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It is a tough time to be in South Africa trying to keep the lights on. Across the country, households are feeling the squeeze as electricity costs continue to rise. That’s why we are calling on Government to expand the FBE grant to 350 kWh per month with publicly financed renewable energy. However, most of us don’t know the ups and downs of electricity pricing. In this article, we unpack the proposed changes to electricity pricing, what they could mean for ordinary South Africans, and explore how public investment in renewable energy could help lower electricity costs. 

On 29 July 2026, Cabinet approved the publication of the Revised Electricity Pricing Policy (REPP) and a draft Electricity Sector Market Transformation Position Paper for public comment. Government presents these reforms as a step toward a more transparent and competitive electricity sector. 

While officials frame this as a major step forward, there is a lot to unpack. We need to understand what is being proposed and what it could mean for energy affordability and energy justice. We are concerned with electricity prices, but we are most concerned with energy access, climate justice, and ensuring that every person in South Africa can access safe, reliable, and affordable energy.

For many years, electricity tariffs appeared as a single price, making it difficult for consumers to understand what they were actually paying for. Cabinet argues that one of the key features of the revised pricing policy is greater tariff transparency through the unbundling of electricity costs into separate components: generation, transmission, distribution and retail activities.

When you pay for electricity, the charges may include:

1. Energy charges
   • This is the cost of the electricity you use, measured in cents per kilowatt-hour (c/kWh). It covers the costs of generating electricity and operating power stations.
2. Network charges
   • These charges pay for the transmission and distribution infrastructure, including power lines, transformers, substations, maintenance, and system operations that deliver electricity to homes and businesses.
3. Capacity-related charges
   • Recent tariff reforms have introduced separate charges intended to help recover the cost of maintaining sufficient capacity to meet demand, regardless of actual energy consumption.
4. Social and public-interest support mechanisms
   • This means using electricity pricing to help people who need it most. It includes helping poorer households pay for electricity, extending access to rural communities, and supporting programmes like Free Basic Electricity. 

Eskom is also introducing “Easy Electricity” purchase options. These aren’t new prices, but voluntary “packages” designed to make budgeting easier for prepaid users. Eskom says this option will allow customers to choose electricity amounts, measured in kWh, rather than rand values when buying prepaid tokens.

The revised pricing policy forms part of broader electricity sector reforms following the Electricity Regulation Amendment Act, 2024, and Eskom’s restructuring. The proposed reforms seek to ‘modernise’ the electricity sector and create a more competitive market environment. 

Government says the reforms aim to:

• Increase transparency
  • Tariffs will be unbundled and allocated across generation, transmission, distribution, and retail activities.
• Enable greater competition
  • In simple terms, the government wants to create an electricity market where more companies can generate and sell electricity, rather than relying mainly on Eskom. The hope is that greater competition will lead to a more efficient and reliable electricity system.
• Attract investment
  • Government hopes that new regulatory rules and cost-reflective pricing will encourage private investment in new electricity generation and network infrastructure. Cost-reflective pricing means charging electricity customers a price that reflects the actual cost of supplying electricity, rather than keeping prices low through subsidies or cross-subsidies.
• Supports virtual wheeling
  • The reforms would make it easier for electricity generated in one place to be delivered to customers somewhere else using the existing electricity grid. This means people and businesses could buy electricity from a wider range of producers, even if they are not located nearby.  

The proposed changes to South Africa’s electricity system could bring benefits, but they won’t automatically guarantee affordable electricity for low-income households. In several countries, governments have found that even where competition increased and private investment flowed into the sector, low-income households continued to struggle with rising prices and energy poverty. In some cases, governments had to step in by introducing additional subsidies, social tariffs, price protections, or debt-relief measures to protect vulnerable consumers.

Many South Africans already struggle to afford electricity. Unless government provides support for low-income households, the proposed changes could leave many families behind and make energy poverty even worse.

Free Basic Electricity (FBE) is one of the main ways government helps ensure that low-income households have access to electricity. It is designed to help people who need it most, including pensioners, unemployed people, single-income households, and families surviving on very little to zero income. Experts estimate that around 10 million households qualify for the programme, yet only about 2 in every 10 eligible households actually receive it.

Many organisations, researchers, and community groups agree that South Africa’s Free Basic Electricity programme needs to be expanded.

We are calling on government to increase Free Basic Electricity from 50 kWh to 350 kWh per month. This is the minimum amount a household needs to live with dignity—to keep the lights on, safely cook and store food, heat water, and even run a small business from home to generate an income.

Today, many families spend more on electricity than they do on basic foods like maize meal or bread. Expanding Free Basic Electricity would help ease this burden and ensure more households can meet their basic needs.

These are the realities that should shape South Africa’s electricity policies. The draft pricing reforms are now open for public comment. This is an opportunity for communities, workers, faith groups, civil society organisations, and ordinary South Africans to have a say in the future of our electricity system.

Electricity is more than a service we pay for. It keeps food fresh, powers schools and clinics, creates jobs and livelihoods, and helps families live with dignity. As South Africa reshapes its electricity system, the real question is not only how the market should work, but who it should work for.

Join the #FreeBasicElectricity campaign community and work alongside organisations, community leaders, and activists to help shape, strengthen, and grow the campaign for affordable electricity.

The post Changes to Our Power: What South Africa’s New Electricity Pricing Reforms Mean for Us appeared first on 350.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make polluters pay! 

The post This UN Tax Conference might sound boring appeared first on 350.

Editor’s note: In July 2026, ten residents of Bali, Indonesia filed a citizen lawsuit against the country’s government, seeking a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects and accountability for climate-related disasters. Below, one of the plaintiffs and a field organizer with 350 Indonesia, Suriadi Darmoko, explains why he joined the case and what he believes is at stake for Bali’s future.

Flooding in the dry season? That was my first question after encountering so many floods, caused by extreme rain, that of all things, fall during what should be the dry season. To me, this situation is an extraordinary anomaly.

Back in elementary school I was taught that Indonesia’s dry season runs from April to September, while the rainy season usually falls between October and March. But in the year 2000, when I still lived in my home village, the rain did not come when it was supposed to. Even after the “coffee-blossom rain” — the first rain of the rainy season, after which the coffee plants would normally flower — more than a month passed and no more rain fell. The ground that had been soaked by that “coffee-blossom rain” turned dusty again. As a result, the planting season for rain-fed farmers — including my own parents — had to be delayed. That is a childhood memory of mine, one I thought things would improve after, but they didn’t. Instead I have lived through seasons that grow more and more unpredictable, even more extreme.

The great flood in Bali that struck during the dry season, specifically on 10 September 2025,  brought that memory rushing back. A memory that returned with a simple question: since when did the seasons become so hard to predict? Now, the rain no longer holds back; it strikes right at the peak of the dry season.

Eighteen people died, 295 were displaced, and 6,309 households were affected. In addition, 520 public facilities were damaged, three bridges were severed, 23 road sections were destroyed, 82 retaining walls collapsed, and 194 houses were damaged. Total economic losses were estimated at Rp28.9 billion.

Flooding in Denpasar, Bali. Photo: Kresnanta – BaleBengong

That same year, extreme rainfall struck again at the peak of the dry season, this time in July — collapsing a section of Bali’s main highway, the Denpasar–Gilimanuk route, into a sinkhole roughly 8 meters (26 feet) deep and causing severe congestion. It wasn’t the first time: a 2022 flash flood in nearby Jembrana, a district on the same route, had already submerged 156 homes, displaced 117 households, and destroyed seven bridges.

Rescue efforts after flooding in Denpasar, Bali. Photo: Kresnanta – BaleBengong

Flooding is clearly nothing new for Bali: it keeps recurring, but it does get worse every year. It no longer strikes only the outskirts, but also tourist areas like Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, Canggu, Sanur, Ubud, and other parts of Bali, none of which have escaped flooding. Today, you no longer need to strain to remember when Bali last flooded — the footage is easy to find online. 

It is ironic: an island marketed as a comfortable tourist destination “the last paradise” is instead being battered by climate disasters that grow more intense and more destructive by the year.

Extreme heat, too, no longer holds back even during the rainy season. Several areas in Bali Province have recorded daily temperatures reaching 36 degrees Celsius. Bali was also hit by a prolonged drought in 2016, which caused drinking-water supplies to plummet drastically. For example, at that time the local water treatment plant  could only operate at 25 percent of its total production capacity of 550 liters per second.

Beyond flooding, coastal areas are also not spared from threats coming from the sea: tidal surges threatening beach destinations such as Sanur, Kuta, and many other locations. The threat from ocean waves keeps worsening, to the point that it could paralyze the sea crossings to Bali at any moment. In mid-2025, a ferry  sank after being struck by a tidal surge in the Bali Strait, disrupting the flow of logistics into Bali; the sinking also claimed lives.

2025 is certainly not the peak of Bali’s environmental crisis, because extreme weather continues to threaten this increasingly deforested island.

Increasingly intense extreme weather is colliding with poor land-use practices. According to findings from the PULIHKAN Bali (Restore Bali) Coalition, a public advocacy group, between 2019 and 2024, Bali’s main urban area, the fast-growing region around Denpasar known by the acronym SARBAGITA, lost at least 6,522 hectares of productive rice fields — equivalent to an average shrinkage of 1,087 hectares of rice fields every year, a real erosion of the Subak cultural landscape long celebrated as a world heritage. In the Ayung River Basin (DAS), which serves as the lifeline of Bali’s water supply, the ecosystem is in a state of severe crisis. Forest cover in the Ayung basin, which once reached roughly 49,500 hectares, has now shrunk to only about 1,500 hectares. Meanwhile, Bali’s cities are falling well short of Indonesia’s legal requirement to keep at least 30% of urban land as green space: parks, urban forest, and other unpaved, vegetated areas that help absorb rainwater and reduce flood risk.

The destruction caused by flooding in Denpasar, Bali. Photo: Kresnanta – BaleBengong

To me, it is as if those in power have let Bali become a case of  the classic disaster equation: extreme rain (hazard) plus land-use conversion (vulnerability), compounded by a lack of readiness to face it (capacity).

To me, flooding is only the surface of a much longer chain of root causes. Extreme rain is a result of unstable weather caused by climate change. Climate change is a result of global warming driven by rising greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, and others. So the question follows: does the root cause i.e. the greenhouse gases also originate from within Bali itself?

A survey by the KemBali Becik Community found that 64 percent of Bali’s greenhouse gas emissions come from tourism industry activities. The tourism and industrial sector consumes 3,737 GWh of electricity, while households consume only 3,153 GWh. And with far fewer customers — 226,942 in the tourism sector compared to 1,468,786 households — business and industrial sectors are far more energy-hungry, making their contribution to greenhouse gas production disproportionately large.

I see no sign of improvement at the island-wide scale, even as promises of an energy transition keep echoing across Bali — whether from the Bali Provincial Government or from international forums such as the G20, which gave birth to the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). In fact, Bali is being shown a policy paradox. Regional and central governments keep clearing the way for massive projects that would only add to greenhouse gas emissions and deepen the climate crisis — including plans for four new gas-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 1,550 megawatts (enough to power more than a million homes), paired with a floating terminal that would import and process liquefied natural gas offshore. To put that in perspective: it’s more than Bali’s entire current power supply — the island’s whole existing electricity system has an installed capacity of just 1,518 megawatts, against a peak demand of around 1,227 megawatts. Rather than pursuing a transition, the government instead seems intent on demonstrating that Bali’s energy-security strategy is anchored in fossil fuels. In my view, this is a false sense of energy security — dependence on gas actually threatens Bali with the risk of future energy crises.

I have tried to untangle this complexity through a bit of philosophical reflection. Under the teaching of Karma Phala — the law of cause and effect that also underpins the moral foundation of Balinese society — it is hard to imagine the impacts of the climate crisis easing while the very causes behind it continue to be funded, reinforced, and built up across Bali. Every infrastructure project that increases carbon emissions, and every political decision that sacrifices water-catchment areas, will eventually bear bitter fruit, coming back to collect its due in the form of floods, droughts, rising sea levels, and extreme weather.

For that reason, fossil energy expansion can no longer be treated merely as a technical matter of power supply, it is now a critical issue of public safety, ecological justice, and the very existence of this “last paradise.”

I believe the climate crisis in Bali cannot be calmed by stopping just one greedy project alone. One of the best paths to calming this crisis, is to delay, or even halt, the granting of “extractive permits” across the board, all at once. It is on this basis that I chose to take part in this climate lawsuit together with the PULIHKAN (Movement for Environment and Sustainability) Bali Coalition, with one goal: to prevent Bali from being further destroyed.

At this point, it is entirely reasonable for the Court, and for the judges’ gavel, to take on the important role of deciding on the suspension of extractive permits that are undermining efforts to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis in Bali.

Press conference by PULIHKAN Bali Coalition on July 7, announcing the filing of Bali’s first climate lawsuit Photo: 350.org Indonesia

Through this lawsuit, the PULIHKAN Bali Coalition also hopes to spur the birth of structural policy correction in the form of a moratorium. This moratorium would include a temporary halt on new fossil-fuel energy megaprojects, as well as a halt on permits allowing the conversion of productive agricultural land, water-catchment areas, green open spaces, and protected zones. A moratorium is not an attempt to stop the pulse of the economy — it is the application of a precautionary principle, to ensure that no one becomes a sacrifice made in the name of development.

Beyond a moratorium on permits, I believe it is also essential to emphasize the urgency of reforming climate and disaster financing. Until now, the handling of climate disasters in Indonesia has tended to be reactive, and heavily dependent on the bureaucratic process of declaring a disaster emergency status. Yet the climate crisis has already transformed the frequency and scale of disasters into a real, recurring threat. Regional preparedness must not be held hostage by convoluted administrative procedures. The government needs to progressively allocate dedicated funding within the national and regional budgets  toward mitigation, adaptation, strengthening community preparedness, rapid emergency response, and community-based post-disaster recovery.

Bali, in fact, has a strong historical track record on the global climate stage. As host of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 13) in 2007, Bali once stood at the center of the world’s attention in shaping the Bali Road Map. Now, having set the ambitious target of Bali Net Zero Emissions 2045, that commitment is being tested on the ground. Climate commitments mean nothing if they remain mere diplomatic jargon, while on the ground, permits for fossil industries and the destruction of water-catchment areas continue unabated.

Bali’s climate leadership can only be proven through consistent policy: accelerating the adoption of renewable energy, protecting what remains of its natural landscape, halting fossil expansion, and restoring degraded ecosystems.

This citizens’ lawsuit is, in the end, a mirror of the stakes riding on Bali’s future. The decisions made today will determine whether we will find a Bali that is sustainable and resilient, or an island drowning in an ecological crisis of its own elites’ making. The choice at this crossroads is clear: continue down the path of dependence on fossil energy and destructive land-use conversion, or dare to step toward a clean energy transition, protection of the remaining landscape, and governance grounded in public safety.

Bali cannot walk in two opposing directions at once. For the safety of both people and nature in Bali, choosing a safe and clean future is no longer merely an option — it is a mandate that must be fulfilled now.

The post Bali’s Climate Lawsuit appeared first on 350.

Nearly two decades after 350.org was founded, one of the most common questions we still get is “what does your name mean?” Well, it’s less complicated than you’d think.

350.org stands for 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is considered the safe amount to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

We need our atmosphere to contain less than 350 ppm of CO2, but it currently contains around 430 (you can learn more about science here and check the daily CO2 levels here). Our fight is to keep fossil fuels in the ground in order to return as fast as possible to that safe level.

So our name, 350.org, is a compass to bring us back to safety and an homage to the science that guides us. But it is much more than a number. It’s also a reminder of where our home is, and who’s with us in this journey.

Here’s a video we made way back in 2008, which captures this concept:

The post Do you know what’s in a name? appeared first on 350.

As we write this, deadly wildfires are actively burning across Spain, France and many other countries, with tens of thousands of people evacuated and firefighters risking their lives on the frontlines. Our thoughts are with everyone who has lost a loved one, a home, or a community to these fires, and with every firefighter, emergency worker and volunteer out there right now.

A wildfire is an uncontrolled fire that burns through forests, grasslands, or brush, usually started by a spark — lightning, a downed power line, a discarded cigarette, an agricultural burn gone wrong — that finds fuel dry enough and weather hot, dry and windy enough to let it spread. Fire has always been part of many ecosystems. Some landscapes even depend on regular, low-intensity burns to stay healthy. The problem isn’t that fires happen. The problem is how much bigger, faster and more destructive they’ve become.

Data from just this year confirms the trend. Between January and April 2026 alone, wildfires burned more than 150 million hectares of land worldwide — about 20% above the previous record set in 2020, and roughly double the same period in 2024. The fires weren’t confined to one region: they broke out across continents, fed by the same mix of heat, drought, wind and human ignition, all amplified by a warming climate. Forecasters also expect a rapid swing toward El Niño conditions through the rest of the year, a pattern that has historically lined up with severe fire activity in Australia, Indonesia, the Amazon and parts of North America.

This summer, the crisis has moved to Europe, and it is still unfolding. A punishing run of heatwaves has left the Mediterranean tinder-dry, and fires have already killed at least 16 civilians and three firefighters, and forced more than 320,000 people from their homes across Spain and France alone — with more people being evacuated by the day. Both France and Spain have seen the number of wildfires more than double compared to last year: France has already passed 115,000 hectares burned this year, a national record, with the Gironde fire alone consuming around 42,000 hectares — one of the largest fires the country has seen since the Second World War — while Spain is currently fighting one of its largest wildfires on record near Madrid, which had burned more than 111,000 acres as of late July and remains active. The European Union has activated its largest firefighting mobilization ever, with firefighters and aircraft pre-positioned across a dozen countries for a season that is far from over.

The same heat has driven fires across North Africa: in Tunisia, over 900 fires were recorded within 72 hours, and in Algeria, more than 100 people were hospitalised.

Wildfires have spread across Canada too, with smoke reaching large parts of the US. Toronto’s air quality ranked among the world’s worst, and hospitals reported an increase in ER visits related to the fires.

The most obvious damage a wildfire does is the most visible one: homes destroyed, forests reduced to ash, people killed trying to flee or fighting the fire itself. But wildfires kill in a second, quieter way, one that reaches people who never see a flame: smoke.

Wildfire smoke is loaded with fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, small enough to slip past the body’s defences, enter the bloodstream, and trigger inflammation throughout the body. Globally, wildfire smoke particles are estimated to cause 677,745 deaths every year, with almost 39% of them children under age 5, and the Lancet Countdown 2025 report puts the toll from fine particles at over 100,000 premature deaths a year worldwide, with the burden unevenly distributed between continents. Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia are consistently the hardest-hit regions. The smoke from a single fire season can carry a global cost: Canada’s 2023 wildfires alone were linked to an estimated 82,100 premature deaths worldwide, with smoke drifting across North America and Europe. In the United States, researchers estimate wildfire smoke could contribute to as many as 24,100 deaths every year, and a separate study found that wildfire smoke in California was responsible for over 50,000 deaths between 2008 and 2018, with an economic toll above $430 billion. Scientists have found that almost no system in the body is spared: smoke exposure has been linked to heart disease, stroke, dementia, worsened asthma, complications in pregnancy and even harm to the brain.

Smoke doesn’t respect borders, either. It can travel thousands of miles from its source, blanketing cities that are nowhere near an active fire in a toxic haze. That means the health burden of wildfires falls on far more people than the ones who lose their homes, and it falls hardest on children, older people, outdoor workers and anyone with an existing respiratory or heart condition.

Fires need three things to spread: fuel, oxygen and heat, plus the wind to push them along. Climate change is altering nearly every one of those conditions. Hotter temperatures dry out vegetation faster, turning forests and grasslands into ready-made fuel. Longer, more intense droughts strip moisture from soil and plants months before fire season even starts. Changing rain patterns mean wet seasons that once kept landscapes green are arriving later, or not at all. And in many regions, the same warming atmosphere that’s supercharging heatwaves is also strengthening the winds that carry embers and flames for miles ahead of a fire’s front.

Scientists call this combination “fire weather,” and it’s expanding. Fire seasons are starting earlier and ending later across the Northern Hemisphere, giving landscapes less time to recover between blazes. None of this means every fire is caused by climate change. It means the climate crisis is making the conditions for extreme fires far more likely, far more often, in far more places.

Wildfires are becoming more frequent, more intense and harder to contain. Satellite data show that the frequency of the most extreme wildfire events more than doubled worldwide between 2003 and 2023, with the six most extreme years on record all falling within the last seven. A separate global assessment found that the extent of forest fires has grown by around 40% over the past two decades, while the intensity of the world’s most extreme fires has roughly doubled over the same period. This pattern is linked to a hotter, drier atmosphere: warmer temperatures dry out vegetation, lengthen fire seasons and create the conditions extreme fires need to spread. And that hotter atmosphere has a direct, identifiable cause.

Burning fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — causes that increase in carbon (CO2) which drives global heating. No other source can account for it: not volcanoes, not clouds, not solar cycles. Methane is the same story: fossil fuel extraction and use cause around 35% of human-caused methane emissions, with agriculture and waste accounting for the rest. The emissions of these both gases is clearly driven by fossil fuels: this is no longer a matter of  debate.

The coal, oil and gas industries have massively profited from an economic model that forces people to use fossil fuels, and they continue to profit from it. Reports have proven that they knew the damage they were causing since at least the 1970s, and that, instead of abandoning their business model, they actively worked to disinform the public. They still do. We keep burning fossil fuels because they choose (and they chose then) to use their power for that purpose.

While we may not be able to stop wildfires completely, we can reduce their severity and frequency by stopping the fossil fuel industry. We must demand our governments to switch to cleaner energy, and cut the financial flows that allow this industry to still exist. If you haven’t yet, join us in these demands!

More from the Fossil Fuels Did This series:

• Fossil Fuels Did This: Heatwaves
• Fossil Fuels Did This: Tropical Cyclones
• Fossil Fuels Did This: Floods
• Fossil Fuels Did This: Drought

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Last week, something incredible happened. On 15 July 2026, more than 50 of our partners, friends and comrades from across the movement gathered to discuss a bold new vision for South Africa’s energy future. Our message is already loud and clear: “Asinimali Kodwa Sinelanga!” — we have no money, but we have the sun. The struggle to afford the basics of life, including electricity, continues in South Africa, but there are opportunities to help solve the crises we face. We must take them!

If we’re being honest about the situation: it’s grave. Since 2007, electricity prices in South Africa have skyrocketed by 1,172%, rising six times faster than inflation. Today, nearly 60% of households live below the poverty line, and many families are forced to make the impossible choice between buying maize meal or keeping the lights on.

The government’s current Free Basic Electricity (FBE) grant of 50-60 kWh is symbolically insufficient. It might power a lightbulb, but it won’t run a fridge, a stove, or a heater. Meanwhile, our reliance on ageing, fragile coal plants is costing the public R960 billion (US$55.2 billion) a year in health impacts alone.

Our demand is clear: we want a 350 kWh FBE grant generated with publicly financed renewable energy. This isn’t just a number we pulled out of a hat. Based on the recommendations of experts from the Public Affairs Research Institute (PARI) and other economic justice organisations, 350 kWh is the Minimum Threshold Level of Consumption required for a family to reach basic developmental standards. Data from the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice and Dignity group (PMBEJD) shows that even households with only one person working for a minimum wage already purchase an average of 350 kWh just to survive. By securing this grant, we enable bulk food refrigeration, hot water, and the “micro-business capability” needed to break the cycle of poverty.

As massive investments from the Just Energy Transition Investment Plan (JET-IP) and other international sources flow into the country, it only makes sense that this money is first spent where it matters most. These funds must be directed toward programs that directly alleviate poverty and support economic activity in our most underresourced communities. This is a necessary step to finally reducing the historical inequalities that continue to hold us back. By shifting the R118 billion (US$6.8 billion) currently spent on annual fossil fuel subsidies, we can begin public funding of clean, affordable power for households across the country.

The meeting was a generous and celebratory start to this journey. We heard from researchers, media experts, and grassroots organisers from organisations across the country. We’re moving forward strategically. Our eyes are on the local government elections on 4 November 2026. We’re going to use this moment to demand that every candidate pledges to support 350 kWh of FBE from municipal solar power.

We need everyone in this fight. There are two ways you can help right now:

1. Join a Working Group: If you represent an organisation or have specific skills to offer, please sign up for a working group and join our next planning meeting on 29 July 2026.
2. Join the Campaign for Affordable Electricity. Get campaign updates and action alerts by signing up to our email list.

Together, we can secure the clean, affordable power our communities deserve.

In solidarity, 

Ferron Pedro
Senior Campaigner, 350.org South Africa

The post Asinimali Kodwa Sinelanga: Taking Our Next Steps Towards Climate & Economic Justice appeared first on 350.

This is a guest blog by Dr Michael T. David,  Founder and Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation (GIFSEP). GIFSEP is a non-profit organization founded on the ideals of Environmental Education, Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, Renewable Energy and Sustainable Development. They mobilize communities to build resilience to a changing climate so as to conserve and protect the environment.

For years, the people of Awo Akpali, a remote community in Ankpa Local Government Area of Kogi State in Nigeria, have lived with the painful legacy of coal mining. While the coal extracted from beneath their land generated wealth for coal mining companies, the community was left with environmental degradation, poor health, and no access to one of the most basic necessities of modern life i.e  electricity.

Community members at the training session on how to install and maintain solar pv system photo credit: GIFSEP

When night fell, so did healthcare.

At the community’s Primary Health Centre, health workers often relied on torchlights and the light from mobile phones to attend to patients. Mothers in labour, sick children, and emergency cases faced an uncertain future whenever they arrived after sunset. Essential healthcare services were severely limited, not because there were no health workers, but because there was simply no electricity.

Today, that story is changing. As part of its Solar for Communities Initiative, the Global Initiative for Food Security and Ecosystem Preservation (GIFSEP) has installed a solar power system at the Awo Akpali Primary Health Centre, bringing clean, reliable electricity to a facility that had operated in darkness for years.

Terrance,  project lead GIFSEP and hospital staff after installation is complete .Photo credit: GIFSEP

The initiative was implemented with support from 350Africa.org and the Global Greengrants Fund, demonstrating how renewable energy can improve healthcare while advancing climate justice for underserved communities.

The solar installation is more than an energy project, it is restoring dignity to healthcare. Health workers can now provide services safely at night, power essential medical equipment, preserve temperature-sensitive medicines, and offer better care to patients when they need it most.

For GIFSEP, the intervention represents the next chapter in a long-standing partnership with the community.

Through its Coal Free Nigeria Campaign, GIFSEP previously worked with residents of Awo Akpali to build awareness of environmental and community rights. Community members were trained to understand the environmental, health, and social impacts of coal mining and empowered to advocate for the protection of their land and livelihoods. Their collective efforts contributed to the eventual closure of the coal mining operations that had negatively affected the community for years.

Solar inverter at the hospital.   credit: GIFSEP

Rather than leaving the community with only the closure of the mine, GIFSEP sought to demonstrate that cleaner and more sustainable alternatives are possible.

Under the Solar for Communities Initiative, residents were sensitized on the benefits of renewable energy as a practical solution for communities that remain outside Nigeria’s public electricity grid. Women and young people also received hands-on training in basic solar installation and maintenance, equipping them with practical skills that can create new livelihood opportunities while supporting the adoption of clean energy within their community.

Community members at the training session on how to install and maintain solar pv system  led by GIFSEP.Photo credit: GIFSEP

This approach reflects a broader vision of a just energy transition, one that not only moves communities away from polluting fossil fuels but also ensures they benefit from cleaner technologies, improved livelihoods, better healthcare, and increased resilience.

The post From Darkness to Hope appeared first on 350.

This is a guest blog by Peter Crisp of Fossil Free Football, a fan campaign aiming to kick big polluters out of the world’s favourite sport.  

The ongoing 2026 FIFA World Cup will likely be the hottest ever, produce more pollution than any event in history, and promote the world’s biggest oil company to billions of viewers. Yet it could also be a turning point. As football’s vulnerability to the climate crisis becomes impossible to ignore, more and more fans and players are calling for sporting authorities to do better.

The climate crisis is fuelling extreme heat across the planet, driven by decades of burning coal, oil and gas. And the 2026 World Cup is not immune. Researchers predict that 14 out of 16 match venues this year will exceed dangerous temperatures with one in four matches expected to be played in hazardous heat conditions. Just last year, a June heat wave hit multiple World Cup host cities at once. A repeat this year could put attendees at real risk. On June 24 2025, it was 102F/39C  in Boston. This year, on June 23, England will play Ghana in that same city  in a stadium without shade (see below) at 4PM…

Gillette Stadium, Boston, which will be used during the tournament, offers little heat protection to fans and players. Source: Nathan Macoul, Unsplash

The heat threatens safety and changes the game itself. Extreme heat means slower tempo, less pressing and earlier substitutions. 97 of 104 scheduled matches face a higher probability of performance-impairing conditions due to climate change — meaning fans paying record prices are increasingly likely to watch a less intense game. And while players have medical teams and cooling breaks, fans are often left to fend for themselves. While 3 of the 16 venues are air-conditioned, fans in queues, fan zones and on transport routes can be exposed to dangerous heat for hours — often far longer than the players on the pitch.

The International Federation of Association Football or FIFA (which is the governing body of world football), has done little to keep fans and players safe from obvious heat risks during World Cups. We’ve already seen the consequences when it doesn’t: In June 2024, an assistant referee collapsed during a Copa America match, while last year’s Club World Cup saw players and fans sheltering inside as heat again became a major point of concern. Despite this, FIFA has selected many stadiums without any shade, in locations that are not typically used for summer sports. 

A group of experts recently told FIFA that it should do more to keep players and fans safe. They called for it to lower the temperature threshold at which matches are delayed. Currently, FIFA will only consider pausing play at 32°C (measured in Wet Bulb Globe Temperature or WBGT, a scale that accounts for heat, humidity and sun exposure together). That bar is so high that it wouldn’t be triggered at 45°C with 20% humidity, or 35°C with 80% humidity — conditions that would be dangerous for anyone, let alone athletes playing at full intensity. Seventy professional players have also publicly backed those calls. FIFA has added water breaks to all matches regardless of temperature — fundamentally altering the experience of the game — but experts say those breaks should be doubled to six minutes to properly protect players. Many fans have pointedly noted that FIFA may be equally motivated by the advertising slots these breaks create.

FIFA’s unserious attitude on heat risks extends to its broader engagement with the climate crisis. Despite holding a “green card for the planet” and committing to net-zero by 2040, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has massively expanded the tournament, and the pollution it will produce as a consequence. He has added an extra 16 teams and 60 matches, and spread the World Cup across North America so that huge amounts of flying are required. Researchers estimate the whole tournament will generate over 9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent worth of pollution. 

FIFA President Gianni Infantino once held a ‘green card for the planet’ to show his commitment to sustainability. Source: FIFA

FIFA’s massive emissions are worsened by its sponsorship choices. It is reportedly earning about $100m per year to advertise the world’s largest oil company, Aramco. Billions of fans are therefore now receiving pro-oil messaging, just as we must urgently move away from fossil fuels. 

Aramco is 98.5% owned by the Saudi state and is a dominant source of the regime’s funding, earning $33.6bn in the first quarter of this year. These profits have bankrolled Saudi Arabia’s recent push into world sport including football –  often framed as part of its post-oil ‘Vision 2030’ diversification strategy. But the fact that Aramco is being globally promoted, (instead of any other non-oil enterprise) makes clear these sports investments are about protecting fossil fuel profits, not moving away from them. Sponsorships have helped promote Saudi Arabia and shielded it from criticism of its commitment to fossil fuels. It’s clear that the Aramco deal too is part of a broader pro-oil strategy that includes blocking climate talks and ‘hooking’ poorer countries on its oil. 

SoFi stadium, Los Angeles, USA vs. Paraguay, June 13. Source: image supplied

Aramco has been given top billing, with its brand splashed around stadiums at kick off, including at the tournament opener. Notably, the fixture was a repeat of the 2010 World Cup, but nostalgic fans looking back to iconic images from that year might have noticed a surprising (and disturbing) difference. While the 2010 tournament was sponsored by solar energy, this one is promoting Big Oil. Aramco’s World Cup advertising centres around its supposed “innovation” ,but there is nothing innovative about drilling, extracting and burning fossil fuels. The real breakthroughs are in solar, battery storage and electric vehicles — technologies that are cleaner, cheaper and faster-growing than oil has ever been. 

Opening match of 2010 World Cup, featuring solar sponsorship.

This summer, the heat impacts felt by football’s elite will be impossible to miss. But if the climate crisis is reaching its most well resourced event, then grassroots football,  the foundation the whole game is built on,  is surely being hit much harder. For every high-profile match affected by heat, there are thousands more unseen players around the world that are harmed by heat or flooding rain. FIFA profits billions from an ever-expanding tournament and big oil sponsorship — but it is ordinary fans and players who bear the cost, in dangerous heat and a worsening climate, without seeing any of the cash.

Credit: Sadhin Mahmud, Unsplash

Many football fans feel our loyalty is being exploited. FIFA’s incessant focus on profit is stripping away the essence of our beloved game — and we must use this discontent, linked to the climate crisis, as a powerful opportunity for change.

The pattern of FIFA’s constant prioritisation of revenue over tradition and affordability is consistent. Unprecedented prices for match tickets, public transport and fan zones. Commercial “hydration” breaks inserted into matches. Fans banned from bringing their own water. Big oil on the stadium hoardings. Everything FIFA does turns up the heat for supporters while lining its own pockets. Its response to obvious heat risks at the next two World Cups hosted by Morocco, Spain and Portugal, and then Saudi Arabia, has been to float moving the tournament to winter, discarding decades of tradition rather than addressing the cause.

Hundreds of millions of fans have every reason to demand better. As heat impacts worsen and the costs of fossil fuels become impossible to ignore, football lovers have real power to push for a fundamental reset that puts players and fans before FIFA’s bottom line.

Source: Quang Nguyen Vinh, Pexels

FIFA claims its core mission is to “unite the world” by making football accessible to all. Delivering on that mission means putting the climate first, because we can’t play in dangerous heat or on a flooded field. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• End the expansionist mentality. More teams, more matches, more flights means more pollution. Growth cannot come at the planet’s expense.
• Revise heat guidelines. Current thresholds don’t protect players or fans. FIFA must lower the bar for match delays and take welfare seriously.
• Ease the fixture calendar. An oversaturated schedule drives player burnout and unsafe conditions. Less is more.
• Drop the polluters. Sponsorship deals with oil companies like Aramco must give way to partnerships with clean, innovative industries.
• Put climate at the centre. Every decision FIFA makes should be guided by one question: does this make extreme weather worse?

The most popular sport on the planet needs to stop scoring ‘own goals’, and start playing for the right team.

If you’re a fan who is ready to take this message to your club or national association, connect with us at Fossil Free Football on social media and join our next online campaign session! 

The post 2026 FIFA World Cup & Extreme Heat appeared first on 350.

Wildfires are becoming a familiar part of the European summer, from the hills of Wales to the forests of Spain and southern France. And whenever they make the news, the counter argument tends to follow: wildfires aren’t really a climate story, because most of them are started by people.  More often, it’s a dropped cigarette. A barbecue left unattended. Arson. A spark from machinery, or even broken glass catching the sun just right.

It’s true. Almost all wildfires are triggered by human activity in one way or another, accidental or deliberate. But using that fact to wave away the climate connection misses the point entirely.

Fires need three things to get going, the fire triangle,  fuel, oxygen, and a source of ignition. Humans have always provided plenty of that third ingredient, and always will; cigarettes, barbecues, campfires and careless machinery aren’t going anywhere, in Britain or anywhere else. What’s changed is the first ingredient: fuel.

The hotter and drier the weather, the drier the scrub, grass and woodland become. Dry vegetation doesn’t just burn more easily, it burns faster, spreads further, and is far harder to bring under control once it’s alight. A spark that would once have fizzled out on damp ground can now, in tinder-dry conditions, become a fire that spreads across dozens or hundreds of hectares before crews can contain it.

That’s the shift climate change is driving, it’s turning the landscape into fuel. By early July 2026, wildfires had already burned around 170,000 hectares across the EU, well above the long-term average, following the hottest June ever recorded for Western Europe. France recorded its hottest day since national records began in 1947. In southern Spain, temperatures hit as high as 45°C. Scientists have linked the intensity of that heat directly to human-caused climate change.

The human cost has been severe. In Spain’s Andalusia region, a wildfire near Almería and Bédar became the deadliest the country has seen in roughly two decades, killing at least a dozen people, many caught trying to flee. Across the continent, wildfires have killed more than a dozen people this year alone, while the heat itself, separate from the flames, has been linked to thousands of excess deaths. Portugal, Greece and Turkey have also battled major blazes, and Europe has mounted its largest firefighting mobilisation yet in response.

So, who struck the match is’nt really the  question, It’s about why the ground around it is so ready to burn. And that’s a question with a clear answer: a hotter, drier climate, driven by the continued burning of fossil fuels, is loading the dice for every spark that was always going to happen anyway, whether that spark falls in Wales, Andalusia, or the Var.

If we want fewer, smaller, less destructive wildfires, tackling the ignition source is only ever going to be half the job. The rest means tackling the reason our landscapes are drying out in the first place, and holding the industry driving that heat accountable for the damage it’s causing.

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