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Shell, previously known as Forthdeal Limited, subsequently as Royal Dutch Shell plc, and now hiding in plain sight as Shell plc after ditching the disgraced Royal Dutch moniker, has reportedly marched back into the legal arena in Australia, this time demanding more money in the long-running brawl over who should pay for the Northern Endeavour clean-up — the offshore decommissioning saga that has become a cautionary tale for anyone who thought selling ageing oil assets made the liabilities magically disappear.

According to Upstream, Shell has “upped the ante” in a decommissioning legal wrangle centred on the Northern Endeavour floating production, storage and offloading vessel, with the dispute involving former partners Woodside Energy and Paladin Resources. The article, by Amanda Battersby, was published on 8 June 2026 and frames the fight around costs tied to the Northern Endeavour FPSO.

The public record makes the story look even messier. Shell has reportedly launched a fresh claim of more than A$83 million in the Western Australian Supreme Court against Woodside and Paladin. That comes after an earlier claim of about A$86.6 million over levy payments linked to the same clean-up nightmare. Add interest, legal costs and future exposure, and this is no longer just a tidy invoice dispute. This is a fossil-fuel family argument with a taxpayer-funded ghost ship floating in the background.

The Northern Endeavour is not some minor bit of scrap with delusions of grandeur. It was a 274-metre FPSO formerly moored between the Laminaria and Corallina oil fields in the Timor Sea, about 550 kilometres northwest of Darwin. The Australian Government says there are nine oil wells on the seabed associated with the fields. After the former private owner collapsed, the Commonwealth took control of the facility and moved to decommission, disconnect, dispose of the FPSO and remediate the fields.

That is where the real fun begins — if your idea of fun is corporate archaeology performed with court documents and a very expensive shovel.

The basic argument, as reported publicly, is that Shell says it sold its interests in the Laminaria-Corallina assets to Woodside and Paladin back in 2005 under agreements that allegedly shifted environmental, abandonment, reclamation, remediation and restoration liabilities to the buyers. Shell says, in effect: we sold, you assumed, now reimburse us.

Woodside and Paladin, unsurprisingly, have not responded by throwing rose petals at Shell’s feet and reaching for the cheque book. The earlier reporting says both disputed responsibility. Hence the courtroom theatre.

The reason this matters beyond the three corporate names is that Northern Endeavour has become one of Australia’s defining offshore decommissioning fiascos. The Commonwealth created the Offshore Petroleum (Laminaria and Corallina Decommissioning Cost Recovery Levy), known as the OP Levy, to recover the costs of decommissioning and remediation from offshore petroleum production licence holders. The official line is simple: the public should not be left paying for these activities.

Which sounds sensible — until the industry starts arguing about which corporate pocket the bill should land in.

The Northern Endeavour story has all the ingredients of a classic late-life oil asset drama: ageing infrastructure, changing ownership, regulatory reform, collapsing operators, decommissioning complexity and a clean-up bill that appears allergic to staying small. The result is a legal wrangle where Shell, having paid levy assessments, is trying to pass the cost back to former counterparties under old sale agreements.

For the public, the bigger question remains brutally straightforward: how many times can oil companies sell, transfer, restructure and contract around liabilities before somebody is finally made to clean up the mess?

Because decommissioning is not a footnote. It is not an optional extra. It is the back-end cost of extracting hydrocarbons from the sea and leaving heavy industrial hardware behind. The Northern Endeavour case shows what happens when the end-of-life chapter is treated like tomorrow’s problem — until tomorrow arrives with lawyers, regulators and an invoice.

Shell’s position appears to be that the contracts say one thing. Woodside and Paladin appear to disagree. The court will have to decide what those old agreements actually mean, and whether Shell can claw back the money it says should never have been its burden.

But whatever the legal outcome, the optics are spectacularly grim for the industry. The public sees an old oil vessel. The government sees a decommissioning project. The regulator sees a hard lesson. The companies see a liability allocation dispute. And everyone else sees a familiar fossil-fuel magic trick: profits in the good years, legal footnotes in the bad ones.

The Northern Endeavour may be headed for dismantling, but the argument around it is very much still afloat.

SPOOF PR/SPIN SECTION: “A PROUD MOMENT IN RESPONSIBLE INVOICE REDIRECTION”

In a bold display of corporate sustainability, Shell today reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring that decommissioning costs are handled by whichever historical contract clause looks most persuasive under courtroom lighting.

A fictional Shell spokesperson, speaking from behind a tasteful wall of compliance language, said:

“Shell has always believed in responsible decommissioning, responsible partnerships and responsible reimbursement. We are proud to play our part in the energy transition by transitioning invoices to the entities we believe are contractually responsible for them.”

The spokesperson added that Shell’s legal action should not be viewed as a dispute, but as “a collaborative multi-party alignment process concerning legacy fiscal responsibility allocation.”

Woodside, in this entirely spoofed PR universe, responded:

“We remain committed to best-practice stakeholder engagement, which is why we are engaging with Shell through the traditional stakeholder engagement mechanism known as litigation.”

Paladin, meanwhile, was imagined standing quietly in the corner, clutching a 2005 agreement and whispering: “Please define ‘all’.”

The Australian taxpayer was unavailable for comment, having stepped outside to scream into the Timor Sea.

SPOOF BOT-REACTION / COMMENT SECTION

DecomBot3000:
“Asset sold. Liability detected. Historical contract clause activated. Commencing blame-allocation protocol.”

OffshoreRiskEnjoyer:
“So the oil came out in the easy years and the invoices came back in the courtroom years. Classic reservoir management.”

LegalEagleButMakeItOily:
“This is why lawyers keep both hard hats and microscopes.”

Taxpayer_404:
“I was told the levy means the public won’t pay. Lovely. Now please explain why I can still smell burning public money.”

FPSO_FanAccount:
“Northern Endeavour has had more plot twists than a streaming drama and somehow worse production values.”

CorporateSpinDetector:
“When three companies argue over who pays to clean up the old oil kit, the only guaranteed winner is the legal profession.”

TimorSeaTea:
“Imagine being 274 metres long, decommissioned, removed, and still causing boardrooms to sweat.”

ContractClauseGoblin:
“Somewhere in a 2005 sale agreement, one sentence is having the best week of its life.”

GreenwashGPT:
“Decommissioning is just circular economy, but with more subpoenas.”

Final bot verdict:
Northern Endeavour: physically leaving the field. Legally? Still moored.

SHELL UPS THE ANTE IN OZ DECOMMISSIONING LEGAL WRANGLE: THE NORTHERN ENDEAVOUR CLEAN-UP BILL THAT JUST WON’T DIE was first posted on June 8, 2026 at 9:58 am.
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The company with the biggest stake in the Wressle oil field has agreed a £1m loan from the site operator, Egdon Resources.

Wressle oil field in North Lincolnshire. Photo: Egdon Resources

Union Jack Oil announced in a statement to investors this morning the loan would provide it with “additional working capital for general purposes”.

The statement said the loan was secured against Union Jack’s 40% stake in the Wressle licences, PEDL180 and PEDL182, in North Lincolnshire.

Union Jack has previously reported that it was debt free. At the time of writing, shares in the company had fallen 2.78%.

The Wressle well produced an average of 119 barrels of oil per day for Union Jack during 2025, according to annual accounts published last month. The average oil price at the time was US$68.2 per barrel.

Loan terms

Under the loan terms, Union Jack must pay 60% of its free cash flow generated from Wressle each month. This will first be applied to unpaid interest and then to reduce the loan principal.

If free cash flow from Wressle was insufficient, interest for that month would be capitalised and added to the loan balance.

The loan must be repaid in full after 24 months. The interest rate is 5% per year.

Restrictions

The agreement also requires Union Jack to support Egdon’s role as the Wressle operator. Union Jack cannot “vote or act to remove or replace the lender as operator (except in cases of gross misconduct”.

If Union Jack wants to sell its interest in the Wressle licences, Egdon now has the right of first refusal before any third parties are approached. This will last for 12 months after the repayment date.

As the midterm elections approach, something strange has happened: Democratic politicians who once talked about climate change as the defining crisis of our time now barely mention it at all. The phrase has begun disappearing from their speeches, social media posts, and podcast appearances. The main exception is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who has given some version of his “Time to Wake Up” speech on the dangers of climate change more than 300 times over the past decade and a half. He’s accused “climate hushers” of pushing the party to stop talking about the overheating planet.

If you had to pinpoint the moment that “climate hushing” began, the 2024 presidential election would be the obvious contender. After President Donald Trump beat former Vice President Kamala Harris in all seven swing states, Democrats were left scrambling to figure out where they went wrong. One popular theory was that they were too busy harping on social justice and planetary problems at the expense of everyday concerns voters cared more about, like the rising cost of living. Whitehouse, however, sees global warming as a piece of that conversation, rather than a distraction from it.

“Climate change is right now raising costs for families across the country through higher property insurance premiums, grocery and electric bills, and health care expenses,” Whitehouse said in a statement to Grist.

The idea that talking about climate change is a liability for Democrats has become conventional wisdom. Last year, the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued the advice “Don’t say climate change.” A recent op-ed in The New York Times concluded, “When it comes to climate change, for now, it might be better to say nothing at all.” An early draft of the Democratic National Committee’s autopsy report of the 2024 election, released under pressure in May, posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy “created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses.”

“It’s very zeitgeisty to assume right now that it’s really important not to talk about climate, or that Democrats have paid a political cost for talking about climate,” said Matto Mildenberger, a professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But there’s no hard evidence that discussing climate change hurts Democrats in elections, Mildenberger and other experts told Grist. If anything, it rewards candidates with a modest boost among voters, studies and surveys show. 

The basis for thinking that Democrats should avoid the subject comes from polls asking voters about their top priorities: Climate change ranks number 24 out of 25 when Americans are asked which issues will be very important to their vote, according to data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. That’s mainly because other concerns have risen in importance, with liberal Democrats more concerned about things like protecting democracy, government corruption, and the treatment of immigrants than before the 2024 election. It’s a logical leap, however, to assume that talking about climate change is a political liability simply because voters don’t name it as one of their top issues.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse speaks during a Senate Committee on Finance confirmation hearing in 2025. Andrew Harnik / Getty Images

Some commentators argue that you can achieve climate action just by getting Democrats elected, regardless of whether they’re bringing it up. But deemphasizing climate change as part of their political platform could have long-term consequences: Without real discussion of it, you lose momentum for action and send a signal that it’s not important. “You actually need to have conversation and attention to an issue to slowly build the coalition and policy work necessary to address it,” Mildenberger said.

In effect, Democrats are ceding rhetorical ground to their opponents, he argues, even as polling shows that Trump’s agenda — blocking the construction of wind farms, scrubbing public information about global warming from government websites, and pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement — is broadly unpopular. “All of this is, frankly, doing the service of the fossil fuel industry, ultimately, because it’s helping climate delay,” Mildenberger said.  

Whitehouse has argued that Democrats are “poll-chasing,” parroting what voters say they want to hear with bland, backward-looking messages. “Many Americans don’t believe Democrats are fighters,” Whitehouse said. “The best way to shed that label is to actually step into the arena and fight. Our climate messaging has long been terrible, but it would be malpractice to shy away from a fight with Central Casting villains (the fossil fuel industry climate denial fraud and dark money corruption operations) with such high stakes for the economic well-being of American families.” As people in the U.S. struggle with rising costs and surging gas prices, oil giants are raking in billions from the Iran war, a dissonance that Democrats could tap into.

Matt Burgess, an economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to find common ground on the environment, agrees with the broader sentiment that Democrats alienated voters on cultural issues and lost sight of concerns around affordability, and that progressive messaging about climate change was a piece of that. But he said it’s wrong to assume that climate change is a losing issue. “There are lots of different lines of evidence that suggest that climate change as an issue overall helps the Democrats and hurts Republicans,” Burgess said. A study he co-authored in 2024 found that in a hypothetical world in which climate change hadn’t been an issue in the 2020 election, Republicans could have gained somewhere around a 3-percent swing in the popular vote, enough to hand the White House to Trump instead of Joe Biden.

“If you have any issue that moves the needle a little bit in your favor in a super-close election, it can make the difference between winning and losing,” Burgess said.

Exit polling suggests there’s little reason to believe that climate change was a problem for Democrats in 2024, as opposed to other issues playing a larger role. Swing voters considered “U.S. efforts to fight climate change” a reason to support Harris over Trump by 21 points, according to a survey of 5,000 voters from Navigator Research just before and after the election. Trump won by large margins on inflation, the economy, and immigration — concerns that were top-of-mind for voters. “The very simple version is, Trump winning those voters won the election,” said Bryan Bennett, who runs the independent consulting practice Loft Beck strategies, advising Democrats and progressives, and who directed the post-election survey in his previous role at Navigator. 

Harris, in other words, didn’t lose because she mentioned climate change a few times, or even because Democrats passed climate policies under the Biden administration. Federal investments in infrastructure and manufacturing projects were, on a county level, linked to a very small improvement in the vote share for Harris, an analysis from the Center for American Progress found. If anything, the problem was that voters didn’t know enough about the federal government’s involvement to give the administration credit.

Read Next The planet is overheating. Why is the news looking away? Kate Yoder

Even if climate change is not an electoral problem for Democrats, they might have other reasons for staying quiet about it. The media ecosystem now is fractured, with many people getting their news from TikTok, YouTube, and podcasts as opposed to traditional news sources, meaning that it’s harder than ever for politicians to make their preferred narrative heard, Bennett said. In recent years, the Democratic Party has gotten more serious about “message discipline,” the practice of sticking with a central message, to try to cut through the noise.

“So much of the oxygen in the room is taken up by, ‘How do Democrats deal with, and how do progressives deal with, talking about the economy in a way that really meets voters where they are?’” Bennett said. “And I think that inherently detracts from basically every other issue, regardless of whether it’s a good thing to talk about or not.”

The Democratic politicians who are still mentioning climate change have tended to do so indirectly, arguing that clean energy is “cheap energy” and tying it to rising electricity bills. Polling suggests that voters have an appetite for more: Last fall, 41 percent of those surveyed by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said they wanted political candidates to talk about efforts to reduce global warming more often, almost double the number who wanted to hear about it less. The trend of climate-hushing could stem from a misperception: Studies show that politicians and the public at large tend to vastly underestimate Americans’ appetite for taking action on climate change, from carbon taxes to expanding renewable energy. 

“We have this tension where, I think, empirically, talking about climate change provides a net benefit. It’s a very small net benefit, but it is a net benefit,” Mildenberger said. “But we have a discourse that somehow says that it’s this massive cost.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Why are so many Democrats going quiet on climate change? on Jun 8, 2026.

As the U.S. faces an aging farmer population, communities are looking for ways to shore up the next generation of growers. But high upfront costs, access to land, and a shifting climate can make entry into the field feel out of reach for many people looking to get into the business.

Tucked on farmland at the southern edge of Traverse City, Michigan, one program wants to solve some of these problems by letting aspiring farmers learn by doing.

The Great Lakes Incubator Farm attracts students from all over the country. Over the course of seven months, a three-student cohort learns about topics like pest management, how to drive a tractor, and what to include in a farm business plan.

“Nobody gets into farming for sane reasons, other than the sanity of knowing where your food comes from and just general health,” said Rachel Greenberg, a 33-year-old student farmer from Indianapolis. “The challenges are pretty never-ending.”

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Farm bankruptcies were up 46 percent last year, according to a National Farm Bureau report. As land prices have risen due to demand from developers, more than 50,000 acres of farmland have been lost in the last two decades, research has found.

Despite the headwinds, the student farmers said they’re driven by wanting to know where their food comes from, to contribute to local communities, and to teach others to do the same.

The farm training program — a project of the Grand Traverse Conservation District — has fewer economic pressures than running a farm business, Greenberg said. The fruits and vegetables that students grow will go to local residents who have already committed to buying the season’s produce, and leftovers will be donated to food-rescue operations. Unlike a traditional business, the goal isn’t to make a profit.

“The whole incubator idea is something you see a lot in the world of entrepreneurship, and it’s beautiful that somebody saw that and was like, ‘Why don’t we just do that with farming?’” Greenberg said.

Troy Saruna, 28, said at a time when climate change is driving more severe weather, he wants to better understand his impact on the natural world. Saruna worked in conservation around the country prior to the program and has no farming experience.

The training program focuses on teaching regenerative agriculture, a method of farming that focuses on soil health and reduces the amount of heat-trapping gases released into the atmosphere.

Student farmer Shanaya Holmes of Alabama poses by a row of spinach at the Great Lakes Incubator Farm in northern Michigan.
Vivian La / IPR News

“Our food systems are just so inextricably tied to the health of the planet,” Saruna said. “I’m just really interested in striking up a new balance where I can understand, interpret, and just develop some new instincts in terms of feeding myself and having thriving communities that also support wildlife.”

Farmers with some experience also find the program helpful to more deeply develop their skills. Shanaya Holmes, 49, runs a small 4-acre farm in Alabama.

She’s looking to learn how to grow food in a different climate than the South and to improve her record-keeping — tracking what’s been planted, what soil was used, or how much money was spent on equipment.

“It’s a challenge to switch that button off to come inside and do bookwork, bookwork, bookwork when you’re so used to outside, outside, outside,” she said.

Read Next The USDA canceled $300M in farm grants, citing fraud. Did it make up the evidence? Ayurella Horn-Muller

Adam Brown, the farm’s manager and instructor, said the farmer training program is meant to be a stepping stone.

“It’s really built for anybody who can then filter out and work anywhere in the food system, either manage a farm, start their own business, or any rung of that ladder where people can just help out in the food system,” Brown said.

Brown, whose background is in ecology, wouldn’t have pursued farming himself if it wasn’t for a similar training program he did 15 years ago on the West Coast. 

“I can pay it forward, my lessons, and all the wisdom that I learned throughout my years of farming, and be a mentor to these other people, and I feel like it’s super important,” he said.

The training program, now in its second year, is one of the only of its kind in northern Michigan, according to data from Michigan State University. Around the country, there are roughly 100 similar programs, according to a group at Tufts University that coordinates a national network of training farms, though no comprehensive list exists.

The Great Lakes Incubator Farm relies mostly on a nearly $700,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture aimed at supporting beginner farmers. That grant ends after the harvest season in October. Brown plans to reapply for USDA funding again this year but said he’s looking for backup options because of how competitive the grant program is.

In 2025, the USDA canceled $148 million in grants — including some in the beginner farmer program — to comply with President Donald Trump’s early executive orders targeting climate action, environmental justice, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Adam Brown sits on a tractor at the Great Lakes Incubator Farm. Vivian La / IPR News

Brown said that besides the USDA grant, there aren’t many large pools of money available that support efforts to train the next generation of farmers. (The Great Lakes Incubator Farm is also supported by some state grants.)

Lack of consistent funding is a big reason there aren’t more of these training programs, said Jon LaPorte, a farm business management educator for Michigan State University Extension, which put together a beginner farmer’s guide in partnership with the USDA last year.

“It’s almost like a double-edged sword that they’re trying to help people get started, but then they’ve got the same struggles of staying sustainable themselves,” he said.

That means even as the share of young people in farming grows, programs to support them might be harder to come by, LaPorte said. In Michigan, farmers under the age of 45 increased by about 20 percent between 2017 and 2022, according to the USDA’s census. Sustaining that growth will be a challenge, he said.

“Because of those hurdles, they don’t all stay in, and what we want to see is more of those people being able to stay in, having more farms, more diversity of farms,” LaPorte said. “More people involved in agriculture at that level is really, really important.”

Brown, the farm manager, said students in his training program learn that the growing season doesn’t always go smoothly — and challenges, like frost damage on plants, are just part of the job.

“This is a great space for failure too, right? Because there’s not a whole lot of risk here,” he said. “It’s a perfect, experimental type of atmosphere.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Becoming a farmer is hard. This Michigan program wants to help. on Jun 8, 2026.

The largest intact ecosystem in the lower 48 states is being sold off because Americans were trained to see it as wasteland.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies will need to be deployed at rates even faster than those seen for solar power, if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100, says a new report.

The war in the Middle East has exposed the costs of fossil fuel dependence, but the path to renewable energy looks very different across regions.

*Read the full position paper with detailed analysis and demands for all key negotiating topics here*

Climate Justice in an Age of Genocide, Militarism and Climate Breakdown

SB64 (the 64th meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, from June 8-18 in Bonn, Germany) convenes at a moment when the contradictions shaping the international climate regime have become impossible to ignore. Across the world, communities are confronting escalating climate impacts alongside deepening militarisation, debt crises, economic instability, shrinking civic space, rising authoritarianism and the continued concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small number of states, corporations and financial actors. The climate crisis is unfolding not in isolation, but resulting from a global political order structured by histories and ongoing acts of colonisation, imperialism, racial capitalism, patriarchy, extractivism and the continued sacrifice of peoples and ecosystems in the pursuit of profit for a few.

DCJ joins social justice movements around the world standing in solidarity with the peoples currently resisting the imperial attacks by the nexus of the U.S.-Israel and its allies across the world, especially Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Haití, Cuba, Venezuela, Nigeria, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others. We stand in solidarity with peoples across the world who have been on the receiving end of imperial wars, invasions, attacks to their sovereignty and their right to self-determination. We condemn the subjection of civilians to warfare for territory, natural resources, or religious conflict anywhere and everywhere. We stand in strong opposition to the perpetuation of human and environmental suffering across the world.  We commit to a solidarity not based in words but in actions. There cannot be emancipation and liberation with ongoing imperial and colonial capitalism, which must be our first priority to dismantle.

This context matters because climate negotiations are not politically neutral spaces. They are shaped by the same global inequalities that produced the crisis. The countries and corporations most responsible for climate breakdown continue to hold disproportionate power over the terms of climate action, while the peoples and communities most affected continue to fight for their rights and justice. Every major issue on the agenda for SB64, from climate finance, adaptation, loss and damage to just transition, fossil fuel phase-out, mitigation and false solutions, reflects a broader struggle over rights, responsibility, redistribution and the future of multilateralism.

The ongoing genocide in Palestine, carried out by Israel with the military, political and economic backing of the United States and its allies, has laid bare the brutality and hypocrisy of the present international order. The destruction of Palestinian life, land, food systems, water infrastructure, energy systems, homes, hospitals, schools and places of worship is not only a humanitarian catastrophe. It is also a profound indictment of an international system that claims to uphold human rights, international law and multilateral cooperation while enabling impunity for occupation, apartheid and genocide. For climate justice movements, this moment demands political clarity: there can be no climate justice while genocide is normalised, while occupation is greenwashed, and while systems of militarism and fossil capitalism continue to destroy both peoples and ecosystems.

The relationship between militarism and climate breakdown is not incidental. Fossil fuels remain central to modern military power, geopolitical conflicts and domination, and global economic control. Military operations depend on oil, gas and petrochemical supply chains; fossil fuel revenues and infrastructure shape conflicts and geopolitical alliances; and the military-industrial complex absorbs vast public resources that could otherwise be directed towards climate finance, adaptation, public services and just transition. At the same time, war and occupation destroy the very systems that communities need to survive climate impacts: land, water, food, healthcare, housing, energy and social infrastructure.

This is why the climate crisis must be understood as part of a broader crisis of power imbalance. The same global system that drives emissions also drives war, displacement, debt, extraction and ecological destruction. It is a system that allows fossil fuel corporations to profit while communities lose homes and livelihoods; that allows governments to expand military budgets while claiming there is no money for climate finance; that allows financial institutions to enforce austerity while climate-vulnerable countries are forced to borrow to recover from disasters they did not cause.

The Global South continues to bear the brunt of this injustice. Countries and communities that contributed least to the climate crisis are facing the most severe impacts while being denied the resources necessary to respond. Many developing countries are trapped in cycles of debt servicing, austerity and extractive dependency that restrict their ability to invest in adaptation, public services, food sovereignty, energy transformation and resilient development. International financial institutions, unequal trade rules, intellectual property barriers and investor protections continue to constrain the policy space required for a just transition. In this context, calls for ambition that do not address finance, debt, technology and historical responsibility will become new forms of burden-shifting.

COP30 in Belém created important openings, but it did not resolve these contradictions. The establishment of the Just Transition Mechanism represented a significant victory for developing countries, workers, Indigenous Peoples, feminist movements, youth, frontline communities and climate justice organisations. It reflected years of organising to ensure that transition is not reduced to market-led technological substitution but understood as a question of justice, rights, livelihoods and systems transformation. The roadmap process on transitioning away from fossil fuels also opened a political space to confront the root cause of the climate crisis. Progress on adaptation and related implementation processes created additional possibilities for advancing rights-based and people-centred climate action.

Yet COP30 also demonstrated the continued resistance of developed countries to fulfilling their obligations. Finance remained inadequate. Article 9.1 continued to be contested and diluted. Adaptation and loss and damage remained underfunded. Fossil fuel interests and false solutions continued to shape climate action. Carbon markets, offsets, carbon capture, financialised nature schemes and other mechanisms continued to be promoted as substitutes for real emissions reductions, public finance and system change. The outcomes of Belém therefore created both opportunities and risks. SB64 is where many of these political battles now move from recognition to operationalisation.

This distinction is critical. The fight after Belém is no longer only about whether Parties acknowledge the need for climate finance, just transition, adaptation, loss and damage or fossil fuel phase-out. It is about how those commitments are interpreted, governed, financed and implemented. History shows that implementation is often where justice is diluted. Commitments secured through struggle can be narrowed through technical processes, weakened through procedural delays, captured by corporate interests or redirected towards market mechanisms. SB64 must therefore be approached as a political battleground over the future direction of climate action.

For DCJ, the demands ahead of SB64 are rooted in a clear understanding of climate justice. Developed countries must fulfil their obligations under Article 9.1 and provide public, grant-based, predictable and adequate finance to developing countries. Adaptation and loss and damage must be financed as matters of rights and reparative justice. The Just Transition Mechanism must be operationalised in ways that support systemic transformation across energy, food, care, labour, public services, critical minerals and development pathways. The transition away from fossil fuels must be rapid, equitable, anti-extractivist and grounded in the political vision emerging from Santa Marta. Article 6 and other false solutions must not be allowed to delay real action or create new markets for pollution and dispossession. Mitigation must remain anchored in equity, CBDR-RC and means of implementation rather than becoming another tool for shifting burdens onto developing countries.

SB64 must also defend the integrity of climate multilateralism itself. This means protecting civic space, ensuring meaningful participation of rights-holders and movements, and confronting corporate capture within the UNFCCC. It means recognising that fossil fuel corporations, big polluters and actors complicit in militarism, occupation and ecological destruction cannot be allowed to define climate solutions or climate action. It means understanding that climate governance will lose legitimacy if it continues to treat the demands of the most affected as negotiable while protecting the interests of those most responsible.

The climate crisis is often described as a crisis of emissions. It is that, but it is also far more. It is a crisis of colonial history, economic organisation, political power and moral accountability. Addressing it requires more than technical implementation. It requires reparations, redistribution, democratic participation, public finance, energy sovereignty, food sovereignty, gender justice, Indigenous sovereignty and the dismantling of the systems that have made both people and planet expendable.

This position paper sets out DCJ’s priorities for SB64 from that perspective. It is written in the understanding that climate justice will not be delivered through incremental adjustments to an unjust system. It will require confronting the structures that created the crisis and building pathways rooted in collective survival, dignity and liberation. Systems change, not climate change.

Climate Finance Work Programme and Article 9.1

Climate finance remains the defining test of whether the climate regime is prepared to uphold the principles of equity and historical responsibility agreed at Rio in the 1992 UNFCCC. Developed countries continue to fall far short of their obligations despite overwhelming evidence that sufficient resources exist to finance transformative climate action. The struggle over Article 9.1 is not merely a debate about financial flows. It is a struggle over responsibility itself.

As articulated in its official submission, DCJ rejects attempts to frame climate finance as aid, philanthropy or voluntary support. Climate finance is an obligation rooted in historical responsibility and climate debt. Developed countries must provide public, grant-based, predictable and adequate finance consistent with their commitments under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement. Climate finance must also be understood within a broader framework of reparative justice that includes debt cancellation, reform of the international financial architecture and mechanisms to ensure that those who have profited most from climate destruction contribute proportionately to addressing its consequences.

Adaptation Finance and the Global Goal on Adaptation

Adaptation is a matter of survival for billions of people across the Global South. Yet adaptation finance remains dramatically inadequate despite rapidly growing needs. Communities are already confronting severe climate impacts while lacking access to the resources necessary to strengthen resilience and protect livelihoods.

DCJ calls for a substantial increase in public, grant-based adaptation finance and rejects efforts to rely on private finance and market mechanisms. Adaptation must be grounded in rights, participation, Indigenous knowledge, food sovereignty and community leadership. The continued development of the Global Goal on Adaptation must support implementation rather than becoming an exercise in technocratic measurement detached from lived realities.

Loss and Damage

The climate crisis is already causing irreversible harms that cannot be prevented through mitigation or adaptation alone. Communities are losing homes, livelihoods, ecosystems, cultures and territories as climate impacts intensify. COP27’s establishment of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) represented an important political victory, but current levels of finance remain wholly inadequate compared to actual needs.

DCJ reiterates that loss and damage finance must be understood as reparative finance. It must be new, additional, grant-based and distinct from adaptation and mitigation finance. Polluter-pays mechanisms, including taxes on fossil fuel extraction, extreme wealth and corporate windfall profits, should be advanced as important sources of finance.

Operationalising the Just Transition Mechanism

The establishment of the Just Transition Mechanism at COP30 represented a significant achievement. However, the creation of a mechanism alone does not guarantee justice. A central question in Bonn is whether the way SB64 defines and designs the Mechanism will support transformative change or merely manage the social consequences of existing economic models.

DCJ rejects narrow approaches that reduce just transition to energy sector restructuring or workforce adjustment. Just transition must encompass food systems, care economies, public services, critical minerals, workers’ rights, Indigenous sovereignty and democratic control over resources. The Mechanism must be supported by adequate finance and meaningful participation by workers, Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fisherfolk, women, youth and frontline communities.

Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels

COP28’s commitment in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels marked an important breakthrough, but implementation remains contested. The “roadmap” process initiated under the Brazilian COP30 Presidency (as opposed to any agreed mandate by all countries) must not become a vehicle for delaying action or reproducing extractivist development models under new forms.

Drawing on the political vision emerging from Santa Marta, DCJ calls for a transition rooted in justice, sovereignty, care and democratic control. The transition away from fossil fuels must not be used to justify new forms of extraction, including the expansion of critical mineral supply chains that sacrifice communities and ecosystems in the Global South. Climate justice requires confronting both fossil fuels and the systems of power that sustain them.

Article 6 and False Solutions

Climate justice movements continue to confront the expansion of false solutions that allow polluters to delay structural transformation while claiming climate leadership. Carbon markets, offsets, carbon capture technologies, geoengineering and the financialisation of nature all risk entrenching existing power structures while failing to address the root causes of climate breakdown.

The continued promotion of false solutions reflects the influence of fossil fuel interests and corporate actors within climate governance. SB64 must resist efforts to expand reliance in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) on market-based approaches and instead prioritise real solutions rooted in public accountability, food sovereignty, Indigenous stewardship, community-controlled renewable energy and systemic transformation.

Mitigation Work Programme

The Mitigation Work Programme must remain firmly grounded in equity and CBDR-RC. Developing countries have repeatedly raised concerns regarding attempts to use the MWP as a vehicle for shifting mitigation burdens onto countries least responsible for the climate crisis while developed countries continue to evade obligations on finance and support.

Mitigation ambition cannot be separated from means of implementation. Climate finance, technology transfer, debt justice and policy space remain essential prerequisites for equitable climate action.

Cross-Cutting Priorities

Across all negotiating tracks, DCJ calls for climate action grounded in equity, historical responsibility, human rights, Indigenous sovereignty, feminist climate justice, democratic participation and protection from corporate capture. Climate governance must strengthen civic space, ensure meaningful participation by rights-holders and adopt robust conflict-of-interest policies that prevent fossil fuel interests and big polluters from shaping climate action.

The Challenge Before SB64

A central challenge facing SB64 is not the absence of solutions. Communities, movements and frontline peoples have long advanced pathways capable of addressing both climate breakdown and social injustice. The challenge is whether governments are prepared to confront the structures of power and privilege that continue to benefit from the crisis.

For DCJ, climate action must be rooted in reparative justice, international solidarity and systemic transformation. Anything less will preserve the unequal and unjust systems that created the climate crisis while leaving its underlying causes intact. SB64 must therefore advance implementation in ways that strengthen accountability, uphold historical responsibility and support the system change grounded in the peoples led solutions necessary to secure a just, equitable, healthy life and planet for all.

*Read the full position paper with detailed analysis and demands for all key negotiating topics here*

The post SB64 POSITION PAPER: Advancing Climate Justice in an Age of Crisis appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Press contact: Hannah Lawrence, +436706504192, press@stay-grounded.org The World Cup is ‘flying us to the brink of climate collapse’, say campaigners as final preparations are made for the opening ceremony in Mexico City on Thursday. Stay Grounded has called out the mega-event which is predicted to be the most polluting in history, generating 7.7 million tonnes of CO2 from air…

Source

Reproduction of the demon core. A sphere of plutonium about the size of a softball, it weighed about 13.7 pounds. It was about the size as the core in the bomb that leveled Nagasaki. Notice of Permission: This image is from Los Alamos National Laboratory. Unless otherwise indicated, this information has been authored by an employee or employees of the Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this information. The public may copy and use this information without charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies. Neither the Government nor LANS makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information.

George Harvey

This story is what I would call almost incredible. The President of the United States signed Executive Order 14302, titled “Reinvigorating the Nuclear Base,” which directed the US Department of Energy to stop its operation getting rid of nuclear bomb materials by diluting and dispersing them. The DOE would instead give the weapons-grade plutonium to private industries to use in nuclear reactors.

The amount of plutonium under discussion is to be twenty metric tons. The Fat Man bomb used on Nagasaki contained about 6.2 kilograms, or 13.66 pounds. It leveled about two square miles of the city. Twenty metric tons is enough to make thousands of such bombs.

The plutonium would go to five nuclear energy startups with the idea that it would be used to make electricity. But the theft of just a few pounds of it could be enough to make the terrorist attack on the twin towers look like a children’s game.

U.S. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) commented on this at his official web site. We have reprinted the comment in full, here.

# # #

Senator Markey Decries Security Concerns, Conflicts of Interest with Trump Proposal to Give Weapons-Usable Plutonium to Private Companies

Washington (June 2, 2026) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-Chair of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, today wrote to President Trump urging him to cancel the Department of Energy’s (DOE) plans to give 20 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium—enough for approximately 2,000 nuclear bombs—to private industry for commercial energy use. If implemented, this would be the first time the U.S. government has made weapons-grade plutonium available to private companies. These plans go against long-standing bipartisan U.S. nuclear security policy, raise serious weapons proliferation concerns, make little economic sense, and raise conflict of interest issues. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright recently served on the Board of Directors of Oklo, one of the companies that may receive plutonium.

In the letter, Senator Markey wrote, “For five decades, the United States has avoided the commercial use of plutonium and opposed the spread of technology to separate (“reprocess”) plutonium from used reactor fuel. We did so to prevent nations with nuclear power plants (such as Iran) from being able to extract plutonium from that fuel, which they—or terrorists into whose hands it could fall—could use to make nuclear weapons.”

Senator Markey continued, “I am concerned that your Administration is moving forward with plans to transfer plutonium to Oklo not because these proposals make sense for the United States, but because Oklo stands to benefit financially and Secretary Wright is acting in his former company’s interest. Secretary Wright’s close ties to the company present an appearance of impropriety.”

In the letter, Senator Markey requested answers by June 15, 2026, to questions that include:

• Why should the U.S. government facilitate the transfer of plutonium to private industry and the development and export of proliferation prone reprocessing technologies?
• What safety and security measures are planned for the transport of weapons-grade plutonium to private actors?
• What role did Secretary Wright play in the selection of Oklo for the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program?
• Does Secretary Wright currently have a financial stake in Oklo, and does he stand to benefit in any way from Oklo’s role in this program?

On September 23, 2025, Senator Markey wrote to Trump raising concerns about Secretary of Energy Chris Wright’s close relationship with Oklo Inc., a nuclear technology company that suggests a conflict of interest within the Administration that could compromise U.S. national security by providing weapons-usable plutonium to private industry. On September 10, 2025, Senator Markey and Representatives John Garamendi (CA-08) and Don Beyer (VA-08) wrote to President Trump expressing concern over DOE’s plan to transfer at least 20 metric tons of weapons-usable plutonium to private industry for commercial energy use.

# # #

We should keep in mind that the purpose of the organizations that intend to use the plutonium is to use it to make electricity. It is worth looking at that.

No commercial nuclear reactor has ever been run entirely on plutonium. Reactors using what is called MOX (mixed oxide) are used in France, but they only contain about 11% plutonium, at most. A nuclear reactor that uses plutonium would have to be developed from scratch, a process that would take years.

There would have to be adequate security on the plutonium. This goes beyond meaning that terrorists would not get any of it. The security around moving it would be complex, but it would have to be very sure. If the reactor were in Wyoming and the plutonium at Los Alamos, in New Mexico, it would have to be transported between those sites. How would that be done? It would have to be done entirely in secret, to be safe. But that means secret shipments of a material that is potent enough to make a nuclear bomb out of less than twenty pounds. And that is just one of many considerations.

On the other hand, we have ways to generate electricity that are almost certainly less expensive, do not produce waste, are non-polluting, and are highly reliable. These are solar, wind, and batteries. Solar and batteries are commonly used for off-grid homes, but they can be scaled from up to provide for a power grid. This is not new technology. It is used all over the world. And the electricity it produces is highly reliable and just about the least expensive out there. It can be installed very quickly.

Why would anyone what to pay extra to have bomb-grade materials moved secretly through their communities for the sake of making what may be the highest-cost power available?

 

 

Grid connection approval has been secured for massive solar farm and eight-hour battery hybrid project, expected to be the biggest of its kind in Australia.

The post Australia’s biggest solar-battery hybrid project secures grid connection approval appeared first on Renew Economy.

Join members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice as we explore how the Just Transition
Mechanism can support holistic and integrated transitions across sectors such as energy, food systems and land use.

Monday 8 June 2026

12:00-13:15

Room Berlin

The post Bonn SB64 side event: How can the Just Transition Mechanism support holistic transitions across sectors? appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

Bowen urged “to lead with vision and ambition" as he heads to Bonn to take helm of key climate negotiations in the lead up to COP31.

The post Bowen urged to “lead with vision and ambition” as he takes helm of Bonn climate talks appeared first on Renew Economy.

Utility solar projects in Australia face significant increase in costs following an anti dumping ruling that could lead to 48 pct tariffs on steel tubings for module mountings.

The post Solar projects to be hit by big increase in costs due to new Australian anti-dumping decision appeared first on Renew Economy.

Martijn Wilder has been recognised for his pioneering work in sustainable finance, renewables, conservation and climate law. 

The post Capital and carbon: Australian green finance pioneer Martijn Wilder honoured in King’s birthday awards appeared first on Renew Economy.

Driverless taxis spend just as much time driving around without a passenger as regular taxis, according to a new study — a finding that reveals a major shortcoming for a technology that boosters say will revolutionize transportation forever.

The study in the journal Transport Findings reveals that robotaxis spend roughly 45 percent of their total mileage without passengers — which is so close to regular taxis that one transportation industry expert feels he’s been lied to.

“I’ve been assured by these industry insiders that deadheading would fall to very low levels with robotaxis, but it’s pretty clear that’s not happening,” said David Zipper, a contributing writer at Bloomberg.

The concern is obvious: Commercial robotaxis are on the rise across the United States. According to the study —  “Millions of Trips, “Waymo” Empty Miles: California’s First Thousand Days of Commercial Robotaxi Service” — robotaxi prevalence has grown by an average of 15 percent monthly since they were first introduced in August 2023. That 15 percent is consistent across all measures: trips completed, miles traveled and passengers carried.

Here’s a Waymo in San Francisco.

But the potential for robotaxis is also obvious: Unlike traditional taxi companies, which manage individual drivers, robotaxi companies manage fleets of cars. As a result, these companies should be able to program the vehicles’ routes to avoid excessive deadheading. Instead, both traditional ride share and robotaxis travel almost half of their mileage without passengers. 

But change is happening … a little. According to the study, robotaxis now spend an average of 18 minutes empty between consecutive passenger trips, down from 28 minutes since 2023, likely due to an expanded fleet size which has allowed for a more efficient distribution of robotaxis, according to the author of the study. 

Still, author Awad Abdelhalim, added that a larger fleet means more cars deadheading overall, so “it cancels some of those benefits.” 

Awad said he wasn’t surprised by the findings because taxi companies like Waymo are deploying their fleets using the same old methods of offering taxi service — namely by sending cars out of a depot.

“There is quite a bit of deadheading naturally required to distribute vehicles across the service area to be able to serve customers,” said Abdulhalim. He added that traditional ride share has “some ‘natural’ distribution of vehicles based on where drivers are starting from based on home locations.”

Robotaxis also travel without a passenger while waiting to be assigned one, and this measurement has remained steady throughout the course of the study. 

“That’s the biggest problem,” said Zipper. It’s unclear exactly what robotaxis are doing during that time, but reporting from San Francisco and other cities where these cars operate suggests that they are, more or less, driving around aimlessly, passengerless.  

Robotaxis only operate in select metropolitan areas included San Francisco, the Bay Area and Los Angeles, highly congested areas where deadheading only makes matters worse.

“The presence of empty robotaxis does thicken traffic,” Zipper said. “All of these deadhead miles seem to counteract the safety claims that robotaxi companies have.”

Waymo, the company leading the charge on robotaxis, has claimed — extensively, on its website — that its vehicles will make streets safer.

• A Planetizen analysis found that the majority of 13,000 public comments on the House transportation funding authorization bill want Congress to fund transit, walking and biking, safety, wildlife crossings and faster approval for projects. Instead, the bill cuts funding for public transit and passenger rail (Rail Passengers Association). It will also give red states more freedom to spend federal dollars on highways, but give a greater share of funding to mostly blue municipalities (Brookings Institute).
• Two-thirds of Americans over the age of 50 say public transit is important to them, and three-quarters support transit-oriented development, according to an AARP poll.
• After Sound Transit opened the Crosslake Connection in March, ridership on Seattle’s Link light rail system rose by 46 percent (Seattle Transit Blog), making it the busiest light rail system in the country (The Urbanist).
• Sound Transit is also installing fare gates at 14 stations. (KOMO)
• The Philadelphia city council approved a budget that did not include Mayor Cherelle Parker’s proposed taxes on rideshares and deliveries (6 ABC).
• Meanwhile, a state lawmaker from Philadelphia proposed outlawing surge pricing during major events like concerts and games. (NBC 10)
• The Plain Dealer wonders what to do about e-bikes taking over Cleveland sidewalks. Maybe build more bike lanes?
• The transit and transportation safety advocacy group Activate St. Pete endorsed Brandi Gabbard for mayor of St. Petersburg. (Florida Politics)
• Atlanta launched an autonomous shuttle linking MARTA to the Beltline. (AJC; paywall)
• Lincoln, Nebraska’s switch from streetcars to buses really was the result of a conspiracy. (Flatwater Free Press)
• A Huntsville nonprofit refurbishes donated bikes and gives them to the homeless. (WAFF)
• Ethiopia’s air is getting cleaner since it instituted the world’s first ban on importing gas- and diesel-powered cars and started buying electric buses. (DW)
• Toronto is closing a dangerous intersection to cars and diverting drivers elsewhere. (CBC)