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Every year on 16 June, South Africa commemorates Youth Day and honours the courage of the young people who stood up for dignity, equality, and a better future in 1976.

Fifty years later, young people continue to face barriers that limit their opportunities and undermine that vision. While democracy opened many doors, millions of young South Africans are still locked out of opportunities by poverty, unemployment, and the rising cost of living.

One of the most overlooked barriers is access to affordable electricity.

As South Africa prepares for the 2026 Local Government Elections, we must ask: How can young people build their futures without reliable, affordable, and clean energy?

For many households, the promise of opportunity is interrupted by rising electricity costs, disconnections, and an energy system that prioritises profit over people’s needs. For young people in particular, access to affordable electricity can shape the course of their futures. It means being able to study after dark, charge devices needed for learning and job-seeking, access information, and participate in an increasingly digital world. Affordable electricity is therefore about far more than keeping the lights on. It powers opportunity, helping to unlock the rights to education, health, and dignity that every young person deserves. 

Yet South Africa’s energy system continues to fail those who need it most. Around 80% of the country’s electricity still comes from ageing coal-fired power stations, locking communities into a system that is polluting, expensive, and increasingly unreliable. Air pollution linked to coal-fired power generation contributes to thousands of premature deaths every year, while rising electricity costs leave millions in the dark.

Young people are among those hardest hit. With youth unemployment at around 60% and the cost of living continuing to rise, many households are forced to ration electricity or go without it. What should be a basic service has become another source of hardship and inequality.

The Free Basic Electricity (FBE) programme was introduced to support vulnerable households for these kinds of hardships. However, despite its intention, millions of eligible families remain excluded due to administrative barriers and outdated systems. 

It’s not like there is no solution. South Africa has abundant renewable energy resources and the potential to build an energy system that delivers clean, affordable, reliable power to communities. With the right investments, municipalities can play a leading role in generating and distributing publicly owned renewable energy that strengthens local economies and expands access to electricity.

Expanding FBE from 50 kWh to 350 kWh through municipally owned renewable energy would help ensure households can meet their basic energy needs while reducing dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuels. More than a social support measure, an expanded FBE programme is an investment in education, employment, public health, and economic opportunity. It is an investment in the future of South Africa’s young people.

 

28 July 2023: Portrait of Letta Kedebone. Photograph by Daylin Paul

The generation of 1976 fought to transform the South Africa they inherited. Today’s generation must do the same. Ours is to ensure that future generations inherit a country where access to affordable energy, economic opportunity, and a healthy environment is not a privilege but a right enjoyed by all. A better future requires more than promises. It requires power.

—

Author: Boitumelo Masipa

The post Powering the Future: Why Energy Justice is a Youth Issue appeared first on 350.

Ende Gelände's new beginning Channel News brendan 16th June 2026 Teaser Media

Report says data centres could fix the demand shortage and tenor gap needed to get renewables projects across the line – as long as they avoid troubles of their own.

The post Data centres could unblock renewables bottlenecks – if they don’t hit barriers of their own appeared first on Renew Economy.

Greater transparency between neighbours and better coordination across industry sectors are among a new set of "best practice" standards renewables developers are expected to meet in this state.

The post Farmers welcome “nation-leading” guidelines for wind, solar and batteries – but warn they are not binding appeared first on Renew Economy.

If the AEMC really thinks that we should pay for networks just like we pay for milk, then I’m hopeful that they’ve come to their senses on this fraught issue.

The post Network tariffs: Imagine if the AEMC was in charge of selling milk appeared first on Renew Economy.

In China, they deliver wind turbine blades in convoy to project sites. It must be much lower cost than in Australia, where blades are moved piece by piece, with police escorts.

The post Photo of the Day: Australia should allow wind turbine blades to be trucked in convoy appeared first on Renew Economy.

• The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it will no longer enforce a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination in federal funding. (KQED)
• President Trump loves to tear up bike lanes in Washington, D.C. because they supposedly inconvenience drivers, but he’s perfectly fine with snarling traffic for months to build a monument to himself. (Politico)
• Transit projects should be treated like any other type of infrastructure. (Next Metro)
• The cost for the Minneapolis Blue Line rose again to $3.6 billion as it nears completion. (KSTP)
• Denver could be facing a 20 percent transit budget cut. (Denver Post; paywall)
• It’s bad enough that Houston forces cyclists and pedestrians to use tunnels, but lately those tunnels have gotten flooded. (ABC 13)
• The St. Louis Metro is deploying a new integrated fare and gate system to improve fare recovery and make riders feel safer. (Metro Magazine)
• Washington state passed a law distinguishing between e-bikes and motorcycles (Government Technology) as many other cities and states struggle to do the same.
• The Urbanist says Seattle should be spending its bike-lane money faster.
• Milwaukee held its first Vision Zero summit. (On Milwaukee)
• San Francisco cyclists are fed up with Waymos blocking bike lanes. (Chronicle; paywall)
• The Trump administration might be cracking down on immigration and talking about annexing Canada, but train travel across the border from Seattle has never been easier. (KOMO)
• Barcelona may make a controversial decision to get rid of its private bikeshares in favor of expanding the public option. (Road.cc)
• Seoooooul Train: The Korean capitol is building six new urban rail lines. (Chosun Biz)

We’re well into the 21st century, but pedestrians in the United States are being killed like it’s still 1982.

According to a new analysis of nationwide traffic deaths, 7,080 pedestrians died on American roads in 2024. That number is 6 percent lower than 2022’s figure, but still a 72-percent increase since 2009, and almost the exact same number of pedestrian deaths as 42 years ago.

This staggering figure, which heralds our country’s years-long devolution in road safety, is part of the annual Dangerous by Design report released last week by the advocates at Smart Growth America and the National Complete Streets Coalition. The report uses the most recent year of federal data available, puts it in five-year windows for context, and crunches the numbers to reveal the metro areas and states with the deadliest roads per capita for pedestrians.

It’s ugly down there. New Mexico was the deadliest state in the country for pedestrians from 2020 through 2024, with a fatality rate of 4.42 pedestrians per 100,000 people.

According to the report, 57 percent of all roadway fatalities in 2024 occurred on state-owned roads, and state DOTs wield significant power in both creating (or blocking) live-saving policies. 

Despite this power, meaningful state-level progress is almost non-existent.

“Of the 20 most-deadly states, 19 showed no signs of improvement or became even more dangerous,” the report notes. “Only five states that improved in the 2024 report have continued to improve and build upon that progress in this report, and only eight states in total have improved since the last report when comparing five-year periods.”

Delaware was the most-improved state, lowering pedestrian fatalities by 0.41 percent over that five-year period, but it still remains the 10th most-deadly state in the country. 

Memphis was the deadliest metro area for pedestrians in the country in that five-year period, with a fatality rate of 5.5 pedestrians per 100,000 people, according to the report. One local news TV segment from earlier this month encapsulated the city’s problem, both with its headline (“More than a dozen Memphis pedestrians hit by cars in just over a week”) and with its anti-pedestrian framing.

“It’s more about being observed, paying attention when you’re crossing the street, not being distracted by cell phone usage or whatever the case may be,” a local sheriff tells the camera, apparently addressing a likely-to-be-struck pedestrian.

Earlier this spring, the Trump administration, citing the slight decline in pedestrian fatalities last year, declared victory: “Under President Trump and Sec. [Sean] Duffy, American roads are safer,” National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator Jonathan Morrison crowed in a press release in April — while ignoring the fact that we have returned to the Reagan era when it comes to killing pedestrians with vehicles.

Advocates want real and sustained safety improvements, not press releases.

“Our leaders are celebrating small improvements from historic deaths as some major victory, while thousands of people continue to be hit and killed while walking every year,” Beth Osborne, president and CEO of Smart Growth America, said in a written response to the NHTSA. “If we were any other country, this would be treated as a national crisis. Instead, our leaders are quick to accept these deaths as a necessary aspect of our transportation system.”

The federal government has a warped perception of traffic fatalities partly because of how NHTSA measures traffic fatalities, which is per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This odd metric, which is mostly unique to the United States, obscures the epidemic. Deaths remain high, but as Americans drive more, the death rate falls. (Another terrifying statistic: Americans drove 3.279 trillion (!) vehicle-miles in 2024, an increase of 1 percent from the year before).

The rest of the world, including Smart Growth America, measures death rates per capita — and using this metric, the U.S. continues to head in the wrong direction compared to other developed nations. In 2024, we had 11.7 traffic fatalities per 100,000 people, compared to 8.73 in the 34 “peer nations” that managed to achieve over a 10-year span of addressing traffic safety, according to the report. If the U.S. had managed that same level of improvement, the report asserts, more than 63,000 lives would have been saved between 2014 and 2024. 

Pedestrian fatalities continue to disproportionately fall along lines of class and race — American Indian and Alaskan Natives had a fatality rate of 7.9 per 100,000 people, nearly quadruple the overall rate of 2.15, according to the report. Black Americans had a rate of 3.67, Hispanic or Latino Americans were at 1.9, and whites were at 1.6. Low-income Americans are more likely to die in crashes.

Historically, traffic fatalities have decreased in the U.S. following huge pushes in national policy — like mandating seatbelts in new vehicles in 1968, or setting a national speed limit of 55 mph in 1974. But the Trump administration has little appetite for the safety measures that are being adopted in Europe — like forcing all new vehicles to be installed with GPS speed governors, or imposing higher taxes and parking fees on heavier, more dangerous trucks and SUVs. Pedestrian plazas and bike lanes are still somehow controversial, even in places like New York City.

The $1.2-trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress in 2021 also contained next to nothing to fund the kind of safety-minded, traffic-calming design changes that ultimately force drivers to slow down and pay attention. The authors of the report point out that the bill was supposed to force the US DOT to adopt a “Safe System approach” to new road projects, but that the NHTSA’s own “Safe System” dashboard seems to be, uh, broken. 

Make this safe.

There’s not much evidence to suggest that our federal lawmakers fully grasp the issue. In a letter sent to Senate Republican earlier this month, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey put “Make Transportation Safer” near the top of his list of what he and his Democratic colleagues see as priorities for this year’s surface transportation bill.

Markey correctly notes that we are in the midst of a “safety crisis,” and adds that the vehicular death rate in the U.S. is “four times higher than that in Britain or Germany.” But in the same breath, he claims that the IIJA made “important progress” in advancing safety initiatives, and that somehow, “the next surface transportation bill has the potential to move the nation meaningfully closer to zero road deaths.” (Tellingly, Markey’s first request, above safety, to these MAGA-pilled politicals, is “Protect Infrastructure Grants from Political Interference.”)

A spokesperson for the NHTSA has not responded to Streetsblog’s request for comment on the report.

Dmytro Stechenko was not just a stand-up guy, but had a personal morality that he simply did not violate. He didn’t litter. He didn’t jaywalk. He wouldn’t so much as sit in an accessible seat on a subway, even if no one was around.

So it’s the cruelest irony that the Ukraine-born cyclist was killed on the Queensboro Bridge on May 28 in a collision with the rider of an illegal scooter who reportedly made a risky passing maneuver, the victim’s best friend told Streetsblog.

Dmytro Stechenko with his cat Luni.

“It just feels super unfair that somebody who would never break the law, even a tiny one, would be killed in such a [way],” said Alex Pawlowski, the best friend of 35-year-old cyclist, reflecting on Stechenko’s way of life and connecting it to the need for Mayor Mamdani to not wait for another death to crack down on illegal high-powered electric two-wheelers and improve existing bike infrastructure.

“I want the politicians to know that we don’t have to wait for the next death to happen in order to create the impetus to change,” he said.

Pawlowski and Stechenko met 16 years ago at the National Technical University of Ukraine in Kyiv, where both men studied computer science. The two were reunited after both moved to the United States and would often ride endurance laps in Central Park, a fitness hobby the pair picked up in their 30s.

In fact, the friends were together the morning before the May 28 crash, when scooter operator Francis Delvalle, 39, crashed his illegal electric scooter into Stechenko, killing them both.

The first time Pawlowski rode on the Queensboro Bridge, in fact, was the day of his friend’s death, after a mutual friend called him about the crash. Pawlowski said he always avoided the East River bridges because he felt they were too narrow and unsafe. Now he just wants to make sure no one else has to lose a friend in the same way.

“We always know that something is unsafe, but we rationalize it [because] nothing has happened yet,” he said. “But it will eventually happen. And when it happens, it takes away somebody’s brother, husband, someone’s friend, their best friend of 16 years. It’s not like better street design is some kind of mystery. We have a lot of experience in urbanism, there are people who can help. We just have to take their advice and actually implement those changes.”

In fact, the Queensboro Bridge recently received major safety improvements. Last year, after inexplicable delays and years of advocacy about the danger, the Department of Transportation finally opened up one lane of the bridge’s so-called “South Outer Roadway” to pedestrians so that cyclists and other legal electric two-wheelers no longer had to dodge walkers on the narrow path.

But DOT’s efforts to protect roadways with evidence-based redesigns must endure a gauntlet of theatric community board meetings and navigate a broken political system that allows powerful New Yorkers and influential businesses to delay, dilute and cancel those redesigns.

Even when DOT overcomes these hurdles, however, it still takes too long to implement redesigns. Indeed, the road markings on the Queensboro Bridge have not yet been updated, creating a confusing situation for those using the bridge path.

“To be fair, the Queensboro Bridge, the markings were confusing,” said Pawlowski. “When I was riding there for the first time on that day, I was also a bit confused, because it was showing that I have to go the opposite direction that I was going.” He pointed out that while cyclists and pedestrians now each have their own lane, car drivers still enjoy seven lanes of traffic on the bridge.

Stechenko moved to New York around 2016, and was working as a software engineer at Meta when he died. Pawlowski followed him to the city in 2021. Cycling provided a way for the two to stay connected. “It was nice that he started cycling with me because it’s cool to have somebody to share your hobby with,” Pawlowski said. “Especially an old friend.”

When Pawlowski reached the crash scene on the morning of May 28, he was struck by the severe damage to his friend’s bike, especially compared to Delvalle’s illegal scooter. “This thing was not even damaged,” he said. “I was looking at the scooter and it just seemed completely pristine.” The only exception was a tiny aluminum clamp that allowed the scooter to fold in half.

By contrast, Stechenko’s carbon-fiber road bike was cracked in half. The bike was “outclassed” by the heavy scooter, Pawlowski said.

The illegal scooter and the bike in the aftermath of the crash that killed two men on the Queensboro Bridge bike path.

This type of damage may not have been possible if both men were riding street-legal devices. After the crash, Streetsblog identified the scooter as a Blade GT II by the Chinese brand Teverun. Thanks to its 4900W motor, the vehicle can reach 53 mph in under four seconds. While the city requires electric bikes to top out at 750W, the law is less clear for scooters. But the city still bans scooters that are capable of exceeding 20 mph.

It’s unclear how fast Delvalle was going, but the debris caused by the crash and the fact that both men died while wearing protective helmets clearly suggests a high-speed collision. Pawlowski blamed the sheer power and torque of the device under Delvalle’s feet.

“We live in a dopamine-fueled environment,” he said. “People are seeking dopamine from anything, just like phones, and I think that type of instant acceleration is another source that can, over time, distort your sense of risk.”

He continued: “The idea that you can overtake anything, it’s just there, this acceleration, which goes to the wattage rating of the motor. If the motor was less than 750 watts, it would not be capable of that much acceleration. But if it’s multiple kilowatts of power, it’s instant torque.”

It is currently illegal to operate this type of scooter on city streets and bike paths, but it is not illegal to buy one. That means online retailers can continue to market and sell thousands of street-illegal e-scooters and e-bikes to New Yorkers. Local brick-and-mortar stores dedicated to these illegal vehicles have popped up, too.

Pawlowski wants the city to enforce existing laws and take a clue from Europe, where many cities equip law enforcement personnel with specialized devices known as dynamometers that measure the power of electric scooters and bikes in order to determine which are legal — and which are not.

“We have to start enforcing [the regulations],” said Pawlowski. “Something like in the EU where they take the scooters and they test the top speed. Something like that needs to happen. New York is a busy city, people are rushing everywhere so probably that somewhat partially explains it, but I think it’s unreasonable to expect culture to change. That’s why we don’t live in a utopia — you have to make bad behaviors difficult to do.”

State Sen. Kristen Gonzalez (D-Long Island City) represents the neighborhood where Stechenko lived and the bridge on which he died. She told Streetsblog that she is drafting legislation to close this loophole and prevent future deaths like Stechenko’s, which she described as “devastating.”

“It’s clear we need reform around the sale of these dangerous products,” she said in a statement. “When these products are advertised it needs to be clear they are not street safe and there needs to be transparency on the risks of using them. I am actively working on legislation at the state level that would keep dangerous devices off of our streets and address enforcement at the point of sale.”

City Hall did not respond to a request for comment on Pawlowski’s call to action.

A new land access agreement between Traditional Owners of the Pilbara region and iron ore giant Fortescue will see the two parties collaborate on decarbonisation of mining operations on Country.

The post Fortescue to lease electric haul trucks as part of land deal with traditional owners appeared first on Renew Economy.

Federal and state governments back rollout of 18 community batteries on parts of the grid with particularly high rooftop solar uptake.

The post Australia’s biggest isolated grid to soak up suburban solar with 18 new community batteries appeared first on Renew Economy.

Canada’s economy has been growing very slowly for the last year, since Donald Trump launched his trade war against Canada’s exports. The side-effects of Trump’s attacks against Iran (including high oil prices and accelerating inflation) have further undermined growth in Canada.

Recent Statistics Canada data indicate that real GDP in Canada (adjusted for inflation) declined very slightly (by 0.036%) in the first quarter of 2026. Coming on the heels of a larger decline in real GDP in the final quarter of 2025, this signifies that Canada is experiencing a ‘technical recession” – traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction in real GDP.

There is no doubt that Canada’s economy faces serious headwinds, primarily the decline in exports to the U.S. and weak business capital spending (hurt by the uncertainty surrounding the trade environment and the economic outlook). As Centre for Future Work Director says in this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, whether the resulting growth is slightly above or slightly zero is not meaningful for economic policy decisions.

A technical recession is more about politics than economics By Jim Stanford

Statistics Canada recently released its quarterly report on Canadian GDP, covering the first three months of 2026. Most economists had expected a modest increase in GDP, but the final number came in slightly below zero.

Coming on top of a small decline in the last quarter of 2025, this means Canada has experienced what is commonly called a ‘technical recession’: two consecutive quarters of shrinking real GDP (adjusted for inflation).

Opposition politicians jumped on this report as evidence that Canada’s economy is being mismanaged. They were joined by Pete Hoekstra, the famously undiplomatic U.S. ambassador to Canada, who cited the data to renew his call for Canada to become the 51st state.

‘Technical recession’ is a very rough-and-ready benchmark commonly used to determine whether the economy is shrinking. One-quarter declines in real GDP often occur, without signalling serious economy-wide trouble.

The two-quarter rule is only slightly more robust. But it is still arbitrary and subjective, and doesn’t necessarily say much about what’s actually happening in the economy.

The U.S. follows a much stricter definition. A technical committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) monitors dozens of indicators, including employment, consumer spending, and business investment. Only when there is widespread evidence of significant contraction “spread across the economy and last[ing] more than a few months,” will it declare a recession.

Even as technical recessions go, this one is as ‘technical’ as they can get. Both of the quarters in question registered tiny declines in measured real GDP. And both of those declines reflected unusual statistical quirks, more than evidence of broader economic contraction.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, GDP declined solely because businesses sharply reduced excess inventories accumulated earlier in the year, after Donald Trump started his trade war. Statistics Canada accounts for inventory reductions as a charge against GDP. Excluding that $13 billion drawdown, GDP would have grown a modest 0.3 percent.

Then in the first quarter of 2026, GDP shrank because of an unusual surge in gold imports, which rose (coincidentally also by $13 billion) as industrial users and financial investors took advantage of softer gold prices. Without that temporary inflow of gold, GDP would have grown 0.5 percent.

So in neither case was the broader economy genuinely shrinking. Canada’s economy is not in recession, in any economically meaningful sense. This week’s strong labour force report, showing Canada created 88,000 jobs in May, confirms the economy is still growing, albeit too slowly.

Opposition politicians see the technical recession as great fodder for memes and sound bites. Indeed, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre talked of virtually nothing else last week. Politicians should be careful, however, about putting too much emphasis on this single, arbitrary metric.

Statistics Canada regularly revises its GDP data on the basis of new information. The decline in first-quarter GDP was so tiny (just $900 million out of a $3 trillion economy, or 0.036%) it could easily switch positive with the next revision. In fact, that decline was so small Statistics Canada’s official release stated that GDP was “unchanged” – a nuance lost in the histrionics of Question Period.

Just such a revision occurred back in the third quarter of 2023. A much larger initial decline in GDP (reported as -0.4% at the time) was later changed to a small increase. If that happens again, the whole pseudo-recession will be revised right out of existence, and these politicians will rightfully look silly.

There’s no doubt Canada’s economy is facing tough times. Donald Trump’s tariffs, now followed by his war in the Persian Gulf, are the clear culprits behind weak exports and investment uncertainty. Whether GDP growth is slightly above zero, or slightly below, is irrelevant. The critical priority is to boost spending, investment, and job-creation in all sectors (including public services) fast enough to offset that shock and enhance Canada’s economic independence.

Theatrics over whether an arbitrary line has been crossed are an unhelpful distraction from that task.

The post Political Drama Over Technical Recession Not Justified appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Neoen Australia boss calls on government to focus on quick wins with its flagship renewables program if it wants to meet its 2030 target.

The post Only shovel-ready projects should be allowed to win CIS rounds, says Australia’s leading renewables developer appeared first on Renew Economy.

At the Audubon Center at Debs Park, the start of summer brings a bittersweet milestone: our FLIGHT interns have officially “fledged the nest.”After nine months of learning, restoration work, bird...

A recurring misconception about electrifying apartments is that the building can’t support induction cooktops. But the switch is more straightforward than most expect.

The post How to ditch gas for induction cooktops without frying your apartment building’s electrics appeared first on Renew Economy.

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Willapa Bay and neighboring Grays Harbor are the most important spring stopover sites for Pacific Red Knots (Calidris canutus roselaari) in the entire Pacific Flyway (Buchanan et al. 2011). A large...

Australia's superannuation sector could be missing its chance to own the nation's green energy future, but the super industry says it's well invested.

The post Australia’s super fund giants have invested just 0.03 pct of their $2.5 trillion in renewables since 2020 appeared first on Renew Economy.

Oregon groups move to intervene in lawsuit to defend the Climate Protection Program against oil and gas industry attack Ally Harris Mon, 06/15/2026 - 3:19 pm

Support the Roadless Area Conservation Rule

In 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was adopted with massive public support to protect 58.5 million acres of roadless national forest land in 39 states. The Roadless Rule was the result of years of work and public input. The public comment period set a record with 1.6 million public comments submitted. The rule protects 58.5 million acres of national forests over 39 states from new road construction, and prohibits the logging of roadless areas in the National Forest System.

On Aug 29 2025, the USDA published a notice of intent, kicking off a 21 -day comment period which ended September 19. We generated more than 620,000 public comments for that comment period.

As we prepare for another public comment period around the release of the draft Environmental Impact Statement in Spring/Summer 2026, we’re continuing calls to action to protect the Roadless Rule to ensure the federal government and our elected officials are aware of the public’s desire to keep the rule intact.

The post Roadless Rule Defense Toolkit appeared first on Native Organizers Alliance.