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Air pollution and other climate risks – time to ramp up the pressure

Photo by fabian jones on Unsplash

In July we witnessed a flurry of activity highlighting the need for action on air pollution. With a new Labour administration there is an opportunity to stop the political foot-dragging and get on with tackling the biggest environmental health risk facing the UK.

The recent heatwaves have only served to highlight the importance of this. The link between air pollution and extreme heat has never been clearer. Wildfires are the visible product of this. Firefighters are in the frontline, but other workers face increased exposures. That is why the Trade Union Clean Air Network (TUCAN) call for a focus on occupational health is so important.

TUCAN attended a range of events in July where we made the case for greater recognition and the need for policy change.

UK 100 ‘Breathing Life’ Report – This conference launched a guide for strategic authorities and local authorities to support clean air delivery in England. TUCAN welcomes the report and supports the recommendations which include one of our demands – a new Clean Air Act with WHO-aligned statutory targets. It also calls for national government to introduce a National Indoor Air Quality strategy.  This is important but limits itself to housing, transport and planning policy. The focus is on homes. Workplaces are not directly included.  In fact, there is nothing in the guide that directly addresses occupational health.

Moving to cleaner buses will have a beneficial impact on bus drivers, but the additional exposures faced by workers are not directly covered in any policy proposals. Equally, reducing pollution in homes will help those working from home. What is needed is a lever which promotes action in both indoor and outdoor workplace settings. Local and regional authorities as employers can do this, and as advocates, they should also be calling on other employers to do the same.  The calls on national government should include amending regulations and guidance that reflect current research and standards, rather than relying on the totally outdated framework in current health and safety law.   Minister hails local leadership as research finds almost 14,000 lives saved by local clean air action | UK100

MACC Hub Conference – The Role of local authorities in climate adaptation. This conference brought together climate and sustainability officers to consider the implications of the Climate Change Committee’s ‘A Well-Adapted UK report. The need for a statutory duty on local authorities to address climate change was stressed. This is particularly important to introduce policy certainty, but it must also be accompanied by adequate funding if it is to have any meaningful impact. The priority risks in the report are extreme heat, flooding, and drought and wildfire risk. Air pollution intersects with all of these but is not referenced in the report which TUCAN sees as a weakness.    The Role of UK Local Authorities in Climate Adaptation (CAG consultants) – UK Climate Risk

CBI / CAF Report The Clean Air dividend of net-zero – This does focus on the occupational health implications and indicates that climate measures could generate an estimated £7.7 billion in productivity gains by 2050 through improved workforce health, reduced illness-related absences and longer working lives. The report touches on the social justice aspects of air pollution but still fails to call for employers to conduct air pollution audits and risk assessments. A duty to identify their own contribution to the problem and ensure control measures are introduced in consultation with the workforce would provide a much-needed focus.  Net zero measures will deliver cleaner air that could provide £7.7 billion boost to UK economy by 2050 – Clean Air Fund

Labour Climate and Environment Forum – Breathe Easy report. One opportunity to address our concerns on occupational health is to intensify the lobbying of the Labour Government.  The report highlights that air pollution is not only a publicly salient and cross-partisan issue that people want to see more done to address, but that action carries political benefits for Labour – particularly among the progressive switcher groups who Labour need to win back ahead of the 2029 General Election and local and mayoral elections in between.

It doesn’t contain any detailed proposals for occupational health but does provide evidence to press for these changes, including full implementation of ‘The Well-Adapted UK’ recommendations at Labour Party Conference and other forums.  [object Object] | Publications | Labour Climate and Environment Forum

Next steps – The stage is set to push for occupational air pollution to be at the centre of the climate risk debate. This autumn the Hazards, TUC, and party conferences are an opportunity to shine a spotlight on this. The TUCAN Steering group meeting being held on August 11th will be a chance for unions to start shaping this campaign.

Graham Petersen

August 2026

TUCAN TUCAN – Greener Jobs Alliance

The post Air pollution and other climate risks – time to ramp up the pressure first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

Pescadero, Calif. (July 27, 2026) — TomKat Ranch, based on California’s Central Coast, has achieved the National Audubon Society’s Bird-Friendly Land Certification. Earned through...

Organizing Fellowship Manager

The Native Organizers Alliance (NOA) is a unique Indigenous training and organizing network dedicated to building the capacity of tribal nations and Native communities to make transformational system change. It also provides a forum for tribal and Native leaders and organizers to collaborate and strengthen relationships with non-Native allies. NOA supports grassroots-driven social change rooted in traditional practices and values to advance sovereignty and the health and well-being of Native people across Indian Country.

The NOA Organizing Fellows program is a year-long on-the-ground organizers training program that contributes to building a durable, organized, and powerful Native grassroots movement. The goal of the NOA Fellows program is to support the development of Native leaders and organizers who will play a role in their state and communities in deepening a traditional values-driven strategy for achieving structural reforms that will lead to an end to systemic racism and the fulfillment of treaty rights and sovereignty.

Job Description

The Organizing Fellowship Manager reports to the Managing Director and is responsible for coordinating NOA’s Organizing Fellowship Program and Fellows.

In partnership with NOA staff members, the Organizing Fellowship Manager will mentor the NOA Fellows while facilitating co-learning opportunities with the cohort. The goal is to strengthen their commitment and skills in community organizing grounded in traditional practices and values.

Key responsibilities include:

• Manage and mentor Fellows who will work with NOA staff and advance the organization’s goals.
• Collaborate with host tribes, tribal entities, or community groups to develop work plans and leadership development plans for their Fellow(s).
• Establish partnerships with tribes, tribal entities, host organizations, and other national Native organizations to expand outreach and mobilize support for C3 voter education and engagement.
• Work with the Managing Director, Policy Director, and Training Circle to coordinate weekly cohort meetings for Fellows, host organizations, and NOA staff, providing political education and skills building, and facilitating the sharing of challenges and learnings.
• Provide oversight and direction for fellows through potential national NOA projects or initiatives, such as C3 non-partisan voter engagement, National Indian Country initiatives or NOA projects like community surveying and advocacy.
• Lead the planning, coordination, and delivery of the annual NOA Fellows in-person training event, either in coordination with the NOA National Training or as a standalone training event.
• Lead the coordination and delivery, in partnership with the Director of Operations, in contract design and payment processing.
• Lead the development and implementation of data collection strategies for the Fellows’ work each year.

Qualifications:

• Strong supervisory and managerial experience—including demonstrated experience effectively managing teams and the ability to build rapport among their team while challenging staff to achieve ambitious goals.
• Commitment to NOA’s mission—Commit to racial and social justice and grassroots community organizing.
• Strong interpersonal skills, high emotional intelligence, and awareness of interpersonal dynamics to work with diverse colleagues, building support and consensus.
• Ability to work across multiple infrastructure and programmatic teams with staff.
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including superior writing, copy editing, and proofreading ability.
• Highly organized and able to complete many tasks and priorities with solid adherence to detail. Work effectively on a tight schedule and be able to set and meet realistic deadlines.
• Honoring Native cultures and practices is the guiding principle of NOA’s organizational culture, ways of working with the staff, and all our relations.
• Deep knowledge of intertribal Native history and culture, and the politics and issues impacting tribal and Native communities.
• Understand the decisive role tribal governments play in achieving sovereignty and systemic change in nation-to-nation relations with the federal government.
• Experience as an organizer, campaigner, or in tribal government is a plus.
• Experience with G-Suite, Microsoft Office Suite, and project management platforms.
• A desire to grow and develop personally and deepen our collective Indigenous frameworks. You want to learn from others in an exciting moment in Native history with an organization committed to movement-building for transformational change.

Compensation

Salary: $70,000

Benefits include: health, dental, and vision insurance, paid holiday time off, and a generous vacation and sick policy.

Location: Remote (travel for staff gatherings, campaigns, and events)

Native Organizers Alliance is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for a Just Society (501c3) and is an equal opportunity employer and women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQI people are strongly encouraged to apply. We do not discriminate based on race, color, sex, age, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other basis protected under law. We embrace the full spectrum of humanity and the intersectional nature of our existence and imaginative energies. We embody diversity in our staff, board, the artists and partners we work with, and the audiences we attract.

All applicants will be considered for employment without considering race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or disability status.

Application Procedure

• Interested applicants are asked to please email:
• Cover letter
• Resume
• Three references

Please email the subject line “Your Name: Fellowship Manager” to jobs@nativeorganizing.org. Only those whose applications are being considered will be contacted. Position open until filled. Incomplete applications will not be considered.

The post Organizing Fellowship Manager appeared first on Native Organizers Alliance.

Three new Little Nature Playgrounds are planned for Cobbs Creek Park. Designed with input from local residents, these welcoming spaces will encourage children and families to explore the park, learn about its history and ecology, and safely access the trail from nearby neighborhoods.

Each playground will feature a combination of nature-inspired elements, colorful asphalt art, and wayfinding maps that help connect visitors to Cobbs Creek Park.

Clean Air Council is partnering with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, Tiny WPA, Amber Art and Design, and community organizations to bring this vision to life.

How does the Little Nature Playground Project help the surrounding community? 

• Connect neighbors to park resources and the physical, social, emotional benefits of green space.
• Offer fun, nature-based play and learning opportunities that encourage repeated visits to the park.
• Welcome  the community into Cobbs Creek Park through safe, accessible entrances 

Designed With the Community 

Community input has shaped every step of this project. Over the past six months, Clean Air Council and community partners have presented the Little Nature Playground Project at almost a dozen in-person meetings and events.These conversations were designed to gather design and location feedback while ensuring the project reflects the community’s vision.

Partnering with the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center and area libraries, the Council shared updates through community meetings, educational programs, and events. The Council also held a series of “dinner and design workshops” to gain perspectives from neighbors and distributed flyers to encourage participation.

Workshop attendees offered feedback and insight into the project’s themes. Initial project locations were identified by using  existing pedestrian safety infrastructure, including traffic signals, crosswalks, and pedestrian crossing signals. Community members voted on their favorite locations and the top three crossing sites were selected.

Throughout the last six months, online surveys and meetings with community stakeholders have helped refine the three playground locations and their themes. Project consultants are currently designing initial project sketches.  

Little Nature Playground Proposed Locations

• Woodland Ave. and Cobbs Creek Parkway (north side)
• Market St. and 63rd St. (north side)
• Spruce St. and Cobbs Creek Parkway (south side)
   

Location: Woodland Ave. and Cobbs Creek Parkway 
Theme: Lenape history and connecting to the creek

“Karakung” is the Lenape name for Cobbs Creek and translates to “the place of the wild geese.” One element of the play structure could be different geese that people can climb and sit on. Above is a mock up of what one of the geese could look like.

Location: 63rd St. and Market St.
Theme: Nature of Cobbs Creek Park (native plants, flowers, animals)

Many neighbors talked about wanting a place to rest along the trail during different community feedback sessions.  Above is an image of a mock up of a bench in the shape of a creek. Elements that may be highlighted in the play structure design include local animals, native flowers, and the creek.

Location: Spruce St. and 63rd St.
Theme: Celebrating Cobbs Creek communities

Inspired by conversations with community groups and neighbors, this location will celebrate the collective energy put into supporting and caring for the community. The design will recognize that  supporting young people is a key part of the neighborhood’s success. The creek bench may also be included in this location. 

How can the surrounding community continue to inform this project and lead the vision? 

Community members are encouraged to sign up to attend one or all of the upcoming Cobbs Creek Neighbors RCO community meetings, where we will be giving project updates and continuing to gain community feedback. These meetings will take place Monday evenings at the Blanche A. Nixon/Cobbs Creek Library, 5800 Cobbs Creek Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19143. Register for free below to keep updated on any changes!  

• September 14, 5:30 – 7 p.m. Register
• November 2, 5:30 – 7 p.m. Register
• December 7, 5:30 – 7 p.m. Register

Follow @CobbsCreekWatershedCoaltion on Instagram and Facebook for updates! 

Questions? Email Trails@cleanair.org 

Istanbul’s Northern Watersheds provide drinking water to sixteen million people. Stretching across forests, reservoirs, wetlands, and agricultural landscapes on the northern edge of the metropolitan region, they perform ecological functions without which the city simply could not survive. They regulate floods, recharge groundwater, support biodiversity, and sustain water security for one of Europe’s largest urban […]

This article Announcing the first Waging Nonviolence Fellowship was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

The Waging Nonviolence Fellowship is a five-month journalistic training program that offers the opportunity to work closely with experienced editors and generate a body of clips on an undercovered movement beat. Fellows will each write five monthly feature articles (at least 1,500 words long) for Waging Nonviolence over the course of the program. 

This is a remote (U.S.-based) position with a flexible, self-determined schedule. Fellows will receive an initial stipend of $500, and then $250 per published story.

With mentorship from senior editor Jessica Stites and editor-in-chief Eric Stoner, participants will fine-tune their ability to pitch, report and write compelling movement stories. Fellows will have an initial meeting with the editors and additional meetings as needed throughout the program. 

Fellows are expected to take initiative in seeking out stories, reliably meet deadlines and respond quickly over email while working on a piece.

This is an opportunity to pursue stories of true substance (not clickbait) that are read by leading movement thinkers, organizers and activists. Our writers have gone on to write and work for Democracy Now!, Vox, The Guardian, The Intercept, The New Republic, Rolling Stone and elsewhere.

Requirements

• Experience in reporting or reported analysis on social movements
• Excellent writing skills; ability to turn in clean copy
• Passionate about movements organizing for peace and justice

Preferred

• Established connections to groups, activists and communities at the forefront of today’s social movements, such as racial justice, labor or democracy defense.
• Knowledgeable on the history, theories, strategies and tactics of civil resistance/nonviolent action.

Waging Nonviolence welcomes people of all backgrounds and encourages people from groups that are underrepresented in media to apply. 

How to apply

We are now accepting applications for the Fall 2026 fellowship. Resume/CV not required. To apply, please fill out this form by August 10, 2026. 

Who we are

Since our founding in 2009, Waging Nonviolence has become the leading source for news, analysis and original reporting on social movements around the world. 

We tell in-depth, compelling stories about how ordinary people are fighting for a broad range of social, economic, racial and environmental justice issues — and challenging authoritarians around the world. To demystify the work of social change, we get behind-the-scenes with organizers to unpack the strategies and tactics they use to build a more just world. While most media focus on why protests are happening, our stories seek to uncover the how.

We have been called “an indispensable platform for exploring creative and strategic resistance” by journalist Naomi Klein, and “the essential journalistic resource on civil resistance” by Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth.

This article Announcing the first Waging Nonviolence Fellowship was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Do solar plants require backup from fossil fuels?

Solar plants require backup, but it doesn’t have to be from fossil fuels.

A combination of renewables, energy storage, and long-distance transmission can reliably power the majority of the U.S. without relying on coal, oil, or natural gas, as one 2017 research paper describes. Renewables like wind can generate under cloudy conditions, while surplus solar from brighter weather can be stored in utility-scale batteries for rainy days. Additionally, transmission from neighboring regions can assist solar capacity drops.

The Department of Energy and Princeton have outlined decarbonization scenarios projecting expansion of solar and decrease in fossil fuels while maintaining reliability. Analysis of real-world outcomes has found that renewables growth has actually outperformed projections.

California is an example of improving reliability while transitioning from fossil fuels to solar. From 2015 to 2025, in-state generation saw a jump in solar reliance from 8% to 27%, while natural gas dropped from 60% to 36%.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.

Sources

The Electricity Journal Reliably integrating variable renewables: Moving grid flexibility resources from models to results

The Alliance for Climate Transition Institute Solar energy requires 100% fossil fuel backup

Princeton University Net-Zero America

University of Virginia Decarbonization by 2050: Are We on Track?

California Energy Commission CA Electric Generation 2001-25

California Energy Commission California Energy Leaders Report Progress on Grid Reliability Ahead of Summer 2026

MIT The Future of Energy Storage

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

Please use this form to provide feedback about this fact brief. This will help us to better gauge its impact and usability. Thank you!

About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.

Buying cookware? A California law makes it easier to spot PFAS in kitchen products Monica Amarelo July 28, 2026

For years, the “forever chemicals” known as PFAS were used in many products that touch food, including popcorn bags, pizza boxes, pans and other cookware. Concerns about PFAS’ health harms then led many states to either restrict or outright ban the chemicals in specific items.

Eventually, outcry over these toxic substances led to manufacturers phasing out their use in food packaging nationwide. But they’re still allowed in kitchen products.

That doesn’t mean you’re stuck with PFAS when you’re shopping for pots and pans.

Thanks to a California law that banned PFAS in paper-based food packaging, it is now possible for consumers across the country to find out which companies use PFAS in their products. That’s because the law also included language ordering companies to disclose on their websites if they use PFAS in their cookware – information anyone can see, not just Californians.

Which companies use PFAS?

Last week, the environmental group Defend Our Health compiled this data and released a public directory detailing PFAS usage claims by over 200 cookware companies. You can check the directory to see if a product you are interested in purchasing is labeled PFAS-free.

Of the 210 companies, about 40%, or 82 companies, disclosed their products contained PFAS. A total of 44 companies clearly disclosed through the California requirements that they don’t use PFAS in their products. 

Another 23 companies stated that they do not use PFAS, but these claims could not be verified because the companies either did not provide a disclosure in keeping with the California requirement or may have been exempt from the disclosure requirement under California law. 

Widespread contamination

Teflon and other PFAS-coated cookware are the poster child for a contamination crisis that extends across the globe, with the chemicals detected in soil, water and air. 

Exposure to PFAS at incredibly low concentrations can lead to health harms that have been documented in nearly every system in the body. The chemicals have been linked to cancer, reproductive and immune system harm and other diseases.

When pans coated with the forever chemical PTFE are heated above roughly 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, they can release hazardous fumes. Overheating has been linked to a documented condition called polymer fume fever, sometimes known as “Teflon flu.”

PFAS in nonstick cookware and other consumer and industrial products remain a concern throughout their lifecycle – from manufacturing and use to disposal – because they can pollute the environment and contribute to human exposure.. 

EWG for over 20 years has recommended consumers avoid nonstick pans. EWG commissioned tests of nonstick pans in 2003 and published a report, “Canaries in the Kitchen,” showing that pans can overheat and off-gas pollutants within minutes of use. 

In 2021, EWG scientists summarized peer-reviewed studies showing that PFAS can migrate from containers and cookware into food. Our recommendation still stands: Seek out cast iron, stainless steel or carbon steel cookware.

States are leading the way

States are taking steps to tackle PFAS in kitchen products.

In 2025, California Senate Bill 682, authored by state Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), would have banned the sale of cookware containing intentionally added PFAS beginning in 2030. Despite passing the Legislature, the measure was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, meaning the chemicals can still be used in products sold in the state. 

That veto didn’t slow other states from banning PFAS in cookware outright. 

Amara’s Law ended the sale of PFAS cookware in Minnesota, the first state to do so. The law took effect in 2025. Maine and Colorado PFAS cookware bans took effect in January 2026. Connecticut, Vermont and Washington have bans on the use of PFAS in cookware set to take effect in the coming years.

States also set the first PFAS drinking water standards, and they continue to lead on tackling other sources of forever chemicals contamination.

According to the SaferStates PFAS tracker, 17 states have legislation pending that would end the use of PFAS in categories ranging from textiles and dental floss to cookware and firefighting foam.

This state-driven action is leading to real change. Online disclosure of PFAS use is an important first step for consumers, but more change is still needed. Some companies already go beyond what is required in California by independently verifying their products are PFAS-free.

Reducing your exposure to PFAS

PFAS exposure is widespread, because this class of chemicals has found its way into hundreds of products used every day by consumers. 

Research indicates the source of  exposure comes from food, water and PFAS that have migrated into dust from household products. No single step will completely eliminate exposure, but small changes matter. 

Start with the sources you can control, including:

• Choose PFAS-free cookware
• Filter PFAS from your tap water
• Cook fresh food at home as much as possible and limit takeout
• Vacuum frequently with a HEPA-filter vacuum to remove household dust 
• Avoid purchasing products marketed as “stain resistant,” “water proof” and “long lasting.” 

Areas of Focus Food Household & Consumer Products Cookware & Food Containers PFAS Chemicals California Authors David Andrews, Ph.D. Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. July 28, 2026

At the western edge of Florida, just miles from the Alabama border, Shorebird Stewardship Senior Coordinator Brian Cammarano hops out of his National Audubon Society truck with a camera, scope, and...

SINCE 2006, like other jurisdictions, the Northwest Territories (N.W.T.) has received funding through Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) via the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program, established as part of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Through organizations like the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS), the program offers cultural, emotional, and mental health support services, including counselling, to Residential School Survivors, Intergenerational Survivors, and their families.

The impact of residential schools continues to have a negative intergenerational impact on Indigenous Peoples across many aspects of their lives. Residential School Survivor funding support allowed me to attend a full year of counselling during the aftermath of a challenging intimate relationship. Through a trauma-informed lens, the program supported my healing alongside my diagnosis of acute post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and toward an autism diagnosis. Through intersections in disability advocacy around neurodivergence, colonialism, and medical feminisms in the mental health field, it helped me to make sense of decades of my own frustrating misunderstanding of my patterns, gifts, and limitations.

In the 2025 Budget breakdown, the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program received $48 million dollars from ISC. According to Cabin Radio, ISC approved a renewal of funding in March 2026 for $630 million over two years, designated to support the availability, accessibility, quality, and effectiveness of mental wellness services for Indigenous Peoples across the country. 

Yet, as of May, despite the approval and flurry of new funding announcements, patients, therapists, and service organizations have been put on hold — waiting for administrative renewals, intakes, and funding approvals for IRS counselling supports to resume. The Politics of Healing

When my cousin, Catherine Blondin, posted a personal account on Facebook regarding the impacts of the pause in funding, it went viral: 

The IRSS counselling program is on HOLD. For those who don’t know, this is the mental health support meant for survivors of the residential school system and their families. It exists because that harm didn’t stop when the schools closed. It moved into our homes, our bodies, and into the next generation.

My dad is a survivor. My grandparents were survivors. I grew up with the after shocks of this. Counselling through this program has been one of the only supports that actually understood what I was carrying and where it came from. I have been seeing a psychologist for the past 2.5 years [who] is amazing. She’s helped me heal deep seated trauma and change patterns within myself I could have never done on my own. I can’t access this program right now. Soon, my child won’t be able to either.

This isn’t a policy debate to me. This is my dad. This is me. This is my kid. This is a program that exists because of a documented, government-acknowledged harm, and it’s not there right now.

Dozens of cousins, aunties, uncles, and parents shared and reshared Catherine’s post. The post called attention to what Indigenous Peoples have become familiar with — seeing a necessary, beneficial program focused on our needs and healing being revoked by the very system that created those harms to begin with. This interruption of services is one more devastating moment of many, and the quick uptake of Catherine’s post demonstrates the frustration that so many have lived with for generations. 

Survivors Need Support 

In late May 2026, IRSSS presented a petition to the House of Commons calling on the federal government to honour its commitment to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action:

IRSSS programs provide critical support during moments of profound vulnerability, including mental health and emotional crises, community emergencies, and environmental disasters — services that are uniquely tailored to the needs of Survivors and Indigenous communities. Any disruption or loss of these well-established supports would significantly impact community wellbeing and undermine reconciliation efforts.

This funding crisis is coming to the fore as First Nations across Turtle Island bear the brunt of climate injustice in their home communities — like my cousin, whose original post was made during an evacuation of her home community, Lı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́, due to wildfires. Lı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ was evacuated to my hometown of Yellowknife at the end of June, and community members were finally able to return to their homes over the third weekend in July. 

This is just one of multiple evacuation orders that have been issued for many of our communities (Yellowknife included) over the last four years — a pattern that persists across the country as First Nation communities in Northern Ontario are evacuated at best, and burned to the ground at worst.

As a part of the relief effort, I put Lı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ organizers in touch with the IRSSS to seek emergency funding for mental health support for evacuees. I later heard that those organizers were not only denied, but informed that there was no support available at the time — not even emergency relief.

Bureaucratic Reconciliation Indian Residential School Survivors have been pushed into bureaucratic processes where the reality of support begins with invoices, budget lines, and the limitation of “the fiscal year.”

In this space of bureaucratic reconciliation, what is the function of governments when our systems fail us in such simple, practical, human ways and which, in turn, have such devastating, wide-spread results?

The funding will continue, but for how long and through which criteria and eligibility frameworks remain to be seen. For Canada to take reconciliation seriously, dedicated, ongoing mental health support for Indigenous Peoples must be stable and predictable. Otherwise, the flames of colonialism continue on, one spreadsheet at a time. 

Citation:

Blondin Burt, Cassandra.”Reconciliation on Hold: The Impact of Pausing Residential School Survivor Funding,” Yellowhead Institute. July 28 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/reconciliation-on-hold-the-impact-of-pausing-residential-school-survivor-funding/

Artwork by Bree Island @bree.island, Miyonakwan Studio, Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation

 

The post Reconciliation on Hold: The Impact of Pausing Residential School Survivor Funding appeared first on Yellowhead Institute.

Focusing on working people's consumption diverts attention from the real climate criminals

Source

In a first, Germany drew more power from wind and solar than from fossil fuels last year.

Read more on E360 →

Small, everyday environmentally friendly behaviors don’t distract people from taking more meaningful collective action or supporting policies to limit climate change, according to a new study. But nor do those individual actions prime the pump for collective action and policy support.

“Individual and systemic actions should not be viewed as competing alternatives,” says study team member Omid Ghasemi, a climate psychologist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “People can support both, and encouraging one does not appear to come at the expense of the other.”

Ghasemi and his collaborators survey responses from almost 2,800 Australians who participated in the National Climate Action Survey, an annual poll conducted from 2021 through 2024, in at least two years.

The survey asked people about environmentally friendly behaviors like recycling, using reusable cups and containers, taking public transit, eating a greener diet, and cycling to work. It also included questions about their participation in collective climate actions like signing petitions and attending demonstrations, and support for climate policies such as EV mandates and net-zero target dates.

“There’s been considerable discussion about whether personal climate actions either distract people from larger systemic solutions or act as a gateway to greater climate engagement,” Ghasemi says.

Past research in this area has yielded mixed and contradictory results. The new work is one of only a few longitudinal studies on the topic, tracking how people’s actions and attitudes developed over the course of years.

 

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“One result that surprised me was how little evidence we found for either side of the debate,” says Ghasemi.

Survey participants who took more individual actions were also more likely to participate in collective climate actions and be more supportive of climate policies, the researchers found.

Crucially, when a person’s personal climate actions increased in one year, this did not make them more—or less—likely to take collective action or support climate policies the next year. Nor was there any evidence of a gradual, cumulative effect of individual action over multiple years on broader climate engagement.

Instead, individual action, collective action, and policy support all seem to come as a package deal, representing an expression of a person’s pre-existing values.

This means that governments and environmental advocates don’t need to worry that encouraging everyday climate actions will “crowd out” other forms of climate engagement—as long as those small, individual efforts aren’t presented as the whole solution.

“One of the biggest questions our study leaves open is what drives people to become more engaged with climate change in the first place,” Ghasemi says. That’s what he’s investigating now, he reports, using longitudinal and experimental studies to probe how people perceive climate risk and judge the effectiveness of solutions, and how these translate into action and policy support.

Source: Ghasemi O. et al.  “Personal climate actions do not crowd out collective action and policy support: longitudinal evidence.” NPJ Climate Action 2026.

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The National AgrAbility Project currently has state / regional projects in 21 states: AK, CA, UT, NM, CO, TX, SD, NE, MO, WI, IL, IN, MI, OH, PA, ME, VA, TN, SC, GA, & FL. Five additional states also have affiliate projects: ID, WY, KS, IA, & NC. Learn more about service in your state […]

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More of Germany’s electricity came from wind and solar power than fossil fuels for the first time ever in 2025.

Together, wind and solar power generated 225 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity – accounting for 44% of the total in 2025 – with just 217TWh (43%) coming from fossil fuels.

Solar and onshore wind have grown rapidly under Germany’s “Energiewende” strategy over the past two decades, as the nation transitions away from both coal and nuclear power.

Renewables have recently faced mounting opposition from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the current coalition government has been trying to develop new gas-power plants.

Nevertheless, Carbon Brief analysis of Energy Institute data – shown in the chart below – illustrates how wind and solar have continued growing, emerging as the nation’s largest power source.

The success of renewables in Germany mirrors the EU as a whole, which also saw wind and solar overtake fossil-fuel power generation in 2025 for the first time.

“Other renewables” includes hydropower, bioenergy, geothermal and other renewable sources not otherwise stated. Source: Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, 2026.

Germany has various targets in place that require a rapid expansion of wind and solar power, including cutting economy-wide emissions to net-zero by 2045. 

The nation is also aiming to increase renewables’ share of electricity consumption to 80% by 2030 to achieve a “largely climate neutral” power system by 2035.

Despite Germany’s rapid decline in coal power generation, the nation still relies far more on coal than most other European countries. It aims to decarbonise its electricity entirely once coal power has been phased out, which has a deadline of “no later than” 2038.

(The renewables targets also include electricity generated from hydropower and bioenergy. The latter produces a relatively large share of Germany’s power – roughly a tenth in 2025.)

Germany has to rely on renewables more than neighbours, such as France and the UK, to achieve its climate goals. This is due to its phaseout of nuclear power, which is a key part of the “Energiewende” strategy.

Nuclear power has long faced widespread public opposition in Germany. This year, the centre-right chancellor Friedrich Merz described the nuclear phaseout as a “strategic mistake”, but the government has ruled out a return to conventional nuclear power.

The country has an official coal phaseout date of 2038, but experts say the country is on track to eliminate coal from its power supply years earlier. This is despite some pressure to temporarily slow the transition away from coal during the recent energy crisis.

(Very few outside the AfD are calling to scrap the coal phaseout altogether, but the government will publish a review of the timelines in August.)

While coal generation has fallen quickly, even as nuclear was being phased out, some argue that coal could have been cut more quickly if nuclear had remained. 

Gas-power expansion has also been framed by the government in recent years as an essential component of Germany’s transition away from coal and nuclear power, to support a renewables-heavy grid.

The current government under Merz has tried to boost gas and recently adopted a law to provide state support for new gas-fired power plants. The plan is for these plants to be converted to run on “green hydrogen” by 2045, in order to meet the climate-neutrality goal.

Germany aims to install 115 gigawatts (GW) of onshore wind by 2030 and approved a record 20.8GW of new capacity in 2025. 

Meanwhile, solar generation has reached unprecedented levels during the hot summer of 2026.

However, the government’s planned grid reforms have been criticised by the renewables industry for risking slowing down the energy transition. Under the proposals, renewables developers would only be granted automatic grid connections in areas with limited grid capacity if they waive compensation for future curtailed generation.

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Most countries failed to meet a 2025 target to identify all of their subsidies that could be “harmful” to biodiversity, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

The findings also reveal that 32 countries spend an estimated $270bn on biodiversity-harming subsidies and other incentives each year.

This is the “tip of the iceberg”, one expert notes, with “trillions” spent globally.  

In 2022, almost every country in the world agreed on a set of “goals” and “targets” aiming to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. 

One of these targets asked countries to identify all subsidies that damage biodiversity by 2025, before phasing out or reforming at least $500bn of these incentives by 2030. 

The subsidies can be found in a range of sectors, including fossil fuels, agriculture, forestry, mining and fishing.

Just 21 countries appear to have met the 2025 goal, Carbon Brief finds, based on analysis of 134 national reports submitted to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) by 1 July 2026. 

Five of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries were among those that met the deadline.

Country progress 

Carbon Brief’s analysis looks at the number of countries that have met the 2025 target to identify their use of nature-harming subsidies.

However, the metrics to determine which countries have “met” this target are not explicitly defined. 

Carbon Brief included any country that says it has completed the process of identifying its subsidies. In almost every case, these countries also included a total figure for the value of those subsidies. 

The analysis finds that 21 countries say they have identified their harmful subsidies, as shown in the map below (yellow). This amounts to 16% of the countries that have submitted national reports so far. 

A further 11 countries, plus the EU, have provided figures for some of their subsidies, such as only those in a specific sector (dark blue). 

Of the 134 national reports submitted to the CBD, 66 make reference to beginning the process (medium blue), while the remaining 68 do not (light blue). The final 62 countries party to the CBD have yet to submit a national report (light grey). 

(Every country in the world participates in the CBD, except for the US and the Holy See – the governing body of the Catholic church, which is seated in Vatican City.)

Countries that have identified all of their harmful subsidies (yellow); provided figures for some sectors (dark blue); begun the process, but not provided any numbers (medium blue); not begun the process (light blue); and not submitted a national report to the CBD (light grey). Credit: Carbon Brief analysis

The 32 countries that have identified some or all subsidies spend almost $270bn on nature-harming incentives annually, according to Carbon Brief’s analysis. 

This is based on a tally of the figures for the most recent available year listed in countries’ national reports, in US dollars using conversion rates at the end of the given year and adjusted for inflation. The analysis also includes figures from other reports cited in the country submissions.

The $270bn reported in country submissions to date is “just the tip of the iceberg”, notes Eva Zabey, the chief executive of Business for Nature. The global figure could be as high as $1.8tn, according to a 2022 estimate from non-profit group, the B Team. 

The figures identified by Carbon Brief are a “warning” that the “world is not moving fast enough” to tackle harmful subsidies, Zabey says, adding: 

“The positive news is that some countries have shown it can be done and this should embolden others to follow suit…Subsidy reform should be treated as an economic necessity, not an environmental checklist.”

Harmful subsidies are expected to be among the key priorities at the upcoming COP17 UN nature summit, being held in Armenia in October 2026. 

Subsidy target

There is no single definition of a “harmful” subsidy. (See: ‘Harmful’ subsidies.) 

The aim to identify these subsidies stems from target 18 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – the global agreement containing a series of goals and targets for nature. 

Target 18 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Credit: UN CBD (2022)

Target 18 calls on countries to identify subsidies and other incentives that are harmful for biodiversity by 2025. 

It also says that nations should “eliminate, phase out or reform” these subsidies in a “proportionate” way, reducing them by at least $500bn per year by 2030. 

It says countries should first target the “most harmful” incentives, while simultaneously scaling up positive incentives for nature. 

All 2030 targets in the GBF are global –  with countries each expected to outline how they will contribute nationally. So far, 169 countries have submitted these national targets. 

Only 38% of countries addressed the 2025 aim to identify harmful subsidies in their national targets “to some extent”, according to a draft version of an upcoming progress report.

Countries’ national reports do not “provide a sufficient basis to determine” whether the 2025 milestone was met, says the report, but available evidence “suggests” that it was not.  

‘Harmful’ subsidies  

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of a “biodiversity-harmful subsidy” – or how it differs from an environmentally harmful subsidy.

In general, “harmful” environmental subsidies impact humans’ surroundings, whereas those harmful to biodiversity directly affect species and ecosystems. Paul Elton, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, tells Carbon Brief:

“If you were to do a study that focused on biodiversity-harmful subsidies versus one that focused on environmentally-harmful subsidies, there’d be a Venn diagram where a large percentage would overlap.”

A 2022 working paper on identifying subsidies harmful to biodiversity published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) depicted biodiversity as a subset of the environment, with climate and air falling outside the scope of “biodiversity”.

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However, the report also noted that climate change is one of the five key drivers of biodiversity loss, adding: 

“As such, subsidies that lead to larger greenhouse gas emissions, for example, will also indirectly impact on biodiversity.”

Distinction between the “environment” and “biodiversity”, according to an oft-cited working paper on identifying and assessing biodiversity-harming subsidies. Credit: OECD (2022)

Prof Jessica Dempsey, a political ecologist at the University of British Columbia, tells Carbon Brief that she would “absolutely” consider fossil-fuel subsidies to be biodiversity-harming – not only as a driver of climate change, but also because the extraction of fossil fuels can cause localised harms to biodiversity. She adds:

“I do think probably it is true that all harmful subsidies are not necessarily biodiversity-related. Some care in that is important, but subsidies to the sectors that are known drivers of biodiversity loss feel very obvious to me.”

Biodiversity-harming subsidies can be either direct or indirect. 

Direct subsidies refer to government expenditures that go towards a project that harms nature, such as construction of a new gas-fired power plant. Indirect subsidies could include tax exemptions that encourage a certain behaviour, such as lower tax rates on fuels for agricultural machinery. 

Subsidies in agriculture, fishery and energy sectors are most commonly deemed “harmful”, but damage can also be caused by support for forestry, infrastructure, transport, construction, water and other sectors. 

One recent estimate of the global total of biodiversity-harming subsidies put the figure at $1.7-3.2tn annually. An estimate of environmentally harmful subsidies put the figure at $2.6tn.

Elton tells Carbon Brief:

“It’s useful to contextualise the $500bn ambition of the GBF against those global estimates of how big [the total] actually could be, because that underscores the fact that so far, you’ve only got a subset of nations reporting about $250bn by your analysis, which is only half of the [phase-out target].

“It’s a significant lack of accountability.”

The chart below compares the $2.6tn estimated value of harmful subsidies to the $500bn phase-out target set in the GBF and the value of the subsidies identified so far in national reports.

Comparison of the harmful subsidies identified by countries in their national reports (light blue), the phase-out target for subsidies outlined in the GBF (medium blue) and a global estimate of environmentally harmful subsidies (dark blue). Credit: Carbon Brief analysis Sectoral breakdown

Many subsidies can have both negative and positive impacts on biodiversity, according to the 2022 OECD working paper. 

A subsidy on constructing dams for new hydropower can harm local biodiversity by disrupting water flows and flooding certain areas, for example. But it also reduces fossil-fuel dependence, lowering emissions and leading to a decrease in global warming. 

Ronald Steenblik, a subsidies expert and co-author of the report estimating $2.6tn of harmful subsidies, tells Carbon Brief:

“What’s harmful is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.”

Most experts agree that a few sectors receive the bulk of the world’s biodiversity-harming subsidies: fossil fuels, agriculture and infrastructure, with much smaller contributions from other sectors, such as forestry, mining and fisheries. 

Of the subsidies reported to the CBD, almost half were for the fossil-fuel sector, and around one-quarter for agriculture and fishing. 

Sectoral breakdown of identified subsidies. “Multiple” means a country either did not distinguish between sectors or reported one number encompassing several sectors. “Other” refers to specific sectors not named in the chart. Credit: Carbon Brief analysis.

Dempsey says it is “surprising” that mining “didn’t show up” in these figures. (Of the 32 countries that provided subsidy data, only one mentioned mining as an industry that received harmful subsidies.)

Limitations

One limitation of Carbon Brief’s analysis is the lack of standardisation of subsidy data.  

The methodology underlying the national reports lists several definitions of environmentally harmful subsidies, adding:

“[T]here is no standardised, globally agreed methodology for assessing the value of subsidies…nor is there a single global dataset providing this information.”

It adds that it is “important” for countries to identify harmful subsidies “within their national context”. Steenblik says:

“When you get down into the details, you can have lots of arguments of where you draw the line. And, so, the big question on this spreadsheet is where countries drew that line.”

For example, China’s national report says the country has already identified all biodiversity-harming subsidies and reformed them entirely.  

In Australia, a 2026 study – led by Elton from Australian National University – identified biodiversity-harmful subsidies worth $26.3bn over 2022-23, a number that amounts to just over 1% of the country’s GDP.

However, in its national report, Australia identified $155m worth of subsidies, largely in the agricultural sector. (The national report says that the identified agricultural subsidies are those that are “potentially most harmful to the environment”.)

Elton tells Carbon Brief that this discrepancy underscores the necessity of an independent assessment of harmful subsidies, “rather than this just being seen as a tick-the-box reporting exercise by officials in the environment department”.

When it comes to actually phasing out harmful subsidies, Dempsey says, focusing on the quality of the subsidy – and who benefits from it – is just as important as focusing on the numbers. She adds:

“If we don’t take this lens of understanding the beneficiaries and we only focus on the [numbers], we really risk having policy changes that then lead to increased affordability problems for everyday working people, and backlash.”

Methodology 

Carbon Brief analysed national reports submitted to the CBD by 134 parties – 133 countries and the EU – to assess which ones had identified all of their biodiversity-harmful subsidies and therefore met the 2025 deadline. 

The reports were submitted in 2026, with the analysis including those submitted by 1 July 2026. 

The figures for each country can be found in this spreadsheet. More than three-quarters of reports did not list any figures. 

To get the full tally for the amount listed, Carbon Brief used the figures for 2025 (or the nearest available year) and converted the local currency into US dollars, based on conversion rates in the given year using the currency exchange rates calculator from the US Treasury.

These figures were then adjusted for inflation to the year 2025. Numbers were rounded to the nearest $1,000.

In total, this amounted to $269,856,769,000 in subsidies across 32 countries.

Many countries listed the sector that each subsidy is going towards. Carbon Brief standardised these inputs using the following categories: 

• Agriculture and fishing
• Energy
• Forestry  
• Fossil fuels 
• Infrastructure
• Transport 
• Other
• Multiple sectors

“Multiple sectors” was assigned when a country provided only a partial sectoral breakdown of their subsidies or none at all. 

“Other” was selected to encompass sectors that were named more infrequently, including water, mining, tourism and construction.

The designations employed and the presentation of the material on the map in this article do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Carbon Brief concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo  15.07.2026 Nature Q&A: What England’s new ‘land-use framework’ means for climate, nature and food 20.03.2026 Food and farming Analysis: Half of nations meet UN deadline for nature-loss reporting 02.03.2026 Nature policy Brazil’s biodiversity pledge: Six key takeaways for nature and climate change 16.01.2026 Nature policy

The post Analysis: 84% of nations miss deadline to identify ‘nature-harming’ subsidies by 2025  appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Honduran peasant organizations demand the immediate repeal of Decree 107-2026, the suspension of Circular 009-2026, and an end to the evictions of peasant and Indigenous communities.

The post Honduran peasant organizations denounce the decree that legalizes land dispossession appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Bassirou Sani Boubacar Gaoh has spent the last decade trying to figure out how the plants feeding millions across Niger can better withstand the unpredictability of a warming planet. Extreme heat waves and severe droughts that alternate with heavy rainfall and flash floods are imperiling the many millet, rice, and sorghum farms throughout the Sahel region, where temperatures have risen much faster than the global average. 

Yet the biggest threat to those farms is neither heat, droughts, nor floods, but the infestations unleashed with their arrival. The millet head miner is one of the most notorious of these hordes. The destructive moth lays eggs directly onto the flowering heads of the pearl millet crop, which hatch into larvae that feed voraciously from within the plant’s florets. Drought, sandy soils, and certain farming practices, such as sowing fields too early, only worsen infestations. 

“In a bad year, it can wipe out a large part of a family harvest,” said Boubacar Gaoh. Domestic agriculture, he noted, is both the West African nation’s economic backbone and the foundation of most families’ access to food. Roughly 2.4 million people throughout Niger face acute food insecurity and 1.6 million children suffer from acute malnutrition. “When you’re talking about a crop that feeds the household, that isn’t just lost income. It’s less food on the table,” he said. 

Bassirou Sani Boubacar Gaoh (center) and another researcher talk with a farmer in Konni, Niger, about the pest challenges he faces in his field.
Courtesy of Bassirou Sani Boubacar Gaoh

Boubacar Gaoh’s grandparents were millet farmers, so as a plant breeder in Niamey specializing in staple crops, he’s personally invested in developing on-the-ground solutions to help protect growers from pests like the millet head miner. In November 2024, he launched a program that sought to equip local farmers with the tools they need for crop disease surveillance and pest control. In partnership with an agricultural research hub hosted by Pennsylvania State University, the work was funded through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Feed the Future Innovation Labs program.  

From the start, he and his team set out to visit farmers across Niger, offering hands-on training on how to fight pests and disease affecting their harvests, teaching them not only how to use free technologies like PlantVillage, an AI-powered mobile platform for pest and disease forecasting, but how to confront infestations. Solutions for containing infestations vary, but farmers first must spot the bugs behind them — a tricky feat, especially in the case of the millet head miner, which can do some real damage undetected. That’s where monitoring tools, said Boubacar Gaoh, can make all the difference. “Timing is everything. … It only strikes during a short window as the grain forms,” he said. “The real reduction in crop loss comes from acting on that warning at the right moment.” 

Last January, they were preparing to roll out the use of natural predators to eradicate the millet head miner, along with a multitude of other agricultural menaces. They’d even just met with officials at Niger’s Ministry of Agriculture to negotiate use of their data to inform the government’s understanding of crop health and national surveillance systems. 

Then, without warning, it was all over. On January 24, 2025, days after his inauguration, President Donald Trump issued a stop-work order that suspended nearly all of USAID’s overseas programs, before dismantling the agency entirely. In the months that followed, nearly all of the 17 core Innovation Labs, anchored in American universities with a network of international partners, received funding termination notices. 

Boubacar Gaoh stayed on part time, drawing on a small stipend provided by a donor to the Penn State lab, but the rest of his team in Niger was let go. In the year and a half since, he has pivoted to chasing funding sources in an increasingly fraught and competitive philanthropic landscape. He’s had little luck. 

“I was surprised when it was stopped — because, why? Everyone knows that with climate change, pests are moving around. The conditions are so that these pests can grow and develop in the region where previously they couldn’t develop and affect food supply,” said Boubacar Gaoh. 

Boubacar Gaoh’s team conducted diagnostic visits all over Niger, including at a watermelon plot (left) and a vegetable farm (right). Then, without warning, it was all over.​ ​Courtesy of Bassirou Sani Boubacar Gaoh​

A statement by the White House on the funding cuts issued last fall, when it formally cancelled the $72 million funding the program, described USAID’s spending as “woke, weaponized, and wasteful.” By then, the administration had gutted all but one lab. The Climate-Resilient Cereals Innovation Lab at Kansas State University was given the go-ahead to continue its research. (The lab has since rebranded itself as the “Innovation Lab for Cereals.”) Because Congress appropriated the funds, questions surfaced on the legality of Trump’s power to withhold the funding, but then the Supreme Court ruled that the president had the discretion to do so. 

“Why were all the other labs terminated?” Timothy Dalton, then-interim director of the Kansas lab, asked at the time. “When they’re doing such critically important work as we are doing, in order to combat global food insecurity and to generate scientific advances that can be harnessed by the U.S. agricultural community?” A university spokesperson for the cereals lab declined Grist’s request for an interview. 

This March, the State Department issued a new call for proposals for Feed the Future Innovation Labs, inviting any U.S.-based university to submit a statement of interest in an open competition for the resurrected program. The call for applications described the labs as mechanisms “to advance global food security in alignment with U.S. policy through targeted research.” Approximately five to seven awards were anticipated, the listing noted, ranging from $20 million to $40 million. To the scientists watching their labs get dismantled a year earlier, the announcement raised an obvious question: resurrected for whom, and to do what?  

Although the labs’ stated goals on hunger and food security haven’t changed much, where the work happens could look very different under the Trump administration’s redesigned version of the program. Former USAID officials and innovation lab directors told Grist that they are concerned that lower-income African regions, which had always been the focus of the program, have now been deprioritized in favor of countries in the Western Hemisphere.

“A 27-page document of criteria, and Africa gets three paragraphs on the last page,” said Jim Gaffney, a former general development officer at USAID’s Bureau for Food Security. “It never says you should not work in African countries. But it’s obvious it’s not terribly important to them.” 

According to one American researcher, “We were learning from African colleagues about genetic sources of disease resistance that we could bring over. … It was a two-way street.”  Courtesy of Bassirou Sani Boubacar Gaoh

Africa just surpassed Asia as the continent with the largest number of people facing hunger, according to the annual State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report released last week by a cohort of United Nations agencies. Swaths of the continent are seeing temperature rises up to 1.5 times the global mean, which imperils food security, ecosystems, and economies, and has fueled mass displacement and migration. Floods, heat waves, and droughts forced 700,000 people out of their homes in 2024, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization. A growing body of research has found food insecurity, climate change, and migration to be closely interlinked with geopolitical instability.

Gaffney said the State Department’s implicit deprioritization of Africa is likely to have created a chilling effect on the number of agricultural research and development proposals focusing on the continent, which could have serious knock-on implications for the global food system. “People say, ‘Well, it’s good, it’s great that we’re doing these things for these low-income countries,’ but it’s also great for U.S. research,” said Gaffney. “We solve problems in Africa, and those same problems might hit our shores someday here in the U.S., and we’ll be ready for them.” The other major change in the call for applications was the erasure of climate-related research priorities. 

Across the country, universities followed the guidelines: They stripped their submissions of mentions of “climate change” and pivoted to “desirable” geographies. 

Read Next Trump gutted USAID. Hunger and violence followed. Ayurella Horn-Muller

David Hughes, the former director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Current and Emerging Threats to Crops at Penn State, which had supported Boubacar Gaoh’s work in Niger, said his team swapped out terms like “climate change stress” for “drought” in their application. The State Department didn’t respond to a question about their decision-making process, but, referring to the practices of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Hughes says that the Penn State team had in mind that the government had been “running these proposals through word search or AI.”

The Penn State lab also expanded its geographic range. Their application, shared with Grist, listed Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Colombia, Peru, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Nepal as proposed target countries. It did not mention supporting Boubacar Gaoh’s efforts in Niger. “We did, of course, maybe do a little more in this hemisphere. Although I point out that this hemisphere includes West Africa as well. I don’t think they know their geography,” said Hughes. Ultimately, the lab’s application was denied. 

In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last June, Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, who represents Mississippi, asked Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, for assurances that specific innovation labs, including a Mississippi State University lab focused on fisheries, would be protected from budget cuts. 

“The lab’s work illustrates the proverb, ‘Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.’ This is exactly what the MSU Fish Innovation Lab is doing,” said Hyde-Smith at the hearing. “Rather than giving other countries food, we are teaching them how to feed themselves through modern aquaculture practices.”

The next iteration of innovation labs is starting to take shape. A preliminary list obtained by Grist reveals that approximately seven new project proposals have advanced to the next and final stage of the application round. The labs advancing are from institutions almost exclusively in Republican-majority states. Kansas State University, Mississippi State University, the University of Florida, two labs at Alabama’s Auburn University, South Carolina’s Clemson University, and the University of Georgia were all asked to submit a full proposal, according to multiple sources familiar with the State Department’s new program. The work led by Clemson features a collaboration with the University of Hawaiʻi, making it the only lab with blue-state representation. 

Sources told Grist that the team behind the Mississippi State proposal is from the very same fisheries lab that Hyde-Smith had publicly lobbied Vought for. The lab declined Grist’s request for an interview. 

“It doesn’t feel like, by chance, it would just be red states receiving these awards,” said a former USAID official involved with the program who asked to remain anonymous. 

Others are questioning whether the administration’s newfound version of the innovation labs will actually look all that different to the version that was culled. Carrie Seay-Fleming, an assistant professor specializing in food security and the environment at the University of Minnesota Duluth who has studied the impact of Feed the Future, found a surprisingly similar emphasis on “increasing productivity” and “market-based solutions” in the State Department’s language. “Which of course makes you wonder what the cancellation of the old programs achieved,” said Seay-Fleming. 

A spokesperson at the State Department told Grist in an email that “applications are evaluated against the published criteria in the funding opportunity, without regard to the political characteristics of an applicant’s home state.” The spokesperson declined to clarify when grant awards would be finalized or announced, nor did they comment on changes to funding criteria. However, the spokesperson did note that the agency plans to obligate funds into awards by the end of the federal fiscal year on September 30. 

The spokesperson said the Feed the Future Innovation Labs funding opportunity is evaluated to ensure it makes the country stronger, safer, and more prosperous. In order to align with national interests, foreign assistance and research investments must “directly benefit American farmers, researchers, and taxpayers, rather than being shaped by the priorities of the prior administration,” the spokesperson added.

Among those invited to advance was the Innovation Lab for Peanut at the University of Georgia, which worked with peanut farmers in roughly 13 countries but focused on Senegal, Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, and Zambia, and had been a participant in the earlier version of the USAID program. After the collapse of USAID, the lab was forced to close. When the administration resurrected the funds, former lab leadership decided to apply for the funds and see if they could rebuild much of the work they had been doing beforehand. Jamie Rhoads, former assistant director at the peanut lab, wasn’t optimistic about their chances. 

“We tried to globalize it a little bit, and shifted the language a little bit toward the more safer, stronger, more ‘America First’ kind of language,” said Rhoads, who contributed to the new proposal. “We kind of made a pitch for the sake of the U.S. industry, and also the potential domestic demand happening in Africa, [that] this is a valuable investment to make in Africa.” 

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So it was a welcome surprise when, in June, the UGA lab advanced to the next, and final, stage of the State Department’s process. “It was kind of frustrating because we had to put all this ‘America First’ language into it, but a lot of what we were doing was already, in the best sense of things, using American goodwill and technology,” said Rhoads. “We were learning from African colleagues about genetic sources of disease resistance that we could bring over that are useful for our varieties potentially, or globally. It was a two-way street.” 

Indeed, American farmers would also benefit from this type of research based in Africa. That includes farmers like Josh Johnson, who runs the Old Tyme Bean Company in Elloree, South Carolina. In recent years, as rising temperatures have made it increasingly difficult to grow varieties of heat-sensitive Southern crops, Johnson has pivoted toward growing cowpeas, a drought-tolerant crop that’s regionally popular and has long been a major food commodity throughout western and central Africa. But that introduced Johnson to a whole new threat: the cowpea curculio, a destructive weevil whose larvae feed on the seeds inside the legume’s pod. Within the last two years, the curculio has taken almost half of Johnson’s acreage of the bean plant. 

Josh Johnson (right) and his sons grow crops like cowpea, a major food commodity in western and central Africa, on their family farm in Elloree, South Carolina. Courtesy of Josh Johnson

“You’ll start shelling those peas, and you’ll end up with maggots and larva coming out the shells,” said Johnson. “You can imagine how selling something like that would be terrible. … It is a booger-bear to control.” 

To fight the wily bug, Johnson sprays the perimeter of his fields with pesticides. But it only does so much. When the small weevil senses a tractor’s movement, it balls up, drops to ground, and plays dead to protect itself, also making it nearly impossible to spot. Johnson said he desperately needs a new tool or technique that would allow him to better track and stave off outbreaks well before they spread.

A solution not unlike the on-farm pest surveillance Boubacar Gaoh had been working to develop half a world away.

Climate change is only making crop infestations like these worse, forcing farmers and scientists from South Carolina to Niger to contend with new pathogens, as warming temperatures reshuffle the geographic range of pests worldwide. “Some pests that you find now in Africa, in a few years maybe you will find it in America. So I think it’s really relevant to deal with them at the source,” said Boubacar Gaoh. “Pests, they don’t need visas to travel.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside the ‘America First’ makeover of a global hunger program on Jul 28, 2026.