News Feeds

Academics and trade unions can do great research together, to the benefit of both sides. This special symposium of articles discusses how to do it right.

Promising Practices in Scholar-Union Collaboration

The symposium is published open-access in the leading Canadian journal Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations. It contains 2 parts:

1. The 2025 JD Woods lecture presented by Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford at the 2025 meetings of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association.
2. Three case studies of excellent union-scholar collaboration, presented at a panel organized at the 2025 conference of the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies.

The symposium explores ingredients of sustained, productive, respectful scholar-union collaborations: including transparency, ethics, respect for constraints each side faces, and recognition that workers and their unions are a vulnerable community (not ‘lab rats’ to be studied).

The productive and mutual collaborations covered in the case studies are:

1. Pat Armstrong (York University) and Michael Hurley (Ontario Council of Hospital Unions/CUPE): years of joint research on conditions for health workers.
2. Sean Tucker (University of Regina) and Kevin Bittman (Unifor Local 594) on sustained research on the struggles of refinery workers.
3. Johanna Weststar (Western University) and Jakin Vela, PhD (International Game Developers Association, IGDA) on union organizing in non-standard employment.

These three collaborations all embody the mutual, respectful trust- and relationship-building that is vital to successful, productive, ethical joint research.

This symposium will be a lasting resource for both grad students & young scholars seeking to build experience and contacts in the field of trade union studies, and for trade unionists wondering how evidence-based research from IR scholars could strengthen their campaigns.

Many thanks to all those scholars for using their resources & knowledge to help empower the unions they study. Many thanks to all those unionists for making space for this important joint research. And many thanks to Fred Wilson for co-sponsoring the whole project.

Please see the full symposium here.

The post Symposium on Promising Practices in Scholar-Union Collaboration: Lessons for Building Effective Research Partnerships appeared first on Centre for Future Work.

Image: The handcart, equipped with a sail. Photo by Kris De Decker.

The human-powered handcart is the oldest of vehicles, and it will likely be the last one around in the future. Of all vehicles, it’s the cheapest and least complex to build and use. It offers a large advantage over carrying a load on your back or dragging it over the ground - the even older concept of the sled. On the other hand, the handcart is cheaper and easier to use than the animal-powered cart. Oxen and donkeys eat more than humans, and they have their own will, which can work against the driver.

Like any other wheeled vehicle, the handcart requires roads to drive on. This infrastructure has not always been available anywhere or at any time in history. For example, in medieval Europe, porters and pack animals were more common than handcarts because of poor roads. 1 In the West, the handcart only reached its heyday during the first decades of the Industrial Revolution, when it connected fast-growing cities to train stations and harbors. In China, on the other hand, the handcart was the backbone of the transport network for millennia. 2

Of all vehicles, the handcart is the cheapest and least complex to build and use.

There are still many human-powered carts in modern society: strollers, grocery carts, roller suitcases, and various utility and folding carts. However, these modern carts are to their predecessors what birds are to dinosaurs. They are small, often with very small wheels, and we use them for very short distances, usually inside buildings. In contrast, old-fashioned handcarts were often large and had big wheels, and they were pushed or pulled on roads and over longer distances. Many crafts and professions had their own type of handcart.

Image: Low-tech Magazine's handcart. Photo by Kris De Decker. Why I need a handcart

People still use large handcarts in so-called “developing countries”. However, they can be just as useful again in the large cities of the industrialized world, as I can testify after using one for a couple of months. Last autumn, I received an internship application from Kozimo, who studies at the Design Academy Eindhoven. In his application, Kozimo sent a video of a large handcart he made, which he was driving on the streets of Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

I have always dreamt of a handcart. I have never owned a car, and the only times I miss one are when I have to move stuff, something which has become increasingly common lately. Consequently, I proposed to Kozimo to build a handcart for me.

Now, I can no longer imagine living without it. I have used the vehicle to move houses and offices, pick up materials and objects I bought online, new or second-hand, and transport workshop and event materials (bike generators, solar panels, solar ovens, books, sound systems). I have done the same for friends. During these trips, I often took home materials, furniture, or objects that I found for free on the streets of Barcelona.

Image: Kozimo and Kris De Decker with Low-tech Magazine's handcart, halfway through a 30 km trip along the coast of Spain. Photo by Linda Osusky.

Unlike a van or a car, my handcart doesn’t need gasoline, electricity, or batteries, making it entirely independent from energy infrastructures. Neither do I need to pay taxes and insurance. The handcart is a very democratic vehicle. It allows anyone to carry a load wherever they want, while older, less affordable cars and vans are no longer allowed to enter city centers due to the installation of Low Emission Zones.

A handcart doesn’t need gasoline, electricity, or batteries, making it entirely independent from energy infrastructures.

It would make a lot of sense to offer vehicles like this at community centers, where they are available for all neighbors to use when needed. Few people would need a handcart each day, and communal use would solve the parking problem. Although our handcart can also be parked vertically, it won’t fit in most apartments.

Description of the handcart

This article will not explain in detail how to build a handcart. We want to do that another time with a simpler handcart model, because the vehicle we present in this article is not one that most people can make themselves. You need good woodworking and metalworking skills, and in fact, two people made the handcart.

Kozimo designed and built the whole structure from wood, while Guilhem Senges - visual artist and one of my neighbors - designed and made several essential reinforcements from metal; the wheels, the brakes, and the handlebars are all connected to the wood structure with custom-made iron parts.

Image: Detail of the handcart, showing the underside of the vehicle. Photo by Kris De Decker. THIS ONE OR THE NEXT ONE. --> Image: The underside of the handcart. Photo by Kris De Decker. Image: Detail of the handcart, showing the underside of the vehicle. Photo by Kris De Decker. --> Images: The front and back of the handcart. Photos by Kris De Decker. Image: The lights are mounted in coconuts. Photo by Kris De Decker. Load weight and volume

Low-tech Magazine’s handcart is 250 cm long and 100 cm wide, while the platform itself measures 210 by 85 cm. Assuming a load height of 50 cm, the cargo volume is roughly 1.55 m3 (37 cubic feet or 1050 liters). That’s two to four times the typical trunk space in a European car. We have transported cargo that is wider or longer than the cart: a large heated table measuring 140x140cm, and several loads of wooden beams, each three meters long.

The load weight is limited by the wheels, which come from a wheelchair. They can support up to 150 kg. 3 The cart itself weighs 32 kg, so the practical maximum cargo weight is about 120 kg. The loading platform consists of slats with gaps between them, making it easy to secure various types of cargo.

Images: The handcart with various cargoes. Upper left: a 6m2 wooden floor and a chest. Upper right: 3-meter-long wood beams. Below: A heated table ready for transport. It drives itself!

Over the past few months, we’ve learned that people have many misconceptions about handcarts. For example, you may think that pushing a handcart takes a lot of effort, perhaps based on your experience pushing supermarket carts through parking lots or pulling heavy suitcases through city centers (which is how I moved stuff before I had a handcart).

However, using the handcart can be so effortless - even when it’s heavily loaded - that it feels like you are not pushing at all. Once in motion, you can often guide it with one hand, and it sometimes feels like the cart is pulling you forward. It’s no exaggeration to say that pushing the handcart with a 100 kg load is more comfortable than walking while carrying a 10 kg heavy backpack.

Using the handcart can be so effortless - even when it’s heavily loaded - that it feels like you are not pushing at all.

There are several reasons for this light operation, rooted in physics. Each vehicle has to overcome three forces: rolling resistance, air resistance, and gravity. Air resistance is negligible at walking speed, meaning that a handcart user on flat terrain mainly needs to overcome rolling resistance. That’s the friction between wheels and road surface, a factor that’s largely independent of speed.

In contrast, air resistance increases with the square of speed. A cyclist, going at 15-20 km/h, already spends more effort overcoming air resistance than overcoming rolling resistance, which is the same in both cases because both vehicles have similar wheels. In short, the handcart’s low speed minimizes air resistance, while its narrow wheels minimize rolling resistance.

Image: Driving the handcart. Photo by Linda Osusky.

Second, accelerating a vehicle requires more energy than maintaining a constant speed. You only need to sustain momentum, not build it. Our handcart is pushed by a person walking, so the effort to accelerate lasts no longer than one or two seconds. In contrast, a cyclist takes much longer to reach cruise speed, and because of the higher air resistance, it takes more effort to sustain that speed. If the handcart is heavily loaded, it also gains significant kinetic energy, even at low speed. That explains why it sometimes feels like the cart is pulling you forward - because it actually is.

Finally, our wheels are much larger than those used on modern pushcarts. That makes for comfortable driving on asphalt and sidewalks, which are not as smooth as airport or supermarket floors. Large wheels increase air resistance, but because of our low speed, that doesn’t matter.

Handcarts and gravity

However, an effortless ride requires two conditions: flat terrain and a well-balanced load. Both involve the third force any vehicle must overcome: gravity.

Balancing the handcart: distributing the load

A two-wheeled cart becomes heavy and difficult to use when too much weight is placed on the front or back. Consequently, you need to load the vehicle so that the weight is equal on both sides of the wheels. That’s easy to check: the cart should remain in a horizontal position for several seconds without you touching it. If there’s just one piece of cargo, place it above the center of the wheels. If there are more things to carry, the total weight should be divided equally over the two sides. Finetuning the balance often involves moving a backpack from the front to the back of the cart, or vice versa.

You need to load the vehicle so that the weight is equal on both sides of the wheels.

A two-wheeled cart also needs additional support to keep it horizontal when parked, for instance, when loading or unloading cargo. Otherwise, the cart may suddenly flip to the other side. Our handcart carries four support beams, two on each side. When the cart is moving, they are in a horizontal position. When the cart is parked, we remove one or more beams and place them in a vertical position. Each beam can be set to a different length, allowing us to stabilize the cart on uneven terrain. We tighten the beams with screws.

Image: The handcart is parked with four supporting legs. Photo by Kris De Decker. Image: Detail of the supporting beam holder. Photo by Kris De Decker.

Many people have asked us why we didn’t build a four-wheeled cart that wouldn’t need to be balanced. However, four wheels would double the rolling resistance and thus the effort required to push the cart. Furthermore, a four-wheeled cart is less maneuverable and more difficult to drive on uneven terrain. You also need to get two extra wheels, and you need to build a steering mechanism. Throughout history, the two-wheeled handcart (or one-wheeled handcart in the case of China) was much more common than the four-wheeled cart. 1

Going uphill: you need help

An effortless ride also requires more or less flat terrain, which is what you get here in many parts of Barcelona. If you go up a steep slope, you suddenly feel the weight of the cart and its cargo. Climbing with a heavily loaded cart can be as strenuous as running up stairs or cycling at top speed. People tell us we should put an electric motor on the cart, and that’s perfectly possible.

However, we found a simpler solution: if necessary, we ask for help from another person. Our handlebars are wide enough for two or even three people to push together, which makes going uphill a lot easier. Adding an electric motor and a battery would significantly increase the vehicle’s weight, and it only makes sense if you regularly have to climb hills.

Going downhill: brakes

Going downhill, you have to counter gravity forces to prevent the handcart from hurling down a slope, which would be very dangerous. Rather than pushing the cart, you’ll have to pull it back instead. Here, cyclists have all the advantage, as they can use gravity to its full benefit during a descent.

We made going downhill a lot easier by adding bicycle brakes. In combination with the large wheels, the brakes also allow the handcart to be taken down sidewalk curbs or even stairs without damaging it. They double as a hand brake as well, by tightening two lashing straps around them. That allows leaving the cart unattended on a slope or in high winds.

Image: The brakes. Photo by Kris De Decker. Handcarts go on the sidewalk

Many people assume that handcarts go on the road, with the cars, or on the cycling path. That’s not the case: you use it on the sidewalk. Legally, handcart users are in a similar position to other pedestrians pushing a smaller handcart, such as a stroller. The only difference is that, when they are forced onto the road because there’s no sidewalk or it’s blocked, handcart users should walk on the right side of the road, while other pedestrians should walk on the left. For now, the police have stopped us only once, and they were just curious.

Legally, handcart users are in a similar position to other pedestrians pushing a smaller handcart, such as a stroller.

We could find no traffic laws that limit the size of a handcart, at least not in the handful of countries we researched, including Spain. However, in practice, there are clear limits. If your vehicle is wider than the space between traffic bollards that keep cars out of pedestrian streets, all pedestrian zones will become inaccessible to you. You should also take into account other obstacles on the sidewalk, such as building scaffolding. Consequently, it’s rarely practical to build a handcart more than one meter wide.

Barcelona has very wide sidewalks in most of the city. We rarely have to share the road with cars or cyclists. Of course, that’s not the case in every city, and then the use of a handcart becomes less attractive. Using a handcart on the road or cyclepath is rather dangerous because other vehicles are much faster.

Image: Kozimo pushes the handcart through a narrow walkway. Photo by Kris De Decker. Respecting other pedestrians

Driving a large handcart on the sidewalk demands your full attention. You don’t want to hit any infrastructure, and you surely don’t want to hit someone’s legs. You need to drive it with respect for other pedestrians and their pets (some dogs start barking at the vehicle). In general, the handcart is very safe to use because it travels at a very low speed. That makes accidents less likely in the first place and less impactful if they do happen. You also have a very good overview of your vehicle, much better than for a car or a bicycle. As long as you keep your eyes on the handcart, you are unlikely to hit anything or anyone.

However, our handcart is so silent that people don’t hear it coming. We added a bicycle bell to warn people, but we hope to find a better tune in the future: every vehicle needs its own type of sound. We also need a bell for oncoming pedestrians who are watching their phones while walking and expect others to make space. With the handcart, we cannot always make that space. Our handcart has front and rear lights as well, wired to a USB power bank mounted underneath the platform. Lights are very helpful on sidewalks, both day and night, as they make the vehicle more visible. Furthermore, lights are essential if you need to move onto the road after dark.

Images: Kris De Decker drives the handcart through Barcelona. Photos by Guillaume Lion.

Even in Barcelona, sidewalks can get crowded, and a busy sidewalk will slow down the vehicle considerably. With little chance to overtake someone, we tend to get stuck behind the slowest walkers.

A handcart is not a difficult vehicle to drive, but nowadays people in industrialized societies have no experience with it. Apart from driving it attentively, you also need to be careful when rounding blind corners (take the turn as wide as possible) and when you leave a garage or any other type of exit (pull rather than push the cart). By the time you see oncoming traffic, you already have 2 meters of your handcart on the road or around the corner.

Why not a bike trailer?

Almost everyone who sees the handcart for the first time asks the same question: how do you attach it to a bicycle? You don’t. You push it while walking. When we say that, there follows a silence. Pushing a handcart seems like one step too far back, even for people committed to living more sustainably. Why would you push a handcart if you could just as well use a much faster bike trailer, or a cargo bike?

In fact, there are several practical reasons to opt for a handcart rather than a bike trailer, and we have already mentioned many of them. First, a handcart lets you go anywhere a pedestrian can, while cyclists often need to get off their bikes and push them - just like a handcart. A handcart is also more agile. For example, although the cart is 2.5 meters long, it takes just two seconds and little space to turn it around and walk in the opposite direction from where you came from.

Why would you push a handcart if you could just as well use a much faster bike trailer, or a cargo bike?

A handcart can be built larger than a bike trailer as well. Although it’s perfectly possible to build a bike trailer the size of our handcart, its higher speed would pose much greater risk of accidents and damage, both to the cart and to other road users. As a bike trailer, it would also need to be made sturdier, and it would need a more elaborate mechanism to operate the brakes.

All this does not mean that bike trailers are a bad idea. We have used the handcart mainly for trips between 5 and 10 km, which comes down to one to two hours of walking. For longer distances, the bike trailer has the obvious advantage of speed. If you need to cover 40 km, you would need to travel eight hours with a handcart, compared to just two hours with a bike trailer.

Image: Guilhem Senges, who built the vehicle's metal parts, pushes the handcart to a welding job a few streets up in the neighborhood. The merits of slow travel

However, when people ask us why we don’t use it as a bike trailer, we can also answer differently: why the rush? Deciding to travel with the slowest vehicle possible is subversive because it questions values we take for granted in the modern world, such as speed and utility.

To many people, walking a handcart seems like a waste of time, but our experience is exactly the opposite. Every trip is an adventure, and we always look forward to using it again. It’s a pleasure to drive the vehicle, more like steering a boat than driving a land vehicle. It’s easy to chat with other pedestrians, who tend to be very curious about our vehicle. Consequently, the trip takes even longer.

To many people, walking a handcart seems like a waste of time, but our experience is exactly the opposite.

Driving a handcart feels entirely different from using any other mode of transport. When people are walking, they usually cannot carry much with them, either in terms of weight or volume. In contrast, the handcart allows you to walk with a lot of stuff close at hand: drinks, food, a sound system, books, extra clothes. Furthermore, you have a large platform, which allows you to rest and invite others to do the same. It becomes a vehicle for wandering and roaming, and for connecting to other people.

Image: It's a pleasure to drive the vehicle, more like steering a boat than driving a land vehicle. Model: Rocío Sánchez. Photo by Kris De Decker. Image: The handcart with rain protection. Photo by Kris De Decker. Handcart Accessories

Once the handcart proved its utility as a cargo vehicle, Kozimo began designing and building additional structures to expand its uses. These objects make use of the slatted platform or the support beam design. Unfortunately, Kozimo’s internship ended before we could test all these extensions, but the little experience we gained by now shows that the handcart can be much more than just a cargo vehicle.

Passenger seat

The first, and perhaps most powerful addition, is a foldable seat. While our handcart can be - and usually is - operated by only one person, it’s ideally handled by two people, especially for longer voyages. Thanks to the seat, one person can push the cart while the other one rests in the vehicle.

As long as the road is flat, the extra weight of the passenger does not significantly increase the effort to push the cart. Consequently, two people can travel faster or farther in a single day. When climbing hills or bridges, the passenger gets off the seat. If necessary, he or she also helps to push the cart.

One person can push the cart while the other one rests in the vehicle, increasing the distance that two people can travel in a day.

An extra pair of eyes on the road is also handy. The seat can be put in two positions, so that both the passenger and the driver are either looking in the same direction or facing each other, which makes it easier to talk and allows the passenger to serve as the rear-view mirror.

We used the seat on a 30 km day trip along the coast of Catalunya, Spain, moving stuff from my old place to my new place. For one person, this would have been an exhausting trip. However, there were several people on the way there, and two people on the way back. The fact that we could rest from time to time - without stopping - made a great difference, especially on the way back. An extra person also proved useful when unexpected obstacles arose. For example, there was a bridge under repair, which forced us to carry the cart down the rocks, over the beach, and up the rocks again.

Image: A foldable seat on the slatted platform. Photo by Kris De Decker. Image: Kozimo drives the handcart along the coast. Linda Osusky is filming while resting in the seat. Photo by Kris De Decker. Images: Carrying the handcart over the rocks. Photos by Linda Osusky. Digital nomad office

As a second addition, we combined the seat with a work table that doubles as a solar power plant, resulting in a digital nomad office. The table fits onto the sides of the handcart and slides back and forth. The solar panel can be in a horizontal position or at various tilted angles. It can charge a laptop or any other device requiring up to 100 watts of power.

If you’re two people traveling, one person can work at the table while the other drives. If you’re alone, you can wheel the vehicle to the nearest park or beach, set up the four support legs, and work all day. In 2016, I took my home office off the grid with solar panels on the window sills. 4 Ten years later, both the office and the solar panels have become mobile.

Images: Digital nomad office. Photos by Kris De Decker. Image: Digital nomad office. Photo by Kris De Decker. Renewable power plant

Although we built only one solar panel support structure, the handcart platform is large enough to support a total of four 100-watt solar panels. That would provide us with 400 watts of solar power for a concert or emergency power, for example. The handcart can also transport the two bike generators Low-tech Magazine has in Barcelona. 5Consequently, the cart enables us to quickly provide power within a radius of several kilometers, at any time of the day. The handcart could also be wheeled into a sunny spot during the day, charging a battery bank to power a household during the night and in bad weather.

Mobile home

If you want to get back home the same day, the handcart’s range is roughly 40-80 km (8-16 hours of walking, back and forth). However, at least in my case, nobody obliges me to come back home the same day. I could use the handcart for longer voyages, especially since it offers me a place to sleep.

The four supporting legs that make loading and unloading the cart more practical can also be used to turn the vehicle into a bed. After Kozimo went back to the Netherlands, I bought a foldable mattress that fits neatly on the platform. During a trip, I can store the other cargo under the cart at night. Alternatively, I could push a passenger who’s lying in the bed, turning the vehicle into an adult version of a baby stroller.

Images: A foldable sleeping mattress on the handcart. Photos by Kris De Decker. Image: A mosquito net covers the handcart with a sleeping mattress. Photo by Kris De Decker.

Kozimo also made four supporting legs that are almost two meters long. I can use them to erect a tent around the bed, and cover the structure with modern tent materials, wool blankets, or a mosquito net. The large poles can also dry laundry. Furthermore, I could use the supporting legs in various combinations to convert the cart into a podium, expo stand, market stand, or a cinema or presentation screen.

The seat, table, solar panel, sleeping mattress, and longer poles can all be carried on the handcart simultaneously, leaving ample space for other luggage. That means that I could potentially work, live, and travel in the vehicle, turning it into a nomadic home. It fits somewhere between the tiny house on wheels, the tipi, and the homeless shack. Rents got very expensive in Barcelona, so I may as well give it a try.

Image: The handcart is packed for a longer trip. Photo by Kris De Decker. Sailing and roller skating the handcart

Finally, Kozimo made a small sail for the handcart to help pull a heavy load in a good wind; the vehicle is sometimes used along the coast. Of course, we got the inspiration from the use of sails on the historical Chinese wheelbarrow. For a longer trip, the sail fits on the cart, so I could use it whenever the opportunity arises.

Images: The handcart with a 1m2 sail. Model: Iris De Decker. Photos by Kris De Decker.

We could increase the speed of the handcart by using a larger sail, and combining it with roller blades, inline skates, or a skateboard. In that case, the cart would pull the driver in good winds. It’s also possible to push the cart while using roller blades, inline skates, or an electric unicycle, without a sail. For now, we did a first small test on flat terrain using inline skates, with very good results. If you would take enough cargo, the kinetic energy of a skate-powered handcart would regularly pull you forward even without a sail.

The higher speeds of these configurations obviously introduce more risk and, most likely, trouble with the police. Higher speeds require ample space, free of pedestrians. That almost always pushes the handcart on the road, between the cars, as most cycle paths are not wide enough. However, it shows that sustainable vehicles could take many different forms if only we would give them the space to flourish. There are more than enough roads suitable for sailing and roller-skating handcarts; we need to empty them of cars and vans.

Images: Julia Steketee drives the handcart on online skates. Photos by Kris De Decker.

• Handcart design and construction: Kozimo, Guilhem Senges.
• Photos: Kris De Decker, Linda Osusky, Guillaume Lion.
• Special thanks to: AkashaHub Barcelona, Carmen Tanaka, Gaston Quispe Castros, Linda Osusky, Guillaume Lion, Rocío Sánchez, Iris De Decker, Lili-Roos Noeyens, Julia Steketee, Tim Rudolph, Guilherme Maglio, Selcen Küçüküstel.
• Marie Verdeil and Roel Roscam Abbing contributed to the selection of images.

1. Bulliet, Richard W. The wheel: inventions and reinventions. Columbia University Press, 2016. ↩︎ ↩︎

2. How to downsize a transport network: The Chinese wheelbarrow, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, 2011. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/how-to-downsize-a-transport-network-the-chinese-wheelbarrow/ ↩︎

3. You could build a handcart with stronger wheels, either heavy-duty wheelchair wheels (available up to 350 kg) or cargo-bike wheels. However, stronger wheels are likely wider, which increases rolling resistance. It would also become more difficult to push these heavier loads up a steep incline. ↩︎

4. How to get your apartment off-the-grid, Kris De Decker, Low-tech Magazine, 2016. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/05/how-to-get-your-apartment-off-the-grid/ ↩︎

5. How to build a practical household bike generator, Kris De Decker & Marie Verdeil, Low-tech Magazine, 2022. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2022/03/how-to-build-a-practical-household-bike-generator/ ↩︎

Ilka Vega is the executive for economic and environmental justice at United Women in Faith, the largest denominational faith organisation for women in the United States.

For climate justice advocates around the globe, many of the United States’ environmental policies have felt dangerous. In this moment, Earth Day might feel sobering as we acknowledge the gravity of these dangers. However, we cannot allow bad actors at the national level to shake our spirit. Instead, we can harness the energy of Earth Day and mobilize our communities for change.

Of course, while local action is powerful, it is against a backdrop of rollbacks to environmental protections. In 2026, the current US administration has continued on its track of undermining climate action, taking us back decades on efforts to mitigate and adapt to the escalating climate crisis.

In January, the US withdrew from several international climate organizations and treaties, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. In February, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which will make it more difficult to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants.

More destructive weather extremes

Climate change is not a future threat – it is affecting people right now. And it is not an abstract concept. We have seen its impact in tangible ways.

In 2025, the mainland United States experienced the fourth hottest year on record. In February of this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported an average surface temperature 2.12° F higher than the 20th-century average.

Tornadoes, tropical cyclones, floods and other natural disasters devastated communities around the world, and have been growing more frequent and destructive due to climate change. Frontline communities disproportionately suffer these effects. Women and children are most likely to be displaced and are more likely to suffer gender-based violence when natural disasters and weather emergencies occur.

• Apr 14, 2026 Politics Türkiye sets COP31 dates and appoints Australian cattle farmer as youth champion In an open letter, Murat Kurum gives details of the October Pacific pre-COP and the November COP31 leaders’ summit in the Turkish city of Antalya Read more
• Apr 15, 2026 Comment Fossil Free Zones can be on-ramps to the clean energy transition Oil and gas blocks overlap with a fifth of forests in the Amazon, Congo Basin and SE Asia – policies are needed to transition away from fossil fuels and halt deforestation together Read more

As climate change devastates communities, it is important that we take practical steps to prevent future harm. We can work with each other to encourage new practices, even without the support of powerful people. Our force can have an impact on communities beyond our imaginations. I have seen this in action, from my own neighborhood to organizations across the US and around the world.

Communities resisting the old and building the new

For example, last year in Texas, people from all walks of life came together to protest the toxicity of fossil fuels in front of oil and gas CEOs. In Oak Flat Arizona, an Apache stronghold is still resisting a destructive copper mine project despite setbacks that threaten to shatter their sacred lands.

One woman in La Mesa, California led efforts to engage nearby school districts in discussions about joining the EPA’s Clean School Bus program. In the wake of hurricanes, First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans used their solar panels to offer relief through charging and cooling for neighbors experiencing power outages.

Q&A: Look beyond Trump for the full story on US climate action, says university dean

In Marange, Zimbabwe, Environmental Buddies Zimbabwe installed energy-efficient stoves in their community. A project with similar goals, Eco-Green Gold in Bolgatanga, Ghana trained 40 women to produce charcoal from grass as an eco-friendly alternative to wood-based charcoal. They both are creating opportunities for their neighbors while reducing deforestation and promoting renewable energy.

Shared responsibility for a cleaner, safer planet

These communities have shown that we all have a responsibility to fight for a cleaner, healthier and safer Earth. That responsibility does not end when the government is not doing enough; rather, it becomes imperative that we boost our efforts.

Although there is only so much we can do about the actions of a powerful government and wealthy corporations, we can influence what happens in our own communities – and that influence matters.

Individual actions build powerful movements; change must always begin at the local level. When we see people around the world organizing and taking direct action, we realize the true scale of what is possible. Every effort, no matter how small, becomes part of a larger movement that cannot be ignored.

We hold onto the unwavering belief that we can still turn the tide on climate change – and it is that hope that drives every step of our work toward a better, sustainable future.

The post Earth Day is an opportunity for communities to show the way on climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Andrew Ha & Tallulah Shepard

California is facing significant challenges in addressing both housing affordability and climate related vulnerabilities. These urgent issues are more related than many realize, and to effectively overcome these challenges for a more resilient future, we must collaborate across these issue areas. However, the people most dedicated to working on housing and climate often work in separate rooms, speak different languages, and occasionally find themselves on opposite sides of the same fight. Common Ground exists to change that. These big challenges require bold action but the pace of the change means there is a real risk of advocates talking past each other.

In the Winter 2025-26 Common Ground Learning Series, the Alliance for Housing and Climate Solutions (AHCS) brought together over 250 housing and environmental advocates across five sessions to do exactly the opposite—discussing and engaging with each other. Here’s what we learned.

The rules are finally changing — but are they changing in the right way?

For decades, California’s housing shortage has been exacerbated by a thicket of regulations that make infill development slow, expensive, and legally risky. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has long been both a vital environmental protection and, critics argue, a tool easily weaponized to delay or kill housing near transit and jobs. 

In 2025, the state legislature moved faster than it had in years. Two major CEQA reform bills, AB 130 and SB

131, cleared with Governor Newsom’s support, creating new exemptions for infill housing and advanced manufacturing. Our session with Zack Subin from the Terner Center helped situate these changes in a longer arc: California has been gradually shifting away from sprawl toward urban infill and transit-oriented development, but the pace still falls well short of what people actually need. While there is no clear consensus on exactly the size of our housing shortage, organizations like the California Housing Partnership found that we are facing a 1.3 million affordable housing deficit. 

The reforms were met with a mix of enthusiasm and apprehension in the Common Ground discussion. AB 130’s targeted infill housing exemption landed relatively well. SB 131 prompted harder questions. Some participants worried it was too deferential to manufacturing interests and too vague about habitat protections.

UC Berkeley Professor Eric Biber offered one path forward: “So there are ways you could resolve this by doing some mapping. You could determine that within a certain core area, we’re going to prove that there are no wetlands and habitat to worry about. And then outside of that core area, you can take an exception if you do a site evaluation on those issues… You’d want to do careful upfront mapping because there’s going to be things you’ll carve out.”

It became clear through the session that a lot remains unknown. In this uncertainty, cities have already begun to receive new AB 130 development applications while policy advocates continue to propose new cleanup bills. What is known is that these CEQA reforms mark a pivotal, albeit controversial, shift in changing the housing landscape of California.

Climate risk isn't coming. It's here, and it's reshaping where and how we can build.

Header photo credit: Fire in the Hills by CALfire Flickr/CC-BY-NC

Wildfire has changed the calculus of homeownership in California in ways that would have seemed extreme just five years ago. Insurance companies are now charging steep premiums and, in many cases, simply not renewing high-risk policies, leaving homeowners exposed and entire communities questioning their long-term viability. Siew Gee Lim from Milliman pointed out that overall nonrenewal rates roughly doubled in California over the last five years due to increased wildfire risk. 

This creates a real paradox for housing advocates: we need to build more, but we also need to build smarter. Common Ground’s session on wildfire and insurance didn’t just surface the scale of the problem. It pointed toward emerging solutions. New wildfire modeling practices, combined with community mitigation efforts, clearer standards, and new public-private partnerships, may be opening a path toward a more stable and competitive insurance market.

The broader lesson is: you cannot build resilient, affordable communities without confronting where and how you build. 

The hidden costs of housing aren't hidden anymore.

Reducing the cost of housing isn’t just about zoning or permitting. It’s about every fee, every remediation requirement, and every financing gap that stacks up before a single unit is built. Speakers from CA YIMBY and Prosperity California pushed this conversation into uncomfortable but necessary territory.

Brownfield development—meaning building on formerly industrial or contaminated land—represents a major opportunity to add housing in urban areas without displacing green space or wildlife. But it comes with real environmental justice stakes: remediation has to be done right, and future residents, who are often lower-income, shouldn’t bear the health burden of a cleanup that wasn’t done right. 

Impact fees generated some of the liveliest debate. These are charges levied on new development to fund public infrastructure like parks, schools, and utilities. In theory, they make sense. In practice, participants questioned whether they had become too burdensome and whether the costs were being distributed fairly.

Aaron Eckhouse of CA YIMBY put it plainly: “I love parks — but if we’re placing the entire burden of funding our park system and the growing park needs of the entire community specifically on new housing, we’re going to get less new housing. And that new housing that we get is going to be more expensive.”

That’s not an argument against parks. It’s an argument for honest accounting about who pays for them.

You can't get anywhere without transit, and transit is in trouble.

If there’s one session that felt like a wake-up call, it was the one on public transit. The Bay Area’s transit agencies are facing a genuine fiscal cliff: pandemic-era federal relief funds are running out, ridership hasn’t fully recovered across many systems, and the funding mechanisms meant to sustain these agencies were designed for a different era. A conservative estimate from SPUR and the Connect Bay Area campaign cites a $793 million deficit for the 4 major Bay Area transit agencies

in the coming year. For BART alone, that would be $350 million or approximately 30% of their operating budget.

This might seem tangential to housing and climate work. It isn’t. Transit-oriented development only works if the transit actually works. Greenhouse gas reductions depend on people having real alternatives to driving. And the communities most dependent on public transit, lower-income residents, seniors, and people with disabilities, are the same communities most at risk from both the housing crisis and climate change.

Common Ground doesn’t resolve these issues. But bringing the people working on them into the same room and clearly naming the stakes is how you start to galvanize action.

California isn’t short on people who care about getting this right. What we’re short on is time and the kind of alignment that turns good intentions into policy that actually moves. 

CEQA is being rewritten, the insurance market is destabilizing, and transit agencies are facing an existential funding gap. These aren’t abstract problems. They’re being decided now, and the outcomes will shape the state for a generation. 

Common Ground exists because we believe the people working on housing and climate are stronger together and because the hardest conversations are worth having out loud, in the same room, with people who might push back.

Missed the sessions? Check them out here.

The post Learning to Find Common Ground Together appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Nurses at University Medical Center New Orleans (UMCNO) in Louisiana today gave notice to their employer, LCMC Health, that they will hold an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) strike for five days starting May 1, 2026. This notice follows a ULP charge against UMCNO filed with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, April 20, charging the hospital’s management has spent more than two years intentionally dragging out and frustrating negotiations through bad-faith bargaining.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following the Trump administration’s decision to invoke the Defense Production Act to subsidize fossil fuel expansion under the guise of an “energy emergency”, Mar Zepeda, Legislative Director for CJA, issued the following statement: 

“This decision is not a solution to the rising costs, climate disasters, and public health challenges communities are facing. Rather, this is a continuation of false proclamations designed to lock the United States into deeper fossil fuel dependence while maintaining a system that profits from pollution and extraction. 

This action builds on a broader pattern of public giveaways to an already profitable industry, including billions in federal subsidies that shift financial risk away from corporations and onto taxpayers. At a time when the U.S. is already one of the world’s largest fossil fuel producers, doubling down on oil, gas, and coal will not deliver energy security or affordability. It will instead entrench price volatility, delay the transition to stable, community-centered clean energy, and deepen the climate crisis.

At its core, this is about the continued consolidation of wealth and power. By invoking emergency authorities to fast-track fossil fuel expansion, the administration is sidelining public input, weakening accountability, and concentrating decision-making in the hands of corporate actors. This undermines democratic governance and strips communities of their right to shape their own energy futures.

From an environmental justice perspective, the impacts are stark. These investments will concentrate pollution in frontline and low-income communities that are already overburdened, increasing risks to public health while driving up economic costs. At the same time, they deepen global inequities, locking countries into cycles of fossil fuel dependence, volatility, and debt.

Fossil fuel corporations are not passive in this system. They actively shape and defend it, using financial and legal tools to protect profits and limit democratic decision-making.

This is not energy security. It is wealth consolidation at the expense of communities and the planet. A just energy future requires investing in community-led solutions that reduce pollution, lower costs, and protect the health and self-determination of all people.”

                                                            ###

The post CJA Condemns Trump Administration’s Use of the Defense Production Act to Expand Fossil Fuels appeared first on Climate Justice Alliance.

By Thomas Homer-Dixon and Christopher Collins

The version of record of this op-ed appeared in The New Republic

The world is in crisis right now, but the summer is shaping up to be much worse—for reasons beyond every country’s control, including America’s.

President Trump’s war on Iran is the cause of the current crisis. Iran’s retaliatory closure of the Strait of Hormuz to most trade has caused oil and natural gas prices to skyrocket, forcing countries to find creative ways to cut energy demand, and caused a fertilizer shortage that is certain to reduce crop yields around the world while also increasing the costs of agricultural goods. All of this comes as economic growth has slowed globally and governments have amassed record levels of debt.

And then, in a couple of months, we’ll likely have El Niño to contend with too. Welcome to the polycrisis.

That term, which was coined back in the 1970s, has gained popularity in recent years—thanks in part to Columbia professor Adam Tooze. Popularly, it’s sometimes seen as shorthand for “a lot of bad things happening all at once,” but that misses its real meaning. A true polycrisis is not a pile-up of unrelated calamities. Rather, it occurs when separate crises in different systems become entangled, feeding off each other and producing damage greater than the sum of their parts.

Consider fertilizer. The Persian Gulf region is a major producer of it, and roughly one-third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Moreover, both natural gas and sulfur are critical inputs for fertilizer production, and Persian Gulf supplies of these commodities have also been cut off. This has caused fertilizer plants in South Asia to shut down, while China, one of the world’s largest fertilizer suppliers, has restricted exports to protect its domestic market.

So global fertilizer prices are surging, just as the spring planting season begins across the northern hemisphere. Around the world, governments are scrambling to secure fertilizer supplies and concerns are growing about food security in developing countries and rising grocery prices in wealthier ones. Farmers have been advised to expect tighter supply and margin pressures. In the U.S, this has already resulted in the lowest planting of spring wheat since 1970.

Now add weather. Forecasts predict that 2026 will be one of the hottest years on record, as the concentration of human-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to rise. Extreme heat accelerates moisture evaporation from soil, aggravates droughts, and reduces crop yields. Worse, there’s an 80 percent chance that an El Niño will develop this year, altering global rainfall patterns and triggering droughts in some regions and floods in others. NASA estimates that El Niño harms crop yields on at least a quarter of the world’s farmland. And there is a 25 percent chance this will be a “super” El Niño, intense enough to cause globally catastrophic extreme weather.

Research shows a strong El Niño can have an impact on global food supplies that causes six million children to go hungry. But these calculations do not include a global fertilizer shortage. Climate stress with adequate fertilizer is challenging. Climate stress without it is an entirely different order of crisis.

Unfortunately, these two crises are largely locked in, and there is little we can do in the short term to prevent their collision during the 2026 growing season. Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopened tomorrow, it would take time to restore global supply chains. The seeds of the polycrisis have already been planted, both literally and figuratively.

Yet food is only one system facing a shock. The Iran war is upending global energy markets, driving inflation, and lowering economic growth around the world. And this is all occurring at a time when many countries are still burdened by record levels of public debt left over from the pandemic, something the International Monetary Fund has termed “the fiscal version of long COVID.”

Research shows that food price shocks can act as a “threat multiplier,” transforming existing political dissatisfaction into widespread violent uprisings. As evidence, a global food price crisis in 2007–08 and a similar spike in food prices in 2010–11 caused riots and political instability in many countries.

The pressures building this summer are broader than what we’ve seen in the past, and the political and humanitarian consequences will be severe. Our institutions were not built to manage interrelated crises. Defense ministries watch the Strait of Hormuz, agriculture departments track fertilizer prices, climate agencies issue El Niño bulletins, and Treasury officials supervise debt levels. Each institution monitors and tries to manage crises in a single system, but nobody is tasked with modeling and mitigating the consequences when apparently distinct crises converge.

An effective response demands an integrated playbook. Contingency plans for this summer’s harvests need to simultaneously account for fertilizer shortages and extreme weather. International coordination should extend to fertilizer allocation, not just oil reserves. A planned United Nations fertilizer coordination initiative is a strong start, but developing countries also need urgent help diversifying their fertilizer import supply chains. Humanitarian organizations must prepare for dramatically elevated demand for food aid, and donors need to mobilize now—not after the harvests fail.

In the longer term, the world’s multilateral system needs standing capacity to monitor how crises in different domains interact, so that we stop being repeatedly blindsided by cascading crises that careful analysis could have anticipated. This is what polycrisis analysis seeks to address. The goal is not to replace specialists but to develop the tools and foster the conversations that track risk interactions across silos before containable shocks compound into systemic breakdowns.

None of this is happening at the required pace. Around the world, farmers are preparing to plant while facing both drought forecasts and disrupted supplies of fuel and fertilizer. They’re on the front lines of this polycrisis right now, but soon we all may be embroiled in it.

Read the article in The New Republic The post Cascade researchers warn of “bad-to-worse” crises in The New Republic appeared first on Cascade Institute.

View of the sound walls around Chevron’s Bishop well pad from only a mile away at Galeton Elementary’s playground in May 2025.

What do toxic geysers and shiny new playgrounds have in common? The sensible answer is: Nothing. But in the rural community of Galeton, Colorado, both serve as a reminder of the impacts that the oil and gas industry can have on communities.

In August 2025, Galeton Elementary celebrated the opening of a new playground donated by Chevron, which, through its subsidiaries Noble Energy and PDC Energy, owns many of the well pads in the surrounding area. From the promotional video, it would appear that the residents and schoolchildren of Galeton were merely the lucky recipients of an act of corporate benevolence. However, this video lacks some important context:

In April 2025, a well at Chevron’s Bishop well pad located about a mile from Galeton Elementary suffered a critical failure and a blowout occurred. This blowout resulted in plumes of dangerous airborne pollutants like benzene that were detected miles away from the well, and a geyser of well fluids that lasted for days, blanketing homes and the nearby elementary school in toxic compounds. Over one million gallons of fluids spewed over a 1.5 mile radius from the well, contaminating soil and surfaces, including the previous playground at Galeton Elementary. Homes were evacuated, families have been displaced, and cleanup and remediation is predicted to continue through 2030.

Photos of cleanup efforts at a home adjacent to the Bishop well pad in May 2025

In other words, what that video does not tell you is that the new playground at Galeton Elementary is the result of ongoing cleanup efforts from one of the worst “spills” in Colorado’s history. 

It is a good thing that Chevron rebuilt the school’s playground after the disaster. But, it should not be used to excuse or distract from the harm that was done to those whose lives were upended.

$1.5M Fine: a significant sum, a meager penalty

Colorado’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) recently fined Chevron $1.5 million dollars for the incident, much of which will be used to bolster enforcement efforts at ECMC. In addition, Chevron is responsible for covering the costs of ongoing cleanup and remediation efforts. 

This is one of the largest fines the ECMC has ever levied against an operator. It is a significant sum, and ensuring that some of those funds go towards improving state enforcement efforts is an important goal.

However, $1.5 million dollars is still a meager penalty for a multinational corporation that reported $2.8 billion in earnings in the last quarter. To put that in perspective, the fine represents five ten-thousandths of a percent (0.0005%) of those quarterly earnings. At that rate, Chevron could easily afford thousands of such fines without seeing even a dent in their finances.

The fine is not nothing. The fine is a start. Now, the ECMC must ensure that Chevron’s cleanup efforts are conducted properly and must also do everything in its power to ensure that operators take measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring elsewhere. 

More importantly, the fine, the cleanup efforts, and the brand new playground do not diminish the harm done to those displaced, those exposed to harmful pollutants, and to the environment. Companies like Chevron have the money to buy goodwill, but we should not let them cover up the impacts the oil and gas industry has on communities like Galeton.

We must ensure that the oil and gas industry is not allowed to continue to mislead communities. And, in Galeton, this truth remains: 

Even after the cleanup has concluded, schoolchildren at Galeton Elementary will be able to see the Bishop well pad on the horizon from their new playstructure. That is, when the air is not dangerous to breathe and visibility greatly reduced due to persistent smog fueled by Front Range oil and gas activities.

The post A “Good Neighbor” with a Toxic Legacy appeared first on Earthworks.

The fossil fuel crisis triggered by the Iran war should push nations to speed up their shift towards clean energy and break their dependence on volatile sources, energy and climate ministers said on Tuesday.

Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s climate minister and COP31 president, said the crisis was yet another demonstration that fossil fuels cannot guarantee energy security, making it crucial for countries to diversify by investing in renewable energy.

“We know that relying solely on fossil fuels means walking towards volatility, insecurity and climate collapse,” he told fellow ministers at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an annual gathering in Berlin that traditionally opens the global climate diplomacy calendar.

Ministers from more than 30 countries, along with United Nations representatives, are meeting until Wednesday to lay the groundwork for a deal to accelerate climate action at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye.

They will debate how to ramp up efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, mobilise climate finance amid shrinking international aid budgets, and leverage a strained multilateral system to deliver results.

Fossil fuels not the answer

The gathering is taking place in the shadow of what some energy analysts have described as the largest oil and gas supply disruption in history. The conflict in the Middle East has sent oil and gas prices soaring, with growing ripple effects on food production and industrial manufacturing.

Australia’s escalating fuel crisis meant the country’s energy minister Chris Bowen, who will also be in charge of COP31 negotiations, cancelled his trip to the Berlin summit. Joining by videolink, he said the crisis is a “unique opportunity” to underline the message that “energy reliability, energy sovereignty and energy security are entirely in keeping with strong decarbonisation”.

• Apr 21, 2026 News Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift Energy think tank Ember said fossil fuel electricity fell slightly in both countries simultaneously for the first time, tipping the global balance Read more
• Apr 16, 2026 News US pressure puts World Bank’s climate plan at risk Closed-door talks over the World Bank’s climate agenda have stalled, as the US pushes to scrap green targets and expand support for fossil fuels Read more

“Doubling down on fossil fuels is not the answer to this crisis,” he added. “Wind cannot be subject to a sanction, the sun cannot be interrupted by a blockade. These are all reliable forms of energy, which must be supported by storage”.

Electrification is a “megatrend”

Echoing Bowen’s remarks, Germany’s climate minister Carsten Schneider said the current crisis will be “an accelerator [of the energy transition] because it will help many people understand and realise how dependent we are on fossil fuels”.

He added that “electrification is turning into a global megatrend” but called for more discussion on how to ensure that industry and transport become less reliant on oil and gas across the world.

At last year’s climate talks, countries failed to agree to start a process to draft a global plan to shift away from oil, coal and gas. But the Brazilian COP30 presidency is taking it upon itself to deliver this roadmap before the summit in Antalya.

Discussions are expected to kick into higher gear at the first-ever conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels due to start at the end of this week in Colombia. COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago has said the roadmap should be published in September.

Clear plans needed

Addressing the Petersberg summit, the head of the United Nations António Guterres said that transition roadmaps can help countries manage urgent choices during the ongoing fuel crisis while advancing a just transition to a clean and secure energy future.

“We must respond to the energy crisis without deepening the climate crisis,” he added. “Short-term measures must not lock in long-term fossil fuel dependence and expansion”.

The ministers argued that, despite the US withdrawal from international climate diplomacy under President Trump, other countries remained committed to working together to tackle the climate crisis.

But Türkiye’s Kurum scolded the more than 40 governments that have not yet published their national climate plans, more than a year after the official UN deadline. These are mostly smaller nations, but the group of laggards also includes Vietnam, Argentina and Egypt.

“We will ensure that countries fulfil the fundamental requirements of the COP,” he said, adding that his team is working intensely with the UN to ensure these plans – known as nationally determined contributions – are submitted.

“Without diagnosis, you can’t treat”, he said.

The post Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say appeared first on Climate Home News.

New info bolsters need for NC Governor Josh Stein and the legislature to stop the climate- and rate-wrecking corporate polluter from building unneeded power plants

Why is a monopoly corporate utility allowed to recruit more and more power-hungry businesses into its territory? And why is it allowed to spend millions of customer dollars every year doing so?

Last week, Duke Energy filed a cleverly worded report to regulators about its anticipated influx of data centers to North Carolina. The filing isn’t transparent about the utility’s role in recruiting those industrial customers, but Duke has long had a well-resourced economic development department that coaxes hundreds of power-using industries into the state.

Now, as always, Duke’s eye-popping projection of massive growth in electricity usage is  designed to bolster its bogus case for building unneeded power plants with customers’ dollars.

Enticing data centers to the state and offering tax breaks on their power usage runs counter to the overall interest of the people of North Carolina. Such developments are facing well-aimed backlash due to the multiple negative community impacts and creation of very few jobs. 

“Duke Energy is committed to supporting economic vitality in the Carolinas by collaborating with current and prospective customers and communities to understand and plan for future energy needs,” the filing says.

Duke leaders plan to drive up power bills and keep gouging customers by adding an unprecedented $60 billion to the rate system in just the next 4 years in the Carolinas. 

We appreciate Governor Stein for challenging the sales tax incentive. But he must stop the monopoly’s recruiting of new business to pad its investors’ pockets while abusing the people of North Carolina and blocking climate solutions.

###

Now in its 38th year, NC WARN is building people power in the climate and energy justice movement to persuade or require Charlotte-based Duke Energy – one of the world’s largest climate polluters – to make a quick transition to renewable, affordable power generation and energy efficiency in order to avert climate tipping points and ongoing rate hikes. 

The post Duke Energy Recruits Data Centers to NC Using Millions of Customer Dollars Each Year — NC WARN News Release appeared first on NC WARN.

Rachel Rose Jackson is a climate researcher and international policy expert whose work involves monitoring polluter interference at the UNFCCC and advancing pathways to protect against it.

Next week, dozens of governments will gather in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for a conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

The conference is a first of its kind, in name and in practice. It’s a welcome change to see a platform for global climate action actually acknowledge the primary cause of the climate crisis – fossil fuels. This sends a clear message about what needs to be done to avoid tumbling off the climate cliff edge we are precariously balancing on.

The agenda set for governments to hash out goes further than any other multilateral space has managed to date. Over the week, participants will discuss how to overcome the economic dependence on fossil fuels, transform supply and demand, and advance international cooperation to transition away from fossil fuels. 

Alongside the conference, academics, civil society, movements and others are convening to put forward their visions of a just and forever fossil fuel phase out. The conference can help shape pathways and tools governments can use to achieve a fossil-fuel-free future, particularly if the dialogue begins with an honest assessment of “fair shares.” 

• Apr 6, 2026 Events Santa Marta: fossil fuel transition in an unstable world Transitioning away from fossil fuels in an unstable world: how can Santa Marta deliver? Read more
• Mar 31, 2026 News Major oil producers among 46 nations joining fossil fuel phase-out summit Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway are set to attend the Santa Marta summit, but the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers are missing from the list Read more
• Mar 25, 2026 News Iran war could boost fossil fuel phase-out push, says Colombian minister Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres said she hopes that a new fossil fuel phase out summit in Santa Marta can cement a coalition of countries Read more

This means assessing who is most responsible for emissions and exploring truer means of international collaboration that can unlock the technology, resources and finances necessary for a just transition.  

Fossil fuel-driven violence is spiraling in places like Palestine, Iran, and Venezuela. Climate disasters are causing billions and billions of dollars in damage annually with no climate reparations in sight. All of this remains recklessly unaddressed on account of corporate-funded fascism. 

We know the world’s addiction to fossil fuels must end. Is it surprising that a global governmental convening chooses now to try to tackle fossil fuels? It shouldn’t be, but it is.

COP failures

By contrast, meetings of governments signed up to the longest-standing multilateral forum for climate action—the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – took nearly three decades before it officially responded to the power built by movements and acknowledged the need to address fossil fuel use at COP28 in 2023. 

Even then, this recognition came riddled with loopholes. It may seem illogical that a forum established by governments in 1992 to coordinate a response to climate change should take decades to acknowledge the root of the problem. Yet there are clear reasons why arenas like the UNFCCC have consistently failed to curb fossil fuels decade after decade. 

What would the outcome be when a fossil fuel executive literally oversaw COP28 and when Coca-Cola was one of the sponsors for COP27?

How can strong action take hold when, year after year, the UNFCCC’s COPs are inundated with thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists? 

And how can justice be achieved when there are zero safeguards in place to protect against the conflicts of interest these polluters have? 

Colombia pledges to exit investment protection system after fossil fuel lawsuits

Justly transitioning off fossil fuels cannot be charted when the very actors that have knowingly caused the climate crisis are at the helm—the same actors that consistently spend billions to spread denial and delay. 

Unless platforms like the UNFCCC take concerted action to protect climate policymaking from the profit-at-all-costs agenda of polluters, the world will not deliver the climate action people and the planet deserve. 

The impacts of climate action failure are now endured on a daily basis in some way by each of us – and especially by frontline communities, Indigenous Peoples, youth, women, and communities in the Global South. We must be closing gaps and unlocking pathways for advancing the strongest, fairest and fastest action possible. 

Learn from mistakes

Yet, as we chase a fossil-fuel-free horizon, it’s essential that we learn from the mistakes of the past. We do not have the luxury or time to repeat them. History shows us we must protect against the polluting interests that want the world addicted to fossil fuels for as long as humanly possible.

We must also reject their schemes that undermine a just transition—dangerous distractions like carbon markets and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) that are highly risky and spur vast harm, all while allowing for polluters to continue polluting. 

Fossil Free Zones can be on-ramps to the clean energy transition

We get to a fossil-fuel-free future by following the leadership of the movements, communities and independent experts who hold the knowledge and lived experience to guide us there. 

We succeed by protecting against those who have a track record of prioritising greed over the sacredness of life. 

And we arrive at a world liberated from fossil fuels by doing all of these things from day one, before the toxicity of the fossil fuel industry’s poison takes hold. 

If this gathering in Santa Marta can do this, then it can help set a new precedent for what people-centered and planet-saving climate action looks like. When everything hangs in the balance, there can be no if’s, and’s, or but’s. There’s only here and now, what history shows us must be done, and what we know is lost if we do not. 

The post To avoid COP mistakes, Santa Marta conference must be shielded from fossil fuel influence appeared first on Climate Home News.

National Nurses United, has placed Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, MN on “RED ALERT” status, warning policymakers and the public that this potential hospital closure would have a drastic, irreversible impact on patients and healthcare workers across Minnesota and the Midwest.

Read the English version of this post. / Baca versi bahasa Inggris dari postingan ini.

Kegagalan fasilitas limbah tambang di Meksiko yang baru-baru ini terjadi kembali menggaris-bawahi betapa berbahayanya limbah tambang, atau tailing, bagi para pekerja serta menyoroti pentingnya perlindungan terhadap hak dan keselamatan pekerja di lokasi pertambangan di seluruh dunia.

Kegiatan pertambangan menghasilkan limbah beracun dalam jumlah yang sangat besar dan limbah itu akan tetap ada di area pertambangan tersebut secara permanen. Penyimpanan limbah yang aman sangatlah penting bagi masyarakat di sekitar lokasi tambang dan bagi lingkungan – serta bagi para pekerja yang berada di dalam maupun di sekitar fasilitas penyimpanan tailing. Konsekuensi dari setiap kegagalan bisa berakibat fatal, seperti menimbun manusia dalam lumpur beracun, serta mencemari tanah dan sumber air.

Pekerja terjebak di terowongan di Meksiko

Pada tanggal 25 Maret, kegagalan tailing di tambang Santa Fe di Sinaloa, Meksiko, menyebabkan terowongan bawah tanah dari tambang tersebut tergenang, sehingga para pekerja terjebak di dalam tambang. Pada saat kejadian, sebanyak dua puluh lima pekerja berada di dalam terowongan, dan hanya dua puluh satu dari mereka berhasil diselamatkan dengan cepat.

Dari empat pekerja yang terjebak, satu orang dari antaranya berhasil diselamatkan setelah 100 jam berada di bawah tanah. Satu orang lagi ditemukan dalam keadaan masih hidup setelah 13 hari upaya penyelamatan. Sangat disayangkan, pekerja ketiga ditemukan dalam keadaan meninggal dunia ketika tim penyelamat memasuki minggu kedua proses penggalian, dan meskipun upaya pencarian terus dilakukan, jenazah pekerja keempat belum berhasil ditemukan.

Tambang emas-perak tersebut adalah milik perusahaan pertambangan Meksiko bernama Industrial Minera Sinaloa S.A. de C.V. (IMSSA). Menurut laporan media di Meksiko, genangan air tersebut diduga disebabkan oleh kegagalan lapisan pelindung (liner) pada bendungan tailing, yang mengakibatkan lubang amblas (sinkhole) yang ditengarai menyebabkan “material lumpur merembes masuk ke dalam tambang, yang kemudian memicu proses erosi internal yang merapuhkan struktur terowongan dan menghalangi jalur akses utama.”

Secara tragis, para pekerja seringkali harus menanggung risiko akibat bendungan tailing yang berbahaya.

Ratusan korban meninggal saat jam makan siang di Brasil

Dari 272 orang yang tewas ketika bendungan tailing Brumadinho di Brasil runtuh pada tahun 2019, sebanyak 250 orang merupakan pekerja tambang. Peristiwa tersebut tercatat sebagai kecelakaan industri terburuk dalam sejarah negara tersebut. Perusahaan pertambangan Vale membangun sebuah kantin di bawah bendungan tailing, dan bendungan tersebut runtuh pada jam makan siang, sehingga menimbun para pekerja yang berada tepat di jalur longsoran tailing. Sebuah studi pada tahun 2023 menemukan bahwa tingkat kerusakan fisik pada pekerja tambang adalah 3,4 kali lebih parah dibandingkan korban dari masyarakat sekitar. Laporan tersebut juga menyebutkan bahwa “jumlah korban jiwa lebih besar serta tingkat kerusakan fisik yang juga lebih parah dialami para pekerja dibandingkan penduduk setempat. Hal ini menegaskan betapa besarnya bahaya pekerjaan di industri pertambangan, dan hasil studi ini membantu menjelaskan dinamika bencana tersebut.”

Sejumlah kecelakaan merenggut korban jiwa di Indonesia

Serangkaian kecelakaan industri yang terimbas dari pesatnya pertumbuhan industri pertambangan dan pengolahan nikel di Indonesia menggambarkan besarnya risiko yang dihadapi para pekerja ketika kegiatan pertambangan berkembang tanpa disertai pertimbangan keselamatan yang memadai. Dari tahun 2015 hingga 2024, produksi tambang nikel tahunan Indonesia meningkat dari 5,7% menjadi 62,2% dari total produksi tambang nikel dunia. Seiring peningkatan tersebut, kegiatan pertambangan ini menghasilkan limbah dalam jumlah yang sangat besar. Tragisnya, lonjakan produksi tersebut juga diwarnai oleh berbagai tragedi.

Di Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park, pengelolaan fasilitas tailing yang tidak memadai telah mengakibatkan sejumlah kematian pekerja. “Tempat pembuangan tailing mengancam kesehatan dan keselamatan pekerja. Bendungan-bendungan tersebut berpotensi runtuh, yang dapat mengakibatkan korban jiwa, pekerja tertimbun lumpur, serta terpapar bahan kimia beracun,” ujar Tesar Anggrian, seorang aktivis dari serikat pekerja yang mewakili pekerja tambang di kawasan industri tersebut, FSPIM-KPBI.

Pada bulan Januari 2025, dua pekerja tertimbun hidup-hidup akibat longsor yang dipicu oleh kegiatan pertambangan; kemudian pada bulan Maret di tahun yang sama, kegagalan tailing kembali menewaskan tiga pekerja. Pada bulan Februari 2026, kegagalan lainnya merenggut nyawa seorang pekerja ketika limbah menimbun alat berat yang sedang dioperasikannya.

Sebuah laporan Earthworks tahun 2026, yang berjudul Tailing yang Difilter di Indonesia: Kegagalan Katastropik dari Sebuah Teknologi Disruptif menyoroti bahaya-bahaya yang mungkin terjadi karena penerapan suatu jenis teknologi penyimpanan limbah di banyak fasilitas nikel baru di Indonesia. Ukuran fasilitas tailing yang sangat besar serta perluasan yang berlangsung sedemikian cepat telah meningkatkan risiko. Curah hujan yang tinggi serta aktivitas gempa di Indonesia juga dapat meningkatkan kemungkinan terjadinya kegagalan.

Perlindungan bagi pelapor pelanggaran dapat meningkatkan keselamatan semua pihak

Para pekerja sering kali menyadari ketika fasilitas tailing sudah tidak aman lagi. Dalam sebuah wawancara dari rumah sakit, dengan seorang pekerja tambang Meksiko yang berhasil diselamatkan didapatkan keterangan, “Saya sudah lama punya firasat buruk karena posisi bendungan tailing berada tepat di atas tambang, dan saya tahu bendungan itu suatu saat pasti jebol.” Para pekerja tambang di Afrika Selatan juga telah memperingatkan manajemen perihal kondisi bendungan tailing di Jagersfontein yang berbahaya. Peringatan tersebut diabaikan, dan benar saja, bendungan itu runtuh dan menewaskan lima orang.

Standar keselamatan pekerja sudah ada dan harus dipatuhi

Keselamatan pekerja tidak boleh diabaikan demi memenuhi kebutuhan akan mineral dan logam. Perusahaan pertambangan tidak boleh mencari keuntungan sementara mereka mengorbankan keselamatan. Pemerintah daerah maupun nasional bersama dengan perusahaan pertambangan sering mengerahkan sumber daya dan waktu yang sangat besar untuk menyelamatkan pekerja ketika kegagalan terjadi, namun sama pentingnya – bahkan lebih penting – untuk menginvestasikan sumber daya serta waktu dalam upaya menjaga keselamatan pekerja sejak dari awal.

Perusahaan pertambangan perlu mendengarkan dan melibatkan para pekerja, mengambil semua tindakan yang diperlukan untuk melindungi keselamatan mereka, serta menciptakan suatu mekanisme dimana pekerja dapat menyampaikan peringatan jika mereka mengetahui adanya kondisi berbahaya tanpa rasa takut kehilangan pekerjaan. Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management memuat pedoman-pedoman yang dapat diterapkan untuk melindungi pekerja, lingkungan, serta masyarakat dari risiko besar yang ditimbulkan oleh limbah tambang. Pedoman-pedoman tersebut telah didukung oleh serikat pekerja tambang dunia terbesar, yakni IndustriALL Global Union.

The post Pekerja Menanggung Risiko Dari Bendungan Tailing Yang Berbahaya appeared first on Earthworks.

A recent failure at a mine waste facility in Mexico highlights how dangerous mine waste, or tailings, can be for workers and the importance of protecting workers’ rights and safety at mines around the globe.

Mining creates huge amounts of toxic waste that remains permanently in the environment. Storing that waste safely is important for nearby communities and the environment — and for the workers who work in and around tailings facilities. The consequences of failure can be deadly, burying people in toxic mud and polluting land and water.

Workers trapped in tunnels in Mexico

On March 25th, a tailings failure at the Santa Fe mine in Sinaloa, Mexico flooded the mine’s underground shafts, trapping workers in the depths of the mine. A crew of 25 workers were in the shafts at the time of the failure, and twenty-one were rescued quickly. 

Of the four trapped miners, one was rescued after 100 hours underground. A second worker was found alive after 13 days of rescue efforts. Sadly, a third worker’s body was found as rescue crews entered the second week of excavation, and despite continued efforts, the fourth worker’s body has not been recovered.

The silver-gold mine is owned by a Mexican mining company called Industrial Minera Sinaloa S.A. de C.V. (IMSSA). According to Mexican media reports, the flooding appears to have been caused by a failure in the liner of a tailings dam, which created a sinkhole and seemed to have allowed “muddy material to seep into the mine, generating an internal erosion process that weakened the structure of the tunnels and blocked the main access ramps.”

Tragically, workers often pay the price for dangerous tailings dams. 

Hundreds killed at lunch hour in Brazil

Of the 272 people killed when the Brumadinho tailings dam failed in Brazil in 2019, 250 were workers. The failure holds the place of the worst industrial accident in the history of the country. The mining company, Vale, built a cafeteria below the tailings dam, and the dam failed over the lunch hour, placing workers directly in the path of the tailings landslide. A 2023 study found that body dismemberment was 3.4 times greater among mine workers than among community victims, and stated that, “the higher number of fatalities and greater dismemberment among employees than with community residents underlines the occupational dangers in the mining industry and clarifies the dynamics of the disaster.”

The names and faces of people who lost their lives in the Brumadinho tailings failure on display on the fourth anniversary of the disaster.  Multiple accidents cost lives in Indonesia

A series of industrial accidents tied to Indonesia’s booming nickel mining and processing industry underscore the risks to workers when mining expands without the necessary considerations for safety. From 2015 to 2024, annual mine production of nickel in Indonesia rose from 5.7% to 62.2% of world mine production. This mining creates a huge amount of waste. However, this expansion has been tainted by tragedies. 

At the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park, mismanagement of tailings facilities has led to numerous worker deaths. “The tailings dump threatens the health and safety of workers. The dams have the potential to collapse, which can result in fatalities and workers being buried in mud and exposed to toxic chemicals,” said Tesar Anggrian, a campaigner for the union representing mineworkers at the industrial park, FSPIM-KPBI.

In January 2025, two workers were buried alive by a landslide caused by mining activities; then in March of the same year a tailings failure killed three more workers. In February of 2026, yet another failure killed a worker when waste buried the heavy machinery he was operating.  

A landslide at a tailings storage facility at Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park in February of 2026 buried heavy machinery and killed a worker. Photo by workers at IMIP.

A 2026 Earthworks report, Filtered Tailings: The Catastrophic Failure of a Disruptive Technology, highlights the specific dangers associated with a certain type of waste storage technology being used at many newer nickel facilities in Indonesia. The massive size and rapid expansion of these tailings facilities is leading to increased risk. Indonesia’s heavy rains and earthquakes could also make failures more likely.

Whistleblower protections make everyone safer

Workers often know when tailings facilities are unsafe. In an interview from his hospital bed, the first rescued Mexican miner said, “I’d been thinking for quite some time that the tailings dam was right above the mine, and I knew it was bound to burst at any moment.” Mineworkers in South Africa warned management of dangerous conditions at a tailings dam in Jagersfontein. Their concerns were ignored, and the dam later collapsed and killed five people. 

Workers safety standards exist and must be followed

Workers’ lives must never be expendable in the push for minerals and metals. Mining companies should not be allowed to prioritize their profits at the expense of safety. Local and national governments together with mining companies often expend vast resources and time to rescue workers when a failure occurs, but it is equally, if not more, important that they invest the same resources and time on keeping workers safe in the first place.

Mining companies need to listen to and engage with workers, take all the necessary measures to protect their lives, and create mechanisms for workers to sound the alarm on dangerous conditions, without fear of losing their jobs. Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management, lays out a series of guidelines to protect workers, the environment and communities from the significant risks posed by mine waste. The guidelines have been endorsed by the largest global mineworkers union, IndustriALL Global Union. 

The post Workers Pay the Price for Dangerous Tailings Dams  appeared first on Earthworks.

The evolutionary edge that fueled great white shark dominance for millions of years could soon become its greatest downfall.

Read more on E360 →

A record surge in clean power met all global electricity demand growth in 2025, preventing any increase in fossil fuel generation, according to energy think tank Ember.

Solar led the expansion, recording its fastest growth rate in eight years and meeting around 75% of new electricity demand alone.

Together with wind, hydropower and other low-carbon sources, the solar surge drove clean generation to rise by 887 TWh, slightly exceeding demand growth of 849 TWh and pushing fossil generation down by 0.2%, Ember said in a report published on Tuesday.

Much of this shift was driven by China and India, where rapid clean energy expansion outpaced electricity demand growth, leading to declines in fossil generation in both countries for the first time this century.

IEA slashes pre-war oil demand forecast by nearly a million barrels per day

“We have firmly entered the era of clean growth,” said Aditya Lolla, Ember’s managing director. 

“Clean energy is now scaling fast enough to absorb rising global electricity demand, keeping fossil generation flat before its inevitable decline,” Lolla added. 

China and India lead the way

A key driver of the global shift was a “historic” reversal in China and India, the largest contributors to fossil power growth over the past two decades, Ember said.

For the first time this century, electricity generation from fossil fuels fell in both countries in the same year, tipping the global balance.

In China, fossil generation dropped by 0.9%, its first decline since 2015, as rapid additions of solar and wind outpaced rising demand. In India, fossil generation fell by 3.3%, driven by record increases in solar and wind, strong hydro production and relatively slower demand growth.

This shift helped push renewables to around 34% of global electricity generation in 2025, overtaking coal for the first time in the modern era.

Vivek Mundkur with portable solar pumping system in Pune in 2014 (Photo: Vivek M/Greenpeace)

“China’s rapid expansion of solar and wind is meeting rising electricity demand at home while influencing the global electricity transition,”  said Xunpeng Shi, president of the International Society for Energy Transition Studies.

“As the world’s largest builder of clean power, China’s progress is showing how growing demand can increasingly be met with clean electricity rather than fossil fuels,” Shi added. 

Solar leading global energy supply growth

Reinforcing Ember’s findings, new analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed on Monday that solar has become the single largest driver of global energy supply growth, beyond the electricity sector.

In its latest Global Energy Review, the IEA found that solar PV accounted for more than a quarter of the increase in global energy demand in 2025, making it the first time any modern renewable source has taken the top spot.

The agency also reported that solar recorded the largest annual increase ever seen for any electricity generation technology.

Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom?

Ember’s Lolla said clean energy is “redefining the foundation of energy security in a volatile world,” adding that “it is already helping countries reduce exposure to fossil fuel imports and costs while meeting rising electricity demand”. 

‘Antidote to fossil fuel cost chaos‘

As the war in the Middle East disrupts global oil and gas supplies, the head of UN Climate Change, Simon Stiell, said the current crisis underscores the risks of fossil fuel dependence and the need for more secure, domestic energy sources. 

“Wars don’t disrupt the supply of sunlight for solar power, and wind power does not depend on vulnerable shipping straits,” Stiell said. 

Speaking at the opening of the Green Transformation Week conference in South Korea, Stiell encouraged countries to accelerate the transition to clean energy to regain control of their economies and national security.

Nigerians bet on solar as global oil shock hits wallets and power supplies

“War has once again revealed the soaring costs of fossil fuel dependency,” he said, warning that volatile energy markets are “holding economies around the world in a chokehold.”

“Clean energy is the antidote to fossil fuel cost chaos, because it is cheaper, safer and faster-to-market,” he added.

The post Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift appeared first on Climate Home News.

The temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz, triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, has once again exposed Europe’s dangerous dependence on imported fossil fuels. As geopolitical shockwaves ripple through transport, industry, and household budgets, Spain is better positioned to face this challenge. A decade of sustained investment in renewables has made it a blueprint for coordinated European action towards energy independence.  

The war in Iran and the temporary closure of the Strait of Hormuz – through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and LNG flowed – have once again placed energy at the heart of the global political economy over the past month. The recent ceasefire agreement offers some relief, but it does not eliminate the current geostrategic risks. 

As with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, geopolitical instability has quickly spilt over into international oil and gas markets, driving up fossil fuel prices. This surge in fossil fuel prices has been feeding through the economy via multiple channels. It raises transportation and industrial costs, while also pushing up electricity prices, as gas continues to act as the marginal price-setting technology in many countries. The result is rising energy inflation that – if the conflict persists after the recent ceasefire – will spread throughout the entire price structure of economies. 

 The EU has been reminded of this vulnerability in stark terms. In just the first month of the conflict, its fossil fuel import bill rose by more than 7 billion euros.

Exposed EU 

The European Union is particularly exposed. Highly dependent on imports – it sources more than 90 per cent of its natural gas and nearly all of its oil from abroad – the EU has been reminded of this vulnerability in stark terms. In just the first month of the conflict, its fossil fuel import bill rose by more than 7 billion euros. Yet the impact has not been uniform. Differences in energy mixes, domestic generation capacity, and levels of electrification are producing markedly divergent outcomes across countries. 

In economies such as Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, where natural gas remains central to both electricity generation and final consumption, higher gas prices translate directly into elevated energy costs and stronger inflationary pressures. 

By contrast, countries with more diversified and electrified energy systems are proving more resilient. Among the eurozone’s largest economies, Spain stands out. Its rapid expansion of renewable energy is reducing its exposure to fossil fuel volatility. 

The Spanish exception 

Over the past decade, Spain has invested heavily in wind power and, above all, solar photovoltaics, significantly increasing their share in the electricity mix. This accelerated energy transition (Figure 1) means that, by 2025, 56 per cent of Spain’s electricity generation came from renewable sources – 22 percentage points more than in 2019. 

Figure 1. Spanish energy mix (electricity produced, 2019-2025).  
Source: Red Eléctrica (2025) 

At a time of turbulence in fossil fuel markets, countries most reliant on gas for electricity generation are also the most vulnerable to price spikes. Indeed, the sharp rise in gas prices across Europe has driven up the cost of electricity produced from gas by over 50 per cent since the outbreak of the conflict. Spain, however, has largely broken this link between gas and electricity prices. The expansion of renewable energies has reduced the impact of costly fossil-fuel power generation on electricity prices by 75 per cent since 2019. 

The payoff is clear. Throughout 2025, Spain’s electricity prices have been 33 per cent lower than in Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, and 50 per cent lower than in Italy. While Spain is not immune to geopolitical shocks, its energy system has proven significantly more resilient since the onset of the war in Iran. In March, wholesale electricity prices averaged 52 euros per MWh – roughly half the level seen in Germany and the UK, and just one-third of Italy’s (Figure 2). Among Europe’s major economies, only France, with its nuclear-based system, has posted similar figures. 

Figure 2. European wholesale electricity, €/MWh (average for the past seven days)  
Source: Market data 

Beyond resilience, the energy transition is also creating new industrial opportunities. Electricity prices for Spanish industry are now 20 per cent below the EU average, whereas during the previous expansion (2014–2019) they were 25 per cent above it. This reversal positions renewables as a powerful driver of reindustrialisation, capital attraction, and international competitiveness. 

These gains could be amplified further if the European Union reformed its marginal pricing system, preventing the most expensive technology from systematically setting prices for all others. Such a reform would accelerate the decline in energy costs. A precedent already exists: during the 2022 energy crisis, Spain implemented the so-called “Iberian exception,” which reduced wholesale electricity prices in the Iberian market to levels up to three times lower than elsewhere in Europe. As economist Natalia Fabra has argued, this should now be seen not as a national advantage, but as a blueprint for coordinated European action. Spain is pointing the way, but others can follow. 

 Spain, […] reduced the impact of costly fossil-fuel power generation on electricity prices by 75 per cent since 2019. Throughout 2025, electricity prices have been 33 per cent lower than in Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, and 50 per cent lower than in Italy.

A new era 

That said, Spain’s energy transition is not without its shortcomings. Not everything shines under the sun. Investment in grid infrastructure – essential for integrating high shares of renewables – has lagged behind. Between 2019 and 2024, Spain recorded the lowest grid spending in Europe, allocating just 0.30 euros to grids for every euro invested in renewables, compared to a European average of 0.70 euros. Addressing this gap will be critical if Spain is to sustain its progress without jeopardising supply security. 

More broadly, a new era in the geopolitics of energy is clearly emerging. The succession of crises – Ukraine in 2022, Iran in 2026 – has exposed the structural fragility of fossil fuel-dependent economies. Far from ensuring energy security, oil and gas leave importing countries vulnerable to price volatility, supply disruptions, and unpredictable risks. 

Renewable energy, by contrast, offers a strategic advantage. It acts as a buffer against external shocks while strengthening economic sovereignty. In this new paradigm, energy security is no longer defined by reliable access to imported fuels, but by the ability to generate clean electricity domestically. As the Ember think tank has shown, scaling up renewables, electric vehicles, and heat pumps could reduce fossil fuel imports by up to 70 per cent. Decreasing exposure to the instability of distant fossil fuel supply chains is therefore essential – not only for energy policy, but for broader monetary, macroeconomic, and social stability.

California Nurses Association members condemn the California State Assembly’s failure to advance A.B. 1900, the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act, also known as CalCare, at a time when health care is needed more urgently than ever before. CalCare is a comprehensive, high-quality single-payer program that would be many Californians’ only lifeline for care.

WIRT Comments on SROG Miller 1-15 Well Application

CAIA Miller 1-15 Well Drilling Objection with Attachments

 

Today the Goldman Environmental Prize, which celebrates grassroots leaders who prove that ordinary people can have an extraordinary impact on the environment, announced its 2026 winners. Among the six women who were awarded the prize this year were members of frontline communities affected by mining and oil and gas drilling, and Alannah Acaq Hurley, Executive Director of United Tribes of Bristol Bay, was one of them. 

Hurley was recognized for her extraordinary work to stop the Pebble Mine in Alaska. Earthworks and our supporters spent more than a decade advocating alongside Tribal Nations and local groups to stop the destructive project. Our staff is delighted to see Hurley receive this recognition for her extraordinary leadership and her coalition’s victory.

This award is so well deserved! Alannah has been a fearless leader in the fight to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine. She brings joy, community and a real strength of spirit to the work. The world is a better place because of her, and her work to protect the world’s largest wild salmon fishery—an ecological and economic powerhouse that sustains local communities and supplies the world with a bounty of healthy seafood. I had the great honor to attend an event at the White House rose garden, where Alannah joined President Biden on stage to celebrate Bristol Bay protections. I was so inspired by her passion for the region and her commitment to the people she was there to represent.

— Bonnie Gestring, retired Northwest Program Director, Earthworks

Additional Goldman Prize winners this year were honored for their efforts confronting extractive industries. Theonila Roka Matbob’s efforts compelled Rio Tinto to finally take responsibility for massive environmental contamination at the Panguna mine in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Yuvelis Moralis Blanco was awarded for organizing to prevent fracking in Colombia. 

Learn more about Alannah Acaq Hurley and the other 2026 Goldman Prize winners.

Alannah Acaq Hurley in Dillingham, Alaska. January, 2026. Image courtesy of Goldman Environmental Prize.

The post Earthworks celebrates Alannah Acaq Hurley, Goldman Environmental Prize Winner appeared first on Earthworks.