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Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen
Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.
The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.
In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.
“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.
The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.
US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.
Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.
The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.
This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.
The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.
The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.
“It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.
Patchwork of leviesWhile the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.
After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.
If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.
This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.
Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.
“With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.
“It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”
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Doubts over European SAF rules threaten cleaner aviation hopes, investors warn
Doubts over whether governments will maintain ambitious targets on boosting the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) are a threat to the industry’s growth and play into the hands of fossil fuel companies, investors warned this week.
Several executives from airlines and oil firms have forecast recently that SAF requirements in the European Union, United Kingdom and elsewhere will be eased or scrapped altogether, potentially upending the aviation industry’s main policy to shrink air travel’s growing carbon footprint.
Such speculation poses a “fundamental threat” to the SAF industry, which mainly produces an alternative to traditional kerosene jet fuel using organic feedstocks such as used cooking oil (UCO), Thomas Engelmann, head of energy transition at German investment manager KGAL, told the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Investor conference in London.
He said fossil fuel firms would be the only winners from questions about compulsory SAF blending requirements.
What is Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)?
The EU and the UK introduced the world’s first SAF mandates in January 2025, requiring fuel suppliers to blend at least 2% SAF with fossil fuel kerosene. The blending requirement will gradually increase to reach 32% in the EU and 22% in the UK by 2040.
Another case of diluted green rules?Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, CEO of French oil and gas company TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanné said he would bet “that what happened to the car regulation will happen to the SAF regulation in Europe”.
The EU watered down green rules for car-makers in March 2025 after lobbying from car companies, Germany and Italy.
“You will see. Today all the airline companies are fighting [against the EU’s 2030 SAF target of 6%],” Pouyanne said, even though it’s “easy to reach to be honest”.
While most European airline lobbies publicly support the mandates, Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said last year that the SAF is “nonsense” and is “gradually dying a death, which is what it deserves to do”.
EU and UK stand by SAF targetsBut the EU and the British government have disputed that. EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said in November that the EU’s targets are “stable”, warning that “investment decisions and construction must start by 2027, or we will miss the 2030 targets”.
UK aviation minister Keir Mather told this week’s investor event that meeting the country’s SAF blending requirement of 10% by 2030 was “ambitious but, with the right investment, the right innovation and the right outlook, it is absolutely within our reach”.
“We need to go further and we need to go faster,” Mather said.
UK aviation minister Keir Mather speaks at the SAF Investor conference in London on February 24, 2026. (Photo: SAF Investor)SAF investors and developers said such certainty on SAF mandates from policymakers was key to drawing the necessary investment to ramp up production of the greener fuel, which needs to scale up in order to bring down high production costs. Currently, SAF is between two and seven times more expensive than traditional jet fuel.
Urbano Perez, global clean molecules lead at Spanish bank Santander, said banks will not invest if there is a perceived regulatory risk.
David Scott, chair of Australian SAF producer Jet Zero Australia, said developing SAF was already challenging due to the risks of “pretty new” technology requiring high capital expenditure.
“That’s a scary model with a volatile political environment, so mandate questioning creates this problem on steroids”, Scott said.
Others played down the risk. Glenn Morgan, partner at investment and advisory firm SkiesFifty, said “policy is always a risk”, adding that traditional oil-based jet fuel could also lose subsidies.
A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana A fuel truck fills up the Emirates Airlines Boeing 777-300ER with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), during a milestone demonstration flight while running one of its engines on 100% (SAF) at Dubai airport, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, January 30, 2023. REUTERS/Rula Rouhana Asian countries join SAF mandate adoptersIn Asia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Japan have recently adopted SAF mandates, and Matti Lievonen, CEO of Asia-based SAF producer EcoCeres, predicted that China, Indonesia and Hong Kong would follow suit.
David Fisken, investment director at the Australian Trade and Investment Commission, said the Australian government, which does not have a mandate, was watching to see how the EU and UK’s requirements played out.
The US does not have a SAF mandate and under President Donald Trump the government has slashed tax credits available for SAF producers from $1.75 a gallon to $1.
Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?
SAF and energy securitySAF’s potential role in boosting energy security was a major theme of this week’s discussions as geopolitical tensions push the issue to the fore.
Marcella Franchi, chief commercial officer for SAF at France’s Haffner Energy, said the Canadian government, which has “very unsettling neighbours at the moment”, was looking to produce SAF to protect its energy security, especially as it has ample supplies of biomass to use as potential feedstock.
Similarly, German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall said last year it was working on plans that would enable European armed forces to produce their own synthetic, carbon-neutral fuel “locally and independently of global fossil fuel supply chain”.
Scott said Australia needs SAF to improve its fuel security, as it imports almost 99% of its liquid fuels.
He added that support for Australian SAF production is bipartisan, in part because it appeals to those more concerned about energy security than tackling climate change.
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Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace
Gabrielle Dreyfus is chief scientist at the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, Thomas Röckmann is a professor of atmospheric physics and chemistry at Utrecht University, and Lena Höglund-Isaksson is a senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
This March scientists and policy makers will gather near the site in Italy where methane was first identified 250 years ago to share the latest science on methane and the policy and technology steps needed to rapidly cut methane emissions. The timing is apt.
As new tools transform our understanding of methane emissions and their sources, the evidence they reveal points to a single conclusion: Human-caused methane emissions are still rising, and global action remains far too slow.
This is the central finding of the latest Global Methane Status Report. Four years into the Global Methane Pledge, which aims for a 30% cut in global emissions by 2030, the good news is that the pledge has increased mitigation ambition under national plans, which, if fully implemented, could result in the largest and most sustained decline in methane emissions since the Industrial Revolution.
The bad news is this is still short of the 30% target. The decisive question is whether governments will move quickly enough to turn that bend into the steep decline required to pump the brake on global warming.
What the data really showAssessing progress requires comparing three benchmarks: the level of emissions today relative to 2020, the trajectory projected in 2021 before methane received significant policy focus, and the level required by 2030 to meet the pledge.
The latest data show that global methane emissions in 2025 are higher than in 2020 but not as high as previously expected. In 2021, emissions were projected to rise by about 9% between 2020 and 2030. Updated analysis places that increase closer to 5%. This change is driven by factors such as slower than expected growth in unconventional gas production between 2020 and 2024 and lower than expected waste emissions in several regions.
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
This updated trajectory still does not deliver the reductions required, but it does indicate that the curve is beginning to bend. More importantly, the commitments already outlined in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions and Methane Action Plans would, if fully implemented, produce an 8% reduction in global methane emissions between 2020 and 2030. This would turn the current increase into a sustained decline. While still insufficient to reach the Global Methane Pledge target of a 30% cut, it would represent historical progress.
Solutions are known and readyScientific assessments consistently show that the technical potential to meet the pledge exists. The gap lies not in technology, but in implementation.
The energy sector accounts for approximately 70% of total technical methane reduction potential between 2020 and 2030. Proven measures include extended recovery of associated petroleum gas in oil production, regular leak detection and repair across oil and gas supply chains, and installing ventilation air oxidation technologies in underground coal mines. Many of these options are low cost or profitable. Yet current commitments would achieve only one third of the maximum technically feasible reductions in this sector.
Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes
Agriculture and waste also provide opportunities. Rice emissions can be reduced through improved water management, low-emission hybrids and soil amendments. While innovations in technology and practices hold promise in the longer term, near-term potential in livestock is more constrained and trends in global diets may counteract gains.
Waste sector emissions had been expected to increase more rapidly, but improvements in waste management in several regions over the past two decades have moderated this rise. Long-term mitigation in this sector requires immediate investment in improved landfills and circular waste systems, as emissions from waste already deposited will persist in the short term.
New measurement toolsMethane monitoring capacity has expanded significantly. Satellite-based systems can now identify methane super-emitters. Ground-based sensors are becoming more accessible and can provide real-time data. These developments improve national inventories and can strengthen accountability.
However, policy action does not need to wait for perfect measurement. Current scientific understanding of source magnitudes and mitigation effectiveness is sufficient to achieve a 30% reduction between 2020 and 2030. Many of the largest reductions in oil, gas and coal can be delivered through binding technology standards that do not require high precision quantification of emissions.
The decisive years aheadThe next 2 years will be critical for determining whether existing commitments translate into emissions reductions consistent with the Global Methane Pledge.
Governments should prioritise adoption of an effective international methane performance standard for oil and gas, including through the EU Methane Regulation, and expand the reach of such standards through voluntary buyers’ clubs. National and regional authorities should introduce binding technology standards for oil, gas and coal to ensure that voluntary agreements are backed by legal requirements.
One approach to promoting better progress on methane is to develop a binding methane agreement, starting with the oil and gas sector, as suggested by Barbados’ PM Mia Mottley and other leaders. Countries must also address the deeper challenge of political and economic dependence on fossil fuels, which continues to slow progress. Without a dual strategy of reducing methane and deep decarbonisation, it will not be possible to meet the Paris Agreement objectives.
Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible
The next four years will determine whether available technologies, scientific evidence and political leadership align to deliver a rapid transition toward near-zero methane energy systems, holistic and equity-based lower emission agricultural systems and circular waste management strategies that eliminate methane release. These years will also determine whether the world captures the near-term climate benefits of methane abatement or locks in higher long-term costs and risks.
The Global Methane Status Report shows that the world is beginning to change course. Delivering the sharper downward trajectory now required is a test of political will. As scientists, we have laid out the evidence. Leaders must now act on it.
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World leaders invited to see Pacific climate destruction before COP31
The leaders and climate ministers of governments around the world will be invited to meetings on the Pacific islands of Fiji, Palau and Tuvalu in the months leading up to the COP31 climate summit in November.
Under a deal struck between Pacific nations, Fiji will host the official annual pre-COP meeting, at which climate ministers and negotiators discuss contentious issues with the COP Presidency to help make the climate summit smoother.
This pre-COP, expected to be held in early October, will include a “special leaders’ component” hosted in neighbouring Tuvalu – a 2.5-hour flight north – according to a statement issued by the Australian COP31 President of Negotiations Chris Bowen on LinkedIn on Thursday.
Bowen said this “will bring a global focus to the most pressing challenges facing our region and support investment in solutions which are fit for purpose for our region.” Australia will provide operational and logistical support for the event, he said.
Like many Pacific island nations, Tuvalu, which is home to around 10,000 people, is threatened by rising sea levels, as salt water and waves damage homes, water supplies, farms and infrastructure.
Dozens of heads of state and government usually attend COP summits, but only a handful take part in pre-COP meetings. COP31 will be held in the Turkish city of Antalya in November, after an unusual compromise deal struck between Australia and Türkiye.
In addition, Pacific country Palau will host a climate event as part of the annual Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – which convenes 18 Pacific nations – in August.
Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that this meeting would be a “launching board” to build momentum for COP31 and would draw new commitments from other countries to help Pacific nations cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
“At the PIF our priorities are going to be 100 per cent renewables, the ocean-climate nexus and … accelerating investments that build resilience from climate change,” he told ABC.
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There is hope for Venezuela’s future – and it isn’t based on oil
Alejandro Álvarez Iragorry is a Venezuelan ecologist and coordinator of Clima 21, an environmental NGO. Cat Rainsford is a transition minerals investigator for Global Witness and former Venezuela analyst for a Latin American think tank.
In 1975, former Venezuelan oil minister Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo gave a now infamous warning.
“Oil will bring us ruin,” he declared. “It is the devil’s excrement. We are drowning in the devil’s excrement.”
At the time, his words seemed excessively gloomy to many Venezuelans. The country was in a period of rapid modernisation, fuelled by its booming oil economy. Caracas was a thriving cultural hotspot. Everything seemed good. But history proved Pérez right.
Over the following decades, Venezuela’s oil dependence came to seem like a curse. After the 1980s oil price crash, political turmoil paved the way for the election of populist Hugo Chávez, who built a socialist state on oil money, only for falling prices and corruption to drive it into ruin.
By 2025, poverty and growing repression under Chávez’s successor Nicolás Maduro had forced nearly 8 million Venezuelans to leave the country.
Venezuela is now at a crossroads. Since the US abducted Maduro on January 3 and seized control of the country’s oil revenues in a nakedly imperial act, all attention has been on getting the country’s dilapidated oil infrastructure pumping again.
But Venezuelans deserve more than plunder and fighting over a planet-wrecking resource that has fostered chronic instability and dispossession. Right now, 80% of Venezuelans live below the poverty line. Venezuelans are desperate for jobs, income and change.
Real change, though, won’t come through more oil dependency or profiteering by foreign elites. Instead, it is renewable energy that offers a pathway forward, towards sovereignty, stability and peace.
Guri Dam and Venezuela’s hydropower declineVenezuela boasts some of the strongest potential for renewable energy generation in the region. Two-thirds of the country’s own electricity comes from hydropower, mostly from the massive Guri Dam in the southern state of Bolívar. This is one of the largest dams in Latin America with a capacity of over 10 gigawatts, even providing power to parts of Colombia and Brazil.
Guri has become another symbol of Venezuela’s mismanagement. Lack of diversification caused over-reliance on Guri for domestic power, making the system vulnerable to droughts. Poor maintenance reduced Guri’s capacity and planned supporting projects such as the Tocoma Dam were bled dry by corruption. The country was left plagued by blackouts and increasingly turned to dirty thermoelectric plants and petrol generators for power.
Today, industry analysis suggests that Venezuela is producing at about 30% of its hydropower capacity. Rehabilitating this neglected infrastructure could re-establish clean power as the backbone of domestic industry, while the country’s abundant river system offers numerous opportunities for smaller, sustainable hydro projects that promote rural electrification.
A fisherman walks down the coast from the Paraguana Refining Center (CRP) following a crude spill in September from a pipeline that connects production areas with the state-run PDVSA’s largest refinery, in Punta Cardon, Venezuela October 2, 2021. Picture taken October 2, 2021. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria A fisherman walks down the coast from the Paraguana Refining Center (CRP) following a crude spill in September from a pipeline that connects production areas with the state-run PDVSA’s largest refinery, in Punta Cardon, Venezuela October 2, 2021. Picture taken October 2, 2021. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez ViloriaVenezuela also has huge, untapped promise in wind power that could provide vital diversification from hydropower. The coastal states of Zulia and Falcón boast wind speeds in the ideal range for electricity generation, with potential to add up to 12 gigawatts to the grid. Yet planned projects in both states have stalled, leaving abandoned turbines rusting in fields and millions of dollars unaccounted for.
Solar power is more neglected. One announced solar plant on the island of Los Roques remains non-functional a decade later, and a Chávez-era programme to supply solar panels to rural households ground to a halt when oil prices fell. Yet nearly a fifth of the country receives levels of solar radiation that rival leading regions such as northern Chile.
Developing Venezuela’s renewables potential would be a massive undertaking. Investment would be needed, local concerns around a just and equitable transition would have to be navigated and infrastructure development carefully managed.
Rebuilding Venezuela with a climate-driven energy transitionA shift in political vision would be needed to ensure that Venezuela’s renewable energy was not used to simply free up more oil for export, as in the past, but to power a diversified domestic economy free from oil-driven cycles of boom and bust.
Ultimately, these decisions must be taken by democratically elected leaders. But to date, no timeline for elections has been set, and Venezuela’s future hangs in the balance. Supporting the country to make this shift is in all of our interests.
What’s clear is that Venezuela’s energy future should not lie in oil. Fossil fuel majors have not leapt to commit the estimated $100 billion needed to revitalise the sector, with ExxonMobil declaring Venezuela “uninvestable”. The issues are not only political. Venezuela’s heavy, sour crude is expensive to refine, making it dubious whether many projects would reach break-even margins.
Behind it all looms the spectre of climate change. The world must urgently move away from fossil fuels. Beyond environmental concerns, it’s simply good economics.
People line up as others charge their phones with a solar panel at a public square in Caracas, Venezuela March 10, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins People line up as others charge their phones with a solar panel at a public square in Caracas, Venezuela March 10, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia RawlinsRecent analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency finds that 91% of new renewable energy projects are now cheaper than their fossil fuel alternatives. China, the world’s leading oil buyer, is among the most rapid adopters.
Tethering Venezuela’s future to an outdated commodity leaves the country in a lose-lose situation. Either oil demand drops and Venezuela is left with nothing. Or climate change runs rampant, devastating vulnerable communities with coastal loss, flooding, fires and heatwaves. Meanwhile, Venezuela remains locked in the same destructive economic swings that once led to dictatorship and mass emigration. There is another way.
Venezuelans rightfully demand a political transition, with their own chosen leaders. But to ensure this transition is lasting and stable, Venezuela needs more – it needs an energy transition.
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UN’s new carbon market delivers first credits through Myanmar cookstove project
A cleaner cooking initiative in Myanmar is set to generate the first-ever batch of carbon credits under the new UN carbon market, more than a decade after the mechanism was first envisioned in the Paris Agreement.
The Article 6.4 Supervisory Body has approved the issuance of 60,000 credits, which correspond to tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced by distributing more efficient cookstoves that need less firewood and, therefore, ease pressure on carbon-storing forests, the project developers say. The approval of the credit issuance will become effective after a 14‑day appeal and grievance period.
The programme started in 2019 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – and is being implemented by a South Korean NGO with investment from private South Korean firms.
The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.
Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its national climate plan.
Making ‘a big difference’The approval of the credits issuance represents a major milestone for the UN carbon market established under article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement. By generating carbon credits that both governments and private firms can use, the mechanism aims to accelerate global climate action and channel additional finance to developing nations.
UNFCCC chief Simon Stiell said the approval of the first credits from a clean cooking project shows “how this mechanism can support solutions that make a big difference in people’s daily lives, as well as channeling finance to where it delivers real-life benefits on the ground”.
“Over two billion people globally are without access to clean cooking, which kills millions every year. Clean cooking protects health, saves forests, cuts emissions and helps empower women and girls, who are typically hardest hit by household air pollution,” he added in a statement.
Concerns over clean cookstove creditsCarbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods. Proceeds from the sale of carbon credits made up 35% of the revenue generated by for-profit clean cooking companies in 2023, according to a report by the Clean Cooking Initiative.
But many cookstove offsetting projects have faced significant criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions. Their main criticism is that the rules allow project developers to overestimate the impact of fuel collection on deforestation, while relying on surveys to track stove usage that are prone to bias and can further inflate reported impacts.
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The project in Myanmar follows a contested methodology developed under the Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it is “insufficiently rigorous”.
An analysis conducted last year by Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch claimed that the project would generate 26 times more credits than it should, when comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.
‘Conservative’ values cut credit volumeBut, after transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project applied updated values and “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, according to the UNFCCC, which added that this resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued than would have been the case in the CDM.
“The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism.
Over 1,500 projects originally developed under the CDM requested the transition to the new mechanism, including controversial schemes subsidising fossil gas-powered plants in China and India. But, so far, the transfer of only 165 of all those projects has been approved by their respective host nations, which have until the end of June to make a final decision.
The UN climate body said this means that “a wide variety of real-world climate projects are already in line to follow” in sectors such as renewable energy, waste management and agriculture. But the transfer of old programmes from the CDM has long been contested with critics arguing that weak and discredited rules allow projects to overestimate emission reductions.
Genuinely new projects unrelated to the CDM are expected to start operating under the Paris Agreement mechanism once the Supervisory Body approves the first custom-made methodologies.
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Battery passport plan aims to clean up the industry powering clean energy
For millions of consumers, the sustainability scheme stickers found on everything from bananas to chocolate bars and wooden furniture are a way to choose products that are greener and more ethical than some of the alternatives.
Inga Petersen, executive director of the Global Battery Alliance (GBA), is on a mission to create a similar scheme for one of the building blocks of the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy systems: batteries.
“Right now, it’s a race to the bottom for whoever makes the cheapest battery,” Petersen told Climate Home News in an interview.
The GBA is working with industry, international organisations, NGOs and governments to establish a sustainable and transparent battery value chain by 2030.
“One of the things we’re trying to do is to create a marketplace where products can compete on elements other than price,” Petersen said.
Under the GBA’s plan, digital product passports and traceability would be used to issue product-level sustainability certifications, similar to those commonplace in other sectors such as forestry, Petersen said.
Managing battery boom’s risksOver the past decade, battery deployment has increased 20-fold, driven by record-breaking electric vehicle (EV) sales and a booming market for batteries to store intermittent renewable energy.
Falling prices have been instrumental to the rapid expansion of the battery market. But the breakneck pace of growth has exposed the potential environmental and social harms associated with unregulated battery production.
From South America to Zimbabwe and Indonesia, mineral extraction and refining has led to social conflict, environmental damage, human rights violations and deforestation. In Indonesia, the nickel industry is powered by coal while in Europe, production plants have been met with strong local opposition over pollution concerns.
“We cannot manage these risks if we don’t have transparency,” Petersen said.
The GBA was established in 2017 in response to concerns about the battery industry’s impact as demand was forecast to boom and reports of child labour in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo made headlines.
The alliance’s initial 19 members recognised that the industry needed to scale rapidly but with “social, environmental and governance guardrails”, said Petersen, who previously worked with the UN Environment Programme to develop guiding principles to minimise the environmental impact of mining.
Inga Petersen, executive director of the Global Battery Alliance, speaking at a conference in Dalian, China, in June 2024 (Photo: World Economic Forum/Ciaran McCrickard) Digital battery passportToday, the alliance is working to develop a global certification scheme that will recognise batteries that meet minimum thresholds across a set of environmental, social and governance benchmarks it has defined along the entire value chain.
Participating mines, manufacturing plants and recycling facilities will have to provide data for their greenhouse gas emissions as well as how they perform against benchmarks for assessing biodiversity loss, pollution, child and forced labour, community impacts and respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples, for example.
The data will be independently verified, scored, aggregated and recorded on a battery passport – a digital record of the battery’s composition, which will include the origin of its raw materials and its performance against the GBA’s sustainability benchmarks.
The scheme is due to launch in 2027.
A carrot and a stickSince the start of the year, some of the world’s largest battery companies have been voluntarily participating in the biggest pilot of the scheme to date.
More than 30 companies across the EV battery and stationary storage supply chains are involved, among them Chinese battery giants CATL and BYD subsidiary FinDreams Battery, miner Rio Tinto, battery producers Samsung SDI and Siemens, automotive supplier Denso and Tesla.
Petersen said she was “thrilled” about support for the scheme. Amid a growing pushback against sustainability rules and standards, “these companies are stepping up to send a public signal that they are still committed to a sustainable and responsible battery value chain,” she said.
The companies taking part in the Global Battery Alliance’s latest battery passport pilot scheme (Credit: Global Battery Alliance)There are other motivations for battery producers to know where components in their batteries have come from and whether they have been produced responsibly.
In 2023, the EU adopted a law regulating the batteries sold on its market.
From 2027, it mandates all batteries to meet environmental and safety criteria and to have a digital passport accessed via a QR code that contains information about the battery’s composition, its carbon footprint and its recycling content.
The GBA certification will support companies achieve compliance with the EU regulation and it will “add a carrot” by recognising manufacturers that go beyond meeting the bloc’s rules on nature and human rights, Petersen said.
Raising standards in complex supply chainBut challenges remain, in part due to the complexity of battery supply chains.
In the case of timber, “you have a single input material but then you have a very complex range of end products. For batteries, it’s almost the reverse,” Petersen said.
The GBA wants its certification scheme to cover all critical minerals present in batteries, covering dozens of different mining, processing and manufacturing processes and hundreds of facilities.
“One of the biggest impacts will be rewarding the leading performers through preferential access to capital, for example, with investors choosing companies that are managing their risk responsibly and transparently,” Petersen said.
It could help influence public procurement and how companies, such as EV makers, choose their suppliers, she added. End consumers will also be able to access a summary of the GBA’s scores when deciding which product to buy.
US, Europe rush to build battery supply chainToday, the GBA has more than 150 members across the battery value chain, including more than 50 companies, of which over a dozen are Chinese firms.
China produces over three-quarters of batteries sold globally and it dominates the world’s battery recycling capacity, leaving the US and Europe scrambling to reduce their dependence on Beijing by building their own battery supply chains.
Petersen hopes the alliance’s work can help build trust in the sector amid heightened geopolitical tensions. “People want to know where the materials are coming from and which actors are involved,” she said.
At the same time, companies increasingly recognise that failing to manage sustainability risks can threaten their operations. Protests over environmental concerns have shut down mines and battery factories across the world.
“Most companies know that and that’s why they’re making these efforts,” Petersen added.
The article was updated to reflect that the GBA’s battery passport will support companies to comply with the EU’s battery regulation.
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Rush for critical minerals tests Europe’s resolve to protect nature
Nestled among the undulating hills of Galicia in northern Spain, where wild horses and cattle have grazed for centuries, Europe’s hopes for clean energy security lie buried deep beneath the ground – for now.
The Mina Doade lithium project is one of 23 extractive mining sites designated as “strategic” by Brussels under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) to boost production of minerals vital for making solar panels, wind turbines and batteries for electric vehicles.
That designation means environmental permitting procedures will be streamlined, potentially fast-tracking Mina Doade’s final approval.
But the mining site lies just less than one kilometre from protected land, and the project’s sensitive location is fuelling opposition among conservation groups and local residents, who say it threatens rich biodiversity in the protected Atlantic wet heathlands and forest ecosystem as well as the area’s water supplies.
“They say lithium is strategic – but for us, water is,” said Ibán Losada, a young forestry worker, adding that the rolling grasslands around Mina Doade are home to threatened species such as the Iberian wolf and red kite.
Mina Doade’s owner, Recursos Minerales de Galicia, did not respond to several requests for comment. The project’s website emphasises a focus on limiting its environmental impact, saying it will minimise noise, dust and water consumption.
View of some of the protected Galician Atlantic meadows near the planned lithium mine in Doade, Spain (Photo: Helena Rodríguez Gómez) Víctor Gil, president of one of the groups of residents affected by the proposed Doade lithium mine in Spain, holds a map of the project’s mining permits (Photo: Helena Rodríguez Gómez) View of some of the protected Galician Atlantic meadows near the planned lithium mine in Doade, Spain (Photo: Helena Rodríguez Gómez) Víctor Gil, president of one of the groups of residents affected by the proposed Doade lithium mine in Spain, holds a map of the project’s mining permits (Photo: Helena Rodríguez Gómez) Clean energy vs biodiversity?A Climate Home News investigation has found that Mina Doade is among 11 of the EU’s strategic mining projects that overlap land lying within one kilometre of Natura 2000 network of biodiversity-protected areas.
Three more strategic mining projects – in Finland, Romania and central Spain – directly overlap Natura 2000 land, an analysis of geospatial data showed.
Buffer zones of one or two kilometres are often used in academic papers and technical documentation to consider potential environmental impacts beyond the borders of such protected sites, for example on groundwater.
Beyond the strategic critical minerals projects announced last year, Climate Home’s reporting found that in a sample of three countries – Spain, Italy and Germany – 259 permits for the exploration or extraction of critical minerals partially overlap Natura 2000 sites, equivalent to 40% of the total number of permits recorded in national and regional land registries.
window.addEventListener('message', function(e) { if (!e.data || !e.data.crm) return; var iframe = document.getElementById('crm-widget'); if (e.data.crm === 'open') { iframe.style.height = '90vh'; } else if (e.data.crm === 'close') { iframe.style.height = '56px'; } });While mining is not prohibited on or near Natura 2000 areas, environmental experts and campaigners say operating mines in such areas increases the risk of harm to wildlife habitats and water supplies.
In Finland’s northernmost Lapland region, in a remote area where Sámi communities still herd reindeer, Anglo American’s Sakatti project aims to start producing copper, cobalt and other critical minerals during the next decade, despite its location on Natura 2000 protected land.
The two other strategic projects which partially overlap Natura 2000 sites are a graphite project in Romania and a tungsten project in Spain, Climate Home’s investigation found. Graphite is used in lithium battery anodes, while tungsten is also used in batteries, as well as solar panels and wind turbines.
Asked to comment about Sakatti’s location, London-listed Anglo American said protecting the region’s unique biodiversity was “paramount”.
Most of the mine’s operations would take place underground to ensure a “minimal surface footprint”, and access to the mine would be from outside the protected area’s buffer zone, the company said in a statement.
It said it planned a series of environmental compensation measures agreed in partnership with local communities, including protecting habitat and restoring degraded wetlands in the area, as well as the voluntary purchase of 2,910 hectares of forest land elsewhere.
Sakatti has not yet been given the green light, and Finland’s state-owned land administrator Metsähallitus told Climate Home News the project’s Natura 2000 assessment did not eliminate uncertainties about its potential impact on groundwater in the Viiankiaapa mire reserve that it partially overlaps.
Environmental balancing actThe findings of Climate Home’s investigation highlight the environmental balancing act faced by Europe as it seeks to shore up its clean energy security by boosting domestic production of metals such as lithium, nickel, copper and cobalt – all vital for the bloc’s clean energy industries.
Under the CRMA, the EU aims to mine 10% of its annual critical raw materials needs domestically by 2030 to reduce its dependence on China by fast-tracking the approval of extractive projects designated as strategic, such as Mina Doade. At the moment, the EU produces about 3% of the critical minerals it needs.
But the goal for increased domestic production puts further pressure on Europe’s Natura 2000 network, which covers 18% of the bloc’s total land area and is a pillar of the EU’s pledge to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and restore all degraded ecosystems in need of recovery by the middle of the century.
“In the name of seemingly climate goals, energy transition, and also obviously military goals, we’re cutting very essential environmental standards that not only protect nature, but also people,” said Cléo Moreno, legal counsel on EU environmental law at ClientEarth, an NGO.
Growing global concern over mining surgeBeyond Europe, too, concern is growing over how to ensure the switch away from fossil fuels does not exacerbate environmental damage from mining.
According to 2024 research by S&P Global Sustainable, 71% of global transition-mineral mines are located in ecologically sensitive areas.
But advocates of efforts to boost European mining say the bloc’s stringent environmental safeguards mean damage can be limited, averting mining disasters more common in other mineral-rich countries in Africa and Latin America.
Where mining has led to environmental impacts, “remediation measures should be implemented” over mine closure… “otherwise we risk importing (minerals) from distant regions where transparency, labour conditions, and environmental safeguards are uncertain,” said Ester Boixareu, a specialist on energy transition minerals at Spain’s Geological and Mining Institute (IGME-CSIC), a state body.
Some environmental campaigners warn, however, that this logic could make European countries complacent about the potential damage from ramping up critical minerals output.
“The EU is in the process of lowering those same environmental standards it prides itself on having,” said Ilze Tralmaka, a law and policy advisor on environmental democracy at ClientEarth, pointing to the fast-tracking of approvals for the “strategic” projects.
Bypassing safeguards?Being designated as strategic means that while projects must still comply with member states’ environmental laws, they are eligible for faster approval through streamlined bureaucracy and can more easily access EU-backed capital.
Critics of the CRMA fear it could pressure national and local authorities to approve mining projects, despite environmental risks.
Classifying certain projects as strategic “is an attempt to bypass the safeguards normally required under the Nature directives”, said Gabriel Schwaderer, executive director of EuroNatur, a nature conservation foundation based in Germany.
The EU’s Habitats (92/43/EEC) and Birds (2009/147/EC) directives are the cornerstone of the Natura 2000 network, contributing to EU and global biodiversity goals by improving coverage and protection of threatened species and habitats, reducing land-use pressures inside protected areas compared with surrounding land.
A sign to Vulcan Energy’s Lionheart project in Germany’s Upper Rhine Valley, where the company wants to extract lithium from geothermal brine and generating renewable heat and power at the same time.(Photo: Filipp Smirnov)In Germany, Michael Reckordt of Berlin-based NGO PowerShift warned that the pressure to approve projects more quickly comes at a time when staffing levels are being reduced across federal departments, including environmental agencies.
“With the CRMA, the aim is to give a permit or get a licence within 27 months, and on the other hand … highly intensive projects are now reviewed by fewer people,” Reckordt said.
Asked to comment on the risks of developing critical raw materials projects on or near Natura 2000 areas, the Commission’s directorates-general for environment and for internal market and industry said member states were responsible for permitting, monitoring and carrying out environmental assessments.
They said that while the Commission provides detailed guidance on assessing risks to Natura 2000 sites, “there are no specific thresholds set in the EU nature legislation in relation to the significance of negative impacts” because “such assessment has to be done on a case-by-case basis”.
It can step in if a country clearly fails to apply EU law, for example by launching infringement procedures, their statement said.
The EU Court of Justice has repeatedly ruled against member states for inadequate environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and for permitting the degradation of protected sites.
Recycling and lithium waste recoveryIndustry advocates say mining can be compatible with environmental protection if the right controls are put in place and properly implemented.
“In many contexts, the real challenges lie in enforcement capacity, institutional capability, and the cultural shifts required to implement policies effectively,” said Gemma James, a spokesperson for nature and biodiversity at the Global Investor Commission on Mining 2030, an investor-led initiative.
“We have seen examples where nature-related risks have stopped production. Therefore, investors need to promote effective management in relation to nature (and) need to set common expectations, reduce inconsistencies, and help avoid a ‘race to the bottom’,” James said.
At the same time, “a level playing field” is needed globally to ensure that companies obey the same rules regarding operating in protected areas.
Mining advocates also point to the potential of emerging technologies to make Europe’s green transition less destructive, from recovering lithium from mine water to urban mining and large-scale e-waste recycling.
But such solutions remain underdeveloped, and environmentalists say mining has no place on, or near, protected land, instead suggesting Europe’s policymakers turn their attention to reducing demand for critical minerals.
“Recycling, substituting or increasing material efficiency should represent a priority at all times,” said Anne Larigauderie, biologist and former executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), an independent international body.
An alliance of NGOs has formed the EU Raw Materials Coalition, calling for measures that would ease demand for critical minerals, such as reducing car and battery sizes, promoting car sharing and public transport, and pursuing policies to curb overall consumption.
Confronted with the conflicting demands of industry and anti-mining campaigners, policymakers face a difficult task, said Julio César Arranz, a senior geologist at Spain’s Geological and Mining Institute (IGME), a state body.
“To what extent does declaring an area protected imply a categorical ‘no’ to mining?” he said. “Those in favour of mining argue that if done carefully, it can be done anywhere. Environmentalists, on the other hand, contend that there are places where nothing should ever be permitted.
“Those of us in the administration often find ourselves somewhere in between.”
This investigation was supported by Free Press Unlimited’s Collaborative and Investigative Journalism Initiative (CIJI) grant programme.
Main image: The Vedra Valley in Lombardy, Italy, where a zinc mining project is being developed, is located inside a Natura 2000 site
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Uganda may see lower oil revenues than expected as costs rise and demand falls
Uganda’s plan to use future revenues from its emerging oil industry to drive economic development may not work as expected, because evidence so far shows that the government’s effort to extract and export its crude oil may not produce the returns it is counting on, analysts have warned.
A new report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) found that Uganda stands to benefit far less from oil production than previously projected, with revenues set to be half of earlier estimates if the world transitions away from fossil fuels on a path to reaching net zero emissions.
Uganda’s oil ambitions involve developing two oilfields on the shores of Lake Albert – Tilenga and Kingfisher – and constructing the 1,443-km East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), with the aim of transporting 230,000 barrels of crude per day to Tanzania’s Tanga port for export.
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Led by oil major TotalEnergies and China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), alongside the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) and Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation, the project was given the financial go-ahead in 2022.
Will Scargill, one of the IEEFA report’s authors, told an online launch this week that oil may have seemed a historically attractive option for Uganda but the benefits it could yield are very sensitive to major risks, including cost overruns around the project and in the refining sector, which it also plans to enter.
“The EACOP project is expected to cost much more than the original expectations, so it’s a major project risk in Uganda as well,” he said.
The start of oil production and exports through the East Africa pipeline had been expected by 2025 – nearly 20 years after commercially viable oil was first discovered in the country – but has now been delayed until late 2026 or 2027.
Meanwhile, the cost of construction – particularly for the EACOP part of the project – has continued to rise, reaching around $5.6 billion, a 55% increase from the $3.6 billion projected shortly before it got financial approval, the report said.
Ugandan riot police officers detain an activist during a march in support of the European Parliament resolution to stop the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline in Kampala, Uganda October 4, 2022. REUTERS/Abubaker Lubowa US tariffs, China’s EV boom to curb oil revenuesBeyond delays and cost overruns, “there’s the risk the impact of the accelerating shift away from fossil fuels will have on the oil market,” Scargill said.
The report said the most significant factors for the Ugandan oil industry – which are beyond its control – have been the reduced outlook for international trade spurred by recently imposed US tariffs and the growing uptake of electric vehicles (EVs), particularly in China – which has led to a peak in transport fuel demand and an expected peak in overall oil consumption by 2027.
The 2025 oil outlook from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that growth in global oil demand will fall significantly by the end of the decade before entering a decline, driven mainly by electrification in transport which will displace 5.4 million barrels per day of global oil demand by the end of the decade.
In addition, structural changes in global energy markets, including oil supply growth outside the OPEC+ bloc – a group of major oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia and Russia that sets production quotas – particularly in the US, Brazil and Guyana, are lowering prices.
“It’s a particularly bad time to be taking single big bets on particular sectors that are linked to external markets,” said Matthew Huxham, a co-author of the IEEFA report.
To make matters worse, Uganda’s public finances have been weakened in the past decade by external shocks including higher US interest rates and commodity prices, resulting in downgrades of the country’s sovereign credit rating, he added.
“What that means is, generally speaking, there is less fiscal resilience to shocks,” Huxham said.
Lower global demand for oil would likely see lower prices, profits and revenues for the Ugandan government, the report authors said. In addition, a global shift to renewable energy would mean Uganda selling even fewer barrels into international markets.
All of these factors suggest that investment in Uganda’s oil industry “would unlikely be as transformational as expected” for its development, Scargill said.
Climate Home News reached out to the Uganda National Oil Company and EACOP but had not received a response at the time of publication.
Foreign investors to recover costs while Uganda faces risksUganda has invested a significant amount of government funds not only in the oil pipeline but also in supporting infrastructure such as a planned refinery. The report authors raised concerns about revenue-sharing agreements under which foreign investors are entitled to recover their costs first, taking a larger share of oil revenues in the early years of production.
IEEFA estimates that while TotalEnergies’ and CNOOC’s returns could fall by 25-34% as the world uses less oil and moves from fossil fuels to clean energy, Uganda’s expected revenues could decline by up to 53%.
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Uganda is pursuing a $4.5-billion oil refinery project in Hoima District, with the country’s oil company UNOC due to take a 40% stake. To finance part of this investment and other oil-related infrastructure, UNOC has secured a loan facility of up to $2 billion from commodity trader Vitol.
Under the deal, Vitol gains priority access to oil revenues, placing it ahead of the Ugandan government when money starts flowing in, the report said. The IEEFA analysts warn that this will likely displace or defer planned use of the revenues for other government spending on things like health, education and climate adaptation, especially if oil production and the refinery construction are delayed or profits disappoint.
“Even if the refinery project is on time and on budget, the refinery and loan repayments could consume 40% of Uganda’s oil revenues through 2032,” Scargill noted.
Pointing to recent cost overruns at oil refinery projects in Africa, the report authors said Nigeria’s
Dangote refinery ended up costing more than twice the original estimate – jumping from $9 billion to over $18 billion.
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They said analysis shows the Uganda refinery will cost 25% more than planned, on top of an expected overrun of over 50% on the EACOP project, cutting the annual return rate to 10%.
“This means there is a high chance the project, by itself, will not make any money,” the report added.
Responding to the report, the StopEACOP coalition said the analysis confirms that beyond causing ongoing environmental harm and displacing hundreds of thousands, the project “does not make economic sense, especially for the host countries”.
They called on financial institutions, including Standard Bank, KCB Uganda, Stanbic Uganda, Afreximbank, and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, which are backing the “controversial” EACOP project, “to seriously engage with the findings of the IEEFA reports and reconsider their support”.
Prioritise climate-resilient investments insteadIn another report released alongside the one on oil project finances, IEEFA argued that Uganda could achieve stronger and more effective development outcomes by redirecting its scarce public resources towards climate-resilient, electrified industrialisation rather than doubling down on oil.
Uganda is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change, yet ranks low in readiness to cope with its impacts. The report authors urged the government to apply stricter criteria when deciding how to spend public funds, focusing on things like improving access to modern energy services and climate adaptation.
The IEEFA report recommended investments in off-grid and mini-grid solar electrification, agro-processing, cold storage, crop irrigation and better roads as lower-risk alternatives to investing in fossil fuels.
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Investments that take climate risks into account could also attract concessional climate finance and align with Uganda’s fourth National Development Plan and Just Transition Framework, the report said.
“They also take less long to construct, are easy to deploy, pay back over a shorter period and they also put less pressure on the system,” Huxham added.
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Ugandans living near new oil pipeline let down by compensation programmes
Most Ugandans whose land and livelihoods were affected by the construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) are dissatisfied with training programmes provided by developers which were designed to stop them being left worse off, a survey has found.
The Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) asked 246 people in seven communities affected by the project for their views on the developers Resettlement Action Plan (RAP).
It found that while most affected households have received some form of support, most were dissatisfied with the quality of food security programmes and training on alternative vocations and financial literacy.
Dickens Kamugisha, AFIEGO’s CEO, said that while the Ugandan government claims it is developing the oil sector to create lasting value for everyone, this study shows that this is not the case especially for the people that were displaced for the project.
“They lost their land, were under-compensated and now an inadequate livelihood restoration programme is being implemented. Instead of creating lasting value for the project-affected people, the government and the EACOP company could create lasting poverty for the people”, he added.
EACOP is being built by a coalition led by the French company Total, along with China’s National Offshore Oil Corporation and Uganda and Tanzania’s state-owned oil companies.
The 1,400 km pipeline will take oil from Uganda’s Tilenga and Kingfisher oil fields through Tanzania to the East African coast, where the oil can be put on ships and exported.
Inadequate trainingNearly four-in-five of those surveyed described vocational training programmes, designed to give displaced people new professions like bakers, welders and soap makers, as inadequate. They cited short training periods, absentee trainers and limited hands-on learning.
One participant said he was trained in catering for four months in 2024. “I did not understand what I was taught. We were not learning most of the time”, he said.
The young man said that he only cooked once in the four months and that trainers told them that they would be sent home if they complained.
The financial literacy programme, aimed at training people to use their compensation wisely, was also described as inadequate by nearly four-fifths.
They said the training was only one day and was conducted by a commercial bank, which pushed them to open bank accounts rather than improving their money management practices.
“They were interested in business, and not in people learning”, one woman said, “no wonder when people got money, some married more women. The compensation was also too little!”
EACOP-affected people during a community sensitisation meeting in Hoima district, 2025. Photo: AFIEGO Not enough foodThose who were physically displaced by the pipeline or who lost more than a fifth of their land to it were supposed to be entitled to food assistance for up to a year or more.
While three-quarters of respondents received some food assistance, just a third said it was adequate. They complained that they did not understand why some people were getting food and others not.
There were also complaints about the quantity of beans, rice, cooking oil and salt provided, particularly from those with big families. One woman said her family of 30 used up the 4 kg of rice and beans in one meal.
An agricultural recovery programme aimed to help people transition but, while many confirmed receiving seeds, seedlings or fertilisers, they complained that the seeds were poor quality and distributed too late – after the rains – for crops to grow.
In Kyotera District, one participant recounted receiving 70 coffee seedlings, of which only 20 survived. “We were given very young coffee seedlings. They were also poor quality with some having no roots,” the participant said. “I watered those coffee seedlings, but they did not grow. They were poor quality!”
Some of the affected communities also complained about not getting the livelihood options they wanted, adding that those who wanted livestock were given seeds instead because they did not have a building to house the livestock.
On the other hand, the survey found that about two-thirds of affected people were satisfied with the distance between their homes and the pipeline. The third who were not satisfied said they feared accidents like oil spills and noise and dust pollution as the pipeline is built.
“I fear for my life,” said one man in Hoima, “the pipeline can burst, spill and affect us. We have also been told that the pipeline will be heated. The heat from the pipeline could affect our soils”.
At the time of publication, the Petroleum Authority of Uganda and Total had not responded to a request for comment.
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UN head calls for platform for “honest dialogue” on fossil fuel transition
The head of the United Nations called on Wednesday for governments to get together for an “honest dialogue” on how to transition away from fossil fuels.
Antonio Guterres told those gathered for the International Energy Agency’s ministerial meeting in Paris that “we must stop treating the transition away from fossil fuels as taboo”.
“Delay will only breed instability,” he said in a video message, “history is littered with the wreckage of failed transitions – broken economies, scarred communities and lost opportunities. We face a choice: design the transition together – or stumble into it through crisis and chaos.”
He called for “a dedicated global platform for honest dialogue on transitioning away from fossil fuels” that includes fossil fuel producers and consumers, developed and developing countries, civil society and public and private financial institutions.
Guterres’ call contrasted sharply with the position of the United States. Ahead of the conference, US energy secretary Chris Wright threatened to pull Washington out of the IEA if the government-funded think tank continues to promote the energy transition.
At the event, Wright downplayed the importance of climate change, claiming that while it is a “really physical problem, it just isn’t even remotely close to the world’s biggest problem”. He called on the IEA to focus more on providing clean cooking solutions, which include fossil gas.
But, while US support wavers, the IEA’s head Fatih Birol celebrated the progress of Brazil, India, Colombia and Vietnam towards joining the Paris-based institution. He said this shows that the IEA’s strategy of engaging with the world outside developed countries was paying off. UK energy secretary Ed Milliband said it was a “vote of confidence” in the IEA.
Roadmap and conferenceGuterres’ words come just over two years since governments agreed at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and three months after over 80 governments pushed at COP30 for a roadmap away from fossil fuels.
After the proposal failed to gain consensus at COP30 in the formal negotiations, Brazil’s COP30 presidency promised to deliver a global roadmap through an informal initiative before this year’s COP31 climate summit in Antalya.
Separately, Australia, which is leading the negotiations at COP31, vowed it would “continue to argue” for a transition away from coal, oil and gas in energy systems during its co-presidency.
Governments, experts, industry leaders and Indigenous representatives will be gathering this April in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for a highly-awaited first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The government of Colombia, which is co-hosting the summit with the Netherlands, said it would seek to launch a permanent platform that would help a “coalition of the willing” accelerate the shift away from planet-heating coal, oil and gas beyond the UN climate process.
“Although there is growing consensus to gradually eliminate fossil fuels, there were still no specific spaces or meeting places dedicated to comprehending and addressing the pathways needed to overcome economic, fiscal and social dependence on fossil fuels, especially for producing countries,” Maria Fernanda Torres Penagos, director of climate change in Colombia’s Environment Ministry, said last month.
It is unclear how that platform would cross over with Guterres’ suggestion. But Alex Rafalowicz, the director of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative (FFNPTI), which is supporting the conference, praised the UN chief’s “welcome leadership and vision”.
He said that the development of this platform is already happening through the FFNPTI, in which 18 countries are participating in discussions on a fossil fuel treaty.
“The Santa Marta conference is the first stop on this journey and all countries that are seriously committed to the 1.5C limit should be there”, he said, “we expect that out of Santa Marta we will have more proposals and commitments that can feed into the [Brazilian] COP Presidency roadmap”.
Coalitions like the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and the Powering Past Coal Alliance already offer platforms to discuss transitioning away from fossil fuels. But major fossil fuel producers have not joined these alliances.
Guterres said that the platform should deliver a global transition plan which “aligns investment, energy security and climate goals – with concrete milestones and robust finance, particularly for developing countries”.
Guterres said in 2022 that, in order to be compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C, wealthy countries should phase out coal by 2030 and other nations by 2040. The IEA said in 2021 that the world should reach net zero by 2050 to meet the 1.5C warming limit.
This article was amended on 19/2/2026 to clarify the progress towards IEA membership of Brazil, Colombia, India and Vietnam
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Argentina’s pioneering glacier law on the line as Milei bets on copper rush
Argentine lawmakers are set to vote this week on government proposals to weaken a landmark law that bans mining on and around glaciers, days after President Javier Milei’s libertarian administration signed a critical minerals supply deal with the US.
Milei will ask Congress to amend 2010 legislation known as the glaciers law – hailed as the first of its kind in the world – which prohibits activities such as mining or oil drilling on the nearly 17,000 glaciers and surrounding periglacial areas that supply water to millions of Argentines and the vital agricultural sector.
While glaciers account for less than 1% of Argentina’s vast territory, they overlap with large mineral deposits, especially copper, a critical mineral which is in hot demand for use in renewable energy systems, power grid infrastructure and batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
Soaring demand for the red metal is driving a supply shortage that could reach 30% by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency.
Argentina, already a leading global lithium exporter, does not produce copper at present, but several major projects – on hold for years – could go ahead if Milei’s glacier law overhaul is approved by Congress, environmental campaigners and mining advocates say.
The nation’s mining exports reached $6.04 billion in 2025, according to the government.
Mineral-rich provinces would define protected areasMilei says his bid to amend the glacier law is a way to give greater autonomy to the provinces by allowing them to decide exactly which glacial areas should be protected and off-limits for mining due to their role in water systems, and which should lose that status. Provincial authorities would then be allowed to grant mining permits in periglacial areas.
The amendment comes as part of a wider push by Milei – a close ideological ally of US President Donald Trump – to draw investment to the country, and the legislative overhaul is backed by mining companies and governors in the nation’s biggest mining provinces such as San Juan, Salta, Jujuy and Mendoza.
“This bill we are sending to Congress will bring investments that could create one million jobs,” Milei said of his plan to overhaul the glaciers law in November, adding that “environmentalists would prefer people to die of hunger before touching anything”.
Earlier this month, Milei’s administration signed a critical minerals deal with the US to strengthen and secure supply chains, saying the accord was expected to drive significant economic growth and new investment.
But many environmental scientists in Argentina say the government’s proposal puts business interests before safeguards vital to protecting the nation’s water supplies at a time when climate change is taking a heavy toll on glacial areas.
“There is a clear intention among those pushing for these modifications to portray the current protection of the periglacial environment, or glacial waste rock, as a legal exaggeration, minimising the importance of these areas within the glaciers themselves and the ecosystem services they provide,” Guillermo Folguera, an environmental researcher from Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), told Climate Home News.
Some mining experts say regulators could protect water supplies by establishing technical criteria – such as the ice content of periglacial areas.
Copper projects on ice – for nowBy opening a door to mining on areas that are currently protected, Milei’s plan could clear the way for at least four large copper projects that have been on hold since the glaciers law was passed 15 years ago, said FARN, an Argentine NGO focused on environmental issues and natural resources.
“Today, some projects violate the glaciers law and that, with this regulatory change, could potentially begin operating,” Leandro Gómez, environmental policy coordinator at FARN, told Climate Home News.
Giant copper mining projects that could be revived if the overhaul passes Congress include El Pachón and Agua Rica, both of which are owned by Swiss miner and commodities trader Glencore, according to FARN, which along with 26 other environmental organisations published a document rejecting the government’s proposal.
Last year, Glencore said it planned to spend $4 billion to develop Agua Rica and $9.5 billion to develop El Pachón.
The other two copper projects that FARN says could get the go-ahead if Milei’s amendments are passed are Los Azules and Josemaria in San Juan province.
A view of the glaciers above Mendoza in Argentina (Photo: REUTERS/Ramiro Gomez)All four projects are located in areas classified as periglacial zones with rock glaciers, according to surveys by IANIGLIA, the national agency responsible for conducting inventories of such areas.
Asked to comment on its Agua Rica project, now called MARA, Glencore said in a statement the site was not located on a rock glacier.
“There is no rock glacier located in the footprint of the MARA project; neither in any current works nor within the foreseen area of future operations,” it said, adding that water management was a key element of the project’s design.
“We have been developing a system designed to minimise or mitigate impacts on the local communities or the environment,” it said.
Milei is confident of congressional approvalMilei’s La Libertad Avanza party gained ground in Congress following a midterm election in October, and he voiced confidence in January about having enough votes to pass his glacier law proposal.
Last week, José Peluc, a deputy for San Juan from La Libertad Avanza, was designated head of the lower house’s environment commission in a signal of support for the amendment, though some opposition lawmakers have condemned Milei’s plan.
Lawmaker Maximiliano Ferraro from the centrist Civic Coalition told Congress in a recent debate that the proposal “is in clear violation” of the country’s constitution and Latin America’s 2018 Escazu Agreement on environmental rights.
The amendment, like other government measures aimed at boosting big mining projects such as the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI), is supported by the CAEM chamber that groups Argentina’s major mining companies. It has also said the change would help revive deadlocked copper projects.
“Seventy-five percent of the surface area of the copper projects that were announced need clarification of the law because they are in areas considered periglacial,” Roberto Cacciola, CAEM president, told La Nación newspaper.
“Most have already started the application to enter the Large Investment Incentive Regime (RIGI),” he said.
“Irreparable consequences” feared near copper projectIn the small town of Andalgalá in Catamarca province, which lies about 17 kilometres from the Agua Rica project, anti-mining activists have been holding weekly marches against the mine’s development since 2010 and they describe heavy-handed police tactics aimed at stifling their protests.
They are dismayed by the government’s attempt to water down the glaciers law, fearing that allowing the mine to operate would endanger the town’s water supplies from the Andalgalá River.
“Starting up Agua Rica would mean large-scale environmental destruction,” said Juan José Cólica, an agricultural engineer who worked for 35 years, until his retirement last year, at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology’s Andalgalá office.
Glencore said it was working to complete the exploitation phase environmental impact report (EIR) for the project, which would be subjected to a technical review by the regulatory authority and public consultation.
“We engage with our host communities to understand and address their concerns, including in respect of economic and social development opportunities for the region,” the company said.
Cólica said allowing the mine to operate at the foot of the snow-capped Aconquija mountain would cause “irreparable consequences that could last for generations”.
“There is no technical method or technology to remedy the damage that could be caused, nor to safeguard the population of Andalgalá from the geological, hydrological, environmental and health risks,” he said.
The post Argentina’s pioneering glacier law on the line as Milei bets on copper rush appeared first on Climate Home News.
As Louisiana bets big on ‘blue ammonia’, communities brace for air pollution
This story is from Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. Sign up for Floodlight’s newsletter here.”
From her home in Donaldsonville in the southern US state of Louisiana, less than three miles from the world’s largest ammonia plant, Ashley Gaignard says the air itself carries a chemical edge.
The odour, she said, is sharp and lingering. Years ago, when her son attended a school about a mile from the massive CF Industries ammonia production facility, he would begin wheezing during breaks from class, she recalled. His breathing problems eased only after he transferred to a school several miles farther away.
“I’m not against progress,” Gaignard said. “We are against development that poisons and displaces and disregards human life.”
Now, along Louisiana’s Mississippi River corridor, fertiliser giant CF Industries and other companies are placing multibillion-dollar bets on “blue ammonia” — a product made from fossil fuels but with extra technology to capture planet-warming gases and pipe them underground for storage.
Ashley Gaignard points toward smoke stacks that are part of the CF Industries plant in Donaldsonville, La. That plant emits more air pollutants than all but one other facility nationwide, EPA data show. (Sean Gardner for Floodlight)To date, no commercial-scale blue ammonia plants are operating — but more than 20 have been proposed nationwide, according to Oil and Gas Watch. Four of the largest such plants are slated for Louisiana, in communities already saturated with petrochemical pollution.
An extensive review by Floodlight found no evidence that existing carbon capture projects anywhere in the world have achieved anything close to the emissions cuts companies like CF Industries are promising. Permit documents, meanwhile, show that the proposed plants combined could be allowed to discharge more than 2,800 tons each year of air pollutants (not greenhouse gases), including more than 400 tons of ammonia.
Classified as a highly hazardous chemical, ammonia can damage the lungs and hurt the skin, eyes and throat. In the air, it can form fine particles that are linked to increased risks of heart disease and stroke, and can be deadly — particularly for children, older adults and people with heart or lung disease.
The Louisiana plants would also be allowed to release carcinogens, including benzene and formaldehyde.
The companies proposing those plants — CF Industries, Air Products, Clean Hydrogen Works and St. Charles Clean Fuels — have said their operations will provide an abundant source of clean fertiliser and clean energy to global markets, including countries whose climate and trade policies favor low-carbon fuels. They’ve also said they’ll create nearly 840 permanent jobs and millions in new tax revenue for local communities while prioritising public health and safety.
The CF Industries complex in Donaldsonville is the world’s largest ammonia and nitrogen plant. (Ted Auch / FracTracker Alliance, 2024; with aerial support by SouthWings)“We are designing the facility with advanced emissions controls, robust monitoring systems, and strong operational practices to minimise impacts,” said Chandra Stacie, the director of community relations for St. Charles Clean Fuels. “Our goal is to operate responsibly and be a constructive, long-term partner.”
Environmental advocates, scientists and community members, however, say the new ammonia plants would delay the phase-out of fossil fuels — and bring substantial air pollution and safety risks to places that have long borne the health costs of America’s industrial economy.
Why Louisiana became ground zeroWhile the historic streets of Donaldsonville recently served as the backdrop to the 2025 blockbuster Sinners, the town’s real-life drama is far less cinematic.
Donaldsonville lies at the center of Cancer Alley, a chemical corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans known for its elevated health risks and dense concentration of petrochemical plants and refineries.
Now this stretch of Louisiana is also ground zero for a new buildout: four proposed blue ammonia plants, with several more planned for Texas.
So, why the Gulf Coast?
South Louisiana has abundant natural gas for ammonia production and ports that connect to international shipping routes.
window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}});The state offers an existing pipeline network, a seasoned chemical-industry workforce and political leaders who have consistently favored industrial development. The companies proposing ammonia plants can also tap generous state and federal incentives, including more than $2 billion in federal tax credits for carbon capture projects.
The Inflation Reduction Act, former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, allows companies to collect up to $85 for each ton of carbon captured and permanently stored.
And the state of Louisiana is offering developers millions more in grants and tax breaks designed to spur economic development.
Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University who has studied carbon capture systems for years, said there’s little to be gained — and much to lose — from making ammonia this way.
“These plants increase air pollution, they increase global warming … they increase not only energy costs, but total social costs, and so there’s zero benefit — except to the people who are taking the subsidies to implement these projects,” he said.
window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}});The scale of subsidies for the proposed Louisiana ammonia plants is “off-the-charts outrageous” — and amounts to a bad deal for taxpayers, said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks and analyzes economic development projects. The plants are unlikely to deliver anything close to $2 billion a year in public benefits, he said.
“It can only be accurately called a massive transfer of wealth from U.S. taxpayers to corporate shareholders,” he said.
Ambitious pitches, tougher realityAmmonia has long been a workhorse of the global economy, quietly underpinning modern agriculture. It’s the key ingredient in nitrogen fertiliser, and demand is expected to grow as global food production strains to keep pace with population growth.
Now, producers say it could play a far larger role — not just as fertiliser, but as a climate-friendly fuel for ships and power plants.
Researchers at Sandia Labs explore using solar power-generated heat to produce ammonia. Using renewable energy to create ammonia instead of fossil fuels can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, researchers say. (Craig Fritz / Sandia Labs Flickr)When it’s burned as a fuel, ammonia doesn’t emit carbon dioxide (though it can produce nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas roughly 270 times more potent than carbon dioxide).
It can also be burned with other fuels in power plants or potentially used to store hydrogen for shipping and later conversion for use in fuel cells.
But the process commonly used to make ammonia carries a heavy climate cost.
Most production relies on hydrogen derived from natural gas, a process that releases carbon dioxide. Enormous amounts of energy — typically from fossil fuels — are then used to force hydrogen and nitrogen to combine under extreme heat and pressure.
Nitrogen fertilizer plants in the U.S. released more than 46 million tons of heat-trapping gases in 2021 — roughly the emissions of nine million cars running for a year — according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project. Globally, almost 2% of carbon dioxide emissions come from making ammonia — or as much as the energy system emissions of South Africa, according to the International Energy Agency.
That’s where carbon capture comes in. The companies planning blue ammonia plants say they will isolate most of the carbon dioxide released, piping it deep underground for permanent storage.
Texas-based Clean Hydrogen Works says its Ascension Clean Energy project, slated for Donaldsonville, will produce up to 7.2 million tons of ammonia annually and will capture “up to 98 percent” of the carbon dioxide produced.
Nearby, CF Industries and the Pennsylvania-based Air Products plan to build two plants they say will have capture rates of 95% or more.
About an hour to the east, the St. Charles Clean Fuels project would capture more than 99% of carbon dioxide generated, its developer says.
Those claims are unlikely to hold up, said Cornell University professor Robert Howarth, an expert on greenhouse gas emissions and ammonia pollution.
“Is the industry correct in saying that they can produce a really, really low emissions fuel using natural gas as their original feedstock?” he asked. “The answer is no. It’s just never been done, and I don’t think it can be done.”
CF Industries has been in Louisiana for over 50 years. Its Donaldsonville Complex occupies 1,400 acres. (Sean Gardner for Floodlight)The majority of existing carbon capture facilities trap less than 60% of carbon dioxide, according to a 2023 review by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. “No existing project has consistently captured more than 80% of carbon,” the institute found.
Blue hydrogen — a prerequisite for blue ammonia — “is neither clean nor low-carbon,” and pursuing it would divert time and money from more effective climate solutions, the institute concluded.
In an email to Floodlight, Air Products spokesperson Christina Stephens said the company is “very confident in our proprietary technology that allows us to capture 95 percent of the CO2 emissions.” She did not elaborate.
Stacie, the St. Charles Clean Fuels representative, said its facility’s design will be “conducive to high capture rates.”
Experts also note that carbon capture itself is typically powered by natural gas, adding emissions and undercutting its climate benefits.
Compounding the problem are emissions of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Methane is frequently emitted during drilling, processing and transport of natural gas. More escapes in the process used to extract hydrogen for ammonia production.
Total methane emissions from the fertilizer industry could be more than 140 times higher than official estimates, one 2019 study found.
Stephens, the Air Products spokesperson, said the company believes previous research related to methane leakage has flaws that led to inaccurate conclusions.
Stacie, meanwhile, said St. Charles Clean Fuels will monitor and verify methane emissions through “operations control and third-party verification consistent with emerging best practices.”
The local cost of a global fuelEven if blue ammonia plants deliver the climate benefits their backers promise — benefits that experts dispute — their local impacts could still be substantial.
In 2024, the CF Industries Donaldsonville plant — near Gaignard’s house — released more toxic air pollutants than all but one other industrial site nationally, according to EPA data. The 7.1 million pounds of ammonia the plant released that year would more than fill the New Orleans Superdome, according to Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist for the Environmental Integrity Project.
Emissions from the planned blue ammonia plants could worsen respiratory health, Terrell said, with impacts extending far beyond the plant sites.
“I would be concerned about increasing asthma rates long term,” she said.
Ascension Parish, where three of the proposed blue ammonia plants would be built, hosts more than two dozen industrial facilities and already has the second highest amount of air emissions in the country, according to EPA data.
So the prospect of new ammonia plants in Ascension Parish worries Twila Collins.
She has lived her entire 55-year life in Modeste, a historic, predominantly Black community along the Mississippi River. If CF Industries gets its way, a massive ammonia plant would rise roughly a mile from her home.
Twila Collins poses for a photo inside her home in Modeste, a small Louisiana community next to the Mississippi River. She’s concerned about the potential health and safety dangers of a proposed CF Industries blue ammonia plant. (Sean Gardner for Floodlight)Her message for the company is blunt: “Leave us alone and find somewhere else to go where there’s nobody living, so you won’t disrupt a community.”
Industrial pollution already drifts into her neighborhood, bringing smells “like a landfill,” she said, and a new ammonia plant would add another layer of pollution — and another set of health risks.
In a 2024 report, CF Industries said its employees “regularly maintain, replace, and update equipment” to reduce emissions.
But under its draft permit for the Blue Point plant, the company would be allowed to release more than 1,100 tons of air pollutants each year — equivalent to the weight of more than 27 fully loaded tractor trailers. That includes more than 140 tons of ammonia and more than 580 tons of carbon monoxide.
Collins said she can name more than 30 people in Modeste who suffer from cancer or respiratory problems. The issue is deeply personal. She herself has struggled with cancer. And in 2002, her 9-year-old son died of an asthma attack. He had struggled with asthma all his life, but Collins still wonders whether the industrial pollution surrounding Modeste helped trigger the attack that killed him.
She also worries about what could go wrong if something fails — an accident, a leak or worse — because ammonia production and carbon dioxide transport involve well-documented industrial risks.
CF Industries’ Donaldsonville plant has a history of deadly accidents: a 2000 explosion and fire killed three workers and injured at least eight others, and a 2013 blast killed one worker and injured eight more.
This past November, an explosion at another CF Industries plant in Yazoo City, Miss., led to an ammonia leak and prompted the evacuation of nearby residents.
Residents push backWhile supporters emphasise the economic boost and high-paying jobs the projects could bring, many local residents have turned out at public hearings to oppose them.
So many people packed a hearing room on the St. Charles project in 2024 that it had to be canceled and rescheduled in a larger venue.
Some of the public fears have centered on the carbon dioxide pipelines that would be needed to make the projects work.
Air Products, for instance, has proposed piping millions of tons of carbon dioxide 38 miles to be stored a mile underneath Lake Maurepas. The project would be “the world’s largest permanent carbon dioxide sequestration endeavor to date,” according to the Louisiana Department of Economic Development.
At a November 2025 public hearing, many Louisiana residents raised health and safety concerns about Air Products’ plan to build a large blue ammonia plant in Ascension Parish. (US Army Corps of Engineers via Wikimedia Commons)At a November public hearing on the project, Air Products vice president Andrew Connolly said the company has an “unsurpassed safety record.”
“All pipelines will be monitored 24-7 and we will meet or exceed all pipeline regulations,” he said.
More than 300 people turned out for that public hearing, according to Dustin Renaud, a spokesperson for the environmental law group Earthjustice. Among the more than 50 people who spoke, all but three opposed the project.
Opponents have warned of what could happen if a carbon dioxide pipeline ruptures, as happened in 2020 in Satartia, Mississippi. That disaster sent 45 people to the hospital and left some residents unconscious in their homes and cars. Starved of oxygen, cars stalled or couldn’t start, making evacuation difficult.
A carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured on Feb. 22, 2020, in Satartia, Miss., leaving this crater and prompting an evacuation. (Mississippi Emergency Management Agency)The Air Products pipeline would run within half a mile of Sorrento Primary School, an elementary school in Ascension Parish with more than 600 students. An expert hired by Earthjustice concluded that a pipeline rupture could endanger the schoolchildren, along with residents of a nearby subdivision.
Stephens, the Air Products spokesperson, said the company will run the pipeline deeper than is required by code in the school’s vicinity. The pipeline will also have more shutoff valves than required, she said.
“We have a long safe history of operating the largest hydrogen pipeline network in the world right here in Louisiana,” she wrote.
Stacie, the St. Charles Clean Fuels representative, said the company will incorporate “detection systems, automated shutdowns, mechanical integrity programs and emergency response planning” — consistent with federal rules and “lessons learned from prior incidents.”
Still, some residents worry.
“We don’t have a good evacuation route,” said St. James Parish resident Gail LeBoeuf, who co-founded the environmental justice group Inclusive Louisiana. “If something would happen, we would just be stuck like Chuck.”
The companies behind the blue ammonia projects have said they will bring jobs and millions of dollars into the state economy — a message that has found a receptive audience in the state capital and some city halls.
CF Industries did not respond to Floodlight’s questions about its proposed plant, while Clean Hydrogen Works declined to answer questions.
Amid public opposition, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry in October announced a moratorium on new carbon capture projects. The order halted the state’s review of new permits for projects that would inject carbon dioxide underground, while allowing existing applications to continue — including the blue ammonia projects already underway.
A lower-carbon alternativeThere are cleaner ways to make ammonia.
Instead of extracting hydrogen from natural gas and then trying to capture the CO₂, producers can use renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. That “green hydrogen” can then be combined with nitrogen to make what’s known as “green ammonia.”
At least one large-scale green ammonia plant is already operating. In Chifeng, China, a facility powered by wind turbines and solar panels began industrial-scale production in 2025. By 2028, the plant is expected to produce 1.5 million tons of green ammonia annually.
In the U.S., developers have proposed green ammonia plants in Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington.
“Instead of making this big labyrinth of pipes and equipment and sending CO2 everywhere and using more energy, you can simply produce that hydrogen with electricity from solar and wind,” said Jacobson, the Stanford professor.
In the debate over blue ammonia, the stakes are high.
For ammonia producers, the projects promise billions in federal tax credits and a foothold in emerging energy markets. They also offer oil and gas companies a way to delay the phase-out of fossil fuels, critics say.
“It’s a great way to lock in oil and gas infrastructure. … Something that we should be getting away from, as opposed to locking in for years and years to come,” said Alexandra Shaykevich, a research manager at the Environmental Integrity Project who tracks oil and gas projects.
For residents along Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, the stakes are more immediate. They’re being asked to live with new plants, new pipelines and new risks in places that have already absorbed decades of pollution.
But Gaignard plans to keep fighting for her community.
“I don’t look at this as red and blue and the left and the right,” she said. “We need to start looking at humanity.”
Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.
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What we need to see in the roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels
Felix Wertli is the Swiss Ambassador for the Environment
At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, countries sent a long-awaited political signal by agreeing to “transition away from fossil fuels” in energy systems. For the first time, the direction of travel was acknowledged collectively. Yet, this signal remains abstract. What matters now is the implementation that supports development, energy access, and economic transformation.
The transition away from fossil fuels offers opportunities: it can create jobs, strengthen energy security and advance sustainable development, including universal access to affordable and reliable energy. At the same time, the implementation challenges are significant and unevenly distributed across geographies. It requires large-scale investment, careful management of shifting price structures, and safeguards to prevent economic disruption and social instability. This is why countries agreed in Dubai that the transition must be just, orderly and equitable.
Against this backdrop, Brazil’s proposal to develop a roadmap to operationalise the transition away from fossil fuels was both timely and necessary. Supported by more than 80 countries, it responded to a clear gap in the international process: the absence of guidance on how to move from political commitment to implementation. The proposal did not reach consensus, due to opposition from a number of highly fossil-fuel dependent countries. They were concerned that a roadmap could translate political commitments into tangible expectations and measures and could pressure them to transition faster than their economies can sustain.
This outcome illustrates a broader challenge within the UNFCCC. The problem is no longer a lack of negotiated ambition. It is the growing disconnect between agreed objectives and the collective ability to implement them.
Brazil’s decision to proceed by launching two roadmaps in its own capacity, one on transitioning away from fossil fuels and one on halting deforestation, therefore deserves strong support. This approach supports multilateralism. It recognises that complementary initiatives are sometimes necessary to advance implementation among a coalition of the willing, especially when formal processes stall and full consensus is not possible.
Developing the roadmap outside the COP process allows countries willing to engage constructively to move faster, provide greater clarity and focus on practical solutions, without being bound by the consensus rule. Importantly, such an initiative should be understood as a complement to the UNFCCC, not a substitute, and as a mean to inform future multilateral decisions.
How roadmaps can succeedFor the roadmap to succeed, several conditions must be met.
First, ownership must be shared. Participating countries need to see their national circumstances, development priorities and constraints reflected in the process. This requires collective leadership. Brazil’s role should be that of a convener and facilitator, not a single agenda-setter. The upcoming meeting co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands on the Just Transition Away from Fossil fuels offers an important opportunity to shape the roadmap collaboratively from the outset.
Second, the roadmap should be global, but not necessarily universal. All countries should be invited to participate, with constructive engagement as the sole entry criterion. Universal participation is not required at the beginning. What matters is broad representation across regions and levels of development, including a critical mass of G20 members, to ensure political relevance and economic weight. Countries should also be able to join at later stages as confidence in the process grows.
Third, partnerships must extend beyond environment ministries. For many countries, the transition away from fossil fuels is inseparable from questions of industrial policy, fiscal stability and energy security. Energy, finance and economy ministries should therefore also be involved. Engagement with sub-national actors, the private sector, and international organisations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), OECD, existing coalitions like “Beyond Oil and Gas (BOGA) and think-tanks like the World Resources Institute (WRI) can further strengthen the roadmap’s impact.
Fourth, the roadmap must be a sustained process, not a one-off report. Experience shows that standalone reports rarely change outcomes. What is needed is an ongoing platform for dialogue, learning and cooperation, including among fossil fuel–producing countries.
Fifth, linkages to the UNFCCC process should be explicit. The second Global Stocktake in 2028 could serve as a natural milestone to reflect progress, extract lessons and feed relevant elements of the roadmap back into the multilateral process, helping to inform the next generation of nationally determined contributions.
Finally, the roadmap must adopt a broad, economy-wide perspective. Even in the absence of binding targets, clear signals and concrete measures can shape markets and guide investment decisions. The roadmap should help clarify what the transition implies for public and private investment, trade, subsidies and public support. It should address critical issues such as new fossil fuel investments, inefficient subsidies or stranded assets. It must tackle significant barriers, e.g. the reduction of the costs of capital across the various geographic regions to increase investment flows.
It should also define the roles of key actors, including multilateral development banks, in de-risking investments, crowding in private capital and supporting enabling policy environments. Just as importantly, the roadmap should serve as a platform for voluntary commitments and facilitate technical assistance and capacity-building.
If designed well, the roadmap can become an enabling instrument, which can support planning and investment and build on the momentum we see in the real economy. It can be one that helps countries to develop credible national transition pathways and send political signals. At a moment when trust in multilateral processes is fragile, it can also demonstrate that pragmatic, inclusive cooperation remains possible. It is not about additional obligations, but about gaining the clarity, support and policy space needed to deliver a just and sustainable transition.
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As China builds the future, Trump’s repeal of climate finding is self-inflicted wound
Eliot Whittington is Executive Director of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
Last week, the Trump Administration reversed the critical finding that greenhouse gases threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations, a scientific and legal foundation that has underpinned US climate regulations since 2009.
In doing so, the US government not only lost its ability to regulate emissions from vehicles, power plants and heavy industry, but created massive uncertainty for businesses and jeopardises the benefits of the energy transition.
This action is the latest step in a growing battle over the future of climate and energy policy that extends far beyond the US borders and is currently increasing challenging UK and European policy makers.
The so called “endangerment finding” was based on overwhelming evidence and widely discussed when it was introduced – with over 380,000 public comments. A rigorous analysis or critique would not overturn it, given the huge and still-growing body of evidence showing the impact of emissions.
But repealing the finding is not evidence-based policy making; it is bad policy, terrible economics and incorrect science, driven by an ideology that is seeing the US pour money into uneconomic coal power plants.
US firms face uncertainty and regulatory chaosEven the most powerful politician cannot change scientific reality, and attempts to do so undermine the health, wealth, and safety of Americans and, ultimately, people everywhere.
Trump has been celebrated by the coal industry as its strongest champion and has thrown his weight behind fossil fuels, but that has not and will not stop the US’s energy transition. Even in his first term, there were record coal retirements, and the US shows no sign of a coal renaissance any time soon.
Instead, Trump’s actions take a wrecking ball to US regulation, one that is likely to be challenged in court, leaving companies facing years of uncertainty, delaying investment and risking the loss of innovation to global competitors.
Repealing the “endangerment finding” is a self-inflicted wound to climate action and a strategic error as the energy system is rewired around technologies like solar, wind, electric vehicles, heat pumps, batteries, and digitalised grids. These are increasingly outcompeting fossil fuels on efficiency and cost.
The US government setting its weight against the market will not hold back the tide, but it will lead to regulatory chaos, cede ground to competitors, and slash the benefits the US could reap.
Clean technologies outcompete incumbentsWhile the US has chosen slow innovation and investment in the clean economy, China is pursuing the industries of the future and leading on solar power, batteries, electric vehicles and more.
New analysis shows its emissions are now flat or possibly even falling and, while it will take time for this clean energy juggernaut to push coal and industry emissions out of the system, the direction of travel is becoming ever clearer.
China is not just doing this because it is good for the climate. Clean technologies and an electricity-centred economy outcompete the incumbents.
Analysis by energy think tank Ember shows that these clean, electricity based technologies are three times more efficient than burning fuels. Not only this, but costs are also falling and domestic production bolsters energy security, providing a competitive edge.
The US will find itself isolated in its return to fossil fuels. In 2024, clean power surpassed 40% of global electricity, led by record solar growth, while electrification is now responsible for almost all the demand growth in road transport and is surging in buildings and parts of industry.
With China – and a growing group of other emerging markets – progressing in their energy transitions, and the US turning its back, incumbent clean-economy champions, the UK and Europe, seem caught in the headlights, wanting to simultaneously leap forward while also glancing back at supposedly affordable fossil fuel resources.
It is paramount that they resist the urge to take a leaf from Donald Trump’s book and legislate for a fossil fuel ideal rather than a clean energy reality. Instead, they need to ensure the investment and political will to be brave and walk the road ahead without the US.
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Türkiye prioritises cleaning up garbage emissions in COP31 ‘action agenda’
The Turkish government has chosen cutting emissions from the waste sector as its top priority for COP31’s action agenda, according to a draft seen by Climate Home News.
The document, which other countries will feed back on before it is published in March, lists 14 priorities, with the “rapid reduction of waste-derived methane emissions” ranked first.
The “action agenda” is the part of the COP process aimed at inspiring and enabling real-world climate action. It runs separately from the formal negotiations between countries, which will be presided over primarily by Australia under an unusual compromise agreement.
Reducing emissions from garbage disposal is the personal project of Turkish first lady Emine Erdoğan. She leads the Zero Waste Foundation and successfully lobbied the United Nations for a global Zero Waste Day.
More contentious topics like fossil fuels do not explicitly feature in the action agenda. At a press conference on Thursday, Türkiye’s environment minister and COP31 incoming President Murat Kurum said “we cannot simplify things down to only fossil fuels” as it is just “one branch of the struggle”.
Nearly 68% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from burning fossil fuels, while waste accounts for about 4%. Most of these emissions come from waste decomposing in landfills and releasing greenhouse gases as it rots, with a smaller amount generated by the incineration of waste to produce electricity.
Türkiye’s draft action agenda says that circular economy policies, like extending manufacturers’ responsibility over their products’ disposal and eco-design, should be scaled up, meanwhile systems to measure, report and verify emissions should be strengthened. Measurable results towards achieving zero waste should be delivered before 2030, it adds.
To achieve this in the short term, it says, there should be more organic waste diverted from landfills, better capturing of landfill gas and cleaning up of methane super-emitters. Longer-term solutions include recycling and composting.
Waste campaigners excitedKait Siegel, director for waste methane at the Clean Air Task Force campaign group, said she was “excited to see Türkiye elevate the issue of waste sector emissions” and “continues the trend from COP29 and COP30 of including this topic in the action agenda”.
She said waste emissions data collection and monitoring must be improved worldwide, alongside building capacity and funding mechanisms at both national and subnational levels.
At COP30 last year, an initiative backed by the Global Methane Hub was launched to cut 30% of methane emissions from organic waste by 2030, with 25 cities involved.
The initiative aims to recover surplus food, integrate waste workers into the circular economy and scale up city pilots, composting hubs and foodbank networks.
Siegel said she was interested in seeing how this will be implemented, how finance can be scaled up and how satellite remote sensing data can be better incorporated.
Mariel Vilella, who leads global climate work at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, told Climate Home News that focussing on waste is “both urgent and overdue”.
She said that waste methane is a “powerful super-pollutant and prioritising zero waste solutions offers one of the fastest, most cost-effective pathways to deliver meaningful progress towards global climate goals”. Solutions include waste separation, composting, recycling and biological treatment, she said.
But Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at 350.org, said that, while waste management is important, “COP31 will ultimately be judged on whether it helps drive the transition away from fossil fuels” and efforts should focus on agreeing a roadmap away from coal, oil and gas.
Türkiye is a major importer of European waste, much of which is intended for recycling. In practice, however, significant volumes end up in landfills or are illegally burned in the open, generating greenhouse gas emissions and polluting the air and soil. The Zero Waste initiative, launched in 2017 by Emine Erdoğan, aims to address these problems.
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The more Europe relies on the US for energy, the more it’s vulnerable to pressure by Trump
Mads Christensen is Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
As the military and diplomatic establishment gather for the annual Munich Security Conference, the air will be thick with talk of “strategic autonomy” and “energy security.” But there is little autonomy to talk of when sovereignty is for sale, and security is a hollow promise while regional stability depends on the weaponized resources of a rival power.
We are witnessing the unmasking of a 19th-century worldview: Resource Colonialism. In Venezuela, the mask slipped quickly; the world watched as the United States Navy deployed off the coast, reviving gunboat diplomacy for the 21st century. This was confirmed by President Trump’s declaration that the U.S. would exercise ‘de facto control’ over Venezuela’s oil industry.
In Greenland, the ‘prize’ is territorial expansion, and minerals, coveted for economic gain and military security. The rush for Greenland’s minerals threatens to replicate every abuse of the oil age: building on the same colonial mindset, displacing Indigenous communities, poisoning local water, and overriding democracy. Rhetoric toward Greenland has shifted from pressure to hostility, then manifesting in the ‘framework of a future deal’ as announced by VP Vance.
Emboldened by his bestseller ‘The Art of the Deal’, and the myth that he is the world’s ultimate businessman, Trump has replaced diplomacy with acquisition. His administration is treating sovereign territories and Indigenous homelands as if they were a real estate portfolio in Manhattan.
Global liquidation saleThe fact of the matter is that Trump’s transactional worldview, where everything has a price tag, is not leadership but a global liquidation sale. Backed by a cabal of fossil-fuel billionaires, this circle of autocrats is treating the 21st century like a distressed asset to be stripped bare, regardless of the costs to the rest of us.
But growing up in Denmark and working in the Arctic for many years, there is one thing I know for certain: Greenland is not a deal to be made. It is not a place to be defined or controlled by anyone other than the people of Greenland.
And this is not just an American problem. Look East, and you see the mirror image. As Greenpeace has documented, Russia has transformed into a total “fossil fuel war economy.” The Kremlin’s aggression is funded almost entirely by oil and gas exports, creating a feedback loop where extraction finances its war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as internal oppression.
In response, European leaders have finally agreed to end Russian gas imports, but are blindly rushing headlong into a dependency on American liquefied fossil gas. Trading dependency on Putin for dependency on Trump, however, is not a security strategy: it’s a high-stakes game with very poor cards.
This is a message European diplomats need to bear in mind in Munich this week as they gather to discuss urgent issues such as energy security: the more Europe depends on the US for energy, the greater the vulnerability to pressure by Trump.
Climate action is “weapon” for security in unstable world, UN climate chief says
Every euro spent on US oil and gas strengthens Trump’s authoritarian agenda at home and colonialist ambitions abroad, threatening Europe’s independence and security. The only way for Europe to achieve true energy security is to phase out fossil gas and accelerate the shift to a fully renewable energy system.
The ‘Art of the Deal’ mindset treats the world like a chessboard and uses the fact that the board is burning to advance its interests. To Trump, the melting ice in Greenland isn’t a global catastrophe but just a door opening to get to the minerals underneath. But when we treat the climate crisis as just another ‘variable’ in a trade war, we lose the ability to cooperate.
Path to peace and security lies in clean energyTrue security is not trading Russian gas for American fracking. It means phasing out fossil fuels and accelerating the shift to a fully renewable energy system that makes no dictator or president the master of Europe’s lights, whether they sit in Moscow, Mar-a-Lago or elsewhere.
True security is a just transition away from fossil fuels, not a military scramble to burn them faster. Expanding oil extraction anywhere undermines global climate goals and increases climate risks everywhere. A fossil-free, peaceful future requires breaking the link between energy systems, militarisation and exploitation.
Explainer: What is the petrodollar and why is it under pressure?
The leaders gathering in Munich have a stark choice. They can acquiesce to the dogma that might make right and that sovereignty is for sale, or they can recognise that true security requires charting another path entirely with a rules-based global order at its heart.
Rejecting resource colonialism needs to go hand in hand with boldly displaying different leadership: one that reclaims the moral compass. True leadership is built on solidarity, not threats. A healthy society isn’t measured by the profits of a few, but by the wellbeing of the many. Success isn’t about who wins; it’s about who thrives.
We are defined by what we save, not what we take.
The post The more Europe relies on the US for energy, the more it’s vulnerable to pressure by Trump appeared first on Climate Home News.
After disappointing COP30, EU mulls “less naive” strategy for climate talks
After failing to get some of their main asks at the COP30 climate summit in November, European Union environment ministers are considering a new strategy for international climate negotiations which they describe as “less naive”, and more “realistic” and “pragmatic”.
On their way into a meeting to discuss the strategy in Cyprus last Friday, several ministers and officials hinted that the EU should take a tougher line in the United Nations (UN) climate talks and make more use of its power as a climate finance donor and trade partner.
At COP30 in the Brazilian city of Belém, the EU pushed – along with other countries including the UK and some Latin American and small island nations – for stronger outcomes on transitioning away from fossil fuels, including a global roadmap. But after fractious all-night talks, the group was left disappointed as big fossil-fuel producers and most African states did not come on board.
Last week, reflecting on those results, Belgian climate minister Jean-Luc Crucke told reporters that Europe should be “realistic” and “better prepared”. Speaking in French, he said multilateralism should not mean that “it is always the same people who contribute while others do not”.
Hungary’s state secretary for environmental affairs Aniko Raisz said the EU must learn the lessons of COP30. The EU “has nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be shy of, we are not lacking ambition”. But, she added, “we need realism, we need pragmatism and we need to show that we are competitive”.
According to Radio France Internationale, an official from the office of French climate minister Monique Barbut told reporters before the meeting in Cyprus that the EU must be “less naive” and “more assertive, more demanding and more transactional if we want to have an impact in these negotiations”.
“We are in a tougher world where the European Union, when it comes to climate negotiations, is more isolated,” the quoted official said, before questioning whether the EU should “continue to demonstrate climate and financial solidarity with countries” that have not met their obligations under the Paris Agreement.
“We have tools like trade agreements,” whose implementation could be conditional on compliance with the Paris accord, the unnamed source added.
Speaking after the ministers’ meeting, European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the EU “is financing by far the most of climate action abroad” but “unfortunately, solidarity and reciprocity do not always go hand in hand. and that has to change”.
According to analysis by think-tank ODI Global, the US has never paid its fair share towards rich countries’ climate finance commitments and, under the Trump Administration, has now pulled back from climate finance almost entirely, leaving the EU as by far the biggest provider.
Trade and finance as leverageDiscussions are still at an early stage, details of the new strategy have yet to be published and the European Commission did not respond to a request for comment. But a source who speaks regularly to EU officials said they expect the bloc to become more selective in who it gives climate finance to, placing greater weight on the EU’s own commercial and geopolitical interests.
The source told Climate Home News that a higher proportion of funding may be given on a country-to-country basis, rather than through UN climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) where it is harder to control. Several European nations recently blocked Oman from getting GCF climate finance for an early warning system, sparking accusations of “discrimination” and “political considerations” from developing countries.
Trade could also be used as leverage. The EU’s recent trade deals with New Zealand, Kenya, Chile, India and the South American Mercosur bloc all included clauses specifying that both sides should implement the Paris climate agreement. Those provisions have yet to be used, despite backtracking on climate action from the New Zealand government.
At UN shipping talks in October, the Trump administration used threats of tariffs and visa restrictions on individual negotiators to achieve its aim of delaying green regulations, outmanoeuvring the EU and its allies.
“In a world where Trump is inserting clauses into trade agreements and using bullying tactics, it’s important for Europe to look at how it can – in a values-based way – use all of its assets too,” former German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan told Climate Home News.
Morgan, one of the EU’s lead negotiating figures at COP27, COP28 and COP29, said the EU should integrate climate into all areas of foreign and economic policy and combine trade, investment, climate and energy security files. She also urged the bloc’s members to hire more high-level climate diplomats.
After a change in the German government, Morgan’s climate envoy position was abolished and now no major EU country has a climate diplomat of ministerial or deputy ministerial rank, making it harder to organise meetings with foreign ministers.
Jennifer Morgan with advisers and ministers at COP29 on December 3, 2023 (Photo: Kiara Worth/UNFCCC)The EU’s diplomats in the European External Action Service should collaborate more with the European Commission divisions dealing with climate (DG CLIMA) and international partnerships (DG INTPA) so that the EU can “speak with one voice in capitals and internationally”, Morgan said.
But, she suggested, “Trump-like transactionalism should be avoided” as “countries need to come together to build the clean economy, not divide and rule to keep the old”.
Too transactional already?The EU has already faced accusations that it is too transactional and doubling down on this strategy could backfire. At COP30, negotiators from the world’s poorest countries, African nations and small islands criticised EU attempts to trade promises on adaptation finance for commitments to cut emissions. “Adaptation is a right, not a bargaining chip,” said Africa’s then lead negotiator Richard Muyungi.
Avantika Goswami, climate lead at the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, told Climate Home News: “It is unfortunate that the EU is seeing a fractured world and choosing to be transactional and ‘pragmatic’, rather than reinforcing their commitment to international cooperation and a multilateral regime based on justice and reparations.” She added that, as the EU has not yet fully eliminated its own dependence on fossil fuels, this strategy is “hypocritical”.
The Asia Society Policy Institute’s Li Shuo also warned the EU against taking a harder stance. “In turbulent times, the line between assertiveness and hypocrisy grows thin,” said the China specialist, adding that the EU’s new strategy could further isolationism and damage its relationships.
He said the EU should engage better with other powers like China to advance its interests. Other than an EU-China summit in July 2025, there has been little recent climate diplomacy between the two, despite hopes their partnership would deepen after Trump decided to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement.
The post After disappointing COP30, EU mulls “less naive” strategy for climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 chief slams climate backsliding, but rejects priority focus on fossil fuels
Türkiye’s COP31 chief has condemned backsliding on global climate action as “unacceptable”, but said efforts to cut emissions in the coal-reliant nation should not come at the expense of economic growth.
Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s environment minister, warned countries that flexibility in implementing climate targets “is now at zero”, speaking in Istanbul on Thursday after a first strategy meeting with officials from Australia – the summit’s co-host – and joined by last year’s COP presidency Brazil and the UN climate body.
But when pressed about Türkiye’s own reliance on fossil fuels, Kurum said it was important to keep a balance between growth and climate action in developing nations.
“We are exerting efforts to reduce emissions on one hand, but continue the growth and development of our country on the other,” Kurum said, speaking through an interpreter.
“We cannot simplify things down to only fossil fuels,” he added, emphasising that while “one branch of the struggle [in the climate crisis] is oil, there are 80-85 topics including renewable energy, organic agriculture [and] resilient cities”.
Fossil fuel dependenceBurning fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming, responsible for nearly 68% of global human-made greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2025, coal generated around a third of Türkiye’s electricity – a slight decline compared to 2024 – followed by fossil gas, which rose to 23% of the power mix, and hydropower at 15.8%, according to figures published by the country’s energy ministry.
Days before the COP31 meeting in Istanbul, state oil company Turkish Petroleum signed new oil and gas exploration deals with Chevron and ExxonMobil in an effort to increase production from the Gabar field in the country’s southeast, as well as in the Black Sea.
Clean energy has been growing in Türkiye in recent years, with record installations of wind and solar. But experts have warned that Ankara is still failing to seize its “huge” renewables potential and instead keeps on heavily subsidising coal power.
Kurum said the Mediterranean country “will continue taking steps regarding renewable energy” and enhance its nuclear energy capabilities so that it will “no longer need fossil fuels in time”.
‘Safeguard development priorities’After countries disagreed at COP30 on starting a formal process to craft a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, Brazil promised to deliver a blueprint through an informal initiative before this year’s climate summit in Antalya.
Referring to the roadmap, the COP31 incoming president said his team “would focus on topics that enable us to maintain those efforts”. He added that “in our consultations, we will safeguard the development priorities of the countries because the needs of developed and developing countries can vary”.
Late last year, Australian climate minister Chris Bowen – who will formally hold the title of “President of Negotiations” at COP31 – said he would “continue to argue” for a transition away from coal, oil and gas.
Türkiye is officially classed as a developed nation under the UN climate regime, but when it signed up to the Paris Agreement, it said it would pursue emissions-cutting efforts as a developing country.
The COP31 incoming president said Türkiye is battling the negative impacts of climate change, like floods and droughts, and is “approaching the point where we are experiencing water scarcity”.
“We always talk about fossil fuels,” he added, “but water will become more valuable and more significant than oil.”
The post COP31 chief slams climate backsliding, but rejects priority focus on fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate action is “weapon” for security in unstable world, UN climate chief says
In an increasingly unstable world of “strong arms and trade wars”, climate action is the “not-so-secret weapon” that can deliver security, the UN climate chief said in his first speech of the year.
Speaking in Istanbul alongside Turkiye’s COP31 president on Thursday, Simon Stiell warned that, while security is on most leaders’ lips at the moment, “many cling to a definition that is dangerously narrow”.
“For any leader who is serious about security, climate action is mission critical, as climate impacts wreak havoc on every population and economy,” he added. “Climate cooperation is an antidote to the chaos and coercion of this moment, and clean energy is the obvious solution to spiralling fossil fuel costs, both human and economic.”
Stiell’s remarks aim to reframe the global security debate at a time when climate change has slipped down the global political agenda.
Climate dropping down priority listIn much of the Western world, governments’ attention has shifted towards geopolitical tensions and spending redirected towards defence build-up following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and, more recently, US President Donald Trump’s military action in Venezuela and renewed pursuit of Greenland.
Climate change has also fallen sharply in public risk perception among advanced economies, according to the Munich Security Conference’s annual survey on national threats, released ahead of the annual gathering of leaders – including those of most European nations – which starts on Friday.
In 2021, respondents in the G7 industrialised nations ranked climate change as the top risk facing their countries. This year, it has slipped to sixth place, overtaken by worries about cyberattacks, financial crises and disinformation.
By contrast, climate-related threats continue to dominate risk perceptions in major emerging economies. In China, India, Brazil and South Africa, respondents consistently rank climate change, extreme weather and forest fires among the most serious dangers facing their countries, the survey found.
“Antidote to the chaos”The shift in sentiment comes as global temperatures are on course to breach the 1.5C warming threshold widely regarded as a critical guardrail. Scientists warn surpassing that limit would significantly increase the likelihood of more frequent and severe climate impacts worldwide, from droughts to floods and storms.
“Growing greenhouse gas pollution means escalating climate extremes fuelling famine, displacement and war,” said Stiell on Thursday, adding that “climate adaptation is the only path to securing billions of human lives, as climate impacts get rapidly worse”.
Clean energy, meanwhile, is the best way to protect energy supplies and communities from fossil fuels’ volatile costs, he added.
“The fact is renewables are the clearest, cheapest path to energy security and sovereignty – shielding countries and economies from shocks unleashed by wars, trade turmoil and the might-is-right politics that leave every nation poorer,” the UN climate chief said.
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
Ahead of the Munich Security Conference, energy analysts are warning that Europe should be wary of its reliance on US gas, which has become a growing energy source across the continent following restrictions on supplies from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
Chris Aylett, research fellow at Chatham House’s Environment and Society Centre, said Trump’s pursuit of geopolitical energy dominance seeks to lock countries, including EU member states, into long-term oil and gas dependencies.
“During peace, this vulnerability to an unreliable – if not actively hostile – supplier would be a major constraint on Europe’s strategic autonomy,” he added. “During war it would be catastrophic”.
What role for climate diplomacy?UN climate head Stiell met this week with officials from the Turkish and Australian governments – co-hosts of this year’s COP31 summit in Antalya – as well as Brazil’s COP30 presidency to kick-start climate diplomacy efforts for the year ahead.
The ability of UN climate negotiations to keep up with the urgency of the climate crisis is coming under increasing question. The deepening divisions seen in Belém last November have stalled meaningful progress on key issues such as the transition away from fossil fuels and climate finance.
In his speech, Stiell acknowledged that climate cooperation is “under unprecedented threat” from those determined to use their power to increase dependency on polluting coal, oil and gas.
But climate action needs to enter a new “era of implementation” with the UN process moving closer to the real economy and countries deepening cooperation with businesses, investors and regional leaders, he added. Stiell noted he has convened experts to advise on this, and will say more about it in the months ahead.
Stiell’s remarks on the evolving UN climate regime echo the words of COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago. In a letter last month, he said climate multilateralism needs to “mature” and called for a shift to a two-speed system, where new coalitions lead fast, practical action alongside the slower, consensus-based decision-making of the annual COP climate summits.
The post Climate action is “weapon” for security in unstable world, UN climate chief says appeared first on Climate Home News.
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