They do not, standing alone, prove that Shell would have refused to reroute the pipeline in the absence of prospective financing.

16. The Court Record Later Captured the Same Collision

Three years later, Sakhalin-2’s whale controversy appeared in the English High Court record.

In Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin), the court described the project as potentially having a major impact on the habitat and feeding grounds of the Western Grey Whale and recorded that approximately US$650 million of project finance support had been sought from ECGD.

As explained in SLF-2007-023, that case concerned disclosure of government environmental information.

It did not decide the scientific merits of the whale controversy.

It did, however, place into a formal judicial record the connection between the endangered whale habitat, Sakhalin-2 and the proposed taxpayer-backed financing.

The science and the money had become inseparable parts of the public controversy.

17. A Rare Example of Science Changing a Megaproject

With hindsight, one feature of the record is difficult to dispute.

The independent scientific process changed the project.

IUCN later highlighted the 2005 pipeline reroute as a concrete example of the advisory process influencing corporate action. Its retrospective account says Sakhalin Energy changed the route preferred by the independent panel, moving it roughly 20 kilometres south to reduce disruption to the feeding grounds.

Shell’s own contemporaneous sustainability report says essentially the same thing.

This should not be understated merely because serious criticism of Sakhalin-2 continued.

An independent scientific panel recommended a different route.

A Shell-led project changed its engineering design.

That is a real outcome.

18. But It Was Not a Scientific Clean Bill of Health

The opposite exaggeration would be equally misleading.

The pipeline reroute did not mean the independent scientists concluded that Sakhalin-2 was environmentally safe.

Their report remained concerned about cumulative effects, acoustic disturbance, vessel strikes, oil-spill risks, habitat alteration and uncertainty surrounding mitigation. The most precautionary option identified by the panel went considerably further than rerouting a pipeline.

The International Whaling Commission likewise welcomed the reroute while retaining explicit concerns about construction noise.

The accurate documentary conclusion therefore lies between two competing caricatures.

It would be wrong to say:

“Shell ignored the scientists.”

It would also be wrong to say:

“The scientists approved Sakhalin-2.”

Neither proposition reflects the record.

19. What Is Established

The documentary record establishes that the Western North Pacific gray whale population using Sakhalin waters was extraordinarily small and regarded as critically endangered in 2005. Sakhalin Energy asked IUCN to convene an independent scientific panel. That panel identified substantial risks and uncertainties associated with Phase 2 and concluded that the most precautionary course would be suspension or delay of development close to the feeding grounds.

It is also established that the panel preferred a different offshore pipeline routing from the original proposal and that Sakhalin Energy subsequently moved the pipelines approximately 20 kilometres farther from the feeding ground. Shell itself attributed the decision to the panel’s advice.

The International Whaling Commission welcomed the cooperation and reroute but remained concerned about industrial noise and the extreme vulnerability of a population containing fewer than 30 reproductive females.

And it is established that environmental performance, including whale protection, remained part of EBRD’s continuing due diligence while the Bank considered possible financing.

20. What Is Not Established

The records examined here do not establish that Sakhalin Energy’s activities caused the extinction, or near-extinction, of the Western gray whale population.

They do not establish that a major oil spill affecting the whales actually occurred.

They do not establish that IUCN approved Sakhalin-2 as an environmentally acceptable project.

They do not establish that the EBRD approved Phase 2 financing in 2005.

They do not establish that the English courts ruled Sakhalin-2 environmentally unlawful.

And while financing considerations plainly formed part of the institutional environment surrounding the project, the documents examined here do not prove that Sakhalin Energy changed the pipeline route solely because it needed lender approval.

Those boundaries are as important as the findings themselves.

Commentary

The whale file is revealing precisely because it refuses to fit a simple corporate morality tale.

Shell’s project faced serious environmental criticism.

But Sakhalin Energy did something corporations under attack do not always do: it voluntarily invited an external scientific body to examine the problem.

The scientists then produced conclusions considerably more uncomfortable than corporate public-relations language would normally welcome.

And at least one major engineering decision changed.

That deserves recognition.

But the same record also demonstrates why independent oversight was necessary.

The whale population was so small that conventional industrial assumptions about acceptable risk became difficult to apply. A low-probability event could have disproportionate consequences. Scientific uncertainty could not simply be treated as evidence of safety. And the panel itself complained that it could not always determine how Sakhalin Energy was balancing conservation risk against other considerations.

The financing dimension sharpened everything.

A lender assessing billions of dollars of exposure was not simply asking whether the project held Russian regulatory approvals. International financial institutions were asking whether environmental and social performance could satisfy their own standards.

That made the whales financially relevant.

The pipeline reroute is therefore more than an environmental footnote.

It is evidence of the moment when independent science, corporate engineering and international finance collided — and the physical route of Sakhalin-2 changed as a result.

The more difficult question was whether changing one route could resolve the much larger collection of risks accumulating around the project.

By 2005, the answer was plainly not yet known.

Source Record

The principal source is the February 2005 Report of the Independent Scientific Review Panel on the Impacts of Sakhalin II Phase 2 on Western North Pacific Gray Whales and Related Biodiversity, convened under IUCN auspices at Sakhalin Energy’s request. The report documents the population assessment, noise and collision concerns, oil-spill analysis, alternative pipeline routes, cumulative-risk modelling and the panel’s precautionary conclusions.

Shell’s own Sustainability Report 2005 provides the corporate account of Sakhalin Energy’s response, including the statement that the company took the panel’s advice and moved the offshore pipelines approximately 20 kilometres farther from the feeding ground. It also records Shell’s account of acoustic mitigation, external monitoring, vessel controls and prospective EBRD financing.

The International Whaling Commission Resolution 2005-3 independently records both the significance of the rerouting decision and continuing concern about noise, while documenting the exceptionally small number of reproductive females identified by the review.

EBRD records establish that environmental review continued beyond the late-2005 public-consultation milestone and that the Bank had not yet decided to submit Sakhalin-2 to its Board for financing approval in May 2006.

Contemporaneous reporting provides the public context surrounding the March 2005 reroute and the continuing campaign aimed at prospective project financiers.

The later High Court record provides additional confirmation that the Western Grey Whale issue formed part of the environmental controversy surrounding ECGD’s consideration of approximately US$650 million in project-finance support.

PS.

Encouragingly, subsequent monitoring indicated substantial growth in the whales using the western North Pacific feeding grounds. The International Whaling Commission lists a 2015 best estimate of approximately 200 animals for the Western Feeding Group, compared with an estimated 74 in 1995. Later research has, however, demonstrated considerable movement between the western and eastern North Pacific, complicating the older concept of a wholly separate western population.

Archive disclaimer: Scientific modelling describes risk scenarios and should not be confused with predictions that a particular outcome would necessarily occur. Corporate sustainability reports record the company’s own account and are identified as such. Environmental campaign statements and contemporaneous journalism are distinguished from independent scientific findings and judicial determinations. Nothing in this instalment should be read as asserting a finding of unlawful conduct unless attributed to a competent court, regulator or other authority. Site-wide disclaimer also applies.

Next Archive File SLF-2007-025 — The Sakhalin Papers XV: The $20 Billion Shock — When Shell Doubled the Price of Sakhalin-2

Only months after the whale-panel confrontation, another disclosure transformed the project.

The original Phase 2 cost estimate had been approximately $10 billion.

In 2005 Shell acknowledged that the expected cost had effectively doubled to about $20 billion, while first LNG deliveries were pushed back.

That was not merely an accounting revision.

Under Sakhalin-2’s production-sharing arrangements, project costs were intimately connected with when Russia would begin receiving substantial profits.

The next file will follow the documentary trail behind the cost explosion, what Shell told investors and the Russian authorities, and why the $20 billion figure became one of the central triggers in the confrontation that eventually stripped Shell of control of Sakhalin-2.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 9 AUGUST 2026 was first posted on August 9, 2026 at 7:51 pm.
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Disclosure Ruling Is Followed by a Timetable to Preserve Evidence

Archive reference: AUS-WB-2026-002
Jurisdiction: Supreme Court of Queensland
Case: Quinlan v Shell Energy Operations Pty Ltd [2026] QSC 115
Decision date: 10 June 2026
Evidence standard: Reported court proceedings and published case information. This article does not treat allegations in pleadings or media reports as established facts.

Site-wide disclaimer applies. Mr Quinlan’s substantive allegations remain contested and have not been proved in court. Shell denies wrongdoing.

The Update Since the March Hearing

In March, former ERM Power executive Kent Quinlan asked the Supreme Court of Queensland to require Shell Power to provide further internal documents. He alleges that he raised concerns about insider trading and “sham” transactions at ERM Power, and that he later suffered detrimental treatment. Shell disputes the claims.

On 10 June 2026, Cooper J delivered an interlocutory decision concerning disclosure, document searches and redactions. The ruling did not determine whether any alleged misconduct occurred. It addressed what material the parties must provide while the litigation continues.

The August Case-Management Hearing

On 8 August, Michael West Media reported that the Supreme Court had set a timetable intended to enable Mr Quinlan’s evidence to be preserved later in 2026. The report said the Court had been told that he has terminal brain cancer and a life expectancy of less than 12 months.

According to that report, Cooper J granted an application for Mr Quinlan to give evidence, with the evidence to be taken in closed court and audio-video recorded. If Mr Quinlan dies before trial, the recording is intended to be played publicly at the trial. The Court fixed a timetable aimed at taking his evidence-in-chief in December, with a further case-management hearing listed for 14 October.

This is a procedural step taken in light of Mr Quinlan’s reported medical condition. It does not decide the allegations against Shell or the other respondents. Those allegations remain contested and unproven; Shell denies wrongdoing.

What the Court Ordered

Published case information records that the Court ordered Shell Energy Operations to disclose a defined group of documents identified in the relevant affidavit within seven days. Beyond that limited order, Mr Quinlan’s broader application for disclosure relief was dismissed.

The Court also considered Shell’s requests concerning unredacted disclosure and Mr Quinlan’s own disclosure obligations. The dispute included whether redactions to employee salary and contact information were justified, and whether further searching of archived material was proportionate.

This is an important but narrow outcome. It means that a specified category of documents had to be disclosed; it does not mean the Court accepted Mr Quinlan’s allegations, found that Shell concealed evidence, or made a ruling on insider trading, market manipulation or retaliation.

The Earlier Reporting

The March hearing was reported by the ABC. It described Mr Quinlan’s case as alleging that he raised concerns about illegal insider trading and “bogus” trades during his time at ERM Power, an Australian energy business acquired by Shell in 2019. His counsel sought further documents, arguing that legal privilege could not protect communications said to further fraud.

Shell’s counsel told the Court that the company had already provided a substantial volume of material and that the additional document requests were not reasonable or sufficiently connected to the issues in dispute. That remains Shell’s position in the contested proceedings.

Why the Distinction Matters

Disclosure litigation is often mistaken for a verdict. It is not. Courts decide whether documents are relevant, protected, proportionate to retrieve or capable of being disclosed with proper privacy safeguards. Those decisions can affect what evidence becomes available, but they do not resolve the truth of every allegation in the case.

The responsible conclusion at this stage is therefore straightforward: Mr Quinlan obtained limited additional disclosure, Shell succeeded in resisting broader relief, and the central allegations remain unresolved.

What Happens Next

The immediate next development is the 14 October case-management hearing, followed by the proposed December evidence timetable, subject to the Court’s directions and Mr Quinlan’s health. The June disclosure order, any costs decision and ultimately the Court’s determination of the substantive claims will remain important. Until then, descriptions of the dispute must retain the words “alleged”, “contested” and “not proved”.

Sources

• Michael West Media: Court fast-tracks Shell whistleblower’s case after terminal cancer diagnosis, 8 August 2026.
• ABC News: Kent Quinlan asks Supreme Court to force Shell Power to hand over secret company documents, 31 March 2026.
• Quinlan v Shell Energy Operations Pty Ltd [2026] QSC 115, Supreme Court of Queensland decision summary, 10 June 2026.
• Case summary: Quinlan v Shell Energy Operations Pty Ltd [2026] QSC 115, accessed 9 August 2026.
• Earlier ShellNews article: Shell Inherits an Explosive Australian Whistleblower Battle, 17 July 2026.

Kent Quinlan v Shell: Court Fast-Tracks Evidence After Terminal Cancer Diagnosis was first posted on August 9, 2026 at 7:23 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, August 2, 2026 thru Sat, August 8, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (11 articles)

• El Niño and climate change are affecting rice crops in weird ways Researchers explain how El Niño and global warming are combining to create "the haves and the have-nots." Grist, Tik Root & Frida Garza, July 31, 2026.
• Heatwaves and raging fires mark Europe’s ‘dystopian’ summer This article about the recent record-breaking heat and wildfires in Europe dives into the science about the causes, quoting several experts. ABC News, Romy Stephens, Alex Lim and Fran Rimrod, Aug 1, 2026.
• Climate shocks hit hydropower in Southern Africa, reviving interest in coal The Daily Climate, Chisapi Kumbutso, Aug 02, 2026.
• Climate change could dramatically reduce water flowing from the West's headwaters Phys.org, Northern Arizona University, Aug 02, 2026.
• Washington`s wildfires are a warning for the entire U.S. Dry conditions and climate change are putting forests across the country at risk for disaster Scientific American, Mary Randolph, Aug 03, 2026.
• Factcheck: How nuclear, gas, wind and solar power are affected during heatwaves Carbon Brief, Molly Lempriere, Aug 04, 2026.
• French wildfires are turning animals’ homes into ‘a desert of ashes’ The catastrophic fires have potential to do long-term damage to many wild animal populations, but a toad species could be the most affected. National Geographic, Melissa Hobson, Aug 4, 2026.
• Butterflies are on the move as the planet warms: new research A comprehensive survey indicates that one in ten known butterfly species have already shifted in range. The Conversation, Shawan Chowdhury, Aug 05, 2026.
• Summer of wildfires sees catastrophe bonds approach new record Wildfires raging across the U.S. and Europe this summer are pushing more and more insurers into slashing their risk by issuing catastrophe bonds to investors, and the so-called CAT bonds on the market are already nearing levels from all of last year. Callaway Climate Insights, David Callaway, Aug 06, 2026.
• Climate change created conditions for Canada fires, scientists say, as Trump blames mismanagement A new study calculates that human-caused climate change doubled the likelihood of the tinderbox weather conditions that sparked Canada’s massive summer wildfires. The Okaloosa Herald, EHN Curators, Aug 06, 2026.
• Heatwaves have killed millions. Here’s how scientists tally lives lost Two very different methods are used to estimate the human toll of heatwaves such as those now hitting parts of Asia and Europe. Nature, Kaia Glickman, Aug 6, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (6 articles)

• ECB official warns climate crisis poses growing threat to `core financial stability` Exclusive: As wildfires rage, Frank Elderson says more work needed to assess risk from collapse of ecosystem services The Guardian, Richard Partington, Aug 01, 2026.
• Climate Hushing Strategy May Cost Democrats At The Polls Argued from a foundation of ample research evidence, this colorfully written op-ed criticizing ''climate hushing'' suggests that tip-toeing around climate change isn't grounded in facts, and that addressing public concerns about climate change can be part of a winning electoral package. CleanTechnica, Steve Hanley, Aug 03, 2026.
• Opinion: Why local action is key to surviving America's climate crisis 'The current administration in Washington denies that climate change is even real,'' starkly reminding us that meaningful climate change mitigation is a political matter and begins with voting. Politico, William S Becker, Aug 03, 2026.
• Appeals Court Says E.P.A. Cannot Block Billions in Climate Grants The funds have been frozen since early in President Trump’s second term. New York Times, Claire Brown, Aug 04, 2026.
• Q&A: What is in China`s new five-year plan for climate change? The new plan does not include any major new targets, instead consolidating and reaffirming existing policies, but does include significant signals on key policy areas, such as non-carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gases, global climate governance and carbon markets. Carbon Brief, Carbon Brief Staff, Aug 06, 2026.
• Trump Administration to Pay RWE to Cancel Wind Leases It was the fifth such deal struck by the administration to get companies to drop offshore wind projects. NYT, Brad Plumer, Aug 06, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (4 articles)

• Why is gaining citizen support for climate policies so difficult? Phys.org, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Jul 31, 2026.
• A majority of Americans don`t actually fit either climate camp An analysis of 20 years of polling data shows how age, education and income—in addition to political affiliation—shape views on climate policy Anthropocene, Sarah DeWeerdt, Aug 04, 2026.
• Climate Trunk - The Persuadable Majority Progress on climate depends on speaking to the movable middle. Climate Trunk, John Lang, Aug 5, 2026.
• Extreme heat impact on travel, family increasingly felt by Americans: poll Americans are increasingly feeling a personal impact from extreme heat, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. AP News, Alexa St. John and Linley Sanders, Aug 06, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (3 articles)

• Climate adaptation at its limits, says one scientist A climate scientist says Earth is "passing the limits of adaptation" when it comes to withstanding the effects of climate change. NPR, Michelle Aslam, Jul 31, 2026.
• Q&A: Does the world need `carbon capture and storage` to reach net-zero? Carbon capture and storage is an expedience for the fossil fuel industry and frequently the target of emotionally overheated and shallow criticism, but also stands as a poster child for ''nothing is simple," as illustrated in this excellent explanation. Carbon Brief, Josh Gabbatiss, Aug 03, 2026.
• `The obsession with endless growth can only end in tears`: your questions on extreme weather this summer answered 'Every fraction of a degree of warming that we can prevent will help millions of people and billions of other forms of life,'' which pretty much answers why Skeptical Science exists and what each of us can help to achieve; we can do better or worse by fractions of degrees, and we choose better. The Guardian, Jonathan Watts and Ajit Niranjan, Aug 03, 2026.

Miscellaneous (2 articles)

• 2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #31 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 26, 2026 thru Sat, August 1, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, Aug 02, 2026.
• 15 new books for five new takes on climate change Recent years have seen a boom in books on climate change. This collection spans from techno-optimism to philosophical pessimism. Yale Climate Connections, Michael Svoboda, Aug 06, 2026.

Climate Law and Justice (1 article)

• Supreme Court sets date for blockbuster climate case The case, Suncor v. Boulder, has spurred calls for two of the justices to recuse themselves as they weigh whether federal law or the Constitution bars local governments from suing fossil fuel companies over the costs of addressing climate change. Politico E&E News, Lesley Clark, Aug 05, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (1 article)

• A Short History of Climate Science #17 of the ClimateTrunk graphics published ClimateTrunk, John Lang, July 15, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (1 article)

• Fixing one of climate`s worst plots The 1930s were hot over the U.S. Midwest, but not that hot The Climate Brink, Andrew Dessler, Aug 03, 2026.

If you happen upon high quality climate-science and/or climate-myth busting articles from reliable sources while surfing the web, please feel free to submit them via this Google form so that we may share them widely. Thanks!

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is considering regulations for dairy and livestock operations to reduce the impact of animal agriculture on the environment.

The Board is weighing emissions data, mitigation strategies, and regulations as they consider a variety of regulatory approaches to reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.

Under a 2024 resolution, CARB’s Executive Officer was asked to develop a plan for livestock methane regulations, Joe DeAnda, Director of Communications at CARB, tells Food Tank. Following rule development in 2025, the resolution outlines potential regulation consideration by the CARB Board by 2028, and, if adopted, implementation in 2030.

In 2016, SB 1383 set statewide targets in California to reduce short-lived climate pollutants. For dairy and livestock sectors, legislation set a goal of reducing methane emissions 40 percent below 2013 levels by 2030.

The law directed CARB to approve and implement a strategy to meet targets and work with stakeholders to identify and address barriers to emissions reduction goals. During a recent public comment period, CARB sought feedback on the technological and economic feasibility of the dairy and livestock sector, says DeAnda.

Dairy and livestock operations are California’s largest source of methane emissions, originating from manure and enteric fermentation, CARB reports.

Since SB 1383 was enacted, the state has targeted manure-related emissions through incentive-based programs. These initiatives include grants for anaerobic digesters and alternative manure management practices, which reduce methane by changing how manure is stored, handled, or treated.

Voluntary incentive programs allow farmers to reduce emissions without taking on the full cost of new infrastructure, says Michael Boccadoro, Executive Director of Dairy Cares. “We’re more than two-thirds of the way to achieving the dairy share of livestock methane emission reductions,” he tells Food Tank.

Boccadoro believes state and federal funding are central to that progress. He says some alternative manure management projects can be fully covered by grants, while many digesters are financed, owned, or operated by outside developers. In those cases, farmers may provide manure as feedstock without paying to build the project themselves and can receive a small revenue stream.

“The beauty of the incentive program is it hasn’t impacted farmers financially, except in some cases in a positive way,” Boccadoro tells Food Tank. He says the projects can also offer additional benefits, including improved manure handling and water quality.

While mandatory reporting is important to Boccadoro, he believes the requirements should stop short of direct emissions mandates. He argues that demanding every dairy farm to achieve a specific reduction target is “catastrophically unhelpful” because it can undermine the credit and financing systems that have supported methane reduction. “If you lose the incentives, these projects don’t go forward because there’s nobody to pay for them,” he says.

Frank Mitloehner, Air Quality Specialist at UC Davis, also supports California’s incentive-based approach. “When the law was passed there weren’t many options to reduce methane emissions. It was ahead of the technology, but by pushing incentives it allowed for solutions to blossom and result in real methane reductions,” he tells Food Tank.

Mitloehner has been impressed by the speed of transition in the dairy industry. “It’s astonishing how quickly an entire industry sprung up and the sector moved to be in line with state laws,” he says. But now “we’ve tackled the low-hanging fruit and need further technologies to find solutions in other sectors.”

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