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The Trump administration came close to fully dismantling the federal government’s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from cars Monday, announcing a final plan to ease fuel-efficiency requirements. The move was largely symbolic: Congress had already eliminated the penalties automakers face for violating those standards. Those steps, along with a range of other reductions in federal climate authority, have now left the federal government with virtually no meaningful policy governing carbon pollution from cars, which account for roughly 16 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

But one entity still has enough sway, and just enough regulatory authority, to keep pressing car companies toward greater fuel efficiency: California. The state’s vehicle emissions rules are still in effect, effectively setting a baseline for fuel efficiency that automakers cannot fall below without potentially incurring penalties. The Trump administration has been busy attacking California’s ability to make its own emissions rules, but it hasn’t claimed full victory — yet. For now, the Golden State’s wounded but not defeated regulations are the most important government policy on vehicle emissions in the country.

Because of a half-century-old special exemption, California is allowed to go further than the federal government when regulating tailpipe emissions. Southern California was so smoggy in the 1950s that California created its own vehicle emissions standards before Congress established national standards through the Clean Air Act. Acknowledging California’s air pollution struggles, Congress gave it unique authority to keep making its own car emissions rules.

California cannot use its special authority to directly mandate fuel efficiency in vehicles. But because reducing fuel consumption is essentially the only way to reduce a gasoline-powered car’s greenhouse gas emissions, its emissions standards can have much the same effect as federal fuel-efficiency standards, and vice versa. 

California’s rules have vast impacts beyond its borders. Other states can choose to adopt its regulations, and 19 have done so (including the District of Columbia). Rather than produce different vehicles for different states, many car companies have been willing to make all their vehicles comply with California’s standards, even when those standards go further than Washington’s. The states using California’s current vehicle emissions standards made up 40 percent of new car sales in the U.S. in 2022.

The Trump administration has been working to strip California’s special emissions regulations. Last year, both houses of Congress voted to block California’s effort to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035, after President Donald Trump’s EPA asked lawmakers to do so. That phase-out effort was only possible because of California’s special emissions regulation power. In response, California sued the Trump administration.

“What we’re seeing is a thinly veiled attempt by the president to retaliate against California for choosing progress over regression,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta after his office filed the suit.

With its ambitious vehicle transition plan undone for now, California aims to continue enforcing its previous set of emissions standards, which would have otherwise expired in 2026. While those standards won’t force car companies to continue reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, they might keep car companies from backtracking on gains they’ve already made. The Trump administration has asked Congress to overturn these standards also, but a federal judge blocked that effort in early September.

Car companies have been mostly silent on how they’ll respond to the regulatory uncertainty, including whether they’ll stay on track to meet California’s rescinded requirements if courts allow the state to put them back in place. Automakers at this point are used to the whiplash of policies changing between administrations. 

President Donald Trump announces the rollback of the 2009 Endangerment Finding in February 2026. The scientific finding allowed the EPA to regulate climate-warming emissions.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

In addition to fluctuating regulations, car manufacturers are also facing changes in what customers want. Automakers have said aggressive fuel efficiency standards from the Biden administration — the ones Trump undid this week — ran up against Americans’ preferences. Companies were building more electric vehicles, partly to help them meet the Biden standards, but customers weren’t buying enough of them. (That problem became much worse after the Trump administration rolled back policies promoting their growth.)

But customers might also push car companies toward greater fuel efficiency even when Washington doesn’t require it — especially at a time when gasoline prices have spiked in the wake of Trump’s war on Iran. Hybrid vehicles are gaining popularity, making up a record 16 percent of passenger vehicle sales by the summer of 2026. And some car companies aren’t giving up on their electric vehicle efforts. Zero-emission cars have become more popular abroad, and some executives think they’ll pick up steam in the United States eventually. 

“We’re in for the long haul, and we’re maybe a little slower on EVs, for instance,” said General Motors president Mark Reuss at a conference this week. “That’s OK, but the whole world is moving that way, and so we invested in the platforms that are EV platforms.” 

But market dynamics alone aren’t expected to be enough to spur the rapid emissions reductions needed to address climate change. California’s remaining regulations provide an important baseline, but the state’s now-blocked rules for phasing out gasoline-powered cars would push automakers much further.

The fate of California’s stricter emissions rules will likely be decided in court, and some analysts say the state has a strong legal case for restoring them. Republicans in Congress used an unusual, potentially unprecedented maneuver to revoke the permission that made the rules possible, and both the Government Accountability Office and the Senate parliamentarian declared at the time that the maneuver was illegal.

“There are multiple levels of shenanigans, depending on your viewpoint, that are being litigated,” said Rebecca Higgins, vice president of Policy at the Eno Center for Transportation, a nonprofit transportation research institution. “That creates tremendous uncertainty.”

A judge could ultimately decide that the congressional and Trump administration actions were unlawful. In any case, California’s phaseout plan might be reinstated if Democrats take the White House in 2028. 

But another Republican effort could leave a more lasting mark on California’s authority, Higgins said. In a separate lawsuit, the Trump administration is trying to undo California’s underlying authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, arguing it is illegal for the state to regulate fuel efficiency, even if it does so indirectly through emissions regulations. Federal judges have ruled in California’s favor on this point before, Higgins said. The case is still in lower federal courts for now, but if it reaches the Supreme Court, its fate is uncertain. The Supreme Court has never ruled on this subject, and the current bench of conservative justices has frequently sided with the Trump administration. 

“That one feels like it could have the potential to sort of reset the authorities going forward,” Higgins said. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Under Trump, California’s clean car rules are essential — and vulnerable on Oct 1, 2026.

As free and abundant as sunlight may be, harnessing its power remains stubbornly difficult for homeowners. While the cost of solar energy has plummeted more than 90 percent in the last decade, panels remain a significant investment. And it’s not as easy as just slapping panels on a roof, as your home may need electrical upgrades too.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Countries like Germany have encouraged the proliferation of balcony solar, also known as plug-in solar: smaller, cheaper arrays that hook into a home’s electrical outlets. This offsets some of a residence’s energy use, saving users hundreds of dollars a year, and opens up solar energy to renters with balconies or backyards. As a bonus, the less power homes have to draw from the grid, the less stress they put on the system, especially during heat waves when everyone is running energy-hungry air conditioners.

On Wednesday, California officially got in on the balcony-solar action as Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill allowing residents of the nation’s most populous state to adopt the technology. It joins a handful of states, like Utah and Maine, in seeing the potential of the technology to generate clean electricity and save residents money as energy costs rise.

“This technology is very important and very powerful,” state Senator Scott Wiener, who authored the legislation, said during a press conference Thursday. “And what this bill does is eliminate the massive barrier to people using plug-in solar, which is that you’d have to go and negotiate an interconnection agreement with PG&E [Pacific Gas and Electric Company] or the other utility.”

The proliferation of plug-in solar marks a fundamental shift in how the electrical grid operates. Historically, utilities have generated electricity by burning fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. When demand rose, like when people returned home at the end of the day and switched on appliances, they’d just ramp up production. This kept the system in a sort of equilibrium, a constant balance of supply and demand.

That, though, doesn’t quite work the same with renewables like wind and solar. If demand is holding steady and the sun is setting, a utility isn’t generating as much electricity with its panels. Same with wind, if the skies suddenly calm. So in addition to building out wind and solar farms, utilities are deploying huge batteries to save that energy for later use. This creates a more flexible grid that can still hum with electricity when things are dark or calm.

This transformation is turning you, the consumer, into a more active participant in the grid. For years now, homes with solar have sent excess energy back to the grid. While plug-in solar might generate a fraction of what you’d get from a roof covered in panels, it can still help make the grid more flexible. Instead of feeding the system, it reduces the amount of electricity drawn from the grid. Scaled across a whole city, these small reductions can add up, offsetting some of the growth in demand from things like AI data centers and electrification. (Think induction stoves needing electricity instead of natural gas, and EVs charging instead of burning fuel.) 

“This is one of the most immediate, concrete, tangible, real, and affordable things that we can do to start to get control of our high energy costs, but also save our planet,” Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president for California at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, said during the press conference. “So it’s really a twofer.”

Basically, plug-in solar could help reduce congestion in the system at peak times — when it’s hot out and everyone’s running their AC, there’s also plenty of sun to strike the panels. It’s turning homes and apartments into a distributed network of tiny power plants. “It’s really ideal to use renewable electricity exactly where it’s generated,” said Amanda Smith, a senior scientist focusing on the built environment at Project Drawdown, a climate solutions nonprofit. 

This increased interactivity in the grid comes as utility bills continue to skyrocket. Basic plug-in solar systems will set you back a few hundred dollars, and you can potentially make back that money with energy savings in around four years. (The higher the energy costs in your state, the quicker you’d get that return on your investment.) Still, for a lot of households, that’s a major investment, so ideally a state also provides rebates for people to adopt the technology. 

With California now aboard the plug-in solar train, your state may well follow. “The big reason this is a big deal really is because it’s the most affordable way for people to actually participate with solar PV,” Smith said. “Whatever happens in California is going to influence, I think, a lot of other future state markets. So it’s going to be a key one to watch.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline California just made it legal to turn balconies into tiny power plants on Oct 1, 2026.

Review: Genocide in Canada: A Critical Approach by Andrew Woolford (Fernwood Publishing, 2026). The term ‘genocide’ often invokes strong imagery in the minds of those...

The post Review: Who gets to decide when its a genocide?  first appeared on Spring.

In December 2023, at a luxury resort on the Island of Hawaiʻi, three nēnē goslings hatched on a manicured green lawn. Within 72 hours, two were dead. One was found lifeless in a pond, and the...

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Wednesday, October 21, 2026 | 9 am PT (10:00 am MT / Noon ET) | Online via Zoom | Free

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Ultradeep geothermal energy could supply clean, always-on power and heat almost anywhere in Canada. But no new energy technology scales without public support — so how do Western Canadians actually feel about it?

Join the University of Victoria's Accelerating Community Energy Transformation (ACET) initiative and the Cascade Institute for a free webinar exploring the first empirical assessment of public perceptions of ultradeep geothermal energy in Alberta and British Columbia. The research, published in the Cascade Institute report Deep Listening: Assessing the social acceptance of geothermal energy by Katherine Matos Meza and Carlos Gorraez Meraz, is based on a survey of 2,603 adults.

The survey found that Western Canadians are cautiously open to ultradeep geothermal. Few people know much about it, but the low familiarity does not translate into opposition — and acceptance is built primarily on perceived benefits and endorsement from trusted messengers.

The 60-minute session will open with a short presentation of the key findings by report authors Katherine Matos Meza and Carlos Gorraez Meraz, followed by a moderated panel discussion and audience Q&A.

The panel will discuss what that means for policymakers, project developers, communities, and communicators working to build informed public confidence in geothermal energy.

Panel

• Curran Crawford (facilitator), University of Victoria / ACET
• Ann Garth, Clean Air Task Force
• Amel Barich, Geologist, Geoscience Research and Communications (Iceland)
• Emily Smejkal, Ultradeep Geothermal Fellow, Cascade Institute

Register for the webinar »(opens in new tab)

This research is supported by the Accelerating Community Energy Transformation initiative, a University of Victoria–led initiative in which the Cascade Institute is an active partner. Learn more about our ACET collaboration.

The post Webinar: Beneath the surface — Social acceptance of geothermal systems in Western Canada appeared first on Cascade Institute.

SAMADUA: Forests, nutmeg and a community's fight against mining in the Leuser ecosystem Article by Apel Green Aceh

The landscape of the Samadua area threatened by mining plans, September 30, 2026 (Photo: APEL Green Aceh)

SAMADUA, ACEH — In Samadua District, South Aceh, the forest is more than a stretch of green landscape. For communities living around its foothills and valleys, it is the source of the water they drink, the land where they grow crops and the natural system that supports an economy built over generations.

But that relationship is now under pressure as mining activities and exploration plans raise concerns among local residents.

The forests of Samadua form part of the Leuser Ecosystem, one of Sumatra’s most important remaining landscapes. Its forests help regulate water flows, protect watersheds and provide habitat for wildlife. For communities downstream, what happens in the upper watershed can have consequences far beyond the forest itself.

Local residents fear that forest clearing and mining could disturb this fragile landscape, affecting water sources and increasing the risk of erosion, sedimentation, flooding and landslides.

Their concerns are closely tied to the economy that has developed around the forest.

Nutmeg is one of the leading agricultural commodities in Samadua District, South Aceh, September 30, 2026 (Photo: APEL Green Aceh)

For more than three decades, nutmeg has been one of the main sources of income for families in Samadua. Nutmeg trees grow alongside durian, jengkol and other crops in gardens that have been cultivated and passed down through generations.

These farms represent more than agricultural assets.

They are family histories, sources of income and a form of long-term economic security.

Unlike mining, which extracts a finite resource over a limited period, productive agricultural landscapes can continue generating income for decades if the soil, water and surrounding forests remain healthy.

That difference lies at the heart of the community’s opposition.

Residents fear that the arrival of extractive industries could fundamentally change a landscape that currently supports multiple livelihoods. The concern is not only about what could happen at a mining site, but about what could happen to the wider watershed and the communities that depend on it.

THE RISKS DO NOT STOP AT THE MINE

Environmental impacts in an upper watershed rarely remain confined to the location where forests are cleared.

Changes to forest cover and land surfaces can alter how water moves through a landscape. Increased runoff can carry sediment into streams and rivers, while disturbances on steep terrain can increase concerns about erosion and landslides.

For communities downstream, these changes could affect agriculture, water supplies and settlements.

That is why residents say decisions about mining in Samadua cannot be viewed simply as questions of mineral extraction or investment.

They are also questions about water, food security, livelihoods and the future of the landscape.

The stakes are particularly significant in a region where communities have developed economic systems that depend directly on healthy forests and agricultural land.

A CHOICE BETWEEN EXTRACTION AND LIVELIHOODS?

The debate over mining in Samadua reflects a wider question facing forest landscapes across Indonesia: how should economic development be pursued without undermining the ecological systems and local livelihoods that already sustain communities?

For residents, the answer is not simply a question of how much economic value can be generated from the land.

It is also about what kind of economy will remain after an extractive project ends.

A mine may operate for a limited period. A nutmeg tree, however, can continue producing for years. A forest can continue regulating water, supporting biodiversity and protecting communities long after a mining operation has closed.

For the people of Samadua, protecting the forest therefore means protecting an economy that is already working.

It means protecting water sources.

It means protecting agricultural land.

And it means protecting the possibility that their children and grandchildren can continue living from the same landscape.

Landscape of the Beutong Ateuh area, where superior agricultural products are planted, May 30, 2026 (Photo: APEL Green Aceh)

“THE FOREST IS OUR LIFE”

The community’s message is straightforward: development should not come at the expense of the natural systems that sustain them.

The forest is not simply timber or land waiting to be converted. It is water. It is food. It is income. It is a home. And it is a legacy.

The opposition to mining in Samadua is therefore not only an environmental campaign.

It is a struggle over who gets to determine the future of the landscape—and whose livelihoods will bear the consequences of that decision.

If the upper Samadua watershed is degraded, residents fear the impacts could travel downstream, carried by rivers and intensified by extreme rainfall.

For communities whose lives and economies are tied to the forest, protecting the watershed is ultimately about protecting their own future.

In Samadua, the fight over mining is also a fight over water, forests, nutmeg farms and the right of future generations to inherit a living landscape.

The post SAMADUA: Forests, nutmeg and a community’s fight against mining in the Leuser ecosystem appeared first on Yes to Life No to Mining.

This is a republication of October’s edition of The Climate Agenda – a subscriber-only newsletter designed to keep you informed of the key events, negotiations and announcements happening every month. If you want to receive The Climate Agenda straight to your inbox at the start of each month, sign up as a subscriber today.

This month, we’ll be on the ground reporting from the Convention on Biological Diversity summit in Yerevan, Armenia later this month and following all the developments as we build towards COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye next month. Here’s what you need to know for October, why it matters and what to expect.

Brazilian Election First round: Sunday 4 October – Second round: Sunday 25 October

This poll is being closely watched by Brazilian environmentalists as it’s likely to make a big difference to Brazil’s international climate politics and the health of the Amazon rainforest. 

The two clear front-runners are current left-wing President Lula and right-wing Flávio Bolsonaro. Flávio is the son of Jair Bolsonaro, who ruled from 2019 to 2023 but was declared ineligible to hold public office because of his attacks on the electoral system and is now under house arrest.

In the unlikely event that either candidate wins more than half the votes in the first round, they will be elected as the country’s leader. Latest polls have Lula on 39% and Bolsonaro on 35% (though the numbers are shifting) with several minor candidates in the single-digits. If none of them get a majority, there will be a one-on-one run-off on October 25.

The Latin American nation is set to record its lowest-ever level of deforestation, as efforts to rein in illegal clearing and restore Indigenous rights progressed under Lula. But Brazilian experts are warning that the huge agribusiness lobby in Congress, whose interests shape what happens in the Amazon, will be emboldened if Bolsonaro takes power, with the Supreme Court also risking a turn to the right.

As for climate politics, some seasoned watchers fear that Flávio – a climate change denier like his dad – could even try to pull Brazil out of the Paris Agreement. That would leave other countries to take forward Brazil’s COP30 global roadmaps on transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF) and ending deforestation – both of which are due to be delivered by COP31. 

For Brazil’s own TAFF roadmap – commissioned earlier this year but so far nowhere to be seen – the election may have less of an impact, given Lula is as keen as any other politician to extract oil and gas from the Amazon, amid cross-party support for fossil fuel production.

Read more: Brazil leads “encouraging” decline in global rainforest destruction in 2025

The Pacific nation of Tuvalu is facing an existential threat due to the impact of climate change on rising seas. (Photo: Theo Rouby / Hans Lucas via REUTERS) Pre-COP Monday 5 October – Thursday 8 October – Fiji and Tuvalu

The annual pre-COP meeting is usually a business-like gathering of government negotiators, sounding out each other’s positions and laying the groundwork for deals at the main COP summit. But this year’s “pre” has been jazzed up by Australia’s partnership with Pacific governments keen to elevate their climate issues on the international stage.

“We will bring the eyes of the world to our region, highlight the threat that climate change poses to it, and show how Pacific voices are shaping global action to counter it,” Australian PM Anthony Albanese said of the event.

Early in the week, a group of senior government figures – including a handful of leaders – will visit the world’s second lowest-lying nation Tuvalu, as UN boss Antonio Guterres did in 2019.

They will visit areas affected by sea level rise, see climate resilience projects and meet local communities before flying 2.5 hours south to Fiji to join up with the pre-COP and speak at a “Leaders’ plenary session” on Tuesday evening.

The pre-COP runs until Thursday. Governments are expected to try to advance on some kind of a roadmap for protecting oceans from climate change, while Fiji says Pacific nations will emphasise the need to follow science and step up efforts to limit warming to 1.5C. 

Australia is also due to present an action plan to improve access to climate finance for small island nations and least-developed countries, so that governments, development banks and climate funds can endorse it ahead of the Antalya summit.

Alongside the official pre-COP discussions, a “green zone” will host talks organised by civil society on topics like public transport, carbon markets and the International Court of Justice advisory opinion. Unfortunately, these events won’t be available to follow online.

Read more: Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood

Read more: At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance

Forest clearance for a palm oil plantation in Indonesia on 1/4/2018 (Ulet Ifansasti/ Greenpeace) Article 6.4 Supervisory Body Monday 5 October – Friday 9 October – Bonn, Germany

The UN carbon market’s rule-making body meets for one last jam-packed session ahead of COP31, with decisions pending on several high-stakes issues that could shape the future of the new crediting mechanism.

Top of the agenda is a rulebook for clean cooking projects, which aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves. These projects generate some of the most popular carbon credits but have also drawn some of the heaviest criticism for overstating their climate benefits through lax accounting.

Technical experts have recommended the Supervisory Body tighten the rules compared to existing crediting programmes, including by forcing cookstove project developers for the first time to guard against the risk of the climate benefits of their credits – the trees saved from becoming cooking fuel – being wiped out by fire, drought or logging. 

The proposal on the so-called reversal risk assessment has sparked a “coordinated” lobbying campaign from the industry, some conservation NGOs and UNEP, arguing that stronger protections could hike project costs and restrict the supply of credits.

Read more: Industry and NGOs lobby to weaken UN carbon credit rules in “coordinated” push

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) plenary Monday 12 October – Friday 16 October – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Scientists and government officials will try, once again, to agree on a timeline to produce the highly influential AR7 assessment report from the UN’s climate science body. 

The faultlines that have blocked a deal at several previous sessions are well established: a large group of predominantly developed countries, small island and progressive Latin American states and the poorest nations want the reports to be ready in time to inform the UN’s next global assessment of climate action, due to be completed in November 2028. 

A small group of primarily big emerging economies disagree, claiming this timeline would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources and restrict their ability to provide scientific input into the process.

Three options will be on the table in Addis Ababa. Two of them would see all three flagship assessment reports approved by July 2028 and September 2028 respectively, just in time to feed into the second Global Stocktake. 

The third, based on proposals from Saudi Arabia and India, would deliver only the Working Group 1 report, on the physical science of climate change, by May 2028. The reports from Working Groups 2 and 3, covering climate impacts and ways to cut emissions, would not be approved until mid-2029, well after the stocktake concludes at COP33.

Delegates are also expected to discuss the IPCC’s increasingly strained budget, made worse by a funding gap left by the withdrawal of the United States. The panel has warned that, without a sustained increase in contributions, its trust fund’s cash balance would run out by the end of 2028, putting the delivery of the AR7 set of reports at risk and forcing cuts to in-person meetings, translation and outreach.

Read more: Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks

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

A small group of climate activists gather in front of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group 2025 Annual Meeting on October 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) World Bank & IMF Annual Meetings Tuesday 12 October – Sunday 18 October – Bangkok, Thailand

With their biggest shareholder – the US – resolutely opposed to climate action, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are likely to try to avoid mentioning climate change at their annual meetings in Bangkok – and there are no headline events on the subject.

But they aren’t in complete control of the agenda. Thailand will host a discussion on financing a green resilient economy and World Bank President Ajay Banga is likely to be challenged on climate at a live-streamed civil society townhall on October 12.

With tricky negotiations on the World Bank’s climate finance target concluded earlier this year (it was dropped), talks are moving on to the sustainability framework of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, which invests in the private sector. Civil society is calling for its rules on protecting people and the planet to be maintained and strengthened.

The IMF’s guidance note to staff – which shapes the circumstances under which climate can be included in IMF programmes – will also be negotiated. Longer term, the Resilience and Sustainability Trust, which channels funding to green projects, will be reviewed but not before 2028 at the earliest.

Read more: World Bank’s climate work can endure without finance target, experts say

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 Monday 19 October – Friday 30 October – Yerevan, Armenia

The biodiversity COP – a sister convention to the UN climate process – will for the first time take stock of progress towards key goals in its 2022 landmark agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). These include a headline target to protect and conserve at least 30% of the planet’s land and marine ecosystems by 2030. 

A draft report prepared by a scientific panel warns that “unless collective implementation accelerates rapidly, the 2030 targets and mission will not be achieved”. In fact, governments are failing on 22 out of 23 targets. The final report is expected to be published ahead of COP17, where governments are expected to react strongly.

UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker told journalists earlier this month that the most significant progress is expected to occur towards the end of the decade, as 174 countries took the first four years to develop national targets. 

Finance, meanwhile, is set to become a contentious issue, as the draft report says developed countries fell short on a target to provide $20bn per year in international public finance for nature protection, reaching only about $17bn per year from 2020 to 2023. They have also yet to meet a wider goal to mobilise $200bn per year counting all kinds of finance.

Much like in climate talks, the EU has proposed to broaden the base of donors to include emerging economies who want to “voluntarily assume the obligations” of developed countries. Saudi Arabia and Qatar want nothing to do with this proposal. China has said bringing in new contributors should not weaken the obligations of developed countries. Expect a fight in Yerevan.

A preliminary meeting in Nairobi in August resulted in a heavily bracketed text that delegates will have to unravel in Armenia. One observer said countries had “overall missed the level of urgency” needed.

Keep an eye out for our webinar live from Yerevan later this month, where we’ll provide an update on the talks and how governments are responding to science’s demands for quicker action.

Read more: Mombasa ocean summit drives progress on marine protection, but threats persist

Read more: UN biodiversity talks agree finance roadmap, postponing decision on a new fund

European Climate Resilience & Risk Management Framework Wednesday 28 October – Brussels, Belgium

Following a torrid summer beset by recurring heatwaves, drought and outbreaks of forest fires across the continent, the European Commission will present its keenly awaited climate resilience and risk management framework to help member states protect their populations from worsening climate change impacts.

As part of the policy package, the Commission will identify 100 of Europe’s most climate-vulnerable territories. And alongside an assessment of the risks, there will be guidance at which level they should be managed – regional, national or by the EU. Currently, confusion often arises over who is responsible for preventing, preparing for and managing disasters across the bloc.

The framework will also aim to make Europe a “champion in adaptation technologies” – such as drought-resistant crops, flood prevention or energy-efficient cooling – which have been described by EU President Ursula von der Leyen as “a huge emerging market”. 

With only around a quarter of catastrophe losses in Europe covered by private insurance, the Commission also plans to set up a Climate Insurance Alliance to boost that figure.

READ MORE: WHO issues new guidance on heat-health action plans, as El Niño sets in

The post What’s on the climate calendar for October 2026? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Valar Atomics, a nuclear startup, is planning to place 456 small nuclear reactors on more than 9,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land near Price, Utah, according to documents reviewed by NPR.

The company calls the proposal “Project Beehive.” In addition to the reactors, the site would include data centers, a facility to make nuclear fuel, and nuclear waste storage. The reactors would generate around 9.6 gigawatts of power, more than double Utah’s current average electricity output. Construction could begin by the end of this year, with the first reactors online in 2028. Valar has also sought about 650 acres of state land for the project, which the Salt Lake Tribune first reported last week.

Valar has benefited from the Trump administration’s nuclear push. Its test reactor won quick approval this year after the Energy department quietly overhauled its safety rules. Masha Bucher, whose firm co-led a $130 million funding round for Valar, is a former pro-Putin activist who worked as Jeffrey Epstein’s publicist, Mother Jones reported in February.

“If we have facilities like this on public land for waste storage, for massive nuclear development, for data centers, that’s going to have tremendous implications for how public lands are used,” said Lexi Tuddenham, executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah.

Quick hits In less than a month, mining claims filed in Bears Ears already triple the total number filed during previous Trump reduction

Bloomberg Law | National Parks Conservation Association [press release] | Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance [press release]

Wyoming electeds unite against ‘peculiar’ Grand Teton baseball field pitch

Jackson Hole News & Guide

What’s Doug Burgum doing with Defense Production Act authority?

Wes Siler’s Newsletter

NOAA scales back Endangered Species Act protections

Politico Pro

Reno-based organization among hardest hit by National Park Service funding cuts

News 4

Opinion: I grew up near Glacier National Park, but this Blackfeet-led experience changed the way I see mountains

Travel + Leisure

The joy of song: Where songbirds came from and why we should listen to them

The Conversation

Colorado towns with bear trouble will share $1M in grants to reduce human-bear contact

Colorado Sun

Quote of the day

With DPA authority, and a National Energy Emergency, Burgum now has everything he needs to move forward with data center construction on public lands under the guise of “national security,” without any public notice or input. The first we learn of these projects may be when they break ground.”

—Journalist Wes Siler, Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Picture This @usinterior

He got it from his mama.

Bear 89, aka Backpack, has come a long way on his journey to becoming the 2026 Fat Bear Week champion.

Born in 2006, Backpack earned his nickname as a cub when he was often seen riding on the back of his mom, Holly. She helped him survive a serious leg injury, and over the years, bear watchers have watched Backpack grow into one hefty brown bear.

Holly knows a thing or two about hefty. The Duchess of Density won Fat Bear Week herself in 2019. Now Backpack has a crown of his own.

Photo: Yearling Backpack in 2007 with a hurt foot by Ranger Jeanne

 

(Featured image: Price Canyon, Utah. Photo by Kabelleger / David Gubler, Wikimedia Commons)

The post Nuclear startup plans hundreds of reactors on Utah public land appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

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

Muzammal is a Muslim Kashmiri-Pakistani immigrant to the United States whose work is rooted in a deep commitment to socio-economic justice and development, with a focus on building working class power. Muzammal grew up as a refugee in Pakistan during the United States’s war on terror and the Pakistani Army’s dictatorship rule.

Muzammal holds an undergraduate degree in Economics, an MPhil in Economics, and a second master’s in Labor and Global Workers’ Rights—fields that inform both professional work and personal philosophy.

After a decade-long movement organizing in Karachi, Pakistan, Muzammal has recently worked with the Asian American Community Fund of Pennsylvania and the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance, where they led initiatives that uplifted Asian American communities across Pennsylvania. Muzammal is currently working as Executive Director of the Philadelphia Area Jobs With Justice, a coalition of unions, community organizations, students, and faith groups where they launched Power School 2026, an annual, free, week-long, in-person advanced and comprehensive organizer training program which also provides Spanish interpretation and scholarships to participants.

Fluent in eight languages and well-versed in the diverse cultures of South Asia, Muzammal brings a rich global perspective to the labor movement. Their extensive experience spans community and labor organizing in both South Asia and the United States. Muzammal finds joy in sloganeering, dancing, fashion, cooking and Muay Thai.

The post October LNS Spotlight: Muzammal Afzal first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Worried that Trump and MAGA may steal the upcoming mid-term elections? LNS co-sponsored a September 22 webinar on “Building and Defending Democracy in November’s Elections” that addresses the fightback to block attempts to interfere with free and fair elections. This webinar was designed to help frame priorities, including actions as well as policy commitments, that state and community-based movement leaders should be thinking about as we approach November’s elections. It features LNS co-founder and senior strategic advisor Jeremy Brecher.

To watch the webinar: https://cpdcs.org/watch-building-and-defending-democracy-in-novembers-election/

LNS has also just published Brecher’s commentary “ Election Protection vs. MAGA Tyranny.” Here’s an excerpt:

Trump, MAGA, and their supporters want to ensure that the upcoming mid-term elections are not free and fair, but rather a vehicle to perpetuate their power. Their goal is permanent and uncontested power – an equivalent to Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich. Trump/Republican attempts to prevent free and fair elections have been going on for years, and have escalated since his inauguration. Successful recent actions have included the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and extreme gerrymandering. Key methods include intimidation, confusion, induced hopelessness, physical obstruction, and legal obstruction. There is a wide swath of groups organized to defend a free and fair election against authoritarian subversion. They represent not one or the other political party, but rather nonpartisan social self-defense. I have described them elsewhere as a “Movement-Based Opposition.” Many of these groups are initially focusing on training. For example, Indivisible and the ACLU are collaborating on a series of “Hands Off Our Vote” online webinars. The Freedom Trainers network of nonviolence trainers has run in-depth trainings for thousands and makes available an 83-page handbook presenting possible scenarios and how to deal with them. The May Day Strong coalition has held 750 “Solidarity Schools” and actions from late August through mid-September nationwide, bringing together labor organizers and community members. The Voter Advocate Network is building a nationwide network of trained and certified voter advocates. According to Deepak Bhargava of the Freedom Together Foundation, “Over one million people have been trained in organizing and nonviolence over the last year.”

The commentary lays out the details for six “lines of defense” for unions and communities to ensure free and fair elections:

1. Make clear to people why they need to vote against Trump and MAGA.
2. Encourage an overwhelming turnout to oppose Trump and MAGA.
3. Forestall interference with elections.
4. Contest intimidation through rapid response.
5. Foil electoral coups.
6. Lay the groundwork for democratization.

To read the full commentary: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/strike/election-protection-vs-maga-tyranny/

To hear the webinar: Building and Defending Democracy in November’s Elections

The post Unions and Communities Fight for Free and Fair Elections first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

LNS president Joe Uehlein’s book-and-music tour continues with dates around the country. Here is the schedule for the entire tour:

The post “With the Sincerity of a Prophet”: Uehlein Tour Rolls On first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Joe in Amherst

By John Harrity

John is the former President of the CT State Council of Machinists and a long-time member of the LNS Board.

On Monday, September 14, I attended the Amherst stop of Joe Uehlein’s cross-country book tour, in support of his newly published Three Roads: Labor, Music, Ecology. Joe tells the story of a life-long love of the union movement, songs, and nature fostered first as a boy outside of Cleveland. Both his parents were dedicated trade unionists. Free time was spent listening to or singing the songs of working-class artists like Woody Gurthrie and Leadbelly, while the lakes provided good fishing until the fish started floating belly-up due to the runoff from the steel mills that kept everyone working.

Joe does not simply tell his tale; he sings it too. The stages, and stories, of his life roll out through plenty of great labor music. Joe is a skilled guitarist with a strong voice. There’s a union song appropriate to every step in his journey, and Joe sings out the truth in these verses with the passion and conviction they deserve.

Joe’s life is guided by principles propelled forward by genuine courage. He spent many years in the South as a union organizer, a sometimes-harrowing occupation. With a family to raise he came off the road, ending up highly placed in the AFL-CIO, as head of the Industrial Department. But when he became fully aware of the dangers to the world from climate change, and the AFL-CIO’s obstinate denial of the problem, Joe left a cushy job behind to found the Labor Network for Sustainability. As Joe conveys to the audience with the sincerity of a prophet, the Labor Network for Sustainability works every day to raise awareness in the labor movement about the absolute necessity of confronting the climate crisis.

The audience in Amherst was visibly moved by Joe’s engaging presentation. Many of the fifty-or-so in attendance lined up to buy signed copies of the book. The presentation took place at UMass, sponsored by the UMass Labor Center and the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), and many faculty and staff members were in attendance. Not all of them were familiar with LNS before Joe’s talk, but they had all gained a healthy respect for the group after hearing Joe Uehlein.

The post “A Life-Long Love of the Union Movement” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

By Joshua Dedmond, Labor Network for Sustainability Executive Director

The Black Climate Leadership Summit, co-hosted by Taproot Noire (a global Black climate network rooted in Taproot Earth) and SOL Nation as part of the Queen City Climate Convergence on September 16–17 in Charlotte, North Carolina, brought together Black-identifying frontline and environmental justice leaders, organizers, and advocates from across the globe. The gathering focused on building the trust, deep relationships, shared power, and principles for collaboration needed to advance a unified, Black-led Just Transition Strategy rooted in land sovereignty and human connection that centers Black liberation.

Joshua Dedmond, Executive Director of the Labor Network for Sustainability, participated in the summit. This enriching gathering provided LNS with a vital platform to connect labor movement entities and labor-climate strategies directly with other Black-led formations and movement spaces. Throughout the summit, participants engaged in facilitated wisdom circles, strategy workshops, skill-building sessions, and panels that illuminated collaborative pathways toward economic and climate justice.

Special gratitude goes to LNS Board member Colette Pichón Battle and her dedicated krewe at Taproot Earth for hosting, as well as Tiffany Fant and the SOL Nation team for warmly welcoming Black climate leaders to Charlotte.

The post Queen City Climate Convergence first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Photo collage: Background photo by Tedder, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

By Tyler Turner

(Tyler Turner is president of the Office and Professional Employees International Union which represents 90,000 workers in industries ranging from tech and healthcare to higher education and non-profits.)

Opposition to datacenters grows on both sides of the political aisle as developers plan to invest $8tn to build them in the coming years. The bet is massive – roughly a quarter of our country’s entire GDP – but AI CEOs think it will pay off because they believe this technology will allow businesses across industries to rake in profits by cutting out their largest expense: labor. If all goes according to their plan, AI data centers will enable corporations to redistribute workers’ salaries to themselves.

This is why I have been so concerned to see the North American Building Trades Unions (NABTU) sign agreements with corporations such as Blackrock, Meta and OpenAI to collaborate on this massive data center expansion. While I applaud the NABTU’s success at securing well-paying temporary jobs for their members, these deals ignore the fact that all workers, including construction workers, are part of a class whose replacement is the explicit purpose of AI, and that data centers themselves produce a minuscule number of long-term jobs. With these deals, union members will build the factories of computerized labor that put millions of other workers out of jobs – potentially even themselves.

Until strong regulations are enacted that ensure our livelihoods, community and planet are permanently protected, unions should focus on passing the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, introduced in Congress by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and support statewide moratoriums like the one recently signed by the New York governor, Kathy Hochul. Once we have achieved a moratorium, the labor movement must unite around a set of demands to ensure workers across industries receive our fair share of AI’s potential benefits.

The AI revolution means nothing but loss for the average person if its benefits are concentrated among the already-wealthy. In a survey of the Office and Professional Employees International Union’s membership last year, we found members are already being adversely impacted by AI in myriad ways ranging from layoffs to surveillance to being punished for errors created by AI models.

We should not allow corporations to balloon our energy consumption while wildfires, superstorms and extreme heat ravage our country. If unions worked together rather than pitting our members against each other, we would not be begging billionaires for temporary jobs that will poison us and our children.

At the end of the day, our data fuels their algorithms, our taxes fund their development, and our communities host their hardware. The least we should demand is our fair share.

Excerpted from an article in the September 14th Guardian. For the full article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/14/labor-unions-ai-datacenters

The post Union Prez Sez “Labor Unions Must Unite Against AI Data Centers” first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

UE’s Green Locomotive Project is an innovative model for grassroots union initiative to create good union jobs, address climate change, and clean up pollution in the low-income communities and communities of color which bear the brunt of pollution from rail yards. The project came about through conversation with members who build locomotive engines that currently run on diesel fuel. These members know their own jobs have been tied to fossil fuels but also understand the threat of climate change. They see opportunities for a different path in the future, one that creates good union jobs and improves air quality, particularly in and around rail yards where these idling engines pollute the air. The technology already exists to run cleaner and more energy-efficient engines on our rail lines; zero-emissions technology is available for use in rail yards. The Green Locomotive Project builds the worker and community power necessary to compel the railroads to upgrade their locomotive stock and adopt green technology, and to ensure that new technologies lead to jobs at existing union factories.

Here are initiatives the Green Locomotive Project has taken so far this year just in California:

• The Barstow International Gateway (BIG) is a heavily subsidized, $1.5 billion rail expansion project being pursued by the Class-I railroad BNSF. Together with EarthJustice and other allies, the GLP mobilized 50 workers and residents to speak out at a Barstow city planning commission hearing to demand clean technology on the BIG. GLP is also supporting a local leader who is holding weekly community gatherings and mobilizing residents to Barstow City Council meetings.
• The Alameda Corridor, which serves the dual ports of LA and Long Beach, is a prime candidate for electrification. To make it happen, the GLP partnered with the Moving Forward Network and Californians for Electric Rail to form the Communities for Electric Rail Only (CERO) Coalition. In March, CERO secured the CA Air Resources Board’s commitment to work with them on electrifying the Alameda Corridor. Air quality is a major issue for railyard workers and nearby communities. The GLP is advocating to add stronger emissions reduction measures to the Clean Air Action Plan for the ports of LA and Long Beach and supporting our allies’ push for AB 1777, which would grant CA Air Resources Board (CARB) the power to create Indirect Source Rules for railyards. It is also monitoring the progress of In-Use Locomotive Rule II, which would ban the use of outdated, heavy-polluting locomotives in CA.

For more on UE’s Green Locomotive Project, visit https://www.ueunion.org/green-locomotive-project

The post UE’s Green Locomotive Project Steaming Ahead first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Collage (Art: alonesbe, Envato | Photo Credit of Trump: Gage Skidmore, Wikipedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)

In a new commentary, LNS co-founder and senior strategic advisor Jeremy Brecher warns, “As long as the US opposes rather than joining the Greentech revolution, it portends not only climate catastrophe, but economic catastrophe as well.”

“The Greentech revolution is transforming energy production and use worldwide. Along with its other advantages, fossil free energy has become radically cheaper than fossil fuel energy. More than 90% of utility-scale renewable projects commissioned in 2025 delivered power below the cost of the cheapest new fossil-fuel plant built in their market. Natural gas energy is currently 3–4 times more expensive than solar and wind. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are increasingly vulnerable to disruptions like the Ukraine and Iran wars, which destabilize whole economies with shortages and higher prices for energy, food, and other necessities of life.

“Donald Trump and the US government are doing everything possible to shut down fossil free energy and to expand our dependence on fossil fuels. That is already having a devastating effect on American workers and communities, and it is likely to get far worse in the future. We are being marooned on what two energy experts call a fossil fuel “energy island” as the rest of the world turns to an ‘electric world order.’

“If Trump and his fossil fuelers succeed in defeating the Greentech revolution in the US, the result is likely to be a growing affordability crisis; devastation for the most fossil-fuel dependent industries like autos, coal, iron, and gas; a general decline of the fossil-fuel intensive US economy; disinvestment; a loss of international competitiveness; and macroeconomic effects like inflation and recession or both.”

To read in full: “America’s Future: Fossil Fuel Island in a Greentech World?”

The post Will the US be a “Fossil Fuel Island” in a Greentech World? first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

This week, we’re joined by Blaine Brownell, the director of UNC Charlotte’s School of Architecture to talk about the role architecture plays in population decline, the need for permeability in walkable neighborhoods, and a revolution in building materials.

Here’s how we work it at Talking Headways:

• You can read the full transcript, but you’ll have to bear with some of Intern Claude’s typos, by clicking here.
• You could scroll below the audio player for an excerpt of our riving conversation.
• Or you could just hit play on the player below.

Here’s the edited section:  

Jeff Wood: I’ve seen a number of your pieces in Architect Magazine that talk about subjects that not a lot of people want to touch. First, I wonder how architects respond to your prodding in those articles, like population collapse. I feel like the pronatalism has gotten kinda weird in some circles. But you have what I think is a really smart take on it, which is that if people want to have families, we need to address that paradox of quality-of-life improvements versus slow population growth, and kind of the, the mix and match between that.

It’s really an interesting topic to cover because it gets kinda weird when people try to push it from certain political angles. But from a built environment angle, there are very clear ways of addressing it or figuring out what needs to happen in order to change the trajectory.

Blaine Brownell: Yeah, that’s well said. I felt compelled to draw attention to the inherent contradiction in creating better designed places, that inherently become more desirable and less-economically accessible. I’ve been thinking about how in different arenas that have to do with design and lived experience, there are these analogies that kind of revolve around, like, tripartite interdependent qualities. That’s a very convoluted way of saying, for example, for building construction, a common phrase would be, “Good, fast, cheap — you can pick two.”

You’re not going to get all three. If you want good quality and fast, then it’s going to be expensive, right? That kind of thing. Similarly, in a very different arena, in a restaurant people talk about how you can have, “Price, quality, and atmosphere or something — pick two.”

You can’t have all three. And of course this is a super generalization, right? But in the built environment in terms of where people live, we could kind of distill it to a model like this and say, “It’s the cost, it’s the amount of space, and it’s the quality.”

So the quality in this case would be quality of design, but it’s also quality of the experience. It’s walkability score. You know, it’s the number and diversity of different types of services that you have access to, and opportunities, right?

So quality gets a lot of things lumped together. But this is inherently what individuals or families are faced with whether or not they’re explicitly thinking about these three as levers, as soon as they move one, the other two adjust, right? When they’re thinking about moving somewhere or buying a house somewhere, it’s implicit thinking.

It seems almost strange to say it out loud because it’s so obvious to us. But we bring a lot of assumptions that are very well-informed, such as, “Well, if we want to be closer to that exciting area, we’re going to have to sacrifice space and affordability, right?”

But the point, I think, related to the neo-natalism and concern about population decline is that those two factors, having adequate space and affordability, weigh so heavily into people’s decisions.

It affects them subconsciously as much as consciously about having children. What intrigues me with cities today is that disconnect of these three levers has become so exaggerated — where even for a low- to moderate quality, you’re going to have to pay a lot and you won’t have much space.

And it’s come to the point where my own kids, they’re in their 20s now, they just… And I think that generation generally seems to have the mindset like, “Oh, we’ll never be able to afford a house.” And I, I hate to be a downer here, but, I mean, this is serious.

So what do designers do?

They think, “Well, okay. We’ll have these micro units, because then we can shift the affordability lever and maintain the quality,” but you sacrifice a ton of space. And so I’m not against micro units at all. But it’s important to factor that into this larger question about people having kids.

And why wouldn’t you want to be in a culturally vibrant place with a high walkability score and great access to all these things and many different forms of transit while also having a lot of space and a big garden and quiet? I’ve even heard people joke about this, like, “I want all of these things.”

Well, you can’t. So this is a big question for design, and I, what I would like to see with design and planning is maybe a more kind of explicit look at, at these factors and their interdependencies, and how can we not just jump to something like micro units as the solution, which it might be for many, and probably should be, but, you know, take into account these other parameters and factors.

On the desert shores of the Red Sea, Jordan plans to build a vast desalination plant to send drinking water hundreds of kilometres across its arid interior to the capital, Amman – bolstering climate resilience and reducing reliance on Israel for the vital resource.

As climate change exacerbates water scarcity in Jordan, a deterioration in the country’s already prickly ties with Israel since the start of the Gaza war has underscored the strategic importance of the roughly $6-billion desalination initiative, billed by its backers as a strategic climate adaptation project.

But despite receiving $295 million in support for the project from the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF), the energy-hungry plant – which will double the power needs of Jordan’s water sector – will get no more than 27% of its electricity from a purpose-built solar farm in the desert near the plant in Aqaba. The rest will come from the grid, whose power is mostly generated by fossil gas. 

To get salt out of sea water, it has to be pushed at high pressure through a membrane – a process requiring huge amounts of electricity.

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The annual planet-heating emissions from producing the non-renewable power needed for the plant would be equivalent to having 160,000 petrol-run cars on the road for a year, according to an analysis by Climate Home News of figures provided by the project’s developers to the GCF – the world’s largest multilateral fund to help developing countries tackle climate change.

Such forecasts prompted a warning from its independent technical advisory panel and criticism by climate campaigners, but the GCF board nevertheless approved the financing at a meeting late last year, with GCF Executive Director Mafalda Duarte hailing it as a “milestone project”.

A GCF spokesperson told Climate Home News its design “required the balanced optimisation of multiple objectives”, among them water security, financing considerations and climate-related benefits.

Asked to respond to concerns about the project’s sustainability, a spokesperson for Jordan’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation said the plant is key to tackling the nation’s water deficit, in tandem with other steps to conserve supplies such as managing leaks.

“We have carried out environmental impact studies for the Aqaba desalination plant,” the spokesperson added. “All donor countries reviewed and approved these studies.”

Dry and getting drier

Jordan is already one of the world’s most water-stressed countries, and climate change impacts mean the country of about 11 million people is getting less rain at a time of population growth, in part due to the arrival of refugees from the war in Syria.

Half of Jordanian homes currently receive water for less than 24 hours a week and many pay to get tanker trucks to deliver extra water despite the high cost.

“Every Jordanian living in a village or city … can feel, especially in the summer, that the amount of water reaching their home is not enough,” said University of Jordan water science professor Elias Salameh.

Truck drivers stop for ice at a small ice-making factory in Al-Azraq city in Jordan on July 25, 2026 (Photo by Salah Malkawi/Getty Images)

At the same time, heightened political tensions in the region are raising fears over a long-standing water supply accord with Israel.

Prominent Israeli news outlet Ynet quoted government officials as saying last year that – until Jordan ends its criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza – it would no longer send Jordan 100 million cubic metres of water a year, as it has been doing since 2021. 

Instead, media reports said Israel had decided to send just the 50 million cubic metres required by the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace agreement.

That makes the desalination project all the more urgent, Motasem Saidan, a former water minister who pushed it forward, told Climate Home News.

“Relying on neighbouring countries for sources of the most important resource for life is risky. You need to have self-sufficiency and water security,” Saidan added.

Largest single GCF investment

French multinationals Meridiam and Suez have been awarded the contract to lead construction of the desalination facility, which Suez says will be one of the largest of its kind globally.

Scheduled for completion in 2030, it will turn 300 million cubic metres of seawater a year – enough to fill 120,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools – into drinking water, which will then be carried by pipeline more than 400 km across the desert to reservoirs near Amman, home to nearly half of Jordan’s population.

The GCF will support it with a $220 million loan and a $75 million grant. While that represents a small share of the total cost, Duarte said last year it represented “the largest single investment in one project that we have made”.

But the GCF’s decision to pour millions into the project followed strong criticism from climate campaigners, initial opposition from some of the fund’s board members and a warning by its independent technical advisory panel (ITAP) over its potential impact on emissions.

The emissions it aims to avoid rest on the timely completion of a 65-km transmission line connecting the desalination plant to the solar farm. Without this, the plant will run entirely on Jordan’s gas-dominated grid, the ITAP said in its assessment report.

Moreover, while the government plans to make the power supplied by the national grid greener in the years ahead, there is no guarantee this will be achieved, the report added.

Such issues make the project “difficult to reconcile with climate finance objectives”, the ITAP said, adding there is a significant risk that “concessional resources could end up subsidising a high-carbon, high-cost water pathway”.

Still, the ITAP concluded that “given the dire water situation in Jordan”, the project’s benefits outweighed those concerns and recommended approval to the board.

Bigger renewables role deemed unfeasible

The possibility of producing more of the plant’s electricity from solar power and batteries was dismissed by the project’s proposer and co-funder – the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) – and the GCF as too expensive and impractical, a decision critics see as a wasted opportunity to shift to clean energy.

The companies that carried out the project’s environmental and social impact assessment – Eco Consult and Energies Group – said the option of sourcing all power from renewables “was not studied in detail” because it was seen as unfeasible.

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Asked to comment, the GCF spokesperson said the fund supported that conclusion, citing renewable energy’s intermittency and noting that excess solar power produced would be wasted because there is no provision for it to be sold to the grid.

“The optimum design of such a critical life-line desalination project for Jordan is fundamentally a whole-of-system water optimisation challenge rather than a standalone energy storage exercise,” the spokesperson said.

Instead, the plan’s advocates have touted potential emissions reductions as the pipeline replaces water trucks. They say the solar farm set to supply more than a quarter of the desalination plant’s power will prevent 6.7 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent being emitted over its 26-year projected lifetime. 

Saidan, the former water minister, said the urgency of providing water must take priority over gas dependency concerns.

“This is not the time to raise such issues,” he told Climate Home News.

But Kostanta Rangelova, a global electricity analyst at think-tank Ember, said the plant could “easily” get at least 80% of its power from solar with batteries, pointing to Jordan’s abundant sunshine and the plunging costs of the equipment needed.

Such systems are set to power large facilities elsewhere in the region, like a luxury Red Sea resort just over the Saudi border and a data centre near Abu Dhabi, she said. Jordan’s own energy sector strategy, published in May, lists increasing battery storage as a strategic target.

Rangelova noted that with battery prices falling significantly in recent years, the cost of solar plus battery storage is now competitive with grid power in many places, particularly in countries like Jordan that have a lot of sun but currently rely on expensive imported gas.

“With solar and batteries, Jordan (could) use homegrown electricity not just during daytime hours, but round-the-clock, which can significantly strengthen its energy security position,” she added. 

Lesser of two evils

Using more renewables in the project could also help reduce demand for Israeli natural gas imports – a sensitive issue in Jordan.

“[The desalination plant] will not be viable if we depend on gas supplied by the Israeli occupation,” Mahmoud Amin Al-Hayari, an activist with the General Trade Union of Electricity Workers in Jordan, told Climate Home News.

Jordan’s government is working to develop new sources of gas imports to diversify its current supply, and also wants to boost domestic gas production, alongside renewables.

In the meantime, Jordan’s National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) remains heavily dependent on Israeli gas for electricity generation, industry experts say. Latest government figures from 2024 show the country got 58% of its electric power from gas.

Most of that gas is likely to be Israeli. “About 57% of the electricity that NEPCO supplies to distribution companies comes from gas imported from Israel,” a Jordanian energy and conflict analyst told Climate Home News, asking to speak anonymously due to the sensitivity of the subject.

The spokesperson for Jordan’s Ministry of Water and Irrigation declined to comment on the source of the gas that would help power the Aqaba desalination project.

The issue has gained attention due to several security-related gas supply disruptions from Israel related to the conflict in the Middle East.

For countries like Jordan, a net fuel importer, the energy security case for boosting renewables is a no-brainer, said Ember’s Rangelova. “Unlike imported fossil fuels, the sun cannot be turned off,” she said.

The post Jordan’s mega-plan for water security risks locking in fossil gas demand appeared first on Climate Home News.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has suspended one of its most senior Russian officials — but for reasons largely unrelated to the questions about Russian influence at the agency that have surrounded him since Moscow seized Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Mikhail Chudakov, an IAEA deputy director general and head of its Department of Nuclear Energy since 2015, was placed on administrative leave this month pending an internal ethics investigation, according to Bloomberg.

The investigation concerns a 76-page book, Treatise on Life, which Chudakov published under the pseudonym Valentin Voyutin in 2025. The book contains disparaging descriptions of feminists and LGBT people and expresses support for authoritarian government.

According to Bloomberg, the book came to the IAEA’s attention after Chudakov promoted it among members of Vienna’s young nuclear community. Members of the group subsequently brought it to the agency’s ethics office. The IAEA, Chudakov and Director General Rafael Grossi have not publicly commented on the case.

But Chudakov’s suspension has reopened a different question that predates the book by years: whether a former senior official of Russia’s state nuclear industry should have remained in one of the IAEA’s most influential positions after Russia invaded Ukraine and Rosatom became directly involved in the occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

Greenpeace International raised precisely that issue in March 2022, less than two weeks after Russian forces seized Zaporizhzhia. In a letter, the organization called on Grossi to suspend Chudakov, citing his decades-long career in Russia’s nuclear establishment and requesting disclosure of any communications between him and Rosatom officials following the invasion.

Greenpeace argued that Chudakov’s presence could undermine Ukrainian confidence in the confidentiality of information shared with the IAEA during the nuclear crisis. No public evidence has emerged showing that Chudakov provided confidential information to Rosatom. Chudakov nevertheless remained in his position for another four years.

The significance of that position extends well beyond the IAEA’s response to Zaporizhzhia. The Department of Nuclear Energy works with countries planning new nuclear programs and oversees areas including reactor technology, small modular reactors, the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear infrastructure and training.

Chudakov has also headed the IAEA’s International Project on Innovative Nuclear Reactors and Fuel Cycles, or INPRO, and chaired the steering committee of its Platform on Small Modular Reactors and their Applications.

Mikhail Chudakov

At the same time, cooperation between the IAEA and Russian nuclear institutions continued after the invasion.

In October 2024, the agency renewed and expanded the status of Rosatom’s Technical Academy as an IAEA Collaborating Center. Joint programs have continued to bring nuclear specialists from other countries to Russian facilities.

In September 2025, Chudakov personally led an IAEA delegation to Rosatom’s Akademik Lomonosov floating nuclear power plant in Chukotka. The visit was hosted by Rosenergoatom, where Chudakov previously held senior positions, at a time when Rosatom was increasingly promoting floating and land-based small reactors to potential foreign customers.

For Bellona nuclear expert Alexander Nikitin, such relationships point to a broader problem confronting the IAEA since Russia’s invasion. The war, he says, has divided nuclear countries into aggressors, victims of aggression and relatively neutral states, while the international nuclear industry continues to operate largely under rules created before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“The international nuclear sector continues to function without a referee and under the international regulatory framework that existed before the war,” Nikitin said.

That makes the individuals making decisions within the IAEA particularly important, he argues, including decisions about supporting nuclear projects in countries seeking to develop nuclear power.

But determining when ordinary IAEA cooperation crosses the line into advancing Rosatom’s interests is considerably more difficult.

According to Bellona nuclear expert Dmitry Gorchakov, Ukraine’s desire to remove Chudakov following the invasion was understandable, but attempting to do so simply because of his Rosatom background and continuing contacts with the Russian nuclear industry had little prospect of succeeding under IAEA rules.

“It is extremely difficult to prove that he is working specifically in Rosatom’s interests rather than those of the IAEA — which could indeed provide grounds for his removal,” Gorchakov said.

The problem, he says, is the unusually close overlap between their interests. The IAEA promotes the development of nuclear energy internationally. Rosatom also develops nuclear energy internationally, albeit for its own commercial and political purposes.

None of Chudakov’s contacts with Russian nuclear organizations therefore necessarily demonstrates improper conduct. Other major nuclear countries also host IAEA training and technical programs, while the agency necessarily works with the nuclear industries of its member states.

And although the IAEA Board of Governors and General Conference have repeatedly adopted resolutions condemning Russian actions in Ukraine, Gorchakov notes that they have never instructed the IAEA Secretariat — Grossi and the staff working beneath him — to cease cooperation with Russia or Rosatom.

“Many of Chudakov’s contacts and actions in his position at the IAEA can have perfectly understandable explanations arising from his official responsibilities and, at least formally, do not contradict them,” Gorchakov said.

Even Ukraine’s membership on the IAEA Board of Governors from 2023 to 2025 failed to change that situation.

Yet days after Chudakov’s suspension, Ukrainian military intelligence added a new allegation. It claimed on September 16 that Chudakov helped secure the depiction of Russian-occupied Crimea as Russian territory in the IAEA’s Power Reactor Information System, or PRIS, and that Russian representatives were seeking the use of Russified names including “Rovno,” “Khmelnitski” and “Zaporozhye” for Ukrainian nuclear locations.

Those allegations have not been independently confirmed by the IAEA.

For Gorchakov, the irony is that after years of controversy over Chudakov’s Russian connections, none of those issues ultimately caused his suspension. Instead, Chudakov appears to have created the grounds himself.

“It was only when Chudakov himself created a problem through his book — which apparently contains numerous clear conflicts with the Agency’s ethical standards — that it became possible to accomplish, at least partially, what had previously proved impossible to achieve or demonstrate through other means,” Gorchakov said.

His suspension may remove one controversial official. But the larger question — how an international nuclear organization should work with the nuclear industry of a member state waging war and occupying another country’s nuclear power plant — remains unresolved.

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