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What whale are we talking about this month?

Thanks for asking. Last month we talked about Rice’s whales, one of the rarest whale species. This time I wanted to talk about the more commonly seen minke whale — in fact, that’s their official name, common minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata).

NOAA Fisheries

So … they’re common?

Yeah, kind of. No whale species are exactly common these days, but minkes have a population of around 180,000. Their extinction risk has been assessed as “least concern.”

Something tells me you’re actually kind of concerned.

Sigh…that’s true. Iceland has started whaling again, despite global anti-whaling sentiment, and could start catching minke whales this summer. (They’ve already caught a couple of fin whales for the first time in years, which is incredibly disappointing.)

Hmph. Excuse me while I go cancel my tour of Reykjavík nightclubs.

Good call. Iceland is only expected to hunt a few hundred whales this year, so it won’t pose an immediate and massive threat to these species, but — as they say — slippery slopes…

Are there other reasons — perhaps happier ones — that you wanted to talk about minkes?

Yes, absolutely. Minke whales are among the most widely distributed whales. They’re the only marine mammal species I’ve observed on both coasts of the United States, and to me that’s amazing. I’ve seen them a couple of times on trips to Monterey, California, but I used to see minke whales most often in the decade we lived in Maine.

Money was tight back then, but I always made sure to take a whale-watching trip early in the summer, before tourist season cranked up. Minke whales show up fairly frequently off the Maine coast — and many other places in the northern hemisphere and as far south as South Africa — but they’re kind of invisible in the media. No one ever seems to talk about them. I thought it was time to change that.

Cool. So hit me up with some cool minke facts.

You got it.

First up, there’s a reason I never got a good photo of a minke on those whale-watching tours: They’re fast. They’ve been clocked at 20 miles per hour or more, which makes them pretty good at avoiding predators (and shutterbugs).

You were probably just afraid of dropping your camera into the ocean.

You’re not wrong.

Anyway, their size helps keep them both fast and difficult to spot: Your average minke weighs about 20,000 pounds, which seems like a lot, but that actually makes them one of the smaller whales, with the biggest reaching lengths of about 35 feet.

But some are quite a bit smaller. There’s a group of dwarf minke whales who top out at about 26 feet and 14,000 pounds. Interestingly, dwarf minkes don’t appear to be a separate species or subspecies, just a variation.

Another interesting detail: Minkes are usually solitary whales. Although mass feedings have been documented, these animals usually swim by themselves or in groups of two or three.

So what’s the deal with their name? I don’t suppose they’re secretly related to minks or other weasels?

Like a lot of species, they’re named after a person — but in this case, I don’t think it’s much of an honor. According to NOAA, minke whales “received their common name from a Norwegian novice whaling spotter named Meincke, who supposedly mistook a minke whale for a blue whale.”

How…? Blue whales are so much bigger!

Well, they did say Meincke was a novice.

So what’s your favorite thing about minkes?

One thing I love is the variation in their vocalizations. They click, they grunt, they emit pulses and ratchets, and some of them make “boing” sounds — a noise that mystified scientists who kept hearing it underwater for 50 years until it was finally attributed to minkes in 2005.

The evidence of regional differences in their calls keeps stacking up. Some make a vocalization called “star wars,” while others make a “bio duck” quacking.

The most recent research I found described a minke whale who was emitting “pulse trains” off the coast of Florida — sounds the whale altered when they realized researchers were nearby.

Well, nobody likes eavesdroppers.

True.

Meanwhile, there’s another mystery…

I don’t like where this is going.

Yeah, me either. For the past decade, NOAA has tracked elevated minke mortalities along the Atlantic coast, stretching from Georgia up through Maine. As of this writing, they’ve documented 209 dead minkes — although numbers dropped in 2025 and only one dead whale has been found so far this year. According to the agency, “Preliminary findings in several of the whales have shown evidence of human interactions or infectious diseases. These findings are not consistent across all of the whales examined, so more research is needed.”

Despite the inconclusive causes of death, Donald Trump, RFK, Jr., and others on the extreme right wing have used some of these deaths as an excuse to attack offshore wind power, though there’s absolutely no evidence that turbine noise harms whales.

On the other hand, as we talked about last month, noise from offshore oil development — which the Trump admin keeps championing — really does harm some species, like Rice’s whales.

So what whale are we talking about next month?

We’re heading to the Arctic to uncover one of the world’s most mysterious whale species: the narwhal.

Cool! Good thing I got my passport renewed before a certain someone stamped his mugshot all over it!

Good call.

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A recent report from Altus Impact, Groundswell International, and the Association Nourrir Sans Détruire (ANSD) finds that agroecological practices produce better results for farmers in Burkina Faso. The results hold even in drought-stricken areas, with producers seeing higher crop yields and better financial outcomes.

The report, Transformational Agroecology in Burkina Faso, provides concrete data that agroecological practices in Burkina Faso are key to establishing stable farms and farmers.

Extreme rains, flooding events, severe droughts, armed conflict, and deforestation are contributing to large-scale land degradation, displacement, and food insecurity in the landlocked nation. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports that more than 2 million people were internally displaced at the end of 2024 in Burkina Faso.

“It was important for us to create this assessment now to show evidence that agroecology can not only feed the growing population thanks to its ability to significantly increase farm yield, but also augment farmers’ and their households’ revenue,” Tsuamba Bourgou, Groundswell International’s West Africa Regional Coordinator, tells Food Tank.

The authors analyzed data from over 400 small-scale farming households in eastern Burkina Faso, comparing per-hectare profitability across different farming styles. These ranged from conventional to early and advanced agroecological practices.

Farmers practicing advanced agroecology, defined as using three or more practices such as zaï (a practice that involves digging small pits to conserve water), half-moons (digging semi-circular earthen basins to collect rainwater), low tillage, no residue burning, stone contour barriers, and Farmer-Managed Natural Regeneration of trees, saw yields that were 77 percent higher than conventional farmers and nearly double those of farmers just beginning their transition.

According to the Transformational Agroecology report, 80 percent of Burkinabé depend on farming and pastoralism for their livelihoods. Yields, food security, and farmer income are critical measures of success in the report.

Advanced agroecological farmers fared dramatically better on both fronts: they held median food stocks of 300 kg, triple those of farmers still in transition, and were far less likely to have run out of food in the past year (13 percent versus 45 percent). They also carried significantly less debt, US$8 compared to US$35, and showed greater creditworthiness with rural banks and other financial institutions.

“It enables income diversification (crops, forest products, livestock) and ensures a decent standard of living,” Ali Dianou, co-author of the report and Executive Director of ANSD, tells Food Tank. “Farmers who adopt these practices have less debt and better financial solvency.” Farmers practicing advanced agroecology saw 67 percent higher net incomes than farmers using few or no agroecological practices.

Agroecology also offers environmental benefits, helping vulnerable farming communities remain on their land even in the most difficult climate conditions, potentially keeping climate displacement at bay.

The report finds that agroecological farmers witnessed soil regeneration, which improved soil health, fixed nitrogen, and reintroduced stronger root systems less prone to erosion, all of which helps retain soil moisture and creates a buffer against both drought stress and flood risks.

Groundswell International, ANSD, and Altus Impact aim to scale agroecological practices at a territorial level, using the report’s findings as a tool for advocacy and community sensitization. The report has already been shared widely among NGOs.

Looking ahead, Dianou outlined several long-term goals for his organization, ANSD, including the development of a national agroecology strategy for Burkina Faso. ANSD also aims to shift public funding away from chemical fertilizers and toward organic alternatives, while attracting private investment through blended finance and risk mitigation instruments.

They hope that this work can center the role farmers play in shaping agricultural knowledge informed by indigenous practices.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Association Nourrir Sans Détruire

The post Agroecology Pays Off: Report Highlights Major Gains for Burkina Faso Farmers appeared first on Food Tank.

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El Niño is expected to intensify in the weeks ahead, fueling more severe heat across the globe, according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization. The forecast comes as blistering heat shatters temperature records from Europe to Asia.

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When carbon dioxide (CO2) is released from a factory or power plant, the gas can be captured and permanently stored underground, preventing it from driving climate change.

This is the idea underpinning carbon capture and storage (CCS), a technology that is at the heart of many nations’ net-zero plans.

Influential organisations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), describe CCS as “critical” for cutting emissions from key sectors – and for helping to avoid dangerous global warming.

In particular, capturing CO2 is seen as one of the only viable options for decarbonising some of the world’s highest-emitting industries, such as cement production.

The UK, for example, has committed to investing as much as £21.7bn over the coming decades in its nascent CCS industry, as part of the nation’s net-zero strategy.

Yet, in the UK and elsewhere, there has been a backlash against plans for CCS.

Citing high costs, ties to the fossil-fuel industry and a “history of poor performance”, critics describe CCS as a “dangerous distraction” or a “false climate solution”. 

Time and again, the outlook for the roll-out of CCS has been scaled back, as the technology has failed to deliver as quickly as expected – and as policy support has wavered.

Furthermore, critics state that the technology remains “unproven” on the scale required to make a meaningful impact on global emissions.

In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explores the role CCS is expected to play in achieving net-zero, its record to date and the reasons it has been criticised, using the UK as an example.

• What is CCS?
• How much CCS capacity has been built so far?
• What role is CCS expected to play in reaching net-zero?
• Why is CCS controversial?
• What are the UK’s plans for scaling up CCS?

Article Contents Expand menu

• What is CCS?
• How much CCS capacity has been built so far?
• What role is CCS expected to play in reaching net-zero?
• Why is CCS controversial?
• What are the UK’s plans for scaling up CCS?

What is CCS?

CCS involves capturing CO2 emissions released from a large source, such as a gas power plant or a cement factory.

The CO2 is separated from the facility’s exhaust stream, generally using a chemical solvent, before being compressed into a liquid and transported via pipeline or vehicle. The CO2 is then stored by injecting it into underground reservoirs, such as depleted oil fields or saline aquifers.

The term “CCUS” is sometimes also used, referring to the “utilisation” of CO2 to make products, including fertilisers, fuels or building materials. Such uses do not necessarily lead to permanent emissions cuts, as the CO2 can end up later being released back into the atmosphere. 

(“CCS” is used in this Q&A, unless quoting another organisation that specifically refers to “CCUS”.)

The infographic below shows the stages of capturing CO2 and transporting it to be either stored or used in other applications.

Infographic adapted by Carbon Brief from the IEA.

Carbon capture technology was originally rolled out at US and Canadian oil wells in the early 1970s as a way to achieve “enhanced oil recovery”. This involves injecting captured CO2 into depleted wells – a process that stores CO2, but also helps to extract more oil.

This remains, by far, the most significant end use for captured CO2 worldwide, with around three-quarters of it used for this purpose. 

Moreover, most of the CO2 currently captured is a by-product of gas purification – the process by which fossil fuels such as methane are separated from other, unwanted substances. Selling this CO2 can make such gas projects more economically viable.

Therefore, as shown in the chart below, which is based on International Energy Agency (IEA) data, the majority of CO2 that is both captured and used today helps the fossil-fuel industry to extract and sell more oil and gas.

CCS was first proposed as a way to deal with CO2 emissions in a 1976 academic article, which imagined injecting the captured gas into the ocean.

It is only since the early 2000s that CCS has gained traction as a proposed climate solution, with a 2005 “special report” by the IPCC exploring the topic. At that time, the authors note there were just three small-scale projects trying to capture and permanently store CO2.

Installing CCS at factories or power plants and permanently storing the CO2 would mean that, in theory, such facilities could continue using fossil fuels without contributing to climate change. 

Such applications are often mentioned alongside two related technologies, both of which could be used to “suck” CO2 out of the atmosphere and, thus, deliver “negative emissions”.

One is bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Crops absorb CO2 as they grow and BECCS  involves a power plant burning these crops, then storing the resulting CO2. 

The other technology is direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS). 

These technologies are classed as “CO2 removal”, as they involve absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere using plants or machines and then storing it permanently.

By contrast, CCS installed at a factory is considered a way to avoid CO2 emitted by that specific facility from entering the atmosphere. This Q&A focuses on such applications, which account for the vast majority of existing and planned CCS.

First mention in the academic literature of capturing and storing CO2 for climate change mitigation. Source: Marchetti, C. (1977). How much CCS capacity has been built so far?

As of February 2026, there were a total of 75 operational CCS projects around the world. As noted above, almost all of them are at fossil-fuel extraction and processing sites, according to the IEA’s database. 

Together, these projects capture 62.5m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) each year. This is equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Ecuador.

(This compares with the 22 CCS projects, promising to capture 40MtCO2 annually, that were operational or under construction as of 2014.)

As the chart below shows, the amount of CO2 currently being captured and stored is a tiny fraction of the total emissions from fossil-fuel use.

“CO2 captured and stored” includes all projects that capture CO2 and use it for enhanced oil recovery, store it permanently underground or use it “with significant climate benefits”, according to the IEA.

In a 2020 report, the IEA explained that the “story of CCUS has largely been one of unmet expectations: its potential to mitigate climate change has been recognised for decades, but deployment has been slow”.

A wave of interest in CCS in the 2000s, largely from countries in Europe and North America, focused on enabling coal power plants to continue operating with lower emissions. 

This interest largely petered out, as plummeting renewable energy costs weakened the case for coal plants with CCS. Today, there are only seven operating CCS-coal plants worldwide – five in China, one in the US and one in Canada.

Yet the Paris Agreement in 2015 – and the national net-zero targets that followed – highlighted the need for deep emissions cuts in sectors that previously expected to continue emitting for decades. This, once again, has fuelled interest in the use of CCS.

In recent years, there has also been growing interest in producing low-carbon “blue” hydrogen from gas with CCS. 

Hydrogen is widely seen as key for decarbonising certain sectors – particularly in industry – but analyses suggest that it may be difficult to make sufficient “green” hydrogen using renewable power on the timescales required.

As the map below shows, most CCS capacity is based in the US and Canada, with other major fossil-fuel producers such as Norway, Brazil and the Gulf states also contributing.

Projects listed in the IEA CCUS database as split between two countries are divided equally between them. This includes projects that only store CO2, but it excludes projects that only transport CO2. DACCS projects are excluded.

A surge of projects have entered the global CCS pipeline in recent years. According to the IEA, 93.7MtCO2 of capture or storage capacity is under construction as of February 2026 and another 1,279.6MtCO2 is in the “planning” stages.

“Planned” projects include any initiative at early concept, feasibility or engineering study stages and the industry has a long history of projects being cancelled or delayed. 

Nevertheless, this pipeline of projects could lead to a large expansion of facilities dedicated to permanent CO2 storage that does not involve extracting more oil.

The planned projects – if they are realised – would also include significant growth in sectors where CCS is virtually non-existent, such as steel, hydrogen and cement production, as shown in the chart below.

A project is considered “under construction” by the IEA if a final investment decision has been announced and construction is on-going or imminent. A project is considered “planned” if it is at concept, feasibility or engineering study stage. What role is CCS expected to play in reaching net-zero?

It will be impossible to stop dangerous climate change unless the world reaches net-zero emissions, according to the IPCC. The amount of global warming – and whether the Paris Agreement temperature target can be met – depends on when net-zero is reached.

Many global pathways that have been set out for achieving net-zero, including a majority of the IPCC-assessed pathways where global warming is limited to 1.5C, rely on the use of CCS at fossil-fuel plants and industrial sites.

“These models have been quite instrumental in bringing CCS back onto the agenda,” Lina Lefstad, an ecological economist at Lund University, tells Carbon Brief. 

Influential organisations relying on CCS in their net-zero scenarios range from the  International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) through to the oil company Shell. The IEA has stated that net-zero would be “virtually impossible” without CCS.

These scenarios often include 10s to 100s of times more CCS capacity being built in the coming decades. The IEA includes 1.7GtCO2 being captured by 2035 in its net-zero scenario – nearly 30 times more than is captured today.

(Some of the much higher numbers in scenarios assessed by the IPCC have been dismissed by experts as implausible, especially given the slow rollout of CCS to date.)

When considering CCS for both emissions cuts and removals, Dr Jennifer Roberts, a researcher at the University of Strathclyde and deputy director at the UK Carbon Capture and Storage Research Centre (UKCCSRC), tells Carbon Brief the situation is clear:

“From an IPCC climate modelling perspective…reaching net-zero without CCS is far more expensive, disruptive and potentially out of reach.”

This does not mean that it would be impossible to reach net-zero without using CCS. However, net-zero scenarios that use little or no CCS rely on dramatic changes elsewhere, such as much lower global energy demand.

Net-zero scenarios often include a crucial role for CCS in “hard-to-abate” sectors, referring to activities that lack available, low-cost options to fully decarbonise. In particular, CCS is widely seen as vital for decarbonising parts of heavy industry. 

The IPCC sixth assessment report (AR6) summary for policymakers calls CCS a “critical mitigation option” for some sectors, including cement and chemicals. The technical summary of the AR6 Working Group III report says that “CCS will be required to mitigate remaining CO2” in industrial sectors.

The IEA describes CCS as “virtually the only technology” that can significantly cut cement emissions, which account for around 7% of the global total. (Much of this CO2 comes from chemical processes, meaning it would still be released if the industry was electrified.)

Yet, the understanding of “hard-to-abate” emissions is changing, as alternatives to CCS become cheaper and increasingly available. As a result, CCS has become a less attractive option in some sectors, as well as being seen as less vital in some others.

Carbon Brief analysis shows that the IEA has reduced its outlook for CCS in the power sector by a third, compared to its expectations in 2021, as the chart below shows. 

This reflects both slow progress in deploying CCS and rapid cost reductions in renewables, which make running gas or coal power plants less attractive.

Data comes from IEA world energy outlooks between 2021-2025.

(Even prior to this adjustment, the IEA’s net-zero scenario was already at the lower end of CCS use, compared to those assessed by the IPCC.)

This declining role for CCS in the power sector would mean its use is more concentrated in industry. 

Industrial sectors – particularly cement, steel and chemicals – account for 60% of the CO2 captured in 2050 under the IEA’s net-zero scenario, as shown in the figure below. The remaining 40% is roughly split between electricity generation and blue hydrogen production.

Climate NGOs Bellona and E3G have stressed that with “limited public funding, infrastructure constraints and political attention, prioritisation is essential” for CCS. Their “CCS ladder” places CCS in cement and lime production at the top – with the highest “climate value” – while power CCS has “low and decreasing value”.

Despite this, the focus of the CCS sector so far has not been in heavy industry, which represents less than 10% of announced capacity.

Another key consideration is the role governments are assigning to CCS in their national net-zero strategies. 

One study found that 33 of the 67 long-term net-zero strategies submitted to the UN by governments, with a further 10 indicating some potential use. 

It concluded that high-income countries that produce a lot of oil and gas, such as Canada and Norway, showed the “firmest commitment” to capturing and storing CO2.

Nations have agreed at UN climate talks to “phase down” coal power that is “unabated”. This is generally understood to mean coal power without CCS – leaving space to develop “abated” coal plants. This could allow China, for example, to continue using its sizable coal fleet with CCS to reduce emissions.

Why is CCS controversial?

Despite its role in many net-zero scenarios, CCS remains a highly contested technology. 

It has long been framed in some circles as a “false solution” to climate change, that is backed and lobbied for by fossil-fuel companies to “delay” the clean-energy transition. 

Critics argue that CCS is expensive – especially compared to increasingly cheap wind and solar power – in part because it significantly increases the energy requirements of a facility. 

A University of Oxford working paper published in 2023 concluded that a “low-CCS” pathway to net-zero emissions would cost around $1tn less a year compared to a “high-CCS” pathway. The researchers stated that “no evidence is found for technological learning or associated cost reductions” in the development of CCS to date. 

(They added that CCS is “still likely necessary” for cement and chemical production.)

Pointing to the limited progress in scaling up the technology so far, some question whether CCS can play the role envisaged in many net-zero scenarios.

Responding to the IPCC’s most recent report, for example, the Centre for International Environmental Law stated that “abated fossil fuels only exist in models”. 

Proponents of CCS contest the notion that CCS is “untested” or “unreliable”, pointing to some projects that have been operating for many years. Moreover, most of the component parts that make up a working CCS project are in wide use for other purposes.

Yet, another key criticism levelled at CCS projects is that they simply do not capture enough CO2, diminishing their role as a climate solution.

There is a widespread view that CCS projects should aim to capture at least 90% of the CO2 being emitted. UK guidelines are among those targeting a higher capture rate of 95%.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has assessed the performance of existing projects. Its 2023 analysis is shown in the chart below.

The thinktank concluded that, in reality, most existing CCS projects are far below such capture rates, meaning they continue to emit significant amounts of CO2. (Capture is the most expensive part of the CCS process.)

Based on data analysed by IEEFA from the following projects: Petra Nova and Boundary Dam coal plants, US and Canada; Terrell, Lost Cabin, Shute Creek and Century Plant gas processing facilities, US, and Gorgon, Australia; Quest, Air Liquide and Air Products hydrogen production projects, US and Canada; Great Plains Synfuel and Coffeyville gasification projects, US; Enid and PCS Nitrogen fertiliser projects, US; Bonanza Bio Energy ethanol production, US; and Emirates Steel/Al Reyadah steel project, United Arab Emirates. 

Once the CO2 is captured, it must be stored. The IPCC says there is ample global geological storage available for CO2. It also says that, as long as sites are “appropriately selected and managed”, CO2 “can be permanently isolated from the atmosphere”.

Nevertheless, critics have noted that even relatively low rates of leakage along the transportation and storage chain could have a big climate impact when deployed at scale.

The continued use of gas in gas-CCS or blue hydrogen projects also brings risks of upstream emissions more broadly, such as methane leaks. (See: What are the UK’s plans for scaling up CCS?)

Considering these factors, in 2023 Climate Analytics assessed a “high CCS pathway” from the IPCC database. It concluded that if CO2 was captured at rates seen in existing facilities – around 50% – and upstream emissions remain high, CCS use could see an extra 86GtCO2e emitted by 2050. 

The report found that even the IEA’s net-zero scenario, which relies on “more limited fossil CCS use”, could result in an additional 16GtCO2e due to “underperforming fossil CCS”.

All of this calls into question many uses of CCS, according to Andrew Reid, energy finance analyst at IEEFA: “Is there really any point in trying to decarbonise fossil fuels, which comes with significant technical, timing and additional cost risk?” Reid tells Carbon Brief:

“As for cement and chemicals, again, there are alternatives, but these are nascent and expensive. CCS may be a solution here and if investment is going to be made in any area, it most likely should be these.”

On the other hand, CCS advocates argue that gas, for example, is likely to be an important, “dispatchable” part of many electricity systems as nations transition to clean energy.

Prof Stuart Haszeldine, a CCS researcher at the University of Edinburgh, explains this position to Carbon Brief:

“If we’re going to burn gas, then we should be fitting CCS on that…Otherwise we’re just going to say it’s OK for us to burn lots of gas and carry on emitting.”

There is also a line of argument referred to – sometimes pejoratively – as “techno-optimism”, which often stresses CCS as a core climate solution. This was exemplified by a controversial report on climate action in 2025 by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), in which the former UK prime minister wrote that CCS should be “at the centre of the battle”.

This diverges from the IPCC’s conclusion that, while CCS will likely have a role in achieving net-zero emissions, its contribution will be dwarfed by that of renewables.

CCS also attracts criticism due to its connection to the fossil-fuel industry. Dr Jen Roberts at the UKCCSRC tells Carbon Brief that she agrees these links make for complicated messaging:

“CCS is critical for net-zero, but is intrinsically tied with an industry sector that is climate polluting and historically anti-climate lobbying.”

Roberts says careful policymaking, including the development of business models and standards, can support CCS in hard-to-abate sectors where it is most needed. 

Some experts suggest that governments should require companies to capture and store their emissions under the “polluter pays” principle.

Roberts also notes that fossil-fuel companies have the experience and the workforce needed to scale up CCS. “Oil and gas companies can evidence a track record in multi-million or billion-dollar subsurface engineering projects,” Roberts adds.

Despite the fossil-fuel industry’s apparent support for CCS, one 2021 study co-authored by Haszeldine noted that they had, in fact, invested relatively small amounts in the technology, compared to renewables and nature-based solutions.

Lina Lefstad at Lund University questions whether the fossil-fuel industry stands to benefit financially through the deployment of CCS as much as some critics imply:

“People seem really worried that the fossil-fuel industry is going to come out the winner again, but if that was the case I think we would have large-scale CCS by now.”

What are the UK’s plans for scaling up CCS?

The UK government has committed “up to” £21.7bn of funding over 25 years to support the nation’s first five CCS projects and to make the nation an “early leader” in the sector.

This package, supported by both the former Conservative and current Labour governments, is intended to help create “clusters” of connected facilities across industrial areas of the UK.

Some have suggested that this represents a large pot of government spending, which could be raided to support more pressing priorities. Indeed, media coverage often points to CCS funding as a potential target for government cuts, or as a way to boost, say, military spending.

This is in spite of the fact that three quarters of the funding is expected to come from levies on consumers, rather than government budgets.

The first two CCS clusters, which are currently set to be deployed in the late-2020s, are the East Coast Cluster in north-east England and HyNet in north-west England and north Wales. The second two, scheduled for around 2030, are Acorn in north-east Scotland and Viking in the Humber.

The projects are expected to include blue-hydrogen production, gas power with CCS and industrial uses. The CO2 captured would be pumped into offshore saline aquifers and depleted gas fields.

Former UK energy secretary Ed Miliband has stated that CCS will “unlock” hard-to-abate sectors and play an “important role” in achieving clean power by 2030.

This position is supported by the UK government’s climate advisors at the Climate Change Committee (CCC), who have consistently stressed that CCS is “essential” for net-zero. 

In the CCC’s most recent net-zero pathway, released as part of its seventh carbon budget advice, CCS contributes 2% of emissions cuts in 2030 and 8% in 2050, as shown in the chart below. (If CO2 removals using BECCS are included, this increases to 15% in 2050.)

The CCC maintains that it “cannot see a route to net-zero that does not include CCS”. Nevertheless, the committee has downgraded its expectations for CCS in recent years. 

Between the CCC’s sixth and seventh carbon budget advice, its recommendations for power and industry CCS capacity dropped from 46MtCO2 to 41MtCO2. 

Dr Jamie Tarlton, the committee’s CCS lead, addressed this at a conference in March 2025, stating that it was “partly because we see more opportunities for decarbonising the other sectors and reducing those residual emissions than we saw five years ago”.

More recently, the UK government also scaled back its expectations for industrial CCS in its latest carbon budget delivery plan for 2035, bringing it more in line with the CCC’s net-zero pathway. It still describes CCS as “part of the most cost-effective route to net-zero”.

The UK’s CCS plans have drawn criticism. A September 2024 letter to Miliband signed by 22 scientists and activists expressed concern about “locking the UK into a fossil-fuel based pathway”. 

They note that the gas-CCS power plants and blue hydrogen facilities initially backed by the government would leave the UK reliant on gas imports, as North Sea production declines. This could be expensive and result in “upstream” emissions due to methane leaks.

(At the end of 2025, BP withdrew its involvement in one of the blue hydrogen facilities at the Teesside site. A data centre is planned for the site instead.)

Net Zero Teesside, a gas-CCS power plant in the East Coast Cluster run by BP and Equinor, has been unsuccessfully challenged in court over its emissions savings. The challenge was based on the idea that potential upstream emissions could significantly exceed any emissions cuts from CCS use.

According to a report by Carbon Tracker, the lifecycle emissions of Net Zero Teesside gas-CCS power plant would depend heavily on where it sources its fuel.

The project could cut emissions by around three-quarters, relative to an unabated gas plant, says the report. But it adds that if the plant relies on imported gas with high upstream emissions, then it might only cut emissions by a quarter.

(Most of the upstream emissions from imported gas would be released overseas, meaning they would not be counted in the UK’s official emissions inventory.)

Besides driving “gas dependence” in the UK, the government’s approach has drawn criticism for failing to ensure that CCS is prioritised in the industries that are hardest to decarbonise.

A report by the Public Accounts Committee in early 2025 took aim at the government’s cluster-based approach. It said this “does not ensure that financial support for CCUS is directed at the sectors which will need it most” – highlighting cement production.

(Of the CO2 captured in the CCC’s net-zero pathway in 2050, around 40% is in the industrial and waste sectors, while the remaining 60% is from gas power plants and the production of fuels such as hydrogen.)

Dr Andrew Boswell, the energy analyst who challenged Net Zero Teesside in court, says he is “more nuanced” when it comes to applications of CCS that do not involve gas. “There may be a case for cement, lime and waste…However, the case is unproven,” he tells Carbon Brief.

The Public Accounts Committee report also criticised the “high-risk” approach of using public funds for CCS projects, as well as slow progress in developing the technology. 

Enrique Cornejo, head of energy policy at fossil-fuel trade body Offshore Energies UK, tells Carbon Brief that the UK needs to maintain momentum and deploy CCS in order to “achieve economies of scale” and to reduce the cost of the technology more broadly:

“It is indeed necessary to streamline the cluster sequencing process to ensure that emitters in sectors such as cement have a clear route to the CCS market.”

related Q&A: What do China’s provincial five-year plans say about climate and energy? 18.06.2026 China policy Analysis: China’s CO2 climbs 2% in early 2026 due to ‘wasted’ wind and solar 04.06.2026 Coal Q&A: What does India’s new Paris Agreement pledge mean for climate action? 27.03.2026 Emissions Analysis: India’s CO2 emissions in 2025 grew at slowest rate in two decades 26.03.2026 Emissions

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Headline News:

• “Dominion Runs Into Delay On 2.6-GW CVOW” • Dominion Energy has delayed the expected final turbine installation at the 2.6-GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project to the end of 2027. The utility blamed delays on its own jack-up vessel and weather contingencies, as well as the stop-work order issued to CVOW by the Trump administration last year. [reNews]

Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (Dominion image)

• “Ember’s Electric Coaches Show Intercity Bus Electrification Is Already Here” • Edinburgh makes electric transit visible. The city has electrified regional rail, trams, electric buses, including large battery-electric double-deckers that stand out clearly. The urban buses were always expected to be among the first to electrify, but intercity buses have taken that place. [CleanTechnica]
• “Cierco Signs Lease Agreement For Llŷr Floaters” • Cierco has signed an agreement for lease with the UK Crown Estate for its two 100-MW Llŷr floating wind projects off south-west Wales. The agreement grants Cierco the formal rights to an area around 30 km off Pembrokeshire where the two test and demonstration schemes will be deployed. [reNews]
• “Washington Wildfires Spread To Over 7,700 Acres, 600 Structures Damaged Or Destroyed” • Together, the Old Trails Fire, the Fairview Fire, and the Autumn Lane Fire are being called the Spokane Complex Fire, authorities said. They are burning over 7,700 acres with 0% containment in the Spokane area amid dangerous, windy conditions. [ABC News]
• “Eversource Books $164 Million Impairment On Revolution Wind” • Connecticut utility Eversource recorded a $164 million impairment on the 704-MW Revolution Wind offshore wind farm. CEO Joseph Nolan blamed two separate stop work orders issued by the Trump administration for the charges but said the project is on track to be finished on time. [reNews]

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

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After the US-Iran war caused energy prices to soar, ballooning Egypt’s energy import bill, the government has doubled down on plans to boost renewable energy in the country’s power mix – part of its broader plan to become a clean energy export hub for the region.

With abundant sunshine, swathes of unused desert land and plenty of wind, Egypt is seen as having the potential to become a major force in renewable power generation, helping to cut the planet-heating carbon emissions of Africa’s second-largest economy and beyond.

The conflict in the Middle East has given the government’s clean energy plans more salience, making the case for renewable power to bolster the country’s energy security and help it meet its economic development goals by exporting clean power.  

The government recently announced an accelerated timeline for renewables to reach 45% of the electricity mix within two years – up from a previous target of 42% by 2030 and a huge jump from around 13% in 2025, according to think-tank Ember. 

In June, President Abdel ​Fattah el-Sisi met with government ministers to discuss the faster delivery of solar and energy storage projects as well as upgrades to the electricity grid to deliver on the new goal, including 105 renewable energy projects intended to bolster grid stability. 

• Mar 4, 2026 Energy Gulf oil and gas crisis sparks calls for renewables investment Energy analysts and some politicians say the Iran war’s effect on oil and gas prices shows renewables are the path to energy security Read more
• May 22, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Chinese EV brands woo Yemen’s wealthy elite as war prompts solar boom For the well-off few, buying an EV is the next step in a solar revolution that has helped Yemenis weather years of power outages and high fuel prices Read more
• Jun 24, 2026 News EU, UK lead push for electrification as “powerful weapon” against fossil fuels A group of dozens of countries seeks to build momentum for a COP31 pledge to electrify 35% of global energy use by 2035 as an alternative to fossil fuels Read more

Big challenges lie ahead, among them a parallel bet on continued fossil fuel exploration and the need to upgrade electricity infrastructure, a task that could require multibillion-dollar investments, experts say.

“The technical and financial plumbing – the grid, foreign-currency financing and the supply chain – are the real gatekeepers,” Nadia Elmasry, an expert at the Regional Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, told Climate Home News.

In a speech to the nation in March, President Sisi said $50 billion worth of investment were needed to overhaul the electricity grid and transmission infrastructure. 

During the COP29 climate talks in 2024, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly warned that Egypt’s targets for renewable power expansion could be missed without more international support for critical infrastructure. 

Multimillion-euro investment

Modernising and expanding power grids has emerged as a central pillar of an intensifying global push for electrification – a key priority of the COP31 UN climate talks taking place in Türkiye in November.  

As dozens of governments led by the European Union and the UK throw their political weight behind a rapid electrification of the global economy, Egypt’s hunt for foreign investment in power infrastructure has found sympathetic ears.

In June, the EU and its European Investment Bank lending arm announced a financing package of up to €690 million ($795 million) to modernise Egypt’s transmission network – widely seen as a weak point in the nation’s clean energy ambitions. 

The project aims to help the grid absorb 22 GW of renewable capacity by 2030, reduce electricity losses and move power from wind and solar zones to consumers and, eventually, foreign markets, including the EU. 

New substations and transmission lines will connect wind and solar zones around the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez, reducing losses and preparing the network for future cross-Mediterranean trade.

Under the country’s ambitious regional plans, Egypt would supply clean power via existing interconnections with Jordan, Libya and Sudan, as well as a 3 GW link under construction with Saudi Arabia. 

Further ahead, proposals envision the export of renewable electricity to southern Europe via a subsea cable, and Egypt also aims to be a primary source of green hydrogen and ammonia for European markets.

Conflicts, cash among the challenges

Planned investment in electricity and renewables reached 136.3 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.7 billion) for the 2025/26 financial year, up from 72.6 billion pounds ($1.4 million) the year before, with public investment expected to account for about three-quarters of that.

Grid investment is “the cornerstone” of Egypt’s hub strategy, said energy and environmental economy expert Mohammed Abdel Raouf, allowing it to integrate renewables without destabilising the power system and create the smart-grid infrastructure needed to trade electricity with other countries.

But Egypt’s plans face several major challenges, besides the necessary grid upgrades, which are estimated to cost billions of dollars alone, according to a December 2025 study by the Amsterdam-based think-tank Transnational Institute. 

A man carries baskets of bread on his head through Cairo, Egypt (Photo: MM/Flickr)

Regional conflicts are disrupting supply chains and discouraging investment, particularly in renewable energy, Abdel Raouf warned. High borrowing costs, financing rules, limited EU-compliant capacity and uncertain long-term buyers of Egypt’s clean power could also slow progress, according to the Transnational Institute study.

The Arab world’s most populous country has been grappling with the aftermath of a steep currency devaluation and economic fallout from the Gaza and Iran wars.

Elmasry pointed to pressures from Egypt’s shortage of foreign currency and the need for concessional finance or guarantees to make long-term projects bankable. Egypt says it has mobilised $4 billion in concessional finance for 4.2 GW of renewable energy projects.

Regulatory coordination and workforce development will be essential, particularly as Egypt seeks to trade across grids governed by different technical and commercial rules, Elmasry added.

• Jun 24, 2026 News EU, UK lead push for electrification as “powerful weapon” against fossil fuels A group of dozens of countries seeks to build momentum for a COP31 pledge to electrify 35% of global energy use by 2035 as an alternative to fossil fuels Read more
• Jan 9, 2026 News Israel’s fossil gas power play pushes climate action to the sidelines Even as it faces international condemnation over the Gaza war, Israel is working to boost natural gas exports and offshore exploration to strengthen its strategic and regional ties Read more
• Jul 16, 2026 Comment Africa can lead the Age of Electrification The electrification agenda presents both an extraordinary opportunity for Africa and an immense challenge for the continent Read more

In order to generate an exportable surplus of clean electricity at a time of rising domestic power needs, Egypt also needs to give a bigger role to decentralised minigrid systems such as rooftop solar projects, said Cairo-based solar entrepreneur Hatem Tawfik.

“We will [only] be a hub in 2040 after we produce more than we need,” said Tawfik, co-founder and managing director of Cairo Solar, a solar engineering, procurement and construction company, calling for cheaper loans and simpler permitting and grid-connection rules. 

For Tawfik, such small-scale projects are also fundamental to the government’s goal of shoring up energy security to avert crises like that of 2023/2024, when Egypt’s falling gas output contributed to rolling blackouts during sweltering heatwaves. 

At a time of heightened geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East, this is even more urgent. 

“In the event of war, or if a country such as Israel, which supplies 40-60% of Egypt’s [imported] gas, suddenly cut off supplies [again], Egypt would be less vulnerable,” he told Climate Home News. 

A man charges his mobile phone thanks to the electric solar panels above his house at Al-Basaysa village as the country struggled with continuous power cuts in 2024 (Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany) Home-grown batteries

Storage could determine whether Egypt’s renewable power is merely abundant at midday or commercially valuable around the clock.

“Storage is what turns intermittent renewables into firm, exportable power,” said Elmasry.

In January, Norwegian developer Scatec signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company for 1.95 GW of solar and 3.9 GWh of battery storage.

Demand for more storage has also raised the prospect of Egypt developing a domestic battery industry.

Chinese company Sungrow plans to build a battery-storage-system factory in Ain Sokhna, its first in the Middle East, with annual production capacity of 10 GWh and operations scheduled to begin in April 2027. It will provide the batteries for Scatec’s energy storage project. 

Egypt has also granted licences for two battery-storage projects in Aswan and Suez worth a combined $800 million. Huawei and Egyptian company AIS have meanwhile signed an agreement to explore local production of grid-forming battery systems.

At the same time, Egypt is conducting an aerial geophysical survey in search of critical minerals across six regions, a first in about half a century. 

Still, Mohamed Gamal Kafafy, president of the World Green Economy Council, said competing directly with China would be unrealistic, suggesting Egypt should instead manufacture under Chinese licences or through joint ventures, reducing imports while building local skills.

The Ministry of Electricity did not respond to Climate Home News’ request for comment. 

Mixed messages?

The government’s climate investment programme aims to add 10 GW of renewable capacity and retire 5 GW of inefficient fossil-fuel generation by 2028, but Egypt is not turning its back on oil and gas.

President Sisi told energy companies attending the Egypt Energy Show in March to pursue a double strategy – intensifying efforts to explore and increase oil and gas production while also accelerating investment in renewable energy. The Petroleum Ministry plans to drill about 480 exploratory oil wells over five years.

Drivers refuel vehicles at a gas station in Cairo, Egypt, after the government introduced power rationing measures due to shortages of petroleum products caused by the war between the US, Israel and Iran (Photo by Sayed Hassan/Getty Images)

The risk, Tawfik said, is that a large oil or gas discovery reduces the incentive to focus on investment in renewables.

“When a major oil or gas discovery, such as the Zohr gas field, leads to overconfidence, it reduces the focus on renewable energy,” he said, noting that renewable project rollouts largely stagnated after the completion of the giant Benban solar park in 2019. 

But major developments such as the El Dabaa nuclear plant and the Abydos solar and energy-storage project demonstrate that significant work is already under way to meet Egypt’s clean energy hub ambitions, Tawfik said.

“Simply implementing the existing plans would be an excellent outcome,” he added.

Main image: The Sharm El Sheikh solar power plant in Egypt (Photo:
Hassan Allam Utilities)

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Today, government negotiators will sit down in New York for the fifth round of talks at the UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. It is the sort of conference that might make most of our eyes glaze over.

But what actually happens in these rooms for the coming week is tied closely to our lives, our health and our cost of living. The decisions being made this conference are simple yet consequential to our lives: will polluters profiting from the economic and climate crises that the rest of us are paying for be made to pay their share?  

The price we are already paying Conflicts, oil shocks and rising bills

Since the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran escalated around the Strait of Hormuz — the passage that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil trade, plus major volumes of gas and fertilizer — disruptions to shipping have pulled millions of barrels of oil a day off global markets at various points this year, and crude oil prices have spiked sharply, at times trading well above USD$100 a barrel.

This cost doesn’t stop at shipping routes. We are seeing higher oil, gas and fertilizer prices that in turn raising transport costs, food prices, and electricity bills, for everyone, everywhere. In the US alone, people have already paid nearly USD$67 billion more at the pump since the war began, working out to over USD$500 in extra fuel costs per household. In fact, over USD$700 billion is estimated to be siphoned from households and businesses to the oil and gas industry by the end of 2026 caused by these elevated prices.

Extreme weather

There is a second shock underway too. The climate crisis, fuelled by fossil fuel companies, is making extreme weather events more frequent and severe, taking an ever-growing toll on both human lives and public budgets. This summer has brought Europe’s worst start to a wildfire season on record, with over 434,000 hectares burnt by late July — more than the same point in 2025, itself the worst year on record. France is currently seeing its most devastating wildfire outbreak in half a century, with more than 300,000 people evacuated across France and Spain, and Spain is battling its largest wildfire in modern history, with firefighting costs alone estimated at up to €3.3 billion. Countries like Algeria, Türkiye and Canada too are battling deadly wildfires and around the world, we see increasingly devastating climate impacts like floods, droughts, and heatwaves, upending millions of lives. Every year, our governments are spending more and more taxpayer money picking up the pieces — on firefighting, evacuations, emergency relief, rebuilding and more.

A firefighter battling a forest fire in Saint-Jean-d’Illac, around 30km from Bordeaux, France. Source: Getty

Every fossil fuel price shock and every climate disaster acts like an unofficial second tax on us: charged once through our everyday bills, and again through the public taxes we pay.

Where our money is actually going

This money out of our pockets isn’t disappearing either. While ordinary people struggle, oil and gas majors are posting exceptional profits, not despite these price shocks, but because of them. The volatility unleashed by the US-Israel-Iran conflict has been especially good for business, with the Big ones just having announced shockingly high earnings from second quarter of 2026 (April, May and June):

• TotalEnergies, the French oil and gas giant and France’s largest company by revenue, reported USD$6 billion in profits, more than double what it made a year ago. 

On July 22nd, 350.org activists staged an action at La Défense, the Paris business district, home of TotalEnergies headquarters, denouncing the responsibility of fossil fuel giants in the climate crisis and demanding stronger taxes on their profit – Credit: Rémy El Sibaïe/350.org

• Shell, the British oil and gas major and one of the world’s largest energy companies, posted profits of  USD$9.84 billion for the second quarter, also more than double last year’s figure, and its best quarter since 2022. CEO Wael Sawan told investors the company was built to “thrive through volatility.” BP, another UK based oil company, also just announced a net profit of over USD $5.73 billion, up $2.5bn from the quarter before. 
• US Big Oil companies Exxon and Chevron have netted over a combined USD$26 billion, with it being the largest quarterly profit ever for the latter. 

That’s over USD $48 billion taken in profits by just four large oil companie while the rest of the world is left dealing with climate and energy chaos. To put this in perspective, this is more than the entire yearly national incomes of over 100 countries,

The UN Tax Convention is an opportunity to course correct

There’s something deeply unfair about this picture: the same volatility that’s draining household budgets and straining public finances is the very thing fossil fuel companies are cashing in on. This Convention is a real chance to change that by creating binding rules that shift the cost off households and onto the companies that are recording obscene profits. This genuinely multilateral forum aims to deliver a global treaty by 2027 to end corporate tax evasion and opacity, and establish fairer taxation rules. Governments could use it to make oil and gas majors pay for their role in the climate crisis, including funding lasting protection for affected populations.

This matters most for countries in the Global South, who are often sitting on fossil fuel reserves or living through the worst of the climate damage, with the least power to claim a fair share of profits made from either. It is also important for other countries, where public budgets are increasingly being eaten up to prop up fossil fuel companies or coping with climate disasters caused by the very same industry. Every dollar Big Oil avoids paying in tax is a dollar of our taxpayers money that governments have to cough up. That money has to come from somewhere, and usually it’s taken from budgets for health, education, transport, and other public services.

What should be on the table

Leaders at the UN Tax Convention need to write three things into the treaty at once through tax rules that make polluters pay: 

1. A strong, permanent tax on the profits fossil fuel companies are making right now

Research found that a 20% surtax on the profits of the world’s 100 largest oil and gas companies could have raised over $1.08 trillion since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. This money could have gone toward protecting communities from climate disasters, funding adaptation, and speeding up the transition to more stable renewables, instead of sitting with Big Oil shareholders. To see how large that number really is, compare it with what’s currently on the table for climate-hit countries. The UN’s Loss and Damage Fund, set up specifically to help vulnerable nations recover from climate disasters, had received just $817 million in pledges as of late 2025, against an estimated $580 billion a year that experts say will be needed by 2030. A single fossil-fuel surtax, in other words, could raise roughly a thousand times more than an entire climate fund has managed to attract through voluntary pledges in three years.

2. Rules that stop those same companies from shifting profits out of reach before any government can tax them at all 

A surtax on paper profits means little if those profits have already been moved somewhere they can’t be taxed. With around a third of extractive-sector profits routed to low-tax jurisdictions, closing that loophole is the difference between a tax that exists on paper and one that actually collects. Governments at the Convention must also address the the legal loopholes that let extractive firms book profits in low-tax jurisdictions before any tax is ever assessed.

3. A binding commitment that the revenue is earmarked for climate response

Raising the money means little if it simply disappears into general treasuries or gets diverted to unrelated spending. The treaty should lock in that the revenue should be directed to the communities and countries hit hardest by climate disasters, energy poverty, and fossil-fuel price shocks, and to a fast, fair shift to renewable energy. Without that earmark, governments could tax the polluters and still leave the people paying the steepest price for their pollution without dedicated support.

Our leaders cannot keep proclaiming there isn’t enough money for the clean energy transition or other public priorities while vast pools of fossil-fuel profit remain largely untouched. They must tax the exceptional profits of an industry that has known for decades that its business model was driving the climate crisis, and still chose to keep extracting, keep expanding, and keep collecting record profits from it. That means taxing Big Oil’s windfalls, closing the loopholes that let those profits disappear before they’re ever assessed, and putting the proceeds where they’re needed most: with the people and countries paying for a crisis this same industry caused.

What can you do

You don’t need a seat in the negotiating room to have a stake in what happens there. If oil and gas companies keep profiting from every disruption while ordinary households absorb the cost, it’s because a set of rules enables them to do so. But these rules can change.

The week’s convention isn’t an opportunity worth letting pass. Big Oil’s Q2 profits have given us concrete numbers to hold up next to what governments could be collecting instead, right as the room decides whether to write that possibility into the treaty text.

That’s the leverage we actually have here. We are calling on Ramy Mohamed Youssef, Chair of the negotiations, and every government at the table, to write a permanent, unavoidable surtax on fossil fuel companies’ global profits into the Convention, and to spend that revenue on climate protection and affordable clean energy for the people who need it the most. 

Make polluters pay! 

ADD YOUR VOICE

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A pioneering California law meant to sharply limit use of the familiar “chasing arrows” recycling symbol has been blocked by a federal judge who said it probably violates the First Amendment.

In a preliminary injunction issued last month, U.S. District Judge William Hayes halted enforcement of SB 343 after food, packaging and retail groups sued, finding that key provisions were “unconstitutionally vague” and likely infringed protected commercial speech. Enforcement of the law, passed in 2021, was expected to start this fall.

The decision is a blow to environmental advocates, who had hoped to remove the familiar symbol from a huge array of plastic products, in line with a statewide study showing that only a fraction are widely collected and actually recycled. SB 343 said only goods and packaging accepted by recycling programs serving at least 60 percent of Californians and then actually sorted for recycling — not collected and thrown away —  could bear the chasing arrows.

Hayes’ constitutional reasoning surprised supporters of SB 343 because similar arguments against environmental marketing regulations have historically struggled in court.

“The First Amendment protects free expression, not a corporation’s right to commit consumer fraud,” said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for the nonprofit Californians Against Waste. “We see this exact playbook every time the plastics industry is asked to stop misleading the public — they suddenly hide behind the Constitution.”

In his decision, Hayes applied a standard four-part test to determine whether SB 343 would unduly restrict companies’ speech rights. The law passed the first two tests handily, as it regulates “potentially misleading” speech and was intended to serve California’s legitimate interests in reducing consumer confusion and improving recycling rates.

The next tests are where the law ran into trouble. Hayes, siding with the industry trade groups, argued that the legislation would not advance those “legitimate interests.” Rather than encouraging companies to redesign their products and packaging to comply with California’s real-world recyclability criteria, he said the law would prompt them to remove the recycling symbol altogether. Products recycled at a rate below the 60 percent threshold that the law requires would no longer make it into recycling bins, which could in theory leave more of them bound for the landfill.

Hayes said a less stringent regulation could have better advanced California’s goals. For instance, the state could have passed a law requiring more descriptive qualifiers alongside the recycling symbol. He offered a hypothetical example of a label explaining that an item is “accepted by recyclers in the greater Los Angeles area but nowhere else in California.” Such a label would provide consumers with more and better information, he argued, but would not be allowed under SB 343.

Heidi Sanborn, executive director of the nonprofit National Stewardship Action Council, said the judge’s reasoning reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of the problems facing California recycling systems. People are throwing too much stuff into their blue bins, she said. In addition to not actually being recyclable, much of this refuse — including plastic bags and other plastic films — can gum up sorting machines, causing operational delays and creating safety risks.

“People are wish-cycling, they’re so desperate to recycle,” Sanborn told Grist. “We have to pull all this [contamination] out, which is very labor-intensive, and then everybody wants to know why their bills go up.” 

Read Next How the recycling symbol lost its meaning Kate Yoder

Industry groups welcomed the injunction, saying it would prevent California from “censoring truthful information on packaging.”

Scott Hochberg, general counsel and litigation director for the nonprofit Earth Island Institute, said he’s seen free speech challenges to environmental rules many times before. Big polluters have frequently invoked the First Amendment to oppose regulations that require them to disclose information — like their greenhouse gas emissions — or tone down statements about their sustainability.

“What’s relatively new and concerning is when these arguments succeed and states are blocked from implementing common-sense initiatives to protect their residents,” he said.

A lawsuit Hochberg’s organization is pursuing against Coca-Cola illustrates the same debate. It alleges the company presents itself as a “sustainable and environmentally friendly company” despite its outsize contribution to plastic pollution. Coca-Cola argued that statements about its sustainability efforts — including plastics recycling — were protected political speech rather than commercial advertising. A federal judge rejected that argument in 2024.

The companies that sued California didn’t make that same distinction; their suit is more like one filed in 1992 that sought to block a California law restricting the use of terms like “biodegradable,” “ozone-friendly,” and “recyclable.” A judge upheld the law, ruling that it would not stifle free speech because corporations could still use a restricted word or phrase as long as they included qualifiers explaining how, where, or under what conditions it applied.

The injunction against SB 343 leaves California with few easy options. Hayes’ ruling suggests the state faces a difficult road if the case proceeds to trial. Lawmakers could amend the law to address some of the judge’s concerns, though that may be unlikely given the politics surrounding the issue. California could also appeal the injunction, but the lower court would still have to decide the case on its merits.

Earth Island Institute and Californians Against Waste announced on July 27 that they are joining California as defendants. Hochberg said he hoped to provide the court with more information “about how the recycling system actually works.” Losing the lawsuit will make it harder for other states to pursue similar labeling regulations, he said. 

It could also jeopardize California’s nation-leading extended producer responsibility law, which shifts responsibility for collecting, recycling, and reducing plastic packaging from taxpayers and local governments to the companies that produce it. It relies on the same definition of recycling and is currently being challenged by a separate lawsuit.

Whatever happens next, Sanborn said she’s ready to work with industry to come up with other solutions — including legislation to clarify labeling rules at the national level. “We can and should work together to solve this,” she said. “But you should not have the right to lie to people.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Is the recycling symbol free speech? A judge just ruled it could be. on Aug 3, 2026.

People killed defending nature in Lebanon Channel News brendan 3rd August 2026 Teaser Media

With great growth comes great responsibility … to give residents better transit alternatives.

That was the message coming from Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt in his recent 2026 State of the City Address introducing a proposed sales tax to fund the region’s vision for transit expansion.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt

He wants to avoid the mistakes of peer cities like Austin and Nashville that have grown precipitously in recent decades without accommodating additional travel capacity, resulting in hellish levels of congestion. 

He also knows that highway expansion isn’t an acceptable long-term solution. 

“The metro has pretty much reached the point of saturation with highways,” said Holt. “New highways or adding significantly more lanes is just not feasible for most of our existing system. Adding lanes is not the panacea you may think it is.” He then showed the crowd a photo of a jam-packed 12-lane Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. 

Instead of that carmaggedon, Holt is pitching a transit improvement sales tax aimed at giving residents alternatives to the car-based transportation planning that dominates the U.S. 

“We can learn from their mistakes. The time to make a commitment is now,” he added. “That commitment must give us the resources we need to strengthen our existing system of city streets for those who remain in cars, and it must provide public transit alternatives that take some cars off the road and, at the very least, give each of us a choice.”

Oklahoma City has been able to facilitate growth in large part because of its Metropolitan Area Projects initiatives. The first iteration coming in 1993, the one-cent sales tax has funded numerous capital improvement projects aimed at transforming the city’s infrastructure and strengthen cultural amenities.

Past uses of that tax funded what is now the Oklahoma City Thunder’s arena, the revitalization of the historic Bricktown district, the OKC Streetcar, and bus rapid transit projects that are currently in the works. 

Three-quarters of the proposed transit tax would go to bus and rail infrastructure and improvements, with the remaining quarter going to maintenance of existing infrastructure. 

Oklahoma leaders knew that growth would necessitate building for the future. That’s why, in 2019, they formed the state’s first regional transit authority that would oversee this expansion, now known as ONE Transit. 

The agency is comprised of Oklahoma City and its two most prominent suburbs, Norman and Edmond. All three of the cities have experiencede remarkable growth in the past 20 years. The population of Oklahoma City, for example, increased by 17.4 percent between 2010 and 2020 and is on track to increase another 11.4 percent by 2030.

That’s on track for a population of more than 750,000, plus another 130,000 in Norman and 100,000 in Edmond — which are both growing.

The backbone of ONE Transit’s transit expansion plan for the region includes commuter rail that will connect all three cities with key stopping points along the way. The line would be created along an existing BNSF rail corridor. 

This rendering was partly made with AI, according to ONE Transit.

The hope is that the commuter rail line will enable those in the suburbs to feed into Oklahoma City’s more robust transit options in the downtown area, which already includes the improving bus network and the OKC Streetcar.

Future plans also include more robust bus rapid transit lines, including a western route, a route to Will Rogers International Airport to the southwest, and a route to Tinker Air Force Base to the east. A light rail line to the airport would be the final piece of the plan.

ONE Transit understands the value that transit can provide for a local economy, citing an APTA study that shows a five-to-one economic return produced by long-term investment in public transit.

“Collectively, this plan will preserve our quality of life by alleviating traffic congestion, it will preserve the mobility necessary to keep our economy strong and growing, and it will spur commercial development, among other benefits,” Holt said in his address, aligning with ONE Transit’s vision.

There are signs of a growing appetite for transit alternatives in the area. The OKC streetcar recently announced that its free fare pilot program was being extended until Aug. 20 due to increased ridership. The program kicked off in January of this year and brought 37 percent more ridership between January and April versus the same period last year.

The city’s first and only bus rapid transit line also saw a record month this year, with over 60,000 rides in May. 

Levels of support for the tax remain uncertain. Hope in the region certainly took a hit when riders learned that Oklahoma lawmakers failed to include 2027 funding for the Amtrak Heartland Flyer, the line between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth.

The measure is sure to meet a challenge in car-oriented and fiscally conservative Oklahoma, but there is hope that residents will see past success with Metropolitan Area Projects in boosting the health of the city. Holt is calling on Oklahomans to rise to the occasion.

“The resources we have today are not sufficient to meet the challenges of growth,” he said. “Meeting this new transportation challenge is going to require a new commitment from each of us.”

The proposed sales tax would need approval from Oklahoma City, Norman, and Edmond and then could be put up for a vote in 2027.

• Under the BUILD America 250 Act, House Republicans’ transportation budget bill replacing the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, funding for transit would plunge by 23 percent, adjusted for inflation. That includes a loss of $2 billion for California and New York alone. The share of funding for highways would grow from 63 percent to 70 percent, according to the Urban Institute. (Governing).
• Cities like New York, Paris, Berlin and London that invested in bike infrastructure during the pandemic and didn’t stop are now reaping the benefits. (Momentum)
• As the war with Iran rages on, driving up gas prices, oil companies are raking in massive profits. (Associated Press)
• Too much overlapping bureaucracy is delaying American infrastructure projects. (Government Tech)
• Automated traffic enforcement cameras make streets safer, but Flock surveillance is giving them a bad name. (Streetsblog USA)
• After a driver killed a Boston transportation official while she was riding her bike, Mayor Michelle Wu, who largely abandoned her pro-bike stance during the recent mayoral campaign, has flip-flopped back to bikes. (WBUR)
• Widening Houston’s Katy Freeway to 26 lanes only made traffic worse — proof of induced demand. (Space Daily)
• Atlanta’s transit system performed well during the World Cup, but will MARTA build on that success or fall back into complacency? (AJC)
• The Ballard light rail line in Seattle is not dead and could be built by 2042. (My Northwest)
• Las Vegas is installing its first protected bike lane. (LV Sports Biz)
• Kansas City set speed and age limits for e-bikes and e-scooters. (KCUR)
• Building sidewalks is a good thing, but in Milwaukee the construction is temporarily forcing vulnerable pedestrians and people with disabilities into the street. (TMJ 4)
• Costco parking lots are a war zone. (USA Today)

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In our latest, we talk with journalist and author Jasper Craven (@Jasper_Craven) about his new book, “God Forgives, Brothers Don’t,” discussing the history of military education and toxic masculinity, the…

NNU castigated the Israeli government for destroying or badly damaging almost all of Gaza’s medicine warehouses as part of its ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people and in flagrant violation of a United Nations resolution prohibiting the targeting of medical facilities and medical workers during armed conflict.

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 26, 2026 thru Sat, August 1, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category:

Climate Change Impacts (7 articles)

• State of the climate: Rapidly developing El Niño raises chance of record-warm 2026 Chances of a record setting 2026 El Niño rapidly increase, taking us closer to an important warming threshold. Carbon Brief, Zeke Hausfather, Jul 24, 2026.
• Why is Germany building roads for yesterday's climate? As the Autobahn buckles under heat waves, Germany is still paving roads for a past climate. Engineers know how to fix that — so what's the holdup? DW, Tim Schauenberg, Jul 28, 2026.
• Summer of Heat, Fires and Storms Is a Reckoning for Europe on Climate Europe is experiencing some of its biggest fires and highest temperatures ever; residents are fleeing, leaders are struggling to respond and “it will get worse,” one climate expert said. NYT, Mark Landler and Chico Harlan, Jul 29, 2026.
• `The heat took him from me`: India`s death toll rises amid escalating heat crisis As extreme heat claims the lives of workers in India’s poorest areas, many fear the true mortality rate is being dangerously undercounted. The Guardian, Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Aakash Hassan, Jul 29, 2026.
• 4 things to know about cyclospora and climate change A fragile food system, uneven public health messaging, and global warming are all working to supercharge the parasite’s spread. Grist, Frida Garza, Jul 30, 2026.
• `Was this heatwave caused by climate change?` - we`re asking the wrong question The question is not whether climate change caused the heatwave, but how much hotter and more dangerous heatwaves have become because greenhouse gases, primarily from burning fossil fuels, have accumulated in the atmosphere. The Conversation, Prof. Haley J. Fowler & Prof. Ed Hawkins, Jul 31, 2026.
• Everything on fire DrGilbz on Youtube, Ella Gilbert, July 31, 2026.

Climate Science and Research (6 articles)

• Human-driven climate change largely responsible for last 50 years of worsening fire weather in Western North America, new study shows Just as detectives can find literal fingerprints at a crime scene, scientists can detect human and natural ‘fingerprints’ in climate and meteorological data like temperature, precipitation, and relative humidity— all factors that can influence fire behavior. Science Feedback, Science Feedback team, May 8, 2025.
• How do scientists know if climate change made a heat wave, extreme storm or wildfire worse? When a devastating heat wave, hurricane, flood or wildfire strikes, people often want to know: How much did human-caused climate change influence this event, if at all? The Conversation, Kevin T. Smiley, Deepti Singh, Jennifer Marlon, Jim Hurrell, Jul 24, 2026.
• Low-Level Cloud Loss Amplifies Global Warming A new study adds weight to concerns over the positive feedback effects of clouds on global warming. CalTech, Katie Neith, Jul 24, 2026.
• Canopy-mediated climate feedbacks in the boreal continuous permafrost zone A vast amount of carbon locked up in permafrost is protected by a thin and increasingly threatened layer of vegetation. Nature Climate Change, M. Langer, Jul 27, 2026.
• Rising CO2 Alters Upper Atmosphere Response to Stratosphere Sudden Warming A whole-atmosphere model simulation shows that rising CO2 changes how the upper atmosphere and ionosphere respond to a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), with implications for future space weather.? Eos, Huixin Liu, Jul 29, 2026.
• Why Hansen may end up being right about 2026 Whether 2026 sets a new record is increasingly likely to be a split decision between different groups The Climate Brink, Zeke Hausfather, Jul 30, 2026.

Climate Policy and Politics (3 articles)

• American Nero: Why Trump is trying to burn down the National Academy of Sciences The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Benjamin Santer, July 26, 2026.
• Trump administration eyes massive coal reserves under federal lands Despite vast contrary scientific evidence, the US executive branch sees vast reserves of coal as a resource desirable to burn. Inside Climate News, Lisa Sorg, Jul 27, 2026.
• Do small climate habits help or hurt the bigger cause? Researchers tracked nearly 2,800 people's habits, protests, and policy views to test whether small green acts help or hurt the bigger fight. Neither, it turns out. Anthropocene, Sarah DeWeerdt, Jul 28, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Solutions (3 articles)

•  2026 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #30 A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 19, 2026 thru Sat, July 25, 2026. Skeptical Science, Bärbel Winkler & Doug Bostrom, July 26, 2026.
• Fact brief - Do solar plants require backup from fossil fuels? Solar plants require backup, but it doesn’t have to be from fossil fuels. Skeptical Science, Sue Bin Park, Jul 28, 2026.
• The influencer teaching millions to fear solar Alexandra Fasulo says she’s protecting farms and wildlife. How much of her rhetoric is actually true? HEATED, Alex Hannaford, Jul 30, 2026.

Miscellaneous (2 articles)

• `I can`t work in the farce of climate change cruise tourism anymore`: why Antarctic guides quit their dream jobs 'You’d see massive glacier calvings, and you’d just want to cry. But all the guests would be cheering. And you’d be like … ‘can you not put two and two together?’'' The Conversation, Zdenka Sokolickova, Christy Hehir, Elizabeth Cooper, Jul 21, 2026.
• Scientists decry Trump`s `blame game` after he claims Canada `poisoning` US air Trump told Mark Carney ‘you got to stop these fires from coming in’ as experts say wildfires symptom of climate crisis The Guardian, Oliver Milman, Jul 24, 2026.

Public Misunderstandings about Climate Science (2 articles)

• Factcheck: No, Europe`s heatwaves are not being `caused` by declining air pollution Scientists tell Carbon Brief that the framing of heatwaves being “caused” by declining air pollution is “wrong”. Carbon Brief, Robert McSweeney, Jul 24, 2026.
• Hot days, cold thermometers A graph popular with climate change deniers is desconstructed by Zeke Hausfather, exposing its economy of truth. Skeptical Science, Zeke Hausfather, Jul 27, 2026.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation (2 articles)

• Can we alter ocean chemistry to absorb carbon? Here are the pros and cons Procrastination on arresting fossil fuels leads to extreme measures; here are pros and cons of "ocean alkalinity enhancement" and pitfalls in public perceptions this technology will encounter should it require deployment. The Conversation, Harris Anderson, Andrew Lenton, Mathieu Mongin, Jul 23, 2026.
• U.S. Raises Threat of Steep Water Cuts in Lower Colorado River Basin A federal plan would impose drastic water cuts on Arizona, California and Nevada in dry years over the next decade. A legal battle could follow. NYT, Scott Dance, Jul 31, 2026.

Climate Education and Communication (1 article)

• Wildfires: why media coverage doesn`t always make the climate connection Exploring how contradictory press coverage can sit on the same front page tells us a lot about how climate change is narrated in the UK, and why climate reporting differs so much from country to country. The Conversation, Doug Specht,, Jul 28, 2026.

Climate Law and Justice (1 article)

• Shell`s hidden climate knowledge under scrutiny as court battle looms As the company faces a landmark climate lawsuit, confidential documents show how British scientist James Lovelock warned executives of the risks of burning fossil fuels in the 1960s. DeSmog, Rebecca John, Jul 30, 2026.

Health Aspects of Climate Change (1 article)

• Trump Administration Is Undoing Plans to Boost Workplace Heat Protections The Biden administration took steps to shield workers from extreme temperatures. The Trump administration is taking a gentler approach with employers. NYT, Scott Dance, Aug 01, 2026.

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

EWG statement on Senate Republican farm bill proposal Anthony Lacey August 2, 2026

WASHINGTON – The Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by John Boozman (R-Ark.), on July 31 released an updated farm bill proposal. 

The following is a statement from the Environmental Working Group’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Scott Faber:

No one should support a farm bill that fails to support family farmers, feed hungry children, support farmers adopting regenerative practices or build healthy diets.

The farm bill released Friday night by Sen. Boozman fails on all four accounts by failing to close loopholes that tilt the playing field against small farms, by failing to restore the cuts to SNAP that have left more than 1 million children without anti-hunger assistance and by failing to reverse a $2 billion cut to popular farm stewardship programs. 

We need farm and food policies that support healthy diets, the people who feed us, the hungry and our environment, not a farm bill for the 1%. 

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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action. Visit www.ewg.org for more information.

Areas of Focus Farming & Agriculture Conservation Food & Farm Workers Farm Subsidies Press Contact Alex Formuzis alex@ewg.org (202) 667-6982 August 2, 2026