You are here
Climate Change News
Why cutting climate journalism is a risk we can’t afford
Felix Horne is a senior expert with Climate Rights International.
When The Washington Post laid off more than 300 staff last week, including journalists who covered climate and the environment, it was more than another grim headline about the state of the media. The cuts marked the loss of expertise and sustained scrutiny at one of the world’s most influential newsrooms, at precisely the moment when the climate crisis demands more reporting, not less.
These decisions do not simply downsize a business. They weaken public understanding of how climate change impacts lives, how cause and effect connect, and how power can be held to account.
Without expertise and experience, wildfires are reported without the underlying climate context that fuels them. Energy stories lose their climate dimension. Pollution is treated as an unfortunate accident rather than a foreseeable harm from fossil fuel dependence.
The facts still exist – but fewer people are paid, protected, or empowered to surface them, and with that goes people’s understanding of how climate is intimately intertwined with our lives.
These cuts follow a broader pattern across mainstream media in the United States, Europe and beyond. In 2024 and 2025 alone, major US outlets announced thousands of job losses.
CBS, CNN, NBC and other broadcasters cut newsroom staff. The Guardian has acknowledged sustained financial strain and has reduced or consolidated reporting capacity in recent years.
Meanwhile, local newspapers, the primary source of reporting on nearby floods, heatwaves, refineries, pipelines and mines, continue to disappear. In the US, more than 3,200 local newspapers closed since 2005, leaving large parts of the US without consistent, on-the-ground reporting.
Threats and harassmentBeyond closures, climate journalists face numerous threats. Journalists covering climate and environmental issues report rising harassment, legal threats and violence, particularly when reporting on fossil fuels, mining and land conflicts. One study found that 39% of journalists and editors covering the climate crisis had been threatened because of their work.
Online abuse, often coordinated and sustained, has become a routine tool for silencing climate reporting. And this doesn’t count the many fixers, translators, drivers and other local employees who face threats because of their role in this reporting, many of whom face a further loss of their livelihood because of these cuts.
At Climate Rights International (CRI), we document climate harms and human rights abuses linked to fossil fuels, mining and deforestation, among many other subjects. But our investigations do not exist in a vacuum.
They are often strengthened, and sometimes made possible, by local journalists who first uncover these harms, and by climate reporters who amplify our findings, connect them to broader patterns, and further our investigations by focusing on new angles, ongoing efforts at accountability or updated findings over time. They are indispensable to what we do and the impact we are trying to have.
When journalism retreats, misinformation fills the gap. In the absence of trusted, verified reporting, false or misleading climate narratives spread quickly online. Confusion replaces clarity about the reality of climate change: its links to energy choices, connections with the food we eat, and the scale of action required. Urgency erodes.
Climate change becomes less politically important when it becomes less visible. What is not reported is not discussed. What is not discussed does not become an issue for most voters, and therefore for politicians. The climate crisis can be manipulated by politicians as just another issue of special interest groups to balance with other interests, rather than being treated as the existential threat it is.
Fragile progressTo be clear, progress has been made. In recent years, climate considerations have been more consistently integrated into mainstream coverage of energy, economics, and geopolitics. Energy costs, rising food costs, migration, extreme weather and supply chains are now more often reported with climate dimensions in view.
But that progress is fragile. It depends on reporters and editors with climate expertise sitting in newsrooms, able to ask the second question, to connect today’s flooding with the climate crisis, and to connect today’s energy story to tomorrow’s climate harm.
This matters profoundly for fossil fuels, deforestation and transition minerals. Who is reporting on LNG terminals, new gas fields, lithium or nickel mining, the burning and clear-cutting of remote forests, or rising energy costs determines whether these developments are understood as narrow economic stories, or as climate and human rights choices with long-term consequences.
West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal
Independent platforms, newsletters and Substack writers now produce some of the best climate coverage anywhere. They matter deeply. But they often reach audiences already paying attention to these issues. Mainstream media still plays a unique role: introducing climate realities to people who did not set out to read about climate change at all.
The erosion of climate journalism is unfolding alongside broader efforts to silence climate voices – through laws restricting protests, lawsuits aimed at stifling dissent, surveillance of activists and attacks on environmental defenders. CRI and others have documented how these tactics work together to suppress inconvenient facts.
Fewer journalists and fewer activists lead to less understanding of why climate is the story right now. The climate crisis will not pause because fewer people are paid to document it.
The question is whether societies choose to face our unfolding reality with evidence or allow silence and distortion to take its place. Supporting climate journalism is an investment in truth, accountability and a liveable planet for our children and future generations.
The post Why cutting climate journalism is a risk we can’t afford appeared first on Climate Home News.
Explainer: What is the petrodollar and why is it under pressure?
Donald Trump’s designs on Venezuela and Greenland have sent shock waves around the world. Canadian premier Mark Carney said they have created a “rupture in the world order”, as political alliances that have held for over 80 years are thrown aside.
And as the US seeks to carve out a Western Hemispheric sphere of influence, questions about the dollar’s future as the lynchpin of the global economy are growing louder. Many other parts of the world are switching to green energy sources as renewable energy becomes cheaper than fossil fuels, and countries forced to pay back loans in dollars are eyeing alternative currency options to free themselves from the penalty of fluctuating exchange rates amid unpredictable policy shifts.
As a result, the continued relevance of the petrodollar system – in which oil is traded in dollars and guarantees demand for US currency – may be less than assured.
What is the petrodollar system?The petrodollar system was established in the 1970s following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and is one of the most consequential monetary arrangements in modern history.
In 1944, the Bretton Woods agreement made the US dollar the anchor of the global monetary system, pegged to gold and with other currencies fixed to the dollar. The framework aimed to provide global financial stability following the economic fragmentation of the Second World War and cemented the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
US President Richard Nixon abandoned the gold standard in 1971 to curb inflation after foreign central banks – increasingly reluctant to hold depreciating dollars – began converting their dollar reserves into gold. The petrodollar system emerged as an alternative means of keeping the dollar as the backbone of international transactions.
The petrodollar system refers to the pact that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states – including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia – made with the US, agreeing to price oil in dollars and to recycle revenues into US Treasury securities in return for military protection and sales of advanced weaponry.
Andrés Arauz, former Ecuadorian minister and central bank director, told Green Central Banking that ramifications for the global economy were immense: “So oil and gas [are traded in dollars], but then also downstream with all the derivatives, but then also all the chemical elements derived from the oil industry and petrochemical industry. And then likewise, upstream with all the technology and inputs required to extract the oil, [it] created a dollar-denominated value chain with global and international repercussions.”
Arauz also notes that international accounting standards set by institutions like the IMF reinforce the system by requiring central banks and organisations to report reserves in dollars, solidifying the greenback as the default unit of account.
For decades, this system delivered guaranteed demand for dollars, recycled oil revenues into safe-haven US debt markets, and provided outsized geopolitical leverage to the US Federal Reserve given the need of other countries to accumulate dollars to conduct global transactions.
Fadhel Kaboub, associate professor in economics at Denison University, explains how this “exorbitant privilege” distorted the global economy in the US’s favour. “All countries operate … within a system where they have to accumulate reserves not in gold anymore but in dollars and countries that have debt, their debt is denominated in dollars. So that created a locked-in system that gives the US dollar a privilege as the dominant payment system and gives the opportunity to weaponise this system.”
The petrodollar system has also encouraged and amplified US consumption of fossil fuels and its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Kaboub, who is also a member of the United Nations High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs, says the system has “rewired” the global economy into an extractive model that promotes environmentally destructive industries.
But as decarbonisation accelerates and renewable energy displaces fossil fuel value chains, the petro-lynchpin of dollar dominance faces unprecedented strain.
Is the petrodollar in decline?Signs of discontent are increasing, placing the dollar’s decades-long dominance under unprecedented pressure.
BRICS countries are discussing new financial mechanisms that will make trading within the bloc easier but may also reduce reliance on existing dollar-dominated channels. Both India and Brazil have denied that linking BRICS digital currencies is part of moves towards de-dollarisation, but such a move will likely cause concern in the US.
Meanwhile, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde made headlines in May 2025 with her blunt assessment that the current global landscape presents a significant opportunity for a “global euro moment”, as investors “unsettled by unpredictable US economic strategies” increasingly reduce their exposure to dollar-denominated assets.
These developments reflect deeper structural shifts. The dollar’s share of global reserves has declined from 71% to 56.3% since 2008, with central banks purchasing over 1,000 metric tons of gold annually for three consecutive years. China slashed its US Treasury holdings from US$1.3tn in 2013 to just $682bn by November 2025, while simultaneously expanding yuan-based trade across Asia.
Africa records fastest-ever solar growth, as installations jump in 2025
This shift was triggered by what Arauz describes as “eroding trust” in US financial systems.
“Perhaps the most serious element that has accelerated this diversification has been the weaponisation of the hegemonic banking system,” Arauz said. “[Through] sanctions, through asset freezes, through confiscation of international reserves in many countries … [these] have definitely stirred things up and made countries reflect about the reliance on this previously thought of neutral system that is now, on the other hand a threat, to their national sovereignty and economic policies.”
The climate crisis is also acting as a catalyst. As the world transitions away from fossil fuels, structural strain is placed on the demand for dollars, and the more the US clings to fossil fuel dependency in order to maintain monetary dominance, the deeper the cracks become.
Gulf states have long-term plans to diversify away from oil and reinvest a substantial portion of their oil revenues in green value chains, challenging the core pact which upholds the petrodollar system that US currency dominance has long depended on.
And while economists expect the dollar to remain the primary reserve currency in the near term, it has also been noted that once transitions to a new system are underway, they can happen very quickly. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, Jeffry Frieden, political science professor at Columbia University, warned of “an erosion of confidence in the dollar” amid mounting doubts about the safety of US Treasuries as “the most important financial asset in the world”.
‘US pulling itself out of the picture’The Trump administration’s response to a shift away from the dollar has been to double down on arms sales and fossil fuel infrastructure – what Kaboub calls a “long-term strategic failure” that fundamentally misreads the changing dynamics of global power.
Trump’s recent $142bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia aims to tether Gulf revenues to the dollar through military exports. However, economists like Maya Senussi at Oxford Economics and John Sfakianakis of the Gulf Research Centre warn that financing such deals alongside decarbonisation projects will strain GCC budgets, and Bloomberg estimates it will require oil prices to be at least $96 a barrel just to break even. Brent oil prices currently hover around $67-68.
And in the Global South, higher oil prices may inadvertently threaten dollar dominance by exacerbating debt burdens by increasing repayment costs, pushing countries towards cheaper (and greener) energy systems. America’s transition to net fossil fuel exporter status means higher oil prices now strengthen rather than weaken the dollar, creating a triple blow for dollar-indebted countries in Latin America and Africa: higher energy costs, escalating debt servicing and constrained fiscal space.
The very mechanism designed to strengthen dollar ties – expensive arms deals premised on elevated oil prices – accelerates the search for alternatives among countries holding critical transition minerals like lithium, copper and cobalt. This pushes the US further from the green value chains of the future.
“The US is pulling itself out of the picture, it’s divesting from the green technologies and green industries. Which means it’s moving away from its interest in critical minerals,” says Kaboub. “So the remaining big player is China, and it’s a friend of the Global South.”
Today, China controls 85-90% of global rare earth processing and offers renewable energy equipment that remains attractive to the GCC despite US and EU tariffs. This is thanks to competitive pricing and comprehensive infrastructure approaches that western competitors have largely failed to match.
‘America needs you’: US seeks trade alliance to break China’s critical mineral dominance
Kaboub says that Trump’s minerals-for-security deals, such as in Greenland and elsewhere, may secure short-term market access but erode global trust in US foreign policy, a cornerstone of confidence in the dollar. “The isolated backwards technology bloc is going to be the United States,” he says.
As Lagarde observed, investors increasingly seek “geopolitical assurance in another form” by directing investments toward regions perceived as “dependable security allies” – but this no longer automatically defaults to the US as its government criticises its one-time allies and jeopardises the future of NATO.
Yet the petrodollar system faces challenges that extend far beyond the geopolitics of sanctions; climate change has introduced structural pressures making the core foundations of dollar dominance increasingly untenable.
However, given Trump’s bellicose stance on Venezuela and Greenland, there is a risk that American policymakers will not recognise this new reality until it is too late.
This article was originally published by Green Central Banking.
The post Explainer: What is the petrodollar and why is it under pressure? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Vanuatu pushes new UN resolution demanding full climate compensation
Countries responsible for climate change could be required to pay “full and prompt reparation” for the damage they have caused, under a new United Nations resolution being pursued by the Pacific island state of Vanuatu, an initial draft shows.
The resolution seeks to turn into action last year’s landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found that states have a legal obligation to prevent climate harm and that breaches of this duty could expose them to compensation claims from affected countries.
Under the “zero draft” of the resolution seen by Climate Home News, the UN’s General Assembly, its main policy-making body, would also demand that countries stop any “wrongful acts” contributing to rising emissions, which may include the production and licensing of planet-heating fossil fuels.
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
‘Demand’ is the strongest verb calling for an obligation to comply in UN language, but it is rarely used in a resolution.
Countries would also be called upon to respect their legal obligations by enacting national climate plans consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5C and by adopting appropriate policies, including measures to “ensure a rapid, just and quantified phase-out of fossil fuel production and use”, the document shows.
End of March vote targetedThe draft, meant as a starting point for negotiations, was circulated last week by the government of Vanuatu following discussions with a dozen nations, including the Netherlands, Colombia and Kenya.
Countries are expected to take part in informal consultations between February 13-17 aimed at agreeing on wording that would secure broad support among UN member states, according to a statement from Vanuatu, which also led the diplomatic drive for the ICJ’s advisory opinion. A vote on the follow-up resolution could take place by the end of March, it added.
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate minister, said respecting the court’s decision is “essential for the credibility of the international system and for effective collective action”.
“At a time when respect for international law is under pressure globally, this initiative affirms the central role of the International Court of Justice and the importance of multilateral cooperation,” he added in written comments.
New damage register and reparation mechanismIf adopted in its current form, the draft resolution would also create an “International Register of Damage”, which is described as a comprehensive and transparent record of evidence on loss and damage linked to climate change.
It would also ask the UN secretary-general to put forward proposals for a climate reparation mechanism that could coordinate and facilitate the resolution of compensation claims and promote financial models to help cover climate-related damage.
The fledgling Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) – set up under the UN climate change regime – is set to hand out money to the first set of initiatives aimed at addressing climate-driven destruction later this year. However, the just-over $590 million currently in the fund’s coffers is dwarfed by the scale of need in developing countries, with loss and damage costs estimated to reach up to $400 billion a year by 2030.
Like other small island nations, Vanuatu is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, while having contributed the least to global warming. Last year’s ICJ decision stemmed from a March 2023 resolution led by the Pacific nation asking the world’s top court to define countries’ legal obligations in relation to climate change.
Regenvanu said in September 2025 that it was important to follow up the ICJ ruling with a new UNGA resolution because it could be approved by a majority vote, while progress can be blocked in other fora like the UN climate negotiations that require consensus for decisions.
The post Vanuatu pushes new UN resolution demanding full climate compensation appeared first on Climate Home News.
China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies
Even the busiest streets of Shanghai have become noticeably quieter as sales of electric vehicles (EVs) skyrocketed in China, with charging points mushrooming in residential compounds, car parks and service stations across the megacity.
Many Chinese drivers have upgraded their conventional vehicles to electric ones – or already replaced old EVs with newer models – incentivised by the government’s generous trade-in policies, or tempted by the latest hi-tech features such as controls powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
“Different from conventional cars, EVs are more like fast-moving consumer goods, like smartphones,” explained Mo Ke, founder and chief analyst of Tianjin-based battery-research firm, RealLi Research. Their digital systems can become outdated quickly, so Chinese people typically change their EVs after five or six years while a conventional car can be driven much longer, he told Climate Home News.
EV sales surpassed 16 million in China last year. Roughly 10% of all vehicles on the road were electric, and half of all new vehicles sold carried a green EV number plate, with an average of 45,000 EVs rolling off the production lines each day.
But while fast-growing EV uptake is good news for Chinese EV and battery manufacturers, it is creating a huge volume of spent batteries.
Tsunami of spent batteriesLast year, China generated nearly 400,000 tonnes of old or damaged power batteries, largely consisting of vehicle batteries, according to government data. That is projected to rise to one million tonnes per year in 2030, officials forecast.
The growing waste problem has spurred the government to launch a series of new policies aimed at regulating the country’s battery recycling industry, which though well-established is marked by a high degree of informality – especially in the lucrative repurposing sector where discarded EV batteries are given a new lease of life in less energy-intensive uses, such as power storage.
China is determined to build a “standardised, safe and efficient” recycling system for batteries, Wang Peng, a director at China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told a press conference as the government launched a recycling industry push in mid-January.
A policy paper published by the government last month detailed Beijing’s plans to mandate end-of-life recycling for EVs together with their batteries to prevent them from entering the grey, informal market, and establish a digital system to track the lifecycle of every battery manufactured in the country. Under the plans, EV and battery makers will be held responsible for recycling the batteries they produce and sell.
“The volume of the Chinese market is too big, so it has to take actions ahead of other countries,” Mo said, adding that he expected the government to release more details about implementation of the plans in the near future.
Critical minerals choke pointChina’s strategy for the battery recycling sector could also prove a boon for the world’s largest battery producer by bolstering its supply of minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese.
Along with the looming large-scale battery retirement, policymakers’ focus on battery recycling also reflects concern about critical minerals supplies, said Li Yifei, assistant professor of environmental studies at New York University Shanghai. “The government also felt the increasing pressure of securing resources,” he told Climate Home News.
“When you set up an efficient battery-recycling system, you essentially secure a new source for critical minerals, and that can help you enhance economic security. That’s why the industry is so important,” Lin Xiao, chief executive of Botree Recycling Technologies, a Chinese company offering battery-recycling solutions, told Climate Home News.
Cobalt and nickel-free electric car batteries boom in “good news” for rainforests
China dominates global refining of several minerals critical for producing EV batteries, but it still relies on imports of the raw materials – a choke point Beijing is acutely aware of, industry experts say.
China imports more than 90% of its cobalt, nickel and manganese, which are important ingredients for EV batteries, Hu Song, a senior researcher with the state-run China Automotive Technology and Research Centre, told China’s CCTV state broadcaster in June 2025. For lithium, the figure was around 60% in 2024, according to a separate report.
“If [those] resources cannot be recycled, then we will keep facing strangleholds in the future,” Hu said.
Big players gain groundSpent EV batteries can be reused in settings that have lower energy requirements, such as in two-wheelers or energy-storage systems. When they become too depleted for repurposing, they can be scrapped and shredded into “black mass”, a powdery mixture containing valuable metals that can be recovered.
Reflecting the size of China’s EV market, the country already dominates global battery recycling capacity. It is home to 78% of the world’s battery pre-treatment capacity, which is for scrapping and shredding, and 89% of the capacity for refining black mass, according to 2025 forecasts by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a UK firm tracking battery supply chains.
A number of large corporate players have emerged in the sector in recent years.
Huayou Cobalt, a major producer of battery minerals, has built a business model for recycling, repurposing and shredding old batteries, as well as refining black mass and making new batteries using recovered materials.
It recently signed a deal with Encory, a joint venture between BMW and Berlin-based environmental service provider Interzero, to develop cutting-edge battery-recycling technologies, with their first joint factory set to open in China this year.
Suzhou-based Botree Recycling Technologies has developed various solutions to turn retired power batteries into new ones. Meanwhile, Brunp Recycling, the recycling arm of Chinese battery giant CATL, has built large factories to recycle lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, a type of lithium battery that does not use nickel or cobalt, as well as nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries, which are more popular outside of China.
But Mo, of RealLi Research, said much remains to be done to regulate and formalise the battery recycling industry.
Underground workshopsAcross China, small underground workshops plague the repurposing sector, rebundling depleted batteries for sale without following industry standards or complying with health and safety requirements.
Because these operators have lower operational costs, they are able to offer higher prices to EV owners to buy their old batteries, undercutting formal recycling companies.
“This creates distortions in the market where legitimate players, who invest in proper detection, hazardous waste treatment and compliance, struggle to compete purely on price,” a spokesperson at CATL, the world’s largest battery manufacturer, told Climate Home News.
Despite such challenges, CATL’s Brunp subsidiary produced 17,100 tonnes of lithium in 2024 from the 128,700 tonnes of depleted batteries it recycled that year, according to CATL’s annual report.
Recycling expertise in demandSince it was founded in 2019, Botree has formed partnerships with several major clients, which together recycle about half of China’s power batteries, the company’s CEO Lin said.
As other countries grapple with rising volumes of spent batteries, Chinese recyclers are also finding new foreign markets for their know-how.
Botree has joined forces with Spanish consulting firm ILUNION and renewable energy company EFT-Systems to build a factory to recycle LFP batteries in Valladolid.
The plant, scheduled to start operation in 2027, will be able to recycle 6,000 tonnes of LFPs annually when it opens, accounting for roughly 15% of demand in the Spanish market.
“(The companies) tell us what batteries they recycle and what battery materials they want to regenerate,” Lin said. “We can design a complete process for them.”
The post China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies appeared first on Climate Home News.
Congress rescues aid budget from Trump’s “evisceration” but climate misses out
Under pressure from Congress, President Donald Trump quietly signed into law a funding package that provides billions of dollars more in foreign assistance spending than he had originally wanted to for the fiscal year between October 2025 and September 2026.
The legislation allocates $50 billion, $9 billion less than the level agreed the previous year under President Biden but $19 billion more than Trump proposed, restoring health and humanitarian aid spending to near pre-Trump levels.
Democratic Senator Patty Murray, vice-chair of the committee on appropriations, said that “while including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of US foreign assistance programmes”.
But, with climate a divisive issue in the US, spending on dedicated climate programmes was largely absent. Clarence Edwards, executive director of E3G’s US office, told Climate Home News that “the era of large US government investment in climate policy is over, at least for the foreseeable future”.
The package ruled out any support for the Climate Investment Funds’ Clean Technology Fund, which supports low-carbon technologies in developing countries and had received $150 million from the US in the previous fiscal year.
The US also made no pledge to the Africa Development Fund (ADF) – a mechanism run by the African Development Bank that provides grants and low-interest loans to the poorest African nations. A government spokesperson told Reuters that decision reflected concerns that “like too many other institutions, the ADF has adopted a disproportionate focus on climate change, gender, and social issues”.
GEF spared from cutsTrump did, however, agree to Congress’s request to make $150 million – more than last year – available for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which tackles environmental issues like biodiversity loss, land degradation and climate change.
Edwards said that GEF funding “survived due to Congressional pushback and a refocus on non-climate priorities like biodiversity, plastics and ocean ecosystems, per US Treasury guidance”.
Congress also pressured Trump into giving $54 million to the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development. Its goals include helping small-scale farmers adapt to climate change and reduce emissions.
Without any pressure from Congress, Trump approved tens of millions of dollars each for multilateral development banks in Asia, Africa and Europe and just over a billion dollars for the World Bank’s International Development Association, which funds development projects in the world’s poorest countries.
As most of these banks have climate programmes and goals, much of this money is likely to be spent on climate action. The largest lender, the World Bank, aims to devote 45% of its finance to climate programmes, although, as Climate Home News has reported, its definition of climate spending is considered too loose by some analysts.
The bill also earmarks $830 million – nearly triple what Trump originally wanted – for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a George W. Bush-era institution that has increasingly backed climate-focussed projects like transmission lines to bring clean hydropower to cities in Nepal.
No funding boost for DFCWhile Congress largely increased spending, it rejected Trump’s call for nearly $4 billion for the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), granting just under $1 billion instead – similar to previous years.
Under Biden, there had been a push to get the DFC to support clean energy projects. But the Trump administration ended DFC’s support for projects like South Africa’s clean energy transition.
At a recent board meeting, the DFC’s board – now dominated by Trump administration officials – approved US financial support for Chevron Mediterranean Limited, the developers of an Israeli gas field.
Kate DeAngelis, deputy director at Friends of the Earth US told Climate Home News it was good for the climate that Trump had not been able to boost the DFC’s budget. “DFC seems set up to focus mainly on the dirtiest deals without any focus on development,” she said.
US Congressional elections in November could lead to Democrats retaking control of one or both houses of Congress. Edwards said that “Democratic gains might restore funding [in the next fiscal year], while Republican holds would likely extend cuts”.
But he warned that “budgetary pressures and a murky economic environment don’t hold promise of increases in US funding for foreign assistance and climate programs, regardless of which party controls Congress”.
Not just the USAt the COP29 climate summit in 2024, governments agreed a climate finance goal of $300 billion a year by 2035, up from $116 billion in 2022. Despite this, many developed countries other than the US are also cutting the amount of money they give and lend to climate projects in developing countries.
The Guardian reported on Thursday that the United Kingdom will spend £9 billion ($12 bn) a year on climate finance over the next five years. That’s down from £11.6 billion ($15.7bn) over the last five years.
British civil servants are also trying to “rebadge” existing projects so that they can be counted towards climate finance despite having little or no influence on the climate crisis, the Guardian reported.
Developed countries like Japan have also pursued this strategy. Climate Home News revealed in October that Japan is counting loans to huge infrastructure projects like ports and roads as climate finance.
The post Congress rescues aid budget from Trump’s “evisceration” but climate misses out appeared first on Climate Home News.
Green groups sue EU over inclusion of Portuguese lithium mine on priority list
Environmental campaigners and community groups are suing the European Commission over its decision to designate a controversial lithium mine in Portugal as “strategic” to secure the minerals it needs for the energy transition.
They argue that the Barroso mine, intended to supply lithium to the EV battery industry, poses serious environmental, social and safety risks and that the EU’s executive arm failed to properly assess the project’s sustainability. They filed the case at the European Court of Justice on Thursday.
A spokesperson for the EU Commission said it could not comment on the case as legal proceedings have now started.
The mine is one of 47 mineral projects, which the Commission labelled as “strategic“ to shore up the bloc’s reserves of energy transition minerals, granting them preferential treatment for gaining permits and easier access to EU funding.
London-listed Savannah Resources is planning to dig four open pit mines in the northern Barroso region to extract lithium from Europe’s largest known deposit. The company says it will extract enough lithium every year to produce around half a million batteries for electric vehicles.
However, local groups have staunchly opposed the mining project, citing concerns over waste management and water use as well as the impact of the mine on traditional agriculture in the area.
Savannah Resources did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
EU Commission rejected NGOs’ concernsThe lawsuit comes weeks after the Commission rejected requests by green groups to review the status of 16 controversial projects on its strategic list, including the Barroso mine, despite environmental concerns expressed by NGOs and local communities. The Commission found their concerns to be “unfounded” and argued that member states were responsible for ensuring that the projects comply with EU environmental laws.
Environmental NGO ClientEarth and the United Association for the Defense of Covas do Barroso (UDCB), which filed the case, argue that the Commission overlooked gaps in the assessment of the mine’s environmental impacts, including risks to protected species and the safety of a planned facility to store mining waste.
They are asking the court to quash the Commission’s decision to keep the project on its strategic list and to clarify its obligations to ensure that projects on the list follow sustainable mining practices.
“We are going to court because the Commission’s decision undermines fundamental EU legal principles,” they said in a statement.
“Labelling a project ‘strategic’ and in the public interest while turning a blind eye to well-documented risks to water, ecosystems, human health and local livelihoods is simply unacceptable. The energy transition must be based on law, science and justice – not political shortcuts that turn rural regions into sacrifice zones,” they added.
EU seeks to shore up access to mineralsUnder the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, the Commission identified a host of mining projects that could boost the bloc’s access to the minerals it needs to manufacture clean energy and other advanced technologies, as well as reduce its dependence on supplies from China.
The law allows the Commission to designate mineral projects as strategic if they meet a series of criteria, including that the project “would be implemented sustainably” and monitor, prevent and minimise environmental and adverse social impacts.
The status does not constitute an approval for the project and developers still need to obtain the necessary permits from the relevant national or regional authorities.
Earlier this week, the European Court of Auditors found that many projects designated as strategic remain at an early stage of development and will struggle to meaningfully contribute to securing mineral supplies for the EU by 2030.
The post Green groups sue EU over inclusion of Portuguese lithium mine on priority list appeared first on Climate Home News.
‘America needs you’: US seeks trade alliance to break China’s critical mineral dominance
The US is urging countries to form a critical mineral trading bloc to shore up access to resources that are pivotal to manufacturing energy, digital and advanced technologies and technologies, and to reduce the world’s dependence on China for mineral supplies.
Washington says this mineral club would provide countries with a tariff-free trade zone to buy and sell critical minerals with guaranteed minimum prices, helping them compete with Chinese producers and create more resilient supply chains.
China dominates global mineral refining capacity for 19 of 20 key minerals needed to manufacture clean energy technologies and advanced digital infrastructure.
“The Trump administration is proposing a concrete mechanism to return the global critical minerals market to a healthier, more competitive state,” US Vice President JD Vance told government representatives from 54 countries and the European Union attending the first US-hosted critical minerals ministerial meeting on Wednesday.
Large economies like India, Japan, France, Germany and the UK as well as resource-rich emerging and developing economies such as Argentina, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia were represented at the event in Washington DC.
“We want to eliminate th[e] problem of people flooding into our markets with cheap critical minerals to undercut our domestic manufacturers,” Vance said, without naming China.
“We want members to form a trading bloc among allies and partners, one that guarantees American access to American industrial might, while also expanding production across the entire zone. The benefits will be immediate and durable,” he added.
“In the end, it’s all in the US interest of course,” Bryan Bille, a principal at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, told Climate Home News. “At the same time, the Trump Administration realises that international cooperation is needed to address these challenges.”
“America needs you”“It feels like ‘thank you for coming, America needs your help’,” Patrick Schröder, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, said of the meeting.
“The US now have realised they cannot solve their critical minerals problem just on their own. To really reduce dependence on China, they need this bigger group of countries,” he said.
There is potential for a mineral trading club to become useful to diversify supply chains and support mineral production in developing countries “but it can’t be all about supplying the US with minerals,” Schröder told Climate Home News.
On Wednesday, the US signed 11 bilateral critical minerals agreements with Argentina, the Cook Islands, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, the UAE and Uzbekistan. This comes on top of 10 other deals signed in the past five months, including with Australia, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Thailand. The EU and the US have committed to conclude a deal within the next 30 days. The US government says the deals will form the basis for global collaboration.
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum told a conference on Tuesday that “there is strong interest from another 20 countries” to sign similar deals.
The US also announced the creation of the Forum on Resource Geostrategic Engagement (FORGE), which will succeed the Minerals Security Partnership and enable member countries to collaborate on mineral policy and projects. It will be chaired by South Korea until June.
Prioritising cleantechUS officials emphasised the growing need for minerals to power artificial intelligence, data centres and the digital economy but made no reference to the booming demand from cleantech industries manufacturing batteries, heat pumps, solar panels and wind turbines.
For Schröder, Europe could play a role in shaping the initiative by prioritising cleantech industries.
Any price-floor mechanism “should also be linked to ensuring that mining and processing is done to the highest possible environmental standards” and support efforts to improve supply chain traceability, he said.
The Trump administration argues that setting a minimum price for minerals will help create a stable environment to attract long-term capital into new mining projects.
But how this will work in practice remains unclear and complex. Prices vary for each mineral, each stage of the value chain and across different countries. “All of that needs to be discussed and agreed,” said Schröder, warning that a trading club could easily become “a cartel” and risk breaching World Trade Organisation rules.
Chinese dependenceThe US’s attempt to broker new alliances to secure mineral supplies comes as Washington is seeking to fast-track mining permits at home and announced plans to stockpile minerals to help shield domestic manufacturers from cheaper Chinese competition.
This is particularly acute when it comes to rare earths with China accounting for around 60% of mining output and more than 90% of global rare earths refining capacity.
The Trump administration has doubled down on efforts to diversify its mineral supplies, especially for rare earths, after American manufacturers faced supply shortages last year when China expanded export restrictions amid trade tensions with Washington.
Rare earths are pivotal to producing magnets that are used in wind turbines, electric vehicle motors as well as many other advanced technologies. Both countries reached a deal to lift the restrictions on supplies but some limits are still in place despite the truce.
“We just can’t be in a position where our entire economy… is in a position to be held hostage by someone that could change the world economy through a form of export controls,” US Secretary of the Interior Burgum said on Tuesday.
Yet, for many resource-rich countries, the US’s national security strategy poses the biggest risk to global supply chain stability, said Cory Combs, head of critical mineral research at advisory firm Trivium China.
Ultimately, global efforts to diversify mineral value chain mean China will lose market share. “But it’s not going to lose its advantages,” he told Climate Home News.
“Industry will still buy every Chinese material they can possibly get their hands on, because it’s cheaper, it’s better, it’s faster and more reliable when you don’t have the export controls,” he said.
Project VaultTo help shore up mineral reserves in the short-term, President Donald Trump announced the establishment of a US critical mineral reserve earlier this week.
Project Vault will “ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage – we never want to go through what we went through a year ago,” he said.
The US Export-Import Bank is providing up to $10 billion in loans – the largest deal in the bank’s history – to procure and store minerals in warehouses across the US for manufacturers to use in case of a supply shock.
Dozens of companies have committed an additional $1.67bn in private capital to build up the reserve. EV battery manufacturer Clarios, GE Vernova, which produces wind turbines and grid electrification technologies, as well as carmakers Stellantis and General Motors and planemaker Boeing have said they would participate.
Mineral analysts warn that stockpiling might be a short-term solution to securing minerals but in the case of rare earths it could in fact deepen reliance on Beijing if Chinese supplies remain the cheapest on the market and are therefore used to fill the vault.
The post ‘America needs you’: US seeks trade alliance to break China’s critical mineral dominance appeared first on Climate Home News.
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
There are days when the sulphur-like, toxic smell coming from the nearby oil facilities is so potent that Azuh Chinenye struggles to go outside her house early in the morning. “When you inhale, you as a person, your body system, and every other thing will change… you can’t stand the odour,” she said.
Chinenye lives in Oyigbo, a town less than 20 miles (32 km) from Port Harcourt, in the Niger Delta, the heart of Nigeria’s main oil-producing region.
Signs of the industry are everywhere in Oyigbo. Active flare stacks stand just metres from homes and businesses, whose walls are caked in soot. Close to a primary school, Climate Home News saw oil spilling from a corroded underground pipe.
The local oil field here was for many years owned and operated by Shell, until it was sold to a Nigerian firm for $533 million in early 2021. Since the sale, gas flaring has increased dramatically at Oyigbo, despite the new operator’s promise to “protect our planet” and the health of communities.
A local doctor and residents told Climate Home News that the opposite is happening in reality, as people struggle with the effects of noxious pollutants released by flaring at production facilities close to their homes.
Flaring worsens climate crisisFifteen times more gas was burned at the Oyigbo field in 2024 compared to 2020, according to an analysis of satellite data prepared for Climate Home News by SkyTruth, an environmental watchdog. This pattern is repeated at other fields previously owned by Shell across the Niger Delta, the data shows.
Flaring occurs when gas produced during oil drilling is burned off, instead of being utilised. The process releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, a potent planet-heating greenhouse gas, alongside toxic chemicals.
Failure to tackle gas flaring pushes global climate goals further out of reach, as cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas industry is widely seen by climate and energy experts as a quick win to slow global warming in the short term.
Shell claims to have significantly reduced its emissions and says it achieved zero routine flaring last year, but our analysis reveals that this was driven primarily by selling off high-emission assets – from the US to Nigeria – which are then free to continue polluting, albeit under different management.
After Shell divestments, flaring on the riseA spokesperson for Shell told Climate Home News by email that, when the energy giant selects buyers for divestments, it assesses “a number of factors such as their financial strength, operating culture and environmental performance” and shares emissions reduction plans for the assets, where relevant.
But Shell does not monitor the performance of those assets once it has handed over control to the buyer, the spokesperson said, adding that regulation of operations by the new owner is carried out by governments.
After years of staying flat at the global level, flaring has risen again since 2023, including in Nigeria, where smaller home-grown firms have been ramping up production seeking to maximise oil revenues while lacking the expertise to prevent flaring, according to a World Bank report.
To understand more about how this wasteful and dangerous process continues to harm people’s lives, Climate Home News went to the Niger Delta, a part of the world unique for how many residents are forced to live in close proximity to flare stacks.
New owner promised sustainable production Rising gas flaring in Oyigbo is harming the wellbeing of the local community. Photo: Vivian Chime Chief Maduabuchi Felix Achiele at his home in Oyigbo. Photo: Vivian Chime Rising gas flaring in Oyigbo is harming the wellbeing of the local community. Photo: Vivian Chime Chief Maduabuchi Felix Achiele at his home in Oyigbo. Photo: Vivian Chime“Gas flaring has increased in the years since Shell left,” said Chief Maduabuchi Felix Achiele, a community leader in Oyigbo. “In a week, we can observe two, three, four instances of flaring but when Shell was here, it was just once in a while.”
The field has been owned by Trans-Niger Oil and Gas (TNOG) since January 2021, along with the rest of the assets within the OML 17 oil block. The company that runs operations in the block – Lagos-based Heirs Energies – has boasted about turning an “underperforming asset” into an economic success after taking it over from Shell.
Heirs Energies said it has doubled production at OML 17 without that coming at the expense of environmental and climate integrity. “We can create a symmetry, a symbiotic relationship between oil and gas, the environment and people […] sustainability is infused in what we are doing,” its CEO Osayande Igiehon said in an interview late last year.
Heirs Energies announced an agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to capture and monetise gas from OML 17 in December, though the company did not give a timeframe for when this project would be completed. Heirs failed to respond to questions sent by Climate Home News for this story.
On its website, the company says it is “committed to eliminating routine flaring and greenhouse gas emissions by 2025”. But the emissions figures and experience of the local community tell a radically different story.
Jump in flaring volumesIn OML 17, the vast oil block that covers much of the urban area of Port Harcourt and its surrounding towns like Oyigbo, gas flaring volumes grew sevenfold between 2020 – the last year of Shell’s involvement – and 2024, according to data presented to Climate Home News by SkyTruth.
To conduct this analysis, we tracked sales of onshore Nigerian assets, determined the location of each site using open source data, and then worked with SkyTruth to monitor flaring from these locations using data from the Earth Observation Group at the Colorado School of Mines.
Within OML 17, at Agbada, about a 30-minute drive north of Port Harcourt city centre, flaring doubled immediately after the sale in 2021. The following year, it almost doubled again and has remained close to that mark since. In Nkali, another asset within OML 17, flaring was nearly four times higher in the year after the sale.
While SkyTruth’s analysis was only able to use figures up to 2024, flaring remained high at these oil blocks throughout 2025, according to publicly available data from the NNPC.
This pattern can be seen in other oil blocks. Shell lost its right to operate OML 11 in August 2021, a block that spans the Ogoniland region. This helped the company to record a drop in emissions from both greenhouse gases and volatile organic compounds, while flaring went up under the block’s new operator, a subsidiary of the government-owned NNPC.
“Catastrophic” for communitiesCommunities in Ogoniland are seeking reparations for the decades-long environmental devastation caused by oil drilling. When it took control of the assets in 2021, the NNPC said the firm’s operations would be driven by “a social contract that would put the people and environment of the Niger Delta above pecuniary considerations”. Nonetheless, gas flaring tripled between 2021 and 2024 across all OML 11 fields, according to the analysis prepared by SkyTruth.
It was a similar story at Nembe Creek, part of the OML 29 block sold by Shell to Nigerian firm Aiteo for $1.7bn in March 2015. That year, flaring rose by around a quarter and then doubled in 2016.
For blighted Niger Delta communities, oil spill clean-ups are another broken promise
Production at the facility fell dramatically following a huge oil spill in 2021 that dumped 20,000 barrels of oil per day into local creeks for a month. Gas flaring at Nembe Creek spiked again in 2024, to an annual volume 54% higher than in 2014, when Shell still ran the field. In June 2024, another spill forced Aiteo to halt production.
Andrew Baxter, senior director for business and energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), told Climate Home News: “Flaring and spills harm human health. Flaring is not just a climate menace, it’s catastrophic to the communities that live around these facilities.”
It also wastes energy, he said. “This is a depressing waste of resources when there are still significant challenges around energy access,” he added.
Q&A: “False” climate solutions help keep fossil fuel firms in business
Given the need to address climate change, it’s important that when majors sell fossil fuel assets, buyers have comparable green targets and operating standards, according to organisations like EDF.
Baxter argued that the way Shell managed its troubled oil operations in the Niger Delta over decades had limited its options when selling them on.
“When operators have a poor environmental record and substandard record of community engagement, it should come as little surprise when they cannot attract many interested buyers for those assets. This rule applies globally,” he said.
Big Oil’s “paper decarbonisation”Between 2016 and 2023, more than 60% of Shell’s emissions reductions came from divestments. That matters because, despite these emissions no longer being Shell’s responsibility, they are still heating up the Earth’s climate.
Krista Halttunen, a visiting researcher at Imperial College London who focuses on the future of the oil industry, told Climate Home News that companies like Shell are practising “paper decarbonisation”, reducing emissions in their annual reports rather than the real world.
“This story shows the limits of company-driven emissions reduction,” she said. “Very few companies are reducing real-world emissions. Fossil fuel companies can’t meaningfully decarbonise without changing their business model, because their whole reason for being is digging up material that will add more carbon to the atmosphere.”
Shell did not reply to Climate Home News’ questions about how it had achieved its emission reductions.
It also appears that Shell’s achievement of reaching zero routine flaring in 2025 was achieved in large part through the sale of its Nigerian assets. In March of that year Shell sold its onshore Nigerian assets to a consortium of companies called Renaissance Africa. Earlier, in 2023, Shell had stated that its remaining Nigerian assets accounted for around half of total routine and non-routine flaring in its integrated gas and upstream facilities.
Removing Nigerian assets from its portfolio, whether in the Renaissance deal or earlier transactions, may have helped transform Shell’s flaring emissions, but for people living in the Niger Delta life has stayed the same.
Active flaring at an oil production facility in Oyigbo seen in January 2026. Photo: Vivian Chime An oil puddle near a community path in Oyigbo. The local chief said oil often spills from corroded underground pipelines. Photo: Vivian Chime Active flaring at an oil production facility in Oyigbo seen in January 2026. Photo: Vivian Chime An oil puddle near a community path in Oyigbo. The local chief said oil often spills from corroded underground pipelines. Photo: Vivian Chime“Flaring is not new in this community,” explained Theodore Ike Ogu, a 60-year-old smallholder farmer who lives in Oyigbo. “We are suffering and flaring is increasing.”
Here, temperatures regularly hover around 35 degrees Celsius during the day, with humidity often exceeding 50%. When the flares are going full blast, the heat for those living and working nearby can be unbearable, locals said. At night, when the town is quiet, the noise from the flares keeps people awake.
Chief Maduabuchi recalled that residents used to collect water during the rainy season to drink and wash. “You can’t even use it to wash because, as it comes down, it is dirty because of the smoke,” he complained.
Health risks from toxic chemicalsGas flaring releases harmful chemicals, and numerous studies, including some conducted in the Niger Delta, have linked living close to flares with being more likely to contract forms of cancer and respiratory illnesses.
Complaints from local communities about health issues and unexplained deaths have been rising in oil-producing communities such as Oyigbo as gas flaring intensifies, according to Dr Bieye Renner Briggs, a Port Harcourt-based public health physician and environmental advocate.
While he cautions that a direct link has not yet been scientifically proven in the Niger Delta, Dr Briggs says the connection is “probable”, given similar findings in other oil regions worldwide. He recommended performing routine autopsies in the local communities to establish clear evidence of whether deaths are caused by gas flaring or oil pollution.
In Oyigbo, flames can be seen rising from flare stacks located near homes and businesses. Source: Airbus / Google Earth – Image from 30/05/2025 In Oyigbo, flames can be seen rising from flare stacks located near homes and businesses. Source: Airbus / Google Earth – Image from 30/05/2025Dr Briggs warned that people living near flare sites face a wide range of serious health hazards, from hypertension and cardiomyopathy, which can increase the risk of heart failure, to asthma, chronic bronchitis and kidney disease.
Soot particles released by flaring represent a particularly acute health risk, he warned. These are small enough to bypass the body’s natural defences and enter the bloodstream, increasing the risk of cancers and other conditions, he told Climate Home News. “Everything a smoker will suffer and more is what somebody that is exposed to soot will suffer,” he said, noting that, unlike smokers, residents can do little to limit their constant exposure.
The oil companies contacted by Climate Home News for this article, including Shell, did not respond to requests for comment on the health effects of flaring.
“I have different health issues: incessant lung pains, at times a cough, all those things, catarrh,” said Theodore Ike Ogu, adding there are “so many things that we notice health-wise which we believe are due to flaring”.
Azuh Chinenye’s husband, Kelechi Prince Azuh, died in May last year after suffering from breathing difficulties and frequent asthma attacks. “He was 49 years old,” she said, fighting back tears. “You see his poster outside there and three of the children are in university. He didn’t even see them complete their first year.”
Azuh Chinenye said gas flaring has had a major impact on her life. Photo: Vivian Chime A poster commemorating Kelechi Prince Azuh who died last year after suffering from breathing difficulties. Photo: Vivian Chime Azuh Chinenye said gas flaring has had a major impact on her life. Photo: Vivian Chime A poster commemorating Kelechi Prince Azuh who died last year after suffering from breathing difficulties. Photo: Vivian Chime “Nowhere else to go”Oil production, meanwhile, has increased at former Shell fields. Extracting oil from mature fields like those in Nigeria produces a significant amount of associated gas and, in the absence of funding and infrastructure to make use of this, it is often flared.
Last May, Heirs Energies CEO Igiehon told the Financial Times that Nigerian firms could build better relationships with locals, after years of tension with oil majors over frequent spills and the destruction of local livelihoods. “We’re able to move around unfettered because we have a robust relationship with the communities,” he argued.
The increase in flaring in blocks like OML 17 has tested that idea.
Colombia aims to launch fossil fuel transition platform at first global conference
“Shell was great,” said Chief Maduabuchi, who explained that the company provided healthcare and food to the local community. The new operator, he says, “only gives us a small amount of rice, unlike Shell which used to give us each 50kg”.
Asked why she has chosen to stay in Oyigbo after her husband’s death, Azuh Chinenye explains that it’s much cheaper to live here than in the centre of Port Harcourt. She uses her inhaler when she struggles to breathe and tries not to go outside when the soot gets bad.
“I can easily pack up, but this is my compound, this is my community, and there is nowhere else I will go,” she said.
Cover photo: A woman empties a plastic bowl filled with tapioca, which is derived from cassava paste, on sewn sacks laid on the ground close to a gas flaring furnace in Ughelli, Delta State, Nigeria September 17, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde)
The post Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities appeared first on Climate Home News.
Q&A: How are the Winter Olympics cutting emissions and adapting to climate change?
As the world heats up, sport is becoming more dangerous. Many amateur athletes risk their lives running in more extreme temperatures and, even at the elite level, some have collapsed, asking officials what happens if they die in the heat of the Summer Olympics. But how are the Winter Games impacted?
For snow sports – which will be showcased when the Winter Olympics start in the Italian Alps this week – climate change may not be as life-threatening but it is a major risk to their viability.
Many ski slopes already have to produce expensive artificial snow for much of the winter. A 2024 study found that the list of cities which are reliably cold enough to host a Winter Olympics will fall from 87 to 52 by the 2050s. For the Paralympics, which are typically held in warmer March, the threat is even worse.
But like any big event, the Winter Olympics contribute to climate change too. A report by Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates that the carbon footprint of the 2026 Games will be similar to the annual emissions of Somalia.
On top of that, the organisers of the Milano Cortina Games have drawn criticism from green groups for partnering with Eni, an Italian energy multinational whose oil and gas production has led it to be ranked as the world’s 34th highest greenhouse gas-emitting company.
For more than 16 years, Julie Duffus has worked on Olympic sustainability – first, with the organisers of London 2012, then Rio 2016 and currently as the head of sustainability at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which picks Olympic host cities and works with them to put on the Games.
Climate Home News asked Duffus how the Winter Olympics are coping with the climate crisis and what organisers are doing to reduce their role in heating up the planet.
Q: Is climate change threatening the Winter Olympics?
A: We’re certainly not sitting here in denial that climate change is impacting – not just the Games actually – but all of us around the world. For years, we’ve been doing research on the impact of climate change on the Games and the future host territories. There are some scenarios where the snow is retreating and we need to address that seriously. So this is definitely something that is on our radar and that we are taking very seriously.
Q: Are there plans to produce artificial snow for these Winter Olympics? And, if so, how green is that? What energy has been used to produce that?
Technical snow, as it’s called, has been produced now for decades and it’s not just something that’s produced for an Olympic Games. If you go skiing pretty much anywhere in the world now, a lot of them will rely on technical snow.
But Milano Cortina 2026 is significantly reducing that amount of technical snow compared to previous Games. And a lot of innovation has gone into the development of the snow machines. They’re working on HVO biofuels for the first time – so this is a very nice legacy that we will leave behind for these communities that rely on winter sports.
The snow machines also have sensors so that they can track the depth of the snow that’s fallen versus the technical snow, so they can reduce quite significantly the amount of technical snow that needs to be made. And that’s a first and this is what we love about the Games because it’s pushing innovation for the future of these communities.
Q: What are the organisers doing to reduce the greenhouse gas impact from the construction of venues?
A: The most effective way to cut construction emissions is to avoid unnecessary construction in the first place – and that’s exactly what Milano Cortina is doing.
For this Games, around 85% of the competition venues are already existing. That includes some iconic world-class venues, with a few even used back at the Olympic Games in Cortina in 1956. By relying heavily on what already exists, organisers reduce construction and related emissions that would come from any large-scale development.
This is in line with IOC’s strategy to reduce the climate impact of the Games by building less. The strategy is to adapt the Games to the host, not the other way around, and to encourage organisers to use what’s already there, adding new infrastructure only when it’s genuinely needed in the long-term and for the benefit of its communities.
Q: And how about the greenhouse gas impact from people travelling to the Games?
A: Bringing people together to celebrate sport and unity requires travel, and travel is a source of emissions for any Games. Spectator travel is also included in the IOC’s carbon methodology, so these emissions will be measured and reported transparently after the Games. The IOC delegation are travelling by train from Switzerland, and teams will move between Milan and Cortina using public transport.
At the same time, both the hosts are working to use the Games as a catalyst for public transport improvements – through upgrades to existing train and metro lines, making transport more accessible, and, as we’ve seen in many past Games editions, extending public transport services in ways that benefit host communities well beyond the event.
Q: Scientists for Global Responsibility have called for spectators who travel by train, coach or car to get cheaper tickets than those fly. Would you consider that?
A: We are currently researching many options to reduce our transport impacts. Both the IOC and the Organising Committee’s carbon management plans have transport as an important element, with spectators covered by the Organising Committee’s plan.
Q: Over 20,000 people have signed a petition against the Games being sponsored by Italian oil and gas company Eni. Do you think this partnership will accelerate climate change by promoting a fossil fuel company?
A: We’re currently at a stage in the world, not just the Games, of a transition. Eni is a domestic partner of the Milano Cortina 2026 Organising Committee, who are working with them on that transition, focusing on renewable energy and HVO biofuels.
We have to face the reality that the world needs to transition and the support that we can do to promote greener renewables sources of energy is what’s needed.
The legacy after the Games is that these communities are now connected to green energy and the renewable energy grid. So we need to be open to the fact that we do need to transition away from fossil fuels – but transition to green, stable renewable energy.
The post Q&A: How are the Winter Olympics cutting emissions and adapting to climate change? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Africa records fastest-ever solar growth, as installations jump in 2025
Installations of solar power in Africa jumped 54% in 2025, new data shows, marking the fastest annual growth on record, driven by governments and development agencies deploying utility-scale projects and households and businesses putting in rooftop and commercial systems.
A new report published by the Global Solar Council (GSC), a nonprofit trade body, shows that Africa installed around 4.5 gigawatts (GW) of new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity last year, topping the previous record set in 2023 and outperforming initial predictions.
Utility-scale projects accounted for around 56% of reported installations in Africa in 2025, while distributed solar made up an estimated 44%. However, the report notes that rooftop, commercial and distributed capacity – which refers to small-scale solar generation usually situated near where the electricity is used – is significantly under-reported because of limited data.
The GSC said recent soaring solar equipment imports and deployment trends point to a broader, more diversified market serving two types of energy transition at the same time: government-led solar power projects and privately financed business and residential installations.
For instance, the continent imported 18.2 GW of solar panels in 2025, yet under a medium installation scenario, countries are projected to build just 14.3 GW of mainly utility-scale capacity in 2026 and 2027.
Over the past four years, only about 15% of solar equipment imports have been used in large utility-scale installations, pointing to rapid growth in rooftop, commercial and captive systems that are not fully reflected in official figures, the report said.
It also highlighted the need for greater and faster investment in battery storage, grids and power system flexibility, to improve reliability of supply and support rising industrial and commercial energy demand.
“Solar + storage is the hope of Africa,” said Sonia Dunlop, GSC’s chief executive officer, in a statement on the report. “This is the technology that can bring energy access, sustainable development, green growth and resilience to natural disasters and extreme weather,” she added.
Medium-sized markets expandLarge, established markets for solar power continue to lead the pack in Africa, with the top 10 solar markets accounting for around 90% of new capacity additions in 2025, led by South Africa with 1.6 GW, followed by Nigeria at 803 megawatts (MW), Egypt at 500 MW and Algeria at 400 MW.
However, solar deployment is spreading across a wider group of African countries, the report noted, with a clear shift away from reliance on a handful of early adopters. Several mid-sized and emerging markets made significant gains last year, including Morocco, Zambia, Tunisia, Botswana, Ghana and Chad.
The report found that eight African countries each installed more than 100 MW of solar capacity in 2025, double the number recorded in 2024, underscoring the pace at which new markets are expanding.
“Africa’s solar boom is remarkable, showing just how quickly we can deploy clean energy when technology, demand and ambition come together,” said Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation. “Solar is becoming more accessible, more efficient, and – most importantly – cheaper every year. It’s encouraging to see this potential being realised across Africa faster than ever before.”
A woman looks at a solar panel, at a factory called Ener-G-Africa, where high-quality solar panels made by an all-women team are produced, in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/Esa Alexander) A woman looks at a solar panel, at a factory called Ener-G-Africa, where high-quality solar panels made by an all-women team are produced, in Cape Town, South Africa, February 9, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/Esa Alexander) Finance for off-grid falling behindDespite the rapid growth of distributed solar, financing models have not kept pace. While rooftop solar and microgrids are scaling rapidly, around four-fifths of clean energy finance on the continent still comes from public and development sources geared towards large, government-led projects, the GSC report said.
Private investment in clean energy increased from about $17 billion in 2019 to nearly $40 billion in 2024, but most of this funding is not aimed at supporting smaller solar systems used by homes and businesses.
These smaller projects need modest loans, shorter repayment periods and financing in local currency, but with current offerings not structured this way, many households and companies struggle to access affordable funding for solar, despite strong demand and falling technology costs.
Southern Africa floods intensified by warming highlight climate injustice, scientists say
Last week, leaders from major solar mini-grid players – including the largest operator Husk Power Systems – said up to $46 billion will be needed by 2030 to meet the electrification targets of 29 African countries under the World Bank-backed Mission 300 initiative. According to Bloomberg, the total would comprise $28 billion in debt, $14 billion in equity and $4.6 billion in grants and subsidies.
Investment needed to unleash growthThe GSC’s medium-term outlook suggests Africa could install over 33 GW of solar capacity by 2029 – more than six times the amount added in 2025 – as markets expand across more countries.
However, the group warned that the misalignment between funding and market needs risks slowing deployment, raising system costs and limiting the economic value of solar.
If, on the other hand, reforms align finance, planning and regulation with market realities, solar and storage can deliver not only clean power, but reliability, economic productivity and long-term energy security, the GSC said.
West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal
Solar paired with battery storage is critical to delivering affordable, reliable power at the scale required to meet energy demand in Africa, which is expected to grow eight-fold by 2050, said Damilola Ogunbiyi, special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All.
However, she added, “more must be done to attract clean energy investment, with mechanisms to spur public, private and philanthropic financing.”
The post Africa records fastest-ever solar growth, as installations jump in 2025 appeared first on Climate Home News.
UK government faces legal challenge over deep sea mining permits to “opaque” firm
The UK government may have broken the law by approving the transfer of two deep-sea mining licences for exploration of mineral-rich seabed in the Pacific Ocean to an “opaque” company with ties to a US lobby group, according to Greenpeace.
The campaign group has taken the first step to kick-start a legal challenge over the government’s decision to facilitate the transfer of the permits it sponsors in the Clarion Clipperton Zone to Glomar Minerals following the bankruptcy of their previous holder, a Norwegian firm called Loke Marine Minerals.
The licences, overseen by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a UN body, grant exclusive rights to explore an area of the ocean larger than England for potato-sized polymetallic nodules. These nodules contain minerals such as copper, cobalt and nickel, which are used in both clean energy technologies and defence applications.
No extraction can take place in the Clarion Clipperton Zone until countries agree on a mining code under drawn-out and increasingly contentious ISA negotiations.
Polarised debateThe debate over the nascent industry has grown increasingly polarised since US President Donald Trump issued an executive order to fast-track deep sea mining, including in international waters – a move widely seen as an unilateral measure aimed at circumventing the ISA’s authority.
Marine scientists argue that mining the seabed could cause severe, and likely irreversible, damage to ecosystems by destroying habitats, releasing toxic plumes and creating noise pollution. Over a dozen countries, including the UK, have called for a moratorium on deep sea mining until there is enough scientific evidence to assess its impact.
A Parapagurus crab makes its way across a densely packed field of ferromanganese nodules in the Gosnold Seamount. Photo: NOAA Ocean Exploration A Parapagurus crab makes its way across a densely packed field of ferromanganese nodules in the Gosnold Seamount. Photo: NOAA Ocean ExplorationGreenpeace said the UK government’s sponsorship of the exploration licences now held by Glomar Minerals “flies in the face” of its public position on the practice.
In a letter warning Britain’s business secretary of upcoming legal action if its decision is not reviewed, the environmental group said the government had acted unlawfully by failing to consider cancelling the licences. It argued that Glomar Minerals is effectively controlled by foreign states or nationals, which it claims breaches ISA rules.
The ISA regulations say activities in a license area should be carried out by people or companies that possess the nationality of the country sponsoring the contract, or are effectively controlled by them or their nationals, without giving more specific details. If entities from different states are involved, then each state needs to sponsor the license, according to the rules.
Ties to DC lobby groupGlomar Minerals assumed control of the licences last year after acquiring Loke’s British subsidiary, UK Seabed Resources, which first secured the contracts in 2013 when it was owned by US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.
Although Glomar Minerals is headquartered in the UK, the company appears to be largely managed by executives and investors based overseas. Its chief executive is Walter Sognnes, a Norwegian energy executive who also led Loke at the time the company filed for bankruptcy.
One of Glomar’s listed directors and principal controllers is Washington-based Raphael Diamond, the founder and executive chairman of Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), a US lobby group that brings together military and business leaders. SAFE advocates reducing reliance on foreign supply chains, including for critical minerals, on national security grounds.
In April 2025, SAFE publicly welcomed Trump’s executive order on deep sea mining, saying “we must make sure we don’t cede access [of seabed nodules] to our adversaries”. In a recent report, the group argued that “the United States should out-compete China to be the first nation in the world to commercialise deep-seabed minerals”.
The US is not a full member of the ISA as it never ratified the UN convention that underpins it and therefore cannot directly sponsor ISA contracts.
“Opaque” ownershipGreenpeace has raised concerns about what it describes as Glomar’s “opaque” corporate structure and funding arrangements. Incorporation documents list the company’s majority shareholder as a firm based in Delaware, a US state known for corporate secrecy laws that do not require public disclosure of owners or directors.
Company filings show that in June last year, Glomar entered into a loan agreement for an undisclosed sum with another Delaware-registered entity, MHG Funding. Under the terms of the agreement, the lender could gain sweeping control of Glomar’s assets, including “all licences”, in the event of a default.
The lender is listed as Louis Mayberg, an American financial investor and philanthropist. A donor to the Democratic Party, Mayberg funded SAFE and served on the group’s board until at least the end of 2024, according to the most recent available records.
Climate Home News had not received a response to questions sent to Glomar, SAFE and Louis Mayberg at the time of publication.
In a December press release announcing the UK government’s decision, Glomar said its priority “remains closing knowledge gaps and contributing to a robust scientific understanding of the deep sea environment”.
US permitting process fast-trackedAs governments vie to secure access to critical minerals, the race to mine the ocean seabed has been heating up, spurred on by the Trump administration and efforts by countries to break their dependence on China.
Japan said this week it had conducted the first test mission to lift seabed mud that is rich in rare earths to a scientific ship within its national waters, soon after China cut off exports to its Asian rival amid a diplomatic row.
Last month, The Metals Company (TMC) – another deep-sea mining hopeful that holds exploration licences under the ISA, which it obtained via Nauru – became the first company to seek approval to collect nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone from the US authorities under an accelerated process run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The company’s CEO Gerard Barron told Reuters he hopes to obtain the permit by the end of the year.
The ISA has repeatedly said it has an exclusive mandate to oversee activities in the Pacific Ocean area and any unilateral action would violate international law and undermine ocean governance.
Greenpeace worries that licences ending up in “the wrong hands” could open the door to “destructive deep sea mining that could harm marine wildlife”.
Erica Finnie, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said the “opaque structure” of Glomar makes it hard for the UK government to have full oversight of the exploration licences and the individuals involved.
“The licences should be held by independent scientific bodies with a genuine interest in doing research, as they are in other countries, instead of companies seeking to profit from mining the seabed,” she added.
A spokesperson for the UK’s Department for Business and Trade said it would not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
The post UK government faces legal challenge over deep sea mining permits to “opaque” firm appeared first on Climate Home News.
West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal
Lawmakers in Ghana are weighing up whether to greenlight one of Africa’s largest lithium mines after civil society groups urged them to do more to ensure that the project benefits the country and supports green development.
Ghana granted Australian miner Atlantic Lithium a lease to open the country’s first lithium mine in the hope of capitalising on the EV-driven boom for the silvery metal, which is used to manufacture batteries for electric cars and other clean tech products.
But as the deal awaited ratification by parliament in December, the government withdrew the agreement after campaigners and analysts in Ghana warned that the terms risked shortchanging the West African nation at a time when it is seeking to benefit from the scramble for battery minerals.
Atlantic Lithium, which had earlier raised concerns that falling lithium prices were affecting the viability of the project, has since put forward a revised agreement. This new deal would see it pay higher royalties to the government when lithium prices rise, as they have since the start of this year. Lawmakers are expected to review the new terms of the contract for the much-delayed project this month.
Like other resource-rich African nations, Ghana, the continent’s largest gold producer, is seeking a bigger share of mining revenues to spur development and benefit local people.
Experts told Climate Home News the negotiations with Atlantic Lithium highlighted the difficulties for governments to negotiate preferential terms with mining companies, on which they depend for revenues and expertise.
“Lithium is Ghana’s first green mineral and will set the benchmark for future critical mineral agreements,” opposition lawmaker Kwaku Ampratwum-Sarpong, a member of the committee on lands and natural resources, told local media in December. “Weak deals now risk setting a poor precedent for the country.”
Ghana’s lithium potentialAtlantic Lithium says the Ewoyaa project could produce 3.6 million tonnes of lithium spodumene concentrates over the mine’s 12-year lifespan – turning Ghana into one of Africa’s top lithium producers and a significant new supply source for the EV battery industry outside of established producers in Australia, Chile and China.
The lithium is expected to be exported to the US and further refined for use in EV batteries. Atlantic Lithium financed the exploration of the mining site by forward-selling Ghana’s lithium resources to Elevra, a North American lithium producer which has a supply agreement with Tesla.
Atlantic Lithium previously obtained a concession to cut the royalty rate it would pay Ghana from the mandated 10% to 5%. The company argued that the adjustment was necessary to make the project viable after lithium prices had plummeted by more than 80% since 2023.
The company’s move sparked a public outcry. Policy think-tanks that analysed the agreement described it as “colonial” and warned that parliament risked “repeating history’s mistakes” if it approved the deal. The Natural Resource Governance Institute challenged Atlantic Lithium’s claims about its revised profitability and urged the government to scrutinise the assumptions made by the company.
In light of the criticism, the government withdrew the deal in December.
“When governments depend on mining projects to project a sense of economic progress, they stop negotiating for value and start negotiating out of fear,” Bright Simons, of the Accra-based IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, told Climate Home News.
A man bikes past a vendor selling football shirts in downtown Accra (Photo credit: IMF Photo/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds) A balancing actAtlantic Lithium has since put forward a revised agreement based on a proposal by the minister for lands and natural resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, to establish a sliding scale for royalty rates based on lithium prices.
The scale would start at 5% when lithium spodumene prices are below $1,500 per tonne and rise to 12% when prices exceed $3,000 per tonne. Lithium prices are currently at a two-year high and climbed above $2,000 at the start of the year, as analysts forecast stronger demand growth.
Henry Wilkinson, Atlantic Lithium’s communications manager, told Climate Home News the revised agreement was aligned with current legislation and would “ensure that value is generated for Ghana and Ghanaians”.
The government, he said, should find “the appropriate balance” between attracting foreign investment and retaining value from its nascent lithium industry.
“If the government sets fiscal terms that are deemed unattractive for companies looking to advance projects in Ghana, the country risks missing out on securing a position within the value chain; particularly with other countries, such as Mali, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa all moving ahead with their lithium production ambitions,” he added.
Fear of missing outBut this new approach hasn’t convinced everyone. For Simons, of the IMANI think-tank, the revised agreement still falls short of Ghana’s interests.
“African youth are tired of being told all the time that Africa is rich underground when the signs of destitution are so stark above ground,” he told Climate Home News.
“The narrative that the critical minerals rush is about building the next phase of the global economy has created a massive new wave of anxiety that the continent will miss out yet again. It feels like [a] determined betrayal.”
Atlantic Lithium will allocate 1% of the project’s revenues to a community fund that will finance development projects in the local area. But the protracted negotiations have left people living near the mining site in limbo.
Farming communities say Atlantic Lithium told them to stop planting crops three years ago because they would need to be resettled ahead of the mine opening. While they await a decision on the mine, no one has yet received compensation for the loss of earnings, the Ghanaian NGO Friends of the Nation told Climate Home News. The community representatives in the negotiations with Atlantic Lithium receive stipends from the company, the NGO added, which it says poses a conflict of interest.
Atlantic Lithium said that the delays have been “beyond the company’s control”.
Unequal bargaining powerFor Marisa Lourenço, a South Africa-based risk consultant, African governments are too reliant on foreign expertise for extracting their mineral resources and this often limits their bargaining power.
“The broad absence of local beneficiation means that African governments can do very little with their resources and this keeps them reliant on the terms put forward by foreign mining companies,” she said.
In Ghana, the mining industry is the largest tax-paying sector in the country. And the initial agreement to develop the Ewoyaa mine was based on a feasibility study carried out by Atlantic Lithium, said Patrick Stephenson, Ghana country manager at the Natural Resource Governance Institute.
Stephenson told Climate Home News that delays to the ratification of the project’s mining lease show that the government needs to rely on its own data and analysis to inform decisions “rather than on company-determined interests and priorities”.
That could include the creation of a state‑led minerals analytical unit capable of conducting its own profitability modelling, price benchmarking, feasibility studies and project valuation, he added.
The post West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal appeared first on Climate Home News.
The EU should partner with Global South to protect carbon-storing wetlands
Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist writing on behalf of Wetlands International Europe.
Everybody knows that saving the Amazon rainforest is critical to our planet’s future. But the Pantanal? Most people have never heard of Brazil’s other ecological treasure, the world’s largest tropical wetland – let alone understood its importance, as home to the highest concentration of wildlife in the Americas, while keeping a billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere, and protecting millions of people downstream from flooding.
Hundreds of millions of euros are spent every year on protecting and restoring the world’s forests. Wetlands are just as important, yet don’t get anything like the same recognition or investment. That, scientists insist, has to change. And Europe can lead the way.
For forests, the EU already provides financial and technical assistance for a series of Forest Partnerships with non-EU countries, as part of its Global Gateway strategy for investing globally in environmentally and socially sustainable infrastructure. Such partnerships operate in Guyana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mongolia and elsewhere.
I believe the time is now right to establish a parallel EU Wetland Partnerships, framing wetlands as a strategic, cost-effective investment offering high financial, environmental and social returns.
Wetlands store a third of global soil carbonWetlands come in many shapes and sizes: freshwater peatlands, lakes and river floodplains, as well as coastal salt marshes, mangroves and seagrass beds. They are vital natural infrastructure, maintaining river flows that buffer against extreme weather events such as floods and drought, as well as protecting biodiversity, and providing jobs and economic opportunities, often for the most vulnerable nature-dependent communities.
Wetlands cover just six percent of the land surface, but store a third of global soil carbon – twice the amount in all the world’s forests. Yet they have been disappearing three times faster than forests, with 35 percent lost in the past half century.
A just agricultural transition takes root in Brazil
Their loss adds to climate change, causes species extinction, triggers mass exoduses of fishers and other people whose livelihoods disappear, and depletes both surface and underground water reserves. Continued wetlands destruction is estimated to contribute five percent of global CO2 emissions – more than aviation and shipping combined.
EU Wetland Partnerships can be critical to unlocking finance to stem the losses and realise the benefits by promoting nature-based economic development, such as sustainable aquaculture, eco-tourism, and forms of wetlands agriculture known as paludiculture, while contributing to climate adaptation by improving the resilience of water resources.
Pantanal faces multiple threatsThe Pantanal would be a prime candidate for a flagship project. The vast seasonal floodplain stretching from Brazil into Paraguay and Bolivia, is home to abundant populations of cayman, capybaras, jaguars and more than 600 species of birds. It is vital also for preventing flooding on the River Paraguay for some 2000 kilometres downstream to the Atlantic Ocean.
The Pantanal faces multiple threats, from droughts due to upstream water diversions and climate change, invasions by farmers setting fires and a megaproject to dredge the river and create a shipping corridor through the wetland.
But EU investment to achieve partnership targets agreed with Brazil on restoration, conservation and sustainable management could reinvigorate traditional sustainable land use – including cattle ranching that helps sustain the Pantanal’s open flooded grasslands.
A delegation from the Pantanal Association for Organic and Sustainable Livestock Farming, pictured in the Pantanal wetland, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. (Photo: Wetlands International Brazil office) A delegation from the Pantanal Association for Organic and Sustainable Livestock Farming, pictured in the Pantanal wetland, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. (Photo: Wetlands International Brazil office) Accounting for wetlands carbon in national emissions targetsAfrica, a main focus of the Global Gateway, has abundant potential for early partnership initiatives. They include the Inner Niger Delta in Mali, which sustains some three million inhabitants, but is threatened by upstream dams and conflicts over resources between farmers and herders.
Another is the Sango Bay-Minziro wetland, a region of swamp forests, flooded grasslands and papyrus swamp straddling the border between Uganda and Tanzania on the shores of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake.
The two countries have agreed to cooperate in pushing back against illegal logging, papyrus extraction and farming, and Wetlands International has been working with local governments to encourage community-based initiatives. But an EU partnership could dramatically expand this work, helping sustain the wider ecology of Lake Victoria and the Nile Basin.
Deep in the Amazon, forest protection cash must vie with glitter of illegal gold
National pledges to bring wetlands to the fore of environmental action are proliferating rapidly, especially since the 2023 global climate stocktake at COP28 in the UAE emphasised the importance of accounting for wetlands carbon in national emissions targets.
Since then, more than 50 countries have signed up to the 2023 Freshwater Challenge to protect freshwater ecosystems; more than 40 governments with 40 percent of the world’s mangroves have endorsed the 2022 Mangrove Breakthrough that aims to protect and restore 15 million hectares by 2030; and the newly established Peatland Breakthrough aims at rewetting at least 30 million hectares and halting the loss of undrained peatland by 2030.
Such ambition will almost certainly be endorsed at the 2026 UN Water Conference to be hosted by the UAE and Senegal in December this year. But the key to turning targets into reality on the ground lies in finding the billions of Euros needed to deliver on the ambition. EU Wetlands Partnerships could help seal the deal.
The post The EU should partner with Global South to protect carbon-storing wetlands appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pages
The Fine Print I:
Disclaimer: The views expressed on this site are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) unless otherwise indicated and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s, nor should it be assumed that any of these authors automatically support the IWW or endorse any of its positions.
Further: the inclusion of a link on our site (other than the link to the main IWW site) does not imply endorsement by or an alliance with the IWW. These sites have been chosen by our members due to their perceived relevance to the IWW EUC and are included here for informational purposes only. If you have any suggestions or comments on any of the links included (or not included) above, please contact us.
The Fine Print II:
Fair Use Notice: The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is being made available in an effort to advance the understanding of scientific, environmental, economic, social justice and human rights issues etc.
It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have an interest in using the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The information on this site does not constitute legal or technical advice.
This site is not the official webpage of the Industrial Workers of the World.