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Eruptions are a regular occurrence at Anak Krakatau, a small volcano between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra. 

Storing energy as heat is a proven pathway to address the challenge solar power faces when it’s dark or cloudy outside by enabling the capture, storage and on-demand release of thermal energy.

Forests and woodlands cover millions of hectares across Australia, from tropical rainforests and temperate eucalypt forests to the vast woodlands and shrublands of the arid interior.

The same amount of rain falling on the same landscape at different times can send very different amounts of water into its rivers, according to a new study in Nature Water.

Human development may be changing more than where pollinators live — it may also be changing when they are active.

Launch of $72.5 million Heat Pump Rebate Program provides opportunity to deliver immediate economic relief for Maryland households facing massive heating cost spikes

 

BALTIMORE, MD — As Maryland residents who rely on heating oil and propane are expected to see winter heating bills spike as much as 31%, the Maryland Clean Heat Coalition today submitted comments urging the Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) to use more than $72 million in recently approved funding as part of its Heat Pump Rebate Program to target low- and moderate-income households on delivered fuels and electric resistance. The General Assembly included this funding in its fiscal year 2027 budget.

Delivered fuels such as propane and heating oil, used by roughly 10% of Maryland households, are some of the most expensive ways to heat a home in Maryland today. Thanks to the ongoing war in Iran, federal price estimates reveal heating oil prices have increased 120% since January. Residents who rely on inefficient electric resistance heating are likewise exposed to mounting energy bills due to data center demand and requests by utilities to increase profit margins. Targeting low-income residents for heat pump upgrades, who disproportionately rely on these technologies for home heating, can deliver $350 million in energy cost savings per year by 2050, according to the Sierra Club Maryland Chapter and the Center for Progressive Reform. 

“Ahead of the heating season, thousands of low- and moderate-income households across Maryland are experiencing sticker shock as they purchase delivered fuels for the winter,” said Anne Havemann, Deputy Director at Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “These households are facing the worst of the energy affordability crisis, and Maryland must work quickly to help. That’s why we are urging policymakers to ensure that $72 million in funding passed by lawmakers this past legislative session is used to upgrade households on delivered fuels and electric resistance with efficient heat pumps.”

To maximize savings, Maryland must ensure quality installations and build the pool of experienced contractors across the state. In their recommendations, advocates stressed the importance of investing in workforce development programs and streamlined processes to ensure contractor participation in the program. That includes a statewide heat pump contractor network, similar to one in Maine, where verified contractors can be matched with Maryland residents and access training resources.

“Contractors will be on the front lines of implementing Maryland’s Heat Pump Rebate Program,” said Sean Mallonee, of SM Mechanical and President of Heating and Air Conditioning Contractors of Maryland.“To ensure they are supported, policymakers must partner with manufacturers and educational institutions to provide contractors with the required technical training. The state must also create streamlined processes that ease the barriers to entry and participation for contractors while also ensuring those contractors are legitimate to protect homeowners as well.  By creating a Heat Pump Rebate Program that supports licensed contractors, Maryland will not only accelerate the adoption of heat pumps but also create good-paying jobs in the process with consumer protection in place.”

The coalition urged MEA to structure the Heat Pump Rebate Program to align with the state’s forthcoming Clean Heat Rules, a set of complementary policies that would phase in zero-emission heating equipment in Maryland households to lower energy bills and invest in healthier air statewide. MEA should also coordinate with other state and utility programs, including EmPOWER Maryland, to braid resources and offer households incentives for wrap-around services that can deliver greater savings, including energy efficiency upgrades and weatherization.

“A whole-house approach to electrification has been proven to lower energy bills, improve indoor air quality, and enhance comfort,” said Ruth Ann Norton, president and CEO of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. “That is why policies such as the Heat Pump Rebate Program must be designed to work in tandem with Maryland’s upcoming Clean Heat Rules and energy efficiency program, EmPOWER. By doing so, Maryland can comprehensively address safety, structure, and energy-inefficiency issues in a home, delivering major economic benefits and quality of life improvements for residents.”

Failing to upgrade residents on the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland with zero-emission equipment risks locking in rising energy bills and long-term pollution impacts of fossil fuel heating. Gas utilities are working to expand their networks in these regions despite having some of the highest rates in the entire state—nearly $1 per therm higher than other Maryland utilities. Households will not only lose out on greater savings achieved by heat pumps, but be saddled with the mounting costs of maintaining Maryland’s aging gas system. If Maryland fails to quickly upgrade households on delivered fuels with heat pumps, they could be locked into the polluting gas system for at least another 15 years.

“Switching Maryland households on delivered fuels to methane gas isn’t a viable solution, especially as gas prices rise,” said Bryan Dunning, senior policy analyst at Center for Progressive Reform. “Letting utilities expand the polluting gas system to more households risks hooking residents on a stranded asset. Instead, the focus should be on switching to efficient electric systems that will bear long-term energy and health savings to ratepayers.”

Additional statements from organizations can be found below:

“Nearly 42% of Maryland households reported struggling to pay their utility bill last year, indicating the extent of the state’s energy affordability crisis,” said Rev. Catherine Manhardt, climate equity team leader at the Maryland Just Power Alliance. “As families struggle to get by, there are steps that policymakers can take to provide immediate relief. That includes transitioning low- and moderate-income homes with inefficient electric resistance systems or delivered fuels to efficient electric heat pumps, which can provide thousands of dollars in savings.”

“Households relying on delivered fuels and inefficient electric resistance to heat their homes are set to face skyrocketing energy costs this winter,” said Tony Sirna, deputy policy director at Evergreen Action. “It’s why advocates are urging policymakers to design and quickly distribute $72 in funding that targets these energy-burdened households with heat pump upgrades that are proven to lower energy bills.”

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The post Maryland Clean Heat Coalition Urges Policymakers to Prioritize Upgrading Homes on Delivered Fuels with Heat Pumps  appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

Platform represents major improvement upon status quo, but communities in crisis need immediate relief through pause on data center development

 

RICHMOND, VA — Governor Abigail Spanberger released today her “Data Center Accountability Framework,” which includes a combination of executive actions and policy endorsements to protect communities and the environment from data centers. Several of the endorsed policies take notable steps to address on-site pollution, rising energy bills associated with data center infrastructure and demand, and community impacts. However, the platform does not include a pause on data center development or a ban on on-site gas generation for primary power. Communities around the Commonwealth are calling for a moratorium on data center approvals until comprehensive policy guardrails are in place to protect communities and the environment, a platform called “Pause to Protect.”

Victoria Higgins, Virginia Director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), issued the following statement:

“We appreciate that the Governor’s platform takes several major steps forward, but also that communities facing data center development are in crisis right now. We need a pause on data center approvals until water-tight environmental and community protections are on the books and being enforced. Scientists are begging policymakers to take decisive action yesterday to stop runaway climate change, while the Trump Administration moves to allow limitless pollution. We must stop the madness and issue an immediate pause on approvals until these protections – and more – are fully implemented.”

CCAN is supportive of policy proposals to ensure that data centers pay for infrastructure they incentivize the incumbent utility to build, procure their own clean energy resources, ban Non-Disclosure Agreements, eliminate by-right development, and close regulatory loopholes that allow diesel generation to escape compliance with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. While the Governor’s platform suggests strong limits on behind-the-meter, or directly-connected, gas turbines as a means of primary power for data centers, CCAN advocates for an all-out ban on such on-site gas generation. 

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Chesapeake Climate Action Network is the first grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in the Chesapeake Bay region. Founded in 2002, CCAN has been at the center of the fight for clean energy and wise climate policy in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.

The post Spanberger Data Center Platform Takes Steps Forward, But Communities Still Need “Pause to Protect” appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

(Washington—Sept. 17, 2026) — The House of Representatives this week passed three bipartisan, Audubon-supported bills that would significantly improve habitat that birds, people, and communities...

Eight left-wing books on the rise, ideas, and goals of the new far right

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Carbon removal combined with emissions reduction is the only remaining pathway to avert catastrophic levels of warming, a new report warns.

Published Sept. 2, 2026

The world has failed in its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times, the United Nations said on Wednesday, in a sober assessment that laid out a new goal for fighting climate change that would set the world on an uncertain path.

A decade ago, most of the world’s countries agreed in Paris to try to limit global temperature rise to “well below” two degrees Celsius while aiming for the more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

But Wednesday’s 141-page U.N. report warned that the world is certain to breach that mark and should focus on finding ways to limit “overshoot” and eventually bring global temperatures back down.

Despite advancements in wind and solar power, countries have continued to burn oil, gas and coal, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere where it traps heat and has raised average global temperatures by about 1.4 degrees Celsius. The damage from global warming is now felt across the planet, with intensifying heat, drought, floods, fire and other threats to humans, animals and plants.

The idea laid out in the U.N. report would be extremely difficult because it would require pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere on a colossal scale. Achieving that would potentially mean blanketing enormous parts of the world with forests or relying on novel technologies for sucking carbon out of the air that haven’t yet worked on any significant scale.

Under such a scenario, the planet would still continue to heat up for the foreseeable future, and wouldn’t return to temperatures like today’s for decades or even centuries. And some changes, like glacial melting or rising seas, would be essentially irreversible.

“This is by no means an acceptable or preferred pathway,” the U.N. said in its report Wednesday. “It is simply the best remaining option.”

But even this fallback plan would require the kind of climate ambition and major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that have long been out of reach. To add to the challenges, the Trump administration has withdrawn the United States, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, from the global fight against climate change and weakened domestic environmental policies.

Based on current climate policies among nations and trends, the planet is expected to warm 2.6 degrees Celsius, or 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century.

“So long as we fail to find political will, we will be marching past every target we put out there. That is the danger,” said Michael Mann, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the report.

Dr. Mann noted that even at current levels of warming, “dangerous and catastrophic climate change is here,” referencing last week’s deadly glacial collapse and flood in Nepal.

António Guterres, the U.N.’s secretary general, had previously acknowledged that the 1.5 Celsius mark — the most ambitious aspect of the Paris Agreement among nations to limit global warming — would inevitably be breached. The new report makes clear just how little margin there is for the overshoot plan to be feasible.

Specifically, in order for temperatures to be brought back to the 1.5-degree mark this century, global warming at its peak would have to be limited to 1.8 Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit), compared with preindustrial times. Most scientists describe that as unlikely.

Then, countries would have to ramp up an enormous program for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, a single decade of warming could take about 50 years to reverse.

Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway, said the idea of bringing down temperatures might sound as easy as “planting a billion trees” to absorb carbon dioxide. But tracts of land larger than entire American states would need to be reforested. Conflicts with agriculture could arise. Higher temperatures could hinder forest growth. And of course, wildfires could stymie progress.

“Anything at scale, you’re going to run into some sort of problem,” said Dr. Peters, who was not involved in the report.

The report says that while tech-based solutions would be needed, it noted that the current industrial capacity to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is extremely limited. The technology has long been controversial in part because the fossil fuel industry has pitched it as a way for their products to continue to be used. Over the course of the industrial age, the burning of fossil fuels has released immense amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Climate Analytics, a Berlin-based climate science and policy institute, said in a statement that the U.N. report risked “being a call to apathy,” and criticized the report for not more explicitly mentioning the need to phase out fossil fuels. Countries committed to pivot away from oil, gas and coal at an international climate summit in 2023 but carbon emissions continue to climb.

The U.N. report predicted the rise in average global temperatures would eclipse 1.5 degrees Celsius in “the next few years.” At that level of warming, “there are no good outcomes,” said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.

Already common extreme weather events, like heat waves and floods, will intensify, as will the melting of glaciers, the rising of sea levels and the bleaching of coral reefs, the report said. There is also a risk of changes in crucial global systems, like the weakening or collapse of ocean currents that carry heat northward from the tropics, the report said, with the potential to “reshape the world forever.”

Ruling finds Biden administration’s approval violated Endangered Species Act

by Hannah Meisel -September 1, 2026

A federal judge this week ordered the U.S. Forest Service to suspend a commercial logging project in southern Illinois’ Shawnee National Forest, finding the 2024 approval of the project under President Joe Biden violated the Endangered Species Act.

The agency improperly approved the project in October 2024 without waiting for a final “biological opinion” from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an East St. Louis judge ruled Monday. That opinion, which was completed six weeks after the Forest Service approved the logging project, identified the roughly 70-acre project area as home to the federally protected Indiana bat.

Environmental groups sued the Forest Service last summer, alleging the agency’s own August 2024 assessment of the area disclosed Indiana bats had been detected in the project area. The assessment, an internal, nonpublic document, concluded that even if the Forest Service implemented all legally required mitigation measures, the logging project would be “likely to adversely affect” the endangered bats.

The groups alleged the agency’s “decision memo” approving the project that fall was “written to falsely suggest that the Forest Service’s surveys detected no endangered bats in the project area” and did not mention or even cite its August 2024 assessment in the memo.

But the Forest Service argued that it hadn’t violated the Endangered Species Act because it didn’t commit any resources to the project until early 2025 — well after the Fish and Wildlife Service issued its final opinion approving the project so long as the Forest Service agreed to certain mitigation measures.

Additionally, the Forest Service maintains the other agency’s opinion contained “no new information” that wasn’t included in its own assessment and points to mitigation measures included in both agencies’ project directives. Therefore, the Forest Service argued that nothing about the project’s approval would have changed had the agency waited for the final opinion in 2024.

The Forest Service further argued that the project approval wouldn’t change in 2026 even if a court vacated the decision memo and ordered officials to take the final opinion into account before reapproving it. But U.S. District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel didn’t buy that argument.

“An agency cannot evade the jurisdiction of the federal courts merely by promising that it will not change its mind even if a court orders it to reconsider; otherwise, an agency could act as arbitrarily and capriciously as it wished and simply moot every challenge that came its way,” she wrote in her 27-page opinion. “Fortunately, this is not the law.”

Half-complete project

Indiana bats, found primarily in Midwestern states, were first identified as endangered in the mid-1960s. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, by 2019 the population had declined by half in the five decades since, and has been particularly affected by white-nose syndrome since its 2007 arrival in North America.

While the bats spend winter hibernating in caves and mines, colonies of Indiana bats typically spend the warmer months roosting in the peeling bark of large, often dead trees. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s final opinion advised against the Forest Service doing the logging project between April and October.

But the Forest Service’s project approval contained no directives on timing, and the logging company the agency contracted for the job began its work in mid-August 2025. By the time Rosenstengel issued a temporary restraining order halting the logging project eight days later, the contractor had already thinned out 40 of the 67 acres constituting the project area in rural Pope County along the Ohio River.

Though the judge dissolved her order less than two weeks later, the contractor still hasn’t returned to finish the job in the year since it left. Rosenstengel pointed out the lack of urgency to complete the project undercut the Forest Service’s arguments that vacating its project approval would result in delays that “could reduce wildlife habitat, increase soil erosion” and cause economic harm as the already cut lumber has been laying on the forest floor for a year, possibly decaying.

“In other words, all of the harms contemplated by the Forest Service when discussing vacatur are already accruing through its contractor’s inaction,” she wrote. “The Court has not prevented the Forest Service from requiring its contractor to re-initiate work, from hiring a different contractor, or from finishing the work itself.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration this summer has moved to change two federal rules that would make it easier to approve logging projects on federal land and national forests like Shawnee, in addition to oil and gas drilling and other development.

In July, the administration finalized a rule weakening the Endangered Species Act, narrowing the definition of “harm,” which has for decades been interpreted broadly to block encroachment on areas where threatened and endangered animals live. Under the new rule, wildlife habitats would be fair game for industry so long as the animals themselves aren’t injured or killed in the process.

In another rule proposed last month, the Forest Service is rolling back a 25-year-old policy blocking road construction in federally owned land, which would open the door to logging and mining activity on tens of millions of acres controlled by the government. The administration maintains the rule has prevented proper maintenance of forest land, increasing wildfire risk. But many environmental groups claim clearing more trees and building more roads would have the opposite effect.

Some areas of Shawnee, including an area near the Pope County logging project, is currently subject to the so-called “Roadless Rule.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

Thousands of Americans die every year from a chronically underreported cause: heat.
August 31, 2026
by Alejandra Borunda
Read article here

As summer heat intensifies because of human-driven climate change, the United States’ official tally of heat-related deaths does not come close to capturing the full human toll. The data feeding into nationwide death counts is collected inconsistently and rarely thoroughly.

The result is a vast undercount of the number of people who die because of heat. And experts say failing to recognize and address this may cost more people their lives.

So NPR set out to create a more comprehensive national count.

The Undercount: The invisible death toll from climate change

Here’s why an Arizona medical examiner is working to track heat-related deaths

We partnered with Boston University to find the total number of deaths influenced by heat every year in the United States. The investigation took two years and involved building a statistical model that assessed nearly every county in the country. The full analysis will soon be published in a scientific journal.

An accurate assessment of the true scope — as well as understanding who is affected, where and why — is critical for developing lifesaving solutions, says Quinn Adams, a research scientist at Boston University’s Center for Climate and Health and the lead partner in the joint NPR-BU investigation.

COMIC: How excessive heat kills and how to stay safe

Beyond the statistical assessment, NPR set out to find people whose deaths slipped through the cracks — those who might not have died if heat hadn’t pushed them beyond their breaking point — to understand exactly how heat could be missed as a factor. We will be bringing you their stories in the coming days.

But first, here are three key takeaways from our research — and why it matters.

How big is the undercount?

The scale of the undercount is significant.

The primary keeper of cause-of-death records in the U.S. is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It keeps an annual tally of heat-related deaths in the U.S., which is compiled from state reports based on whether heat is noted on individual death records.

From 2004 to 2018, the national number of heat-related deaths compiled by the CDC was low: on average, around 700 a year. The number has crept up in recent years, averaging around 1,700 but sometimes topping 2,000, as heat risks grow and counting strategies evolve.

But even that number is an underestimate, according to NPR and BU’s analysis. On average between 2018 and 2025, we estimate that some 9,000 deaths each year in the country are impacted by heat — a factor of five higher than the official average over that same period.

Some years, heat-related deaths can top 10,000.

The true figure could be even higher, says Adams, because of some limitations in the data and the conservative nature of our analysis.


The dangers from heat are growing every year because of human-caused climate change. The heat wave season has extended by a month and a half since the 1960s. In 50 of the country’s biggest cities, the number of heat waves has doubled since the 1980s. Heat domes that settle over the country regularly expose tens of millions of Americans — sometimes well over 100 million at a time — to dangerous heat.

“The frequency and the duration of these heat events has been expanding very rapidly,” says Adams. “That’s what we can expect moving forward into the next few decades: having more heat waves, and having them last longer, and having them be more intense such that people don’t get the escape from the heat that they need to physiologically reset.”

The reasons for the undercount are complex. But a crucial issue, says doctor and researcher Sameed Khatana of the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, is that heat’s role in a death is often masked by other more obvious causes of death, like a heart attack.

“Heat is what people often call the silent killer, compared to things like hurricanes and typhoons,” says Khatana.

Climate Why certain medications can increase your risk in the heat

Heat, he says, can often be the trigger that pushes someone’s health condition — like cardiovascular disease — from manageable to fatal. “The heart starts beating faster and harder,” he explains, to shunt blood to the skin to cool the body. And eventually, if someone’s heart is already weak, it may not be able “to keep up with the demand that was required of it,” he says. That can lead to something like a heart attack.

But often, Khatana says, because heat leaves no obvious mark behind for doctors or coroners to examine, the cause of death gets marked down only as a heart attack. Heat isn’t noted on the death certificate, and therefore it is not included in the tallies reported to the municipality, the state and eventually the federal recordkeepers.

Such omissions are understandable, Khatana says. But repeated thousands of times, in all parts of the country, they create a blind spot that obscures the scale of heat’s danger.

National risks — even in unexpected places

The NPR and BU investigation found that heat is killing people in nearly every corner of the country.

Our analysis finds that Florida and Texas have the most heat-related deaths overall. That is in part due to their large populations. But those states remain among the most impacted even when adjusted for their size.

But the losses are not limited to states historically considered hot.

Source: CDC’s WONDER database; ERA5-Land weather database

Our model finds that more than 100 people die from heat-related causes in Michigan every year, 10 times the official reported numbers. In Massachusetts, official records say only about 5 people die from heat each year, but our estimate suggests that number could be more than 60.

And in Florida, the difference is even more dramatic: We estimate more than 1,900 deaths each year, about 40 times as many as reported.

Heat can be particularly dangerous for people who are not already used to it. And in many parts of the country that were not historically hot, infrastructure to keep cool is less common. Nearly all homes in Alabama have some form of air conditioning, for example. But in Washington state, only 53% of homes do. In Maine, 70% do. Yet the risks of heat exist, and are growing, in those states as well as those where it is a more entrenched problem.

Counts are getting more accurate — but not everywhere

The official national counts from the CDC have trended upward in recent years, rising from an average of roughly 700 between 2004 and 2018 to about 1,700 between 2018 and 2025.

That increase is due in large part to two things: Heat is simply getting worse, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, and also there is better counting of heat-related deaths in some parts of the country.

Arizona’s Maricopa County — home to Phoenix — has developed sophisticated protocols for sussing out the subtle influences of heat on people’s deaths. Maricopa County trains “death investigators” to look for signs of heat stress, such as asking about the state of the deceased’s air conditioning system, their ability to pay electric bills to run ACs, their use of medications that increase heat sensitivity, and more.

But Maricopa County is something of an outlier. In contrast, the counties home to Los Angeles and Houston report very few heat-related deaths. Yet our model finds hundreds of people likely die in each of those counties because of heat each year.

Los Angeles recognizes the problem, says Nichole Quick, the chief science officer at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The county’s official numbers “are vast undercounts,” Quick says. “The true impact of this is higher than I think a lot of the numbers show.”

Short Wave Summers are getting hotter. Here’s how experts say to cope with it

But solving the counting problem isn’t simple. It took Maricopa County years to fine-tune its strategies for more accurately assessing heat’s impact on deaths. And many doctors who certify deaths in emergency rooms and hospitals, or for patients who die at home, don’t have protocols for confidently identifying heat impacts, says Khatana.

Until such issues are addressed, says Adams, the undercount will remain, and heat’s true toll will remain obscured — making it harder for policymakers, planners and families to understand the urgency to protect themselves.

“Most people do not see themselves as vulnerable to heat. They’re like, ‘Oh, that’s someone else. It’s not me,'” says Adams. But the data is clear: Heat can take anyone, anywhere in the country. “But then, you know, push comes to shove and it actually is you.”

NPR will be continuing this coverage in the coming days, exploring why deaths slip through the cracks and how lives can be saved.

Credits

Nick McMillan contributed to this report.

This reporting was supported by a Nova Institute for Health Media Fellowship. It was also supported by the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism.

Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, an affiliate for National Nurses United (NNU), released the following statement today in response to illegal discipline against nurses by Prime Healthcare.

New York State Nurses Association and National Nurses United announced a co-endorsement of Claire Valdez for New York’s 7th, Brad Lander for New York’s 10th, and Darializa Avila Chevalier for New York’s 13th congressional districts. Together, these three candidates represent nurses’ values of caring and compassion.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rights of Nature in Tamaqua, CELDF is sharing an interview with Cathy Miorelli and CELDF’s Education Director Ben Price as the two recall some of the events and impacts that led to the historic ordinance adoption in 2006.

The post Press Release: 20th Anniversary of Rights of Nature  appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

Fifteen miles from downtown Detroit, goldenrods, asters, and blazing stars shine in a sea of grass. Bats, butterflies and birds skim the air; foxes rustle in bluestem and Indian grass. This is Sibley...

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 18 SEPTEMBER 2026 SLF-2007-061 The Sakhalin Papers LI: The Billion-Rouble Exit Price — Novatek, Gazprom and the US$1 Billion Shell Still Could Not Simply Collect In April 2023, the Russian government put a precise price on the 27.5% Sakhalin II interest Shell had declined to take in the replacement Russian operator: 94.8 billion roubles. Novatek was approved as purchaser. Shell’s response was immediate — no money had been received and its legal rights remained intact. Eleven months later, Moscow cancelled the Novatek arrangement and substituted a Gazprom-owned company at exactly the same price. The stake changed hands. The cash did not simply pass to Shell. By 2024, the 94 billion-rouble pot had become entangled with restricted-account rules and a much larger Russian claim against Shell. The corporate exit announced in February 2022 had become a battle over who was entitled to the exit proceeds. 1. A price finally appeared

The previous instalment followed Shell out of the operating Sakhalin II project.

By April 2023, Moscow had reached the next stage.

Russian Government Order No. 890-r, dated 11 April 2023, approved the sale of the unclaimed 27.49999998621683%interest in the new Sakhalin Energy LLC for:

94.8 billion roubles

and designated Novatek Moscow Region LLC as purchaser. Interfax reported that the order had been published through Russia’s official legal-information system. (Interfax)

At the exchange rate quoted in contemporaneous Reuters reporting, that amounted to approximately US$1.16 billion. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

The precision of the Russian order is striking.

Not simply “about 27.5%.”

Not simply “approximately 95 billion roubles.”

The legal instrument identified the interest to fourteen decimal places and fixed the price at 94.8 billion roubles.

But fixing a price was not the same thing as paying Shell.

2. This was not a conventional Shell sale

The legal structure needs to remain clear.

Shell had not negotiated with Novatek and signed an ordinary share-purchase agreement transferring its original Bermuda-incorporated Sakhalin Energy shares.

Following President Vladimir Putin’s June 2022 decree, the operating rights and obligations of the old Sakhalin Energy Investment Company had been moved, under Russian law, into a newly created Russian company.

Mitsui and Mitsubishi elected to participate in that company.

Shell did not. (Interfax)

The 27.5% interest being allocated by Moscow in 2023 was therefore an unclaimed interest in the replacement Russian operator.

That distinction matters because Shell has continued to state that it retains legal rights connected with its 27.5% minus one share interest in the original Bermuda company. (BOE Report)

The Russian state was arranging disposition of the new Russian-company interest.

Shell was preserving its legal position concerning the old one.

Those were related, but not identical, propositions.

3. Novatek appeared to have won

Novatek had publicly expressed interest in acquiring the interest.

The Russian government then approved it as buyer at the 94.8 billion-rouble valuation. (Interfax)

Contemporaneous Reuters reporting described the transaction straightforwardly as Moscow approving the sale of Shell’s former 27.5% stake in Sakhalin II to Novatek. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

From outside, the sequence appeared simple:

Shell had left.

Russia had valued the interest.

Novatek would buy it.

Shell would receive compensation.

But almost immediately, Shell inserted an important qualification.

4. Shell: “No payments have been made”

On 4 May 2023, Shell Chief Financial Officer Sinead Gorman was asked about reports that the Sakhalin interest had been sold to Novatek.

Her answer was concise:

“No payments have been made and we retain our legal rights.”

Interfax recorded Gorman emphasising that Shell was aware of Russian press reports but had not received the proceeds. (Interfax)

That sentence is one of the key documentary markers in Shell’s Russian withdrawal.

Moscow had selected a purchaser.

Moscow had fixed a price.

Russian media were discussing the foreign-exchange consequences of transferring nearly 95 billion roubles.

Yet Shell said it had received nothing.

The difference between a government-approved disposition and a completed payment was already becoming apparent.

5. Russian rules contained another obstacle

The Russian mechanism did not simply say:

buyer pays 94.8 billion roubles;

Shell receives 94.8 billion roubles.

Interfax reported that foreign partners could receive proceeds only after determining and offsetting compensation for alleged damage connected with implementation of the project. (Interfax)

That qualification descended directly from the special legal machinery imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent rupture with Western companies.

In other words, the 94.8 billion roubles represented a valuation and sale price.

It did not necessarily represent an unconditional debt immediately payable to Shell.

That difference would later become crucial.

6. The money briefly became a foreign-exchange story

During April 2023, Russian reporting even linked the proposed Shell payment with movements in the rouble.

The suggestion was that conversion and repatriation of nearly 95 billion roubles could create significant demand for foreign currency.

Russian officials pushed back against exaggerated interpretations.

Interfax reported Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev pointing out that large foreign-exchange transactions connected with corporate exits were subject to restrictions imposed by the Central Bank. (Interfax)

This episode illustrates how real the expected payment appeared at the time.

Markets were discussing how Shell might convert the money.

Shell was saying it had not received it.

7. The Novatek deal then stalled

The expected transaction did not proceed to the straightforward conclusion implied by the April 2023 order.

Almost a year passed.

Then Moscow changed the buyer.

On 23 March 2024, the Russian government issued Order No. 701-r.

The Novatek order was declared invalid.

In its place, the government approved Sakhalin Project LLC as purchaser. (Interfax)

Sakhalin Project was part of the Gazprom group.

And the price?

Exactly the same:

94.8 billion roubles

There was no newly negotiated valuation.

The state changed the buyer.

The figure survived unchanged.

8. Moscow gave no public explanation for replacing Novatek

Reuters reported that the Russian government nullified the year-old decision to sell the interest to Novatek without explaining why. (Business Standard)

Interfax likewise recorded that Gazprom had replaced Novatek as purchaser and that the April 2023 order was no longer valid. (Interfax)

The archive therefore should not invent an explanation.

It is possible to speculate about commercial, political or legal reasons.

There is no need.

The documentary fact is sufficient:

Novatek was approved in April 2023.

The Novatek transaction did not move forward.

Gazprom’s vehicle replaced it in March 2024.

The 94.8 billion-rouble price remained unchanged.

Anything beyond that requires evidence.

9. Gazprom ended up controlling nearly 78%

Before the restructuring, Gazprom had held just over 50% of Sakhalin Energy.

Mitsui retained 12.5%.

Mitsubishi retained 10%.

The acquisition of the former Shell allocation took Gazprom’s effective interest in the replacement operator to approximately 77.5%. (Interfax)

The ownership transformation was therefore substantial.

Shell, which had once led development of Sakhalin II, was outside the Russian operating company.

Gazprom now exercised overwhelming control.

The Japanese partners remained.

The project itself continued producing LNG.

But Shell’s financial rights connected with the exit were still unresolved.

10. Shell again reserved its rights

When Reuters reported the Gazprom transaction in March 2024, Shell did not describe the matter as a normal completed sale from which it had received the purchase price.

Its statement was carefully worded.

Shell said it could not comment on matters relating to the Russian government decree process and added that it reserved all legal rights relating to its 27.5% minus one share interest in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. (BOE Report)

This language is significant.

Shell was not accepting the proposition that Moscow’s disposal of the replacement-company interest had extinguished every right Shell associated with its original investment.

Nor did Shell publicly acknowledge receipt of the 94.8 billion roubles.

The legal position had become layered:

Russia had transferred the project into a Russian entity.

Shell had refused to join it.

Russia had valued the unclaimed interest.

Russia had designated Novatek.

Russia had cancelled Novatek.

Russia had designated a Gazprom company.

Gazprom had acquired the interest.

Shell continued reserving its rights.

That is not a conventional divestment.

11. The dollar value changed even though the rouble figure did not

There is an instructive detail in the contemporaneous reporting.

When Novatek was approved in April 2023, Reuters valued 94.8 billion roubles at approximately US$1.16 billion. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

When the Gazprom-controlled buyer was approved in March 2024, Reuters valued the same 94.8 billion roubles at approximately US$1.02 billion. (Business Standard)

Nothing had changed in the Russian government’s nominal valuation.

The exchange rate had.

That is another reminder that even if Shell ultimately became entitled to the full rouble amount, the value of the compensation in Shell’s reporting currency was not fixed.

Time itself was changing the economics.

12. Gazprom’s accounting tells another part of the story

The Russian buyer did not subsequently account for the Sakhalin interest as though 94.8 billion roubles represented the full economic value of what it obtained.

Gazprom’s financial reporting later recognised a very large gain associated with increasing its Sakhalin II interest.

Bloomberg reported that Gazprom provisionally recognised a gain of approximately 167.4 billion roubles in the first half of 2024 after purchasing Shell’s former 27.5% allocation. (The Star)

Later reporting said that figure was revised upward.

The accounting point is important but should not be overstated.

A bargain-purchase gain does not prove that Russia deliberately cheated Shell or establish what Shell would have obtained in an unrestricted arm’s-length sale.

Accounting fair-value measurements and politically constrained exit prices are not the same thing.

What it does establish is that Gazprom itself recognised an economic value from the acquisition materially greater than the cash price it paid.

13. The 94.8 billion roubles did not disappear

By October 2024, the compensation figure reappeared in an entirely different context.

Russia’s Prosecutor General brought proceedings against eight Shell-group entities.

Interfax reported that the Russian claim was approximately comparable in scale to the 94.8 billion roubles paid for the Sakhalin interest. (Interfax)

Shell’s own SEC filing later explained the position much more precisely.

According to Shell, the Russian prosecutor seeks a declaration allowing Gazprom Export to take approximately 94 billion roubles purportedly set aside for Shell for Sakhalin equity compensation from a Type-C account, and to offset that money against part of an alleged debt owed by Shell Energy Europe to Gazprom Export. (SEC)

The money had therefore travelled conceptually through several stages:

a valuation;

a proposed Novatek acquisition;

a Gazprom acquisition;

a restricted compensation pot;

and finally a potential litigation set-off.

Shell still had not simply collected the exit price.

14. The separate Russian claim is much larger

The 94 billion-rouble fund is only one component of the current dispute.

Shell’s latest annual reporting states that the Russian prosecutor also seeks approximately:

€1.5 billion

from Shell Energy Europe Limited for alleged unpaid gas deliveries during 2022. (Shell)

The prosecutor also seeks declarations concerning what it characterises as Shell’s unlawful abandonment of support for Sakhalin Energy Investment Company.

These are allegations.

They are not findings of liability.

That distinction is particularly important because the Russian proceedings remain unresolved in Shell’s latest authenticated annual report. (Shell)

15. The Sakhalin compensation became collateral in another dispute

This is perhaps the most revealing development in the entire exit-price saga.

The 94.8 billion roubles originally looked like compensation for an asset Shell could no longer operate.

By late 2024, Russia was seeking to use approximately that same pool of money to satisfy part of an entirely different alleged obligation.

A compensation mechanism had become a litigation asset.

That is why describing the March 2024 transaction simply as:

“Gazprom bought Shell’s Sakhalin stake for US$1 billion”

is incomplete.

Gazprom did acquire the replacement-company interest for that price.

But the documentary record does not show Shell simply receiving an unrestricted US$1 billion equivalent.

Shell’s own latest disclosures say the compensation is caught inside the dispute.

16. Shell still owns shares — but not the operating project

There is another apparent paradox.

Shell’s latest reporting continues to identify its 27.5% minus one share interest in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd, the Bermuda-incorporated predecessor entity.

At the same time, Shell notes that this company purportedly no longer holds the licences, rights and obligations associated with Sakhalin II. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)

This is why phrases such as “Shell sold its Sakhalin stake to Gazprom” require qualification.

Economically, Gazprom acquired the 27.5% allocation in the new Russian operating company corresponding to Shell’s former position.

Legally, Shell continues to preserve rights connected with shares in the predecessor company.

The operating interest and the original corporate interest are no longer the same thing.

17. The project itself continued

None of this stopped Sakhalin II from producing LNG.

Interfax reported production of approximately 11.5 million tonnes of LNG in 2022. (Interfax)

Reuters later reported that production exceeded 10 million tonnes in 2023, with cargoes continuing to move principally to Asian destinations including Japan, South Korea and China. (BOE Report)

This is another important part of the story.

Shell withdrew.

The corporate vehicle changed.

Ownership changed.

The dispute over compensation persisted.

But the physical asset kept producing.

The project Shell had spent decades building did not disappear with Shell’s exit.

Its economic life continued under a different ownership structure.

18. The Japanese shareholders demonstrate the alternative path

Mitsui and Mitsubishi chose a different course.

They accepted interests in the replacement Russian company.

That decision preserved their direct participation in the operating project.

Shell chose not to.

There were obvious political, sanctions, governance and corporate-policy reasons for Shell’s withdrawal after Russia invaded Ukraine.

This archive does not suggest that remaining would necessarily have been preferable.

The comparison matters for another reason.

It shows that the subsequent compensation dispute was not an unavoidable consequence for every foreign shareholder.

It followed from Shell’s decision not to enter the replacement corporate structure and Russia’s imposed mechanism for disposing of the resulting unclaimed interest. (Interfax)

19. Was 94.8 billion roubles a fair price?

The documentary record does not permit a definitive answer.

Russia determined the valuation under a state-created mechanism after fundamentally restructuring the project.

The sale was not an unrestricted international auction.

Shell did not negotiate the transaction as seller in an ordinary commercial process.

Gazprom later recorded a substantial accounting gain from acquiring the additional interest. (The Star)

Those facts provide context.

They do not establish what an arm’s-length market price would have been.

Accordingly:

Established: Russia fixed the interest’s sale price at 94.8 billion roubles.

Established: Novatek was initially selected.

Established: Gazprom’s vehicle eventually acquired the interest at the same price.

Established: Gazprom subsequently recognised a substantial accounting gain associated with increasing its Sakhalin interest.

Not established: that 94.8 billion roubles represented fair market value.

Not established: that Shell was legally entitled to receive that full amount free of offsets or restrictions.

Not established: that Gazprom’s accounting gain measures any loss legally recoverable by Shell.

20. Shell’s latest position: uncertainty

The most recent authenticated Shell position is contained in its 2025 Annual Report and Accounts, published in March 2026.

Shell states that the Russian proceedings remain ongoing.

It says that the magnitude and timing of any possible obligations or payments cannot presently be estimated reliably.

It also describes a high degree of uncertainty surrounding the ultimate outcome and potential effects on future operations, earnings, cash flow and financial condition. (Shell)

Four and a half years after Shell announced its intention to leave Sakhalin II, that is where the documentary record stands.

Not with a clean closing statement.

Not with a confirmed payment.

But with:

an old Bermuda shareholding;

a Russian operating company Shell did not join;

a 94.8 billion-rouble acquisition price paid by a Gazprom entity;

a restricted compensation account;

and unresolved Moscow litigation.

Documentary Findings

Established: Russian Government Order No. 890-r of 11 April 2023 fixed the sale price of the unclaimed 27.5% Sakhalin Energy LLC interest at 94.8 billion roubles and selected Novatek Moscow Region LLC as purchaser. (Interfax)

Established: In May 2023, Shell CFO Sinead Gorman said Shell had received no payment and retained its legal rights. (Interfax)

Established: The Novatek transaction did not proceed as originally contemplated.

Established: Russian Government Order No. 701-r of 23 March 2024 replaced Novatek with Gazprom-controlled Sakhalin Project LLC while retaining the 94.8 billion-rouble price. (Interfax)

Established: Reuters reported the Gazprom entity’s acquisition of the 27.5% interest for approximately US$1 billion in March 2024. (Business Standard)

Established: Shell responded that it reserved all legal rights associated with its interest in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. (BOE Report)

Established: Shell’s latest annual reporting says approximately 94 billion roubles purportedly set aside for Shell’s Sakhalin equity compensation is held in a Type-C account and is now the subject of a Russian request for set-off against an alleged debt. (Shell)

Established: The same Russian proceedings seek approximately €1.5 billion from Shell Energy Europe for alleged unpaid 2022 gas deliveries. (Shell)

Alleged: The Russian prosecutor’s assertions concerning Shell’s conduct and unpaid gas obligations remain allegations in pending litigation.

Not established: that Shell has received the 94.8 billion roubles.

Not established: that Russia’s valuation represented unrestricted fair-market value.

Not established: that Shell will ultimately recover the compensation or be liable for the claims now asserted against it.

Commentary

Shell’s Sakhalin exit is a useful demonstration of the difference between leaving an asset operationally and leaving it legally.

Operationally, Shell was gone quickly.

Its directors resigned.

Its personnel were withdrawn.

Its influence disappeared.

The Russian state transferred the project into a replacement company.

But ownership rights, compensation rights, LNG-contract disputes and alleged gas-payment liabilities survived.

The 94.8 billion-rouble figure became the thread connecting all of them.

First it was an exit valuation.

Then it was Novatek’s purchase price.

Then Gazprom’s.

Then a compensation pool.

Now Russia wants to use that same pool against Shell in litigation.

A neat corporate exit never occurred.

What occurred was a transfer of control followed by years of legal aftershocks.

Source Record

The principal Russian-government action in 2023 is Order No. 890-r of 11 April 2023, approving Novatek Moscow Region LLC as purchaser of the 27.49999998621683% interest for 94.8 billion roubles. Interfax reproduced the operative terms and recorded publication through Russia’s official legal-information portal. (Interfax)

Interfax — Russian government approves Novatek purchase, 12 April 2023

Shell CFO Sinead Gorman’s May 2023 statement provides the clearest contemporaneous Shell response: no payment had been received and Shell retained its legal rights. (Interfax)

Interfax — Shell says no Sakhalin payment received, 4 May 2023

The principal 2024 Russian action is Order No. 701-r of 23 March 2024, replacing Novatek with Gazprom-controlled Sakhalin Project LLC at the same 94.8 billion-rouble price. (Interfax)

Interfax — Gazprom replaces Novatek as buyer, 25 March 2024

Reuters contemporaneously reported the Gazprom transaction and Shell’s continued reservation of legal rights. (BOE Report)

Reuters report — Gazprom acquisition of former Shell allocation

Shell’s latest authenticated position is contained in its 2025 Annual Report and Accounts and SEC reporting, which describe the continuing Moscow litigation, the approximately €1.5 billion alleged gas debt and the attempt to access approximately 94 billion roubles held for Sakhalin compensation. (Shell)

Shell Annual Report and Accounts 2025

SEC — Shell Russia contingency disclosure

Archive disclaimer: This instalment distinguishes between Shell’s original interest in the Bermuda-incorporated Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, the unclaimed interest in the replacement Russian operator, and the Russian-government mechanism used to dispose of that interest. Russian prosecutorial claims are identified as allegations and are not presented as findings of liability. No inference of unlawful expropriation, unfair valuation or legal entitlement to compensation is made beyond what the cited documents establish.

Site-wide disclaimer applies.

Next instalment The Sakhalin Papers LII: The Type-C Account — €1.5 Billion in Gas Claims, 94 Billion Roubles in Compensation and the Moscow Lawsuit Shell Cannot Yet Close

The 94.8 billion-rouble exit price did not end the Sakhalin story.

It became part of another dispute.

In October 2024, the Russian Prosecutor General sued eight Shell-group entities.

The claim reaches beyond Sakhalin ownership itself.

Russia alleges that Shell Energy Europe failed to pay approximately €1.5 billion for gas delivered in 2022.

It also seeks access to the 94 billion roubles purportedly reserved as Sakhalin equity compensation so that those funds can be applied against the alleged debt. (Shell)

Shell says the outcome remains highly uncertain.

The next file follows the litigation itself:

What is Russia alleging, how did an LNG supply dispute become tied to Shell’s Sakhalin compensation, what has happened inside the Moscow court, and why does Shell still say it cannot reliably estimate what — if anything — it may ultimately have to pay?

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 18 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 18, 2026 at 7:24 pm.
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On Friday, a coalition of 15 civil-society and press-freedom organizations demanded that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release renowned Miami-based journalist Luis Galeano. The letter’s signers include Free Press, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, PEN America, Reporters Without Borders and the Society of Professional Journalists, among others.

Read the letter.

ICE detained Galeano on Sept. 14, 2026, while he was working as a rideshare driver to support his primary role as director of the news outlet Café con Voz. Galeano came to the United States in 2018 from Nicaragua. His reporting in Nicaragua had exposed the government’s significant human-rights abuses. Later, the Ortega-Murillo regime stripped nearly 100 journalists of their Nicaraguan citizenship as a penalty for covering the government’s totalitarian tactics.

Since arriving in the United States, Galeano has conducted Spanish-language reporting for communities throughout Florida. He has a Social Security number and a work permit, with a pending asylum case filed nearly seven years ago.

“The U.S. government’s targeting and detention of Galeano are a troubling escalation of attacks on journalists and media workers, particularly immigrant journalists, who consistently provide much-needed journalism and civic information for their communities,” the letter reads. “In the case of Galeano, there are severe dangers should the U.S. government seek to ignore his asylum case and move to deport him. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) withdrew temporary protected status (TPS) for Nicaraguan immigrants starting in July 2025. That would mean any unfounded punitive actions taken against Galeano that might lead to his deportation could very well place him in dire circumstances upon return to Nicaragua, where he was a vocal leader in the press community advocating for human rights.”

Free Press Senior Counsel Nora Benavidez said:

“When the government arrests and detains a journalist and prevents them from doing their work, it sends a chilling message to other reporters and civilians considering speaking truth to power. It’s horrifying that Luis Galeano is now the latest in a long line of journalists who came to the United States to report on issues of the day and instead face deportation.

“To be clear: These cases aren’t just about cracking down on immigration. They are about cutting off community access to vital coverage and scaring reporters from holding those in power accountable. If our government can close off channels of exchange and the free flow of ideas, it is no more than a dictatorship. This coalition has joined together to urge for Luis Galeano’s release — and we will continue to advocate for press freedom as essential to our democracy and collective dignity.”

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Rights of Nature in Tamaqua, CELDF is sharing an interview with Cathy Miorelli and CELDF’s Education Director Ben Price as the two recall some of the events and impacts that led to the historic ordinance adoption in 2006.

The post 20th Anniversary of Rights of Nature appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

If you live in Alberta, you’ve likely heard about land reclamation in the oil and gas sector. Simply put, land reclamation is about returning industrial sites back to a natural state after commercial use.While oil and gas companies are legally...