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This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler and Zeke Hausfather

Global temperatures are predicted to soar due to theEl Niño event that is currently ramping up. Most forecasts predict that 2027 will set records, with the global average temperature reaching levels we would not expect until the late 2030s.

This plot, from the Washington Post and one of us (ZH), shows how 2027’s temperatures could rise to levels expected in 2037.

To what extent does this upcoming El Niño give us a preview of what the climate will be like a decade or two from now?

What is El Niño?

Here’s what one of us (AD) wrote in his climate textbook:

The best-known example of unforced variability in our climate is the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (referred to by scientists as ENSO). El Niño events, which make up the warm phase of ENSO, occur every few years and last a year or so, and alternate with cooler La Niña events. These ENSO events are associated with large-scale shifts of rainfall and temperature patterns around the globe, and these have enormous consequences for humanity. Some regions see more rainfall during an El Niño, and some see less; some regions experience warmer temperatures than normal, while others are cooler.

Here’s something Kevin Trenberth wrote about ENSO (from a not-yet-published article):

ENSO is the dominant mode of interannual climate variability. It is a natural phenomenon arising from coupled interactions between the atmosphere and ocean in the tropical Pacific Ocean. El Niño events occur roughly every two to seven years and each event has its own character. Surface tropical winds create changes in sea temperatures that determine where the main tropical convection and storm activity occur, and thus further change the winds.

ENSO redistributes heat and moisture around the globe and regulates temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which cools mainly from increased evaporation. The added atmospheric moisture is realized in rainfall and as latent heat in the atmosphere, which contributes to a general warming of the global atmosphere and global mean surface temperature that peaks a few months after a strong El Niño event. ENSO underpins seasonal climate prediction, and has major impacts and strongly influences ecosystems, economies, and society.

The global picture

This figure from AD’s textbook shows global average temperature measured by satellite and color coded by phase of ENSO. It is clear that, when you are in an El Niño, the Earth’s global average temperature rises dramatically:

Thus, from a global average perspective, the framing of “El Niño is a time machine” is correct. Indeed, one of us (ZH) has been using this analogy to try and explain 2027’s El Niño-fueled global average temperatures, which may equal what the long-term trend predicts the temperature of 2037 will be.

The catch

The catch is that the future world that has been warmed by greenhouse gases and a present-day world that has been temporarily warmed by El Niño can have the same global-average temperature while having significant differences in the impacts of this warming.

The reason is that the two kinds of warming come from different physical processes. Greenhouse-gas-driven global warming (hereafter, GHG warming) results from greenhouse gases trapping heat that would otherwise escape to space, leading to an accumulation of energy in the Earth system, which in turn leads to increasing temperatures.

El Niño is different. To a first approximation, it is better thought of as a redistribution of heat already in the climate system. During El Niño, changes in winds in the tropical Pacific allow warm water that had been stored below the surface in the West Pacific to spread eastward and warm the surface. That warming then propagates to the rest of the planet.

Those different mechanisms leave very different fingerprints.

Temperature

Here is the pattern of long-term warming, calculated from Berkeley Earth data:

The first thing to notice is that greenhouse warming really is global warming. Almost every spot on the planet is experiencing long-term warming. There are well-understood spatial variations in the rate of warming: e.g., land has warmed faster than the oceans because of water’s high heat capacity.

Any individual year, of course, will not look like this because a single year’s pattern is the combination of GHG warming and random variability from ENSO and an alphabet of other modes of variability (PDO, NAO, etc.).

The strength of an El Niño is measured by the average temperature in the tropical Pacific (the black box in the figures below), which we refer to as the ENSO index, with units of degrees Celsius.

We can regress the global average temperature against the ENSO index, which tells us that the globe warms about 0.08°C for every degree increase in the ENSO index. The forecast is for the ENSO index to reach +3.9°C in November 2026, which implies approximately +0.3°C of (temporary) global warming in the following year1. This additional ENSO warming is the reason that 2027 will be a record breaker and a preview of a greenhouse-warmed world of the late 2030s.

We can also estimate the spatial pattern of the global warming due to El Niño by regressing the ENSO index against the temperature at each grid point (at two lags, zero and 6 months):

slope of regression of temperature at each grid point vs. ENSO index. (left) regression with zero lag, (right) temperatures lag ENSO index by 6 months

As you can see, the El Niño warming pattern is very different than the GHG warming pattern. It is definitely not global; instead, a large fraction of the warming occurs in the tropical Pacific. And some regions actually cool during an El Niño.

So while the global average temperature in 2037 may equal that of 2027, the warming will be distributed differently. You should therefore not expect your local conditions in 2027 to equal your local conditions in 2037.

Precipitation

As temperatures shift in response to an El Niño, the distribution of rainfall also shifts.

Observational records of precipitation aren’t as good for this type of calculation, so for these plots I am using ten members of the CESM1 Large Ensemble. Here is the long-term change in precipitation between the early 20th century and the late 21st century:

There is a broad increase in global precipitation, which makes physical sense. Surface energy balance requires evaporation to increase as the globe warms, so precipitation, which must balance evaporation, must also increase.

But, as with temperature, the increase is not distributed evenly. Some regions will see very large increases in precipitation while others get drier. Many of the drying regions are in the subtropics, including parts of the Mediterranean, southern Africa, Australia, and the Americas.

Now compare that with the rainfall response to El Niño, calculated the same way as the temperature response above:

There are similarities between the responses to GHG warming and ENSO — but also important differences, particularly at high latitudes and in the tropics.

Other differences

The differences extend beyond temperature and precipitation. For example, consider hurricanes. During an El Niño, the distribution of hurricanes changes in significant ways:

adapted from Trenberth, K. E., 2007: Warmer oceans, stronger hurricanes. Scientific American, July, 2007, 45-51.

Thus, a future greenhouse-warmed climate of 2037 with exactly the same global-average temperature as 2027 but in an ENSO-neutral state (neither El Niño nor La Niña) would be expected to have more Atlantic hurricanes than El Niño-enhanced 2027 would.

The same logic applies to droughts, floods, heat waves, and many other climate impacts.

So is El Niño a preview of the future?

Yes, in a limited sense.

The coming El Niño may temporarily push global-average temperatures to a level that will not occur during (ENSO-neutral) conditions for another decade or two. In that sense, it really is a glimpse of the future.

But it is not a true time machine. It does not provide a full picture of what the Earth will actually look like a decade hence.

The future greenhouse-warmed Earth of 2037 will contain more energy than today’s Earth. Its oceans will be warmer, its land will be warmer, and the underlying changes in temperature and precipitation will be driven by persistent greenhouse forcing rather than the temporary rearrangement of heat associated with ENSO.

So while the 2027 El Niño may well help us gain some insight into what a hotter planet looks like, we should avoid thinking this is the climate of the future.

We thank Kevin Trenberth for his comments on a draft of this post.

Code to reproduce the figures is here.

1 This is a back-of-the-napkin calculation. If you want a high-quality estimate, you need to do the regression at a range of lags and use that to do a full-year calculation.

Join the Clean Air Council and Feet First Philly to learn more about the Public Space Enhancement Mini-Grant Program on Tuesday, August 25th, at 12 pm E.T.

Hear from members of the selection committee, from previous awardees, and others all about the application and awarding process!

Register for the free webinar at bit.ly/MiniGrantWebinar

The webinar will also be recorded and posted online afterwards, so follow along to see it if you can’t make it on 8/25!

The U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday moved forward with its plan to repeal the 2001 Roadless Rule, threatening the fate of 44.7 million acres of national forest. The proposal, published in the Federal Register today, would strip road-building bans from roadless areas in every state except Idaho and Colorado, which have their own separate rules, and would handle the 9.4-million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska through a related executive order.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins framed the repeal as a wildfire measure, but a group of wildland fire experts wrote to Rollins last year warning that wilderness areas have the lowest number of wildfire ignitions of any forest type. New roads tend to be associated with more human-caused fires, not fewer.

The public has already weighed in on this matter when USDA first floated this repeal last August. Out of 625,000 comments submitted during a preliminary comment period, 99 percent opposed it, according to a CWP analysis. Colorado College’s 2026 Conservation in the West poll found that two-thirds of voters across Western states oppose building new industrial roads in undeveloped public lands for mining, oil and gas development, or timber harvests.

Public comments on the new proposal are due by September 21.

Minnesota governor moves to shield the Boundary Waters from mining

Four months after Congress voted to lift a 20-year federal mining ban in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed an executive order Tuesday directing state agencies to halt new leases, permits, and environmental review for nonferrous mining in the Rainy River Headwaters Watershed, covering roughly 350 square miles. A poll conducted for Save the Boundary Waters last August found that 57 percent of Minnesota voters oppose sulfide-ore copper mining in the watershed, compared with 23 percent in favor, and that 68 percent statewide want permanent legislative protection to be a top priority.

Quick hits Trump admin announces intent to move forward with Roadless Rule repeal

NOTUS | E&E News | The Hill | New York Times | Associated Press | Flathead Beacon | Oregon Capital Chronicle | The Guardian | More Than Just Parks | KNAU | Colorado Public Radio | Statesman Journal | GearJunkie | Center for Western Priorities [press release]

Walz executive order moves to block copper mining near the Boundary Waters

MPR News | E&E News | Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Opinion: When the bulldozers move before Tribal consent

Native News Online

Border wall expansion brings protests to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, other Arizona locations

KJZZ | 13News | KOLD [photos]

Proposed changes to rules that protect historic sites ignite pushback in Colorado

Colorado Sun

A watchdog says Yosemite is using Flock cameras. The National Park Service is pushing back

Outside | 404 Media

Native fish displaced in lower Dolores after drought, fire

Durango Herald

‘Extreme Motus’ all-terrain wheelchair now available to rent at Zion National Park

ABC4

Quote of the day

I just think that every American should be free to visit our national parks without their location being traced and tracked by the federal government. Wild places are at the core of American freedom and nobody should be afraid to visit them.”

—Anonymous NPS park ranger, 404 Media

Picture This
@coparkswildlife

Science at work ✅ Antero Reservoir – Our salvage

It’s no easy feat to corral, capture and then transport nearly 1,000 trout in a few hours –– especially when they’re mostly 18+ inches long and weigh several pounds. But, our aquatic biologists, hatchery, state park and local staff did just that earlier this summer.

During the last stages of draining the reservoir, it became crunch time to salvage as many fish as we could. First, we had to wait for the water level to be perfect –– low enough to safely work in the dam’s outlet channel, but high enough to still hold fish. Once the remaining fish were concentrated in the outlet channel, there was just enough room to work with block nets, holding pens and electrofishing equipment.

In the waist-high pool of water, our teams temporarily stunned the fish so they could be caught and consolidated into holding net pens. The fish were then taken to hatchery trucks waiting nearby, and driven to Eleven Mile State Park.

 



Featured photo: Trillum Lake, Oregon Mt. Hood National Forest. USFS<

The post Forest Service moves to repeal Roadless Rule despite 99 percent public opposition appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

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The UK is pioneering the use of “super batteries” that can store energy for long periods, smoothing the output from wind and solar power as the country moves towards net-zero.

It is aiming to build “long-duration energy storage” (LDES) that fills up when supplies are plentiful, to help cover the gaps when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine.

These periods can last for days or even weeks – sometimes referred to as “dunkelflaute”, a German word meaning “dark doldrums” – whereas the current batteries on the electricity system only last a matter of hours.

The nation’s energy regulator Ofgem has now identified 16 LDES projects that it is “minded to” support under a new “cap-and-floor scheme”. 

The technologies selected can be used to store energy for long periods in the form of gravity, chemical processes or electrical charge.

These include pumped hydro, which has dominated long-term storage in the past, through to large lithium-ion batteries, “flow batteries” with novel chemistry and compressed-air storage.

The use of these technologies is expected to cut energy system costs in the UK by more than £24bn between 2030 and 2050.

This Q&A looks at what LDES means and where it can come from, why it is needed and what the UK and others are doing to support its use.

• What is LDES?
• What types of LDES are available?
• How much LDES will the UK need?
• Which types of LDES is the UK planning to use?
• How could LDES impact energy bills?

Article Contents Expand menu

• What is LDES?
• What types of LDES are available?
• How much LDES will the UK need?
• Which types of LDES is the UK planning to use?
• How could LDES impact energy bills?

What is LDES?

LDES is a broad category of technologies, with some variation in definition. 

The UK government defines it as technologies that can store energy for anywhere from four hours up to years. Ofgem uses a slightly different threshold of eight hours and upwards. 

Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Oxford and lead author of a Royal Society report on large-scale electricity storage, tells Carbon Brief: 

“[The Department of Energy Storage and Net-Zero] (DESNZ) seems to describe it as including things which we would regard as some short duration or medium duration [storage]. It’s a big confusion…For us, long duration is stuff that can last not just into seasons, but into years and into decades.”

LDES can be used to support several different aspects of the electricity system, including the integration of variable renewable energy. 

Currently in the UK, there is 2.8 gigawatts (GW) of LDES, made up of four pumped-hydro energy storage assets in Scotland and Wales.

(This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate all-Ireland electricity system.)

The largest of these existing sites is the Dinorwig power station in North Wales, sometimes referred to as the “electric mountain”. This is a 1,728 megawatt (MW) station opened in the 1980s, which is used to manage short-term surges in electricity demand. 

Turbine hall in Dinorwig hydroelectric power station, Wales. Credit: Clynt Garnham Environmental / Alamy Stock Photo

For example, during England’s football World Cup match against the Democratic Republic of Congo on 1 July 2026, electricity demand rose by around 1.2GW at half-time and 1.7GW at full-time. This is equivalent to the total electricity demand for the cities of Glasgow and Leeds, combined.

Pumped storage, alongside batteries, has been used to keep the electricity system balanced during such moments by providing enough electricity to keep the system secure very quickly. 

As the UK’s electricity system becomes increasingly dominated by variable renewables, however, the need for LDES to manage peaks and troughs of generation is growing.

George Martin, principal for power system modelling at analytics company LCP Delta, tells Carbon Brief that wind power creates a particular need for LDES. He says:

“[LDES is] really important for the system, particularly in a wind-driven system. You get more peaks and troughs in your renewable output and, [while] short duration [storage] can obviously help with that, with things like ‘dunkelflaute’, long-duration storage is what is needed.”

As such, the UK is working to expand the capacity and duration of storage available through LDES, as well as the range of technologies this system is based on. 

For example, in May 2026 the UK’s largest vanadium “flow battery” site opened, co-located with a 3MW solar farm in Uckfield, East Sussex. (A flow battery stores energy in liquid chemical mixtures that are pumped between tanks, via an electrochemical cell.)

The Uckfield site consists of 90 vanadium flow batteries, which can be used to store 21 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity. This is equivalent to seven hours of peak output from the attached solar farm and is roughly enough electricity to power 3,000 homes for a day. 

The batteries can be used to store surplus daytime solar generation, which can then be used in the evening and overnight.

Other LDES technologies with a longer storage capacity could be used to similarly help manage power supply and demand, but over weeks, months or seasons. This could include compressed-air energy storage, hydrogen storage and others.

The diversity of LDES technologies reflects the range of roles it is expected to play in the electricity system in the UK. This could be meeting short-term surges, helping to utilise surplus renewable energy generation or providing longer-term flexibility. 

What types of LDES are available?

There are numerous types of energy storage technology, although most fall into four main categories: mechanical; thermal; chemical; and electrochemical. 

For example, a pumped-hydro project uses surplus energy to pump water uphill to a reservoir. The mechanical energy is released when the water flows down through a turbine.

Thermal storage could be a tank of gravel that is heated up, then later used to warm up water. Electrochemical storage is familiar in the form of batteries.

Finally, chemical storage relates to energy stored in molecular bonds, for example, making hydrogen from water. (Similarly, the energy in fossil fuels, which is ultimately derived from the sun, is a form of chemical storage.)

A key consideration for each LDES technology is the amount of energy it can store, measured in watt-hours (Wh). For example, a 1MW battery with four hours of storage contains 4MWh of electricity. It can therefore be used to deliver 1MW continuously for up to four hours.

Another consideration is whether the energy can be stored for long periods before use – and whether it is economic to do so.

In recent years in the UK, battery energy storage – predominantly lithium-ion batteries with a duration of one to four hours – has dominated the storage sector. The lithium battery sector in the UK has grown from almost nothing in 2015 to more than 6GW today.  

However, as lithium-ion batteries have only tended to hold a few hours of storage, they cannot help support the grid during longer periods of low renewable energy generation. 

Technologies such as vanadium-redox flow batteries, compressed-air energy storage or hydrogen salt-cavern storage could potentially help manage supply and demand over days, weeks or even years. 

A range of LDES technology options are shown in the table below.

TechnologyTypeDurationHow does it work?Gravity storageMechanicalHoursA heavy object is lifted, storing kinetic energy that can be turned back into electrical energy by a generator.Lithium-ion batteriesElectrochemicalHoursLithium ions move between a negative anode and a positive cathode through an electrolyte within the battery.Liquid airMechanicalHours to daysAir is compressed and cooled until it becomes a liquid. When the air becomes a gas again, it drives a turbine.Vanadium flowElectrochemicalHours to daysLiquid chemical mixtures are pumped between tanks, via an electrochemical cell.Compressed airMechanicalHours to daysAir is compressed to a high pressure and stored in underground geological formations, such as salt caverns or disused oil and gas wells.Pumped hydroMechanicalHours to daysWater is pumped up a hill to a reservoir and then released to drive a turbine.Hydrogen salt cavern storageChemicalSeasonsSurplus energy is used to make hydrogen from water. The hydrogen is then stored in underground salt caverns, before being burned as fuel.Thermal energy storageThermalSeasonsA material such as gravel is heated with surplus energy and kept in an insulated store, before being used to warm water.

Each option has specific advantages and disadvantages; for example, while pumped hydro storage has a high upfront cost, it has a long lifespan of over 50 years. As such, its capital cost per kilowatt hour (kWh) is lower than many other storage options over time. 

(Pumped hydro is the most established LDES technology in the world, but no new projects have been built in the UK since the 1980s.)

While it has historically been a short-duration form of storage, some lithium-ion batteries can now store power for much longer chunks of time. 

Lithium-based grid batteries now often offer 8-12 hours of storage and – as shown in the table above – even longer durations are possible

As Ed Porter, director for Europe at data company Modo Energy, quipped on LinkedIn following the cap-and-floor scheme results: 

“Lithium [is] going far beyond 8 hours; that debate must surely be dead now.”

While even 12 hours is of limited use for gaps in generation of days, weeks or seasons, there are numerous benefits to lithium-ion batteries in comparison to other LDES technologies. For example, the cost of these batteries has fallen by an average of 20% per year over the last decade. 

Given the variation in technologies – including scale, lifespan, commercial readiness and aspects such as necessary geography – comparing the costs of each technology is challenging. 

However, utilising a diverse set of storage technologies is expected to be particularly beneficial for electricity systems, according to experts. 

Julia Souder, CEO of industry group the LDES Council, tells Carbon Brief: 

“The UK is leading the charge on technology diversity. We’re witnessing matching different LDES solutions to the real differences in market structure and country needs.

“But make no mistake: a handful of LDES technologies will do the heavy lifting over the next decade. We’re seeing that play out in which technologies are winning through the UK government’s new cap-and-floor mechanism for long duration storage.”

How much LDES will the UK need?

LDES is expected to be a key component of the UK’s electricity system in the future, particularly as it moves away from easily stored and dispatched fossil fuels such as gas. 

The government has set a target of “clean power by 2030”, in the lead-up to the wider net-zero by 2050 goal. 

In 2024, the Labour administration set out an “action plan” for reaching the 2030 target, which included substantial increases to electricity generation technologies. 

This included setting widely discussed targets to double offshore wind, triple onshore wind and quadruple solar capacity by 2030, alongside rebuilding the UK’s nuclear fleet. 

But the action plan also set a less well-known target for 4-6GW of LDES, to help balance this renewables-dominated electricity mix. This is in addition to 23-27GW of short-duration battery energy storage, new interconnectors and a big push to develop consumer-led flexibility. 

There is also a major expansion of LDES to 3.8-5.3GW by 2030 in the most recent “future energy scenarios” report from the National Electricity System Operator (Neso), as shown in the chart below. 

Neso’s pathways show LDES rising to between 16.6GW and 13.2GW by 2050, mainly dependent on how hydrogen is used in the electricity system. 

The Neso report notes that few LDES schemes are likely to come online before 2030, due to the long project development and planning times, as well as high capital expenditures.

Which types of LDES is the UK planning to use?

While the UK is pursuing a diverse range of LDES, certain technologies are likely to make up the bulk of LDES in the next decade or so. 

This is evident in the technologies that have bid successfully into the UK government’s new “cap-and-floor” mechanism for LDES. 

The scheme was first announced in 2024 and is designed to guarantee a minimum level of revenue for energy storage operators – the “floor” – as well as to put a limit on profits via the “cap”. 

(The mechanism will be funded through electricity bills. However, Ofgem expects it to be broadly cost-neutral over time.)

Similar mechanisms have been used to support the development of other technologies in the UK, in particular those with high upfront costs, such as interconnectors. Ultimately, it minimises the risk for developers by guaranteeing a certain level of future revenue. 

In 2025, 171 LDES projects with a total capacity of 52.6GW applied to enter the cap and floor scheme, which is administered by Ofgem. Of these, 77 projects (28.7GW) were deemed eligible to enter a second “assessment” phase. 

These were made up of nine different technologies, as shown in the figure below. However, lithium-ion batteries dominated the process, making up more than 20GW of the 29GW total. 

No pure vanadium-flow batteries, liquid-air energy storage, iron-air batteries, sodium-sulphur batteries or hydrogen batteries were deemed eligible for the second phase. 

(Conventional hydrogen storage was not eligible to bid into the process either, but could be supported through other means. The government is expected to release an updated hydrogen strategy later in 2026.)

Ultimately, Ofgem announced in June 2026 that it was “minded to” support 7.6GW of LDES capacity, spread across 16 projects. Of this total, 4GW is expected to be online by the end of the decade, at the bottom end of the range said to be required for the clean power 2030 target. 

The 16 projects are listed in the table below. They comprise four technologies: pumped storage hydro (3.9GW); lithium batteries (3.6GW); one vanadium-zinc flow battery (65MW); and one compressed- air energy storage site (50MW).

NameTechnologyRegionCapacity (MW)Duration (hours)Storage capacity (MWh)Earba PSHPumped storage hydroNorth Scotland1,8001527,000Coire GlasPumped storage hydroNorth Scotland1,4403246,100Loch Kemp StoragePumped storage hydroNorth Scotland6602214,500East Claydon StorageLithium batteryEast England500126,000Sundon StorageLithium batteryEast England50084,000Field NethertonLithium batteryNorth Scotland400166,400Field New DeerLithium batteryNorth Scotland400187,200Field Lond StrattonLithium batteryEast England400166,400SpringwellLithium batteryEast Midlands400114,400Drakelow (Innova)Lithium batteryWest Midlands38593,500Field RigifaLithium batteryNorth Scotland200183,600Field FyrishLithium batteryNorth Scotland200173,400Ocker Hill BESSLithium batteryWest Midlands14581,200Thornton BESS 2Lithium batteryEast Midlands100111,100Frontier LegacyVanadium-zinc flow batteryNorth Wales658500TeesCAESCompressed airNorth-east England50301,500

Welcoming Ofgem’s initial decision on the cap-and-floor mechanism, energy minister Michael Shanks said in a statement: 

“Forty years after the country’s last pumped storage facility, this government is getting Britain building again… 

“We are [going] further and faster in delivering the clean-power mission by rolling out a new generation of pumped-hydro storage and state-of-the-art batteries – making more of the clean, homegrown power we already produce, cutting waste, lowering bills and strengthening our energy security.”

Collectively, the provisionally successful projects can provide between eight and 32 hours’ worth of electricity storage. The top ten projects in terms of duration that applied for the mechanism – those with at least 12 hours’ worth of storage – all moved forward.

Following Ofgem’s “minded-to” decision, the regulator launched a consultation that ended on  7 August 2026. It will now make a final decision on the projects that will be supported through the “cap and floor” mechanism. 

Martin tells Carbon Brief that “it’s not over” yet, with Ofgem likely to face scrutiny over the methodology it used to determine these final results. He adds: 

“There’s going to be a lot of activity and a lot of responses to that consultation. I don’t expect the overall amount of capacity that’s been awarded to change, although they could increase it – it could only go up, probably.

“But there might be some change in what projects end up getting approved as a result, or maybe they end up making some changes for the next window [of applications for LDES support].”

Alongside the cap-and-floor process being run by Ofgem, the government introduced legislation via the Planning and Infrastructure Act to support the introduction of the scheme. 

Additionally, in August 2026, Innovate UK – the UK’s national innovation agency – announced new funding for “ultra-long” duration battery energy storage. 

Up to £3m will be invested in demonstration projects as part of the first phase of the funding, with £10m available in the sector to support the development of technologies capable of storing and discharging at least 100 continuous hours of electricity. 

In a statement responding to the new funding, Dr Jamie Speirs of the University of Strathclyde and co-director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said achieving the UK’s low-carbon ambitions will rely on “unlocking” LDES to support a highly renewable system. He added:

“By providing flexibility across hours, days and even seasons, LDES could enable a resilient, low-carbon electricity system – reducing curtailment, strengthening security of supply and ensuring that intermittent renewables can maximise their contribution to the grid in all conditions. 

“Investing in innovation opportunities such as this call to support market deployment of LDES technologies is a key way to support these technologies to market, giving us the best chance to meet our net zero targets.”

Phase one of the funding is open for applications until 30 September, with grants of between £350,000 and £700,000 available for the successful projects.

Seamus Garvey, professor of dynamics at the University of Nottingham, welcomes the new funding. However, he cautions that more needs to be done to ensure the future markets for medium- and long- duration storage are not compromised by early commitments to storage at shorter timescales. He tells Carbon Brief:

“Energy storage will be required over many timescales and as we decarbonise further and further, the requirements for longer durations grow and grow. 

“One key problem in my opinion is that because we are tending to buy into lots of short-duration stores now, we are actually removing pieces of market that could be accessible by longer duration stores and that is making the (already-difficult) problem of financing these stores ever more difficult.” 

How could LDES impact energy bills?

The rollout of LDES technologies is widely expected to help reduce energy bills as the UK transitions to a clean-energy system.

There is still a significant amount of uncertainty over the development of LDES, due to the wide range of options, nascent stages of development and lack of market maturity. Nevertheless, most research agrees that it will cut electricity system costs by the middle of the century, relative to a world where LDES is not used. 

For example, adding 20GW of LDES could reduce electricity system costs by £16-51bn between 2030 and 2050, compared with a scenario that has limited flexible capacity, according to analysis for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), by thinktank Regen and LCP Delta. The analysis, published in 2023, found that 20GW of LDES could reduce costs by around £26bn. 

Analysis by LCP Delta in 2025 found that building 20GW of established medium-sized LDES technologies – pumped hydro with a capacity of 8-12 hours – by 2050 would have a system benefit of more than £10bn. 

LDES could reduce total UK electricity system costs by £7-13bn annually by 2040-2050, according to a report from the Transition Finance Council – a public-private body launched by the City of London Corporation and the UK government – citing a range of other studies. 

Windfarm in Cornwall, UK. Credit: David Noton Photography / Alamy Stock Photo

The council says this would predominantly be by avoiding “curtailment”, where some generators are paid to switch off because the electricity grid cannot accommodate their output. It says that LDES would defer the need for additional grid investment and would reduce balancing costs, including curtailment.

(In the financial year 2024-25, balancing costs reached £2.7bn, adding around £40 to the average household electricity bill. Some £1.9bn of this – £28 per household – related to constraints, where wind is “curtailed” and gas plants are switched on elsewhere.)

Curtailment is a particular issue in Scotland, where much of the UK’s wind capacity sits behind congested sections of the national electricity network. Porter notes on LinkedIn that this helps explain why 79% of the LDES projects by storage capacity are located in northern Scotland. 

Martin says LDES will allow the UK to “use our renewable fleet more efficiently”. He adds: 

“[LDES] is able to increase renewable energy and then decrease gas generation during high-demand periods, and that brings all sorts of benefits to the system.

“It reduces emissions, it reduces the overall cost of the system, it can help reduce bills for consumers. So those are the types of benefits that we’ll see as a result of [more] LDES being [on the system].”

The Transition Finance Council report adds that despite the upfront cost, LDES quickly pays for itself. It estimates that each gigawatt of long-duration flexibility on the system requires around £2-2.5bn in investment, but yields annual system savings of £0.5-1bn once operational. 

As such, even accounting for the upfront cost of developing LDES, the technologies would provide £30-60bn of electricity system savings over 25 years, the council says. It adds that this means LDES “will repay itself several times over”. 

related CCC: Faster electrification of UK will ‘put money back into people’s pockets’ 24.06.2026 Electricity Analysis: UK’s EV drivers are now saving £1,100 each a year – and £3bn in total 15.06.2026 Electricity Q&A: Can China turn hydrogen into its next clean-energy industry? 27.05.2026 Electricity Q&A: How the UK government aims to ‘break link between gas and electricity prices’ 21.04.2026 Electricity

The post Q&A: What is ‘long-duration energy storage’ – and why does the UK need it? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott ordered a pause on all border construction inside Big Bend National Park, days after footage of construction within the park sparked bipartisan outrage. “Last night I put a pause on all activity in that park as far as construction goes until I can get down there and do a personal evaluation,” Scott said in a video posted to X.

CBP originally denied any construction was underway, saying bulldozers were simply regrading storm-damaged roads, then acknowledged heavy machinery was working on the barrier project but called it “survey and design work — NOT construction of a wall through the park.” Scott insisted CBP was “NOT building a 30-foot wall or stadium lighting” through the park, though the agency’s map had at one point shown a 30-foot steel bollard wall across Big Bend.

“It’s difficult to trust the words of CBP,” said Bob Krumenaker, a former Big Bend superintendent who chairs Keep Big Bend Wild. “We’re hopeful that they’re honest and we can trust them, but it’s too early to know.” Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson also expressed doubts about CBP’s statement: “We can’t count on what we’re reading or seeing or anything,” he said.

Crews have already bulldozed near Santa Elena Canyon without the thirty days’ notice DHS had agreed to provide under a previous court settlement, causing irreparable damage to the landscape and the archaeological sites it contains.

Quick hits Trump blames vandals for dead grass on lawn where he held Fourth of July event

Washington Post

Public lands are at the forefront of Wyoming’s primaries

Inside Climate News

Border agency pauses construction in Big Bend National Park

NOTUS | Public Domain | E&E News | The Hill | The Travel | Axios | Texas Tribune | NPR | Wes Siler’s Newsletter

Judge denies Tohono O’odham request to halt border wall construction

Arizona Capitol Times

Colorado River plummets as lakes Powell and Mead drop to record lows

New York Times

Policy limiting public information on deaths and injuries at national parks raises concern among journalists

Aspen Times

Colorado’s private 14er

Aspen Journalism

Lower oil and gas bonds on federal land could cost taxpayers billions

Utah Public Radio

Quote of the day

If we lose places like Big Bend, we never get them back. The destruction that will be inflicted here will truly be irreparable.”

— Laiken Jordahl, Center for Biological Diversity, NPR

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@u.s.forestserviceFire personnel return from the fireline on the Black Canyon Fire in Utah.This photo shows the “fuel type” crews are working in. Building fireline in this terrain requires the use of chainsaws to clear a fuel break and hand tools to dig a fireline down to mineral soil. This is often grueling work requiring long hours under harsh conditions.

We thank all our wildland firefighters, the non-fire staff who support them, and the families at home who stand behind them throughout the fire year.

Featured photo: Big Bend National Park, National Park Service=

The post Border agency halts Big Bend construction, for now appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

U.S. Forest Service plans to remove forest protections, ignoring public sentiment

DENVER—The U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday announced its plan to move forward with its repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule, threatening the fate of 44.7 million acres of national forest across the country.

The proposal, which will be published in the Federal Register tomorrow, would strip road-building bans from roadless areas in every state except Idaho and Colorado, which have their own separate rules, and would carve out the 9.4-million-acre Tongass National Forest in Alaska through a related executive order. Public comments on the rule will be due by September 21, according to USDA.

USDA first floated this plan last August and opened a preliminary comment period on it last September. Americans submitted more than 625,000 comments, 99 percent of which opposed repealing the Roadless Rule, according to a Center for Western Priorities’ analysis. Colorado College’s 2026 State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll found that 65 percent of voters across eight Western states oppose building new industrial roads in undeveloped public lands for mining, oil and gas development, or timber harvests.

Center for Western Priorities Communications Manager Kate Groetzinger issued the following statement:

“The Trump administration already asked the American public what they thought of this plan, and 99 percent of them said no to repealing the Roadless Rule. Now USDA is back with the same idea, dressed up as a move to reduce wildfire risk even though it will degrade drinking water, fragment wildlife habitat, and increase the Forest Service’s $10 billion road maintenance backlog. This is a giveaway to the timber industry that the public has already rejected once and will reject again.”

Learn more:

• Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule – CWP

• What is the “Roadless Rule”? – Sierra Club Oregon

• Roadless Rule Recission 2025 interactive map – Trout Unlimited

Feature image: Mt. Hood National Forest Trillium Lake

The post Trump admin announces intent to move forward with Roadless Rule repeal appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The world is currently experiencing what is expected to become the strongest El Niño on record – dubbed a “super El Niño” by many.

El Niño is the warm phase of a recurring climate pattern in the tropical Pacific that releases heat from the ocean into the atmosphere.

This temporarily raises global temperatures and reshapes rainfall and extreme weather around the world – impacting the lives of billions of people.

The current El Niño event began in June and is expected to last into 2027.

El Niño is part of a wider climate pattern called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle.

The ENSO cycle also has a cool phase, known as La Niña, as well as a “neutral” phase. El Niño and La Niña events typically last between nine and 12 months, but can go on longer.

Below, Carbon Brief explains how the ENSO cycle works, its impacts on extreme weather and global temperatures and why this El Niño event is projected to be the most intense since records began.

The post Explainer: How the ‘super El Niño’ will reshape the world’s weather appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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The second-largest reservoir in the US reached a record-low water height on Saturday – just days after the country’s largest reservoir broke its own record. 

Both Lake Mead and Lake Powell are located on the Colorado River. 

They provide water for populations across seven US states in the south-western US, with around 40 million people getting some or all of their municipal water from the Colorado River.

The river also provides water for around 5.5m acres (22,258 square kilometres) of farmland across Colorado, Arizona, California and the other states in the river basin.

Experts tell Carbon Brief that climate change, population growth and over-consumption are all contributing to the current record-low levels of the reservoirs.

Record lows

At full capacity, Lakes Mead and Powell can hold a combined 68 cubic kilometres of water – enough to supply all household consumption in the contiguous US for nearly 1.5 years. However, the water level in both reservoirs has been declining for decades.

The chart below shows the water level of Lake Mead, in metres above mean sea level. The reservoir, which began to fill in 1935 following the construction of the Hoover Dam, has a “full pool” maximum capacity of 347.60 metres. The water level in Lake Mead reached a record low of 317.11 metres on 7 August. 

The following chart shows the water level of Lake Powell, in metres above mean sea level. Lake Powell’s full-pool level is 1,127.76 metres. 

While the reservoir reached its maximum capacity several times in the 1980s, it has not done so since. On 15 August, the water level in Lake Powell was recorded at a new record-low of 1,072.87 metres.

Both reservoirs have continued to decline in the days since breaking their respective records. The downward trend will largely continue in both lakes until next spring, when the snowpack in the mountains of the Upper Colorado River Basin begins to melt, says Dr Jack Schmidt, a senior research scientist at Utah State University’s Center for Colorado River Studies. He tells Carbon Brief:

“The big dilemma of the moment is that we’re only in the middle of August, and we have no assurance of what the coming winter will be. The only thing we can be sure of is that we will be depleting overall total basin reservoir storage from now until, roughly, early April.” 

Compounding factors

The record lows across the two reservoirs are the result of several compounding factors, experts tell Carbon Brief. 

Since the turn of the 20th century, the amount of water flowing along the Upper Colorado River has declined by about 20%. Research suggests that half of this decline can be attributed to human-induced climate change. 

Most of the river’s streamflow comes from the snowpack of the Upper Colorado River Basin, which stretches across five western US states but is primarily located in Colorado and Utah. 

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This region has been gripped by a historic “megadrought” for more than a quarter of a century. Nearly half of the megadrought’s intensity over 2000-18 is attributable to climate change, according to a 2020 study.

At the same time, the increasing population in the US south-west has put added pressure on the Colorado River’s water supply. The number of people obtaining some or all of their water from the Colorado system has grown by 15 million (around 60%) since 1992. 

Schmidt tells Carbon Brief:

“There’s an ultimate cause of the present water crisis, and there’s a proximate cause. The ultimate cause is a warming climate, a warming planet and a pretty clear correlation between warming conditions and decreased runoff in the Colorado River Basin.

“The proximate cause is that in this messy democratic republic of ours, big policy decisions that match the variability of the climate occur painfully slowly – with intense political negotiations – and only incrementally.”

On 31 July, the US Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water resources in the western US, released an environmental impact statement on its proposed post-2026 strategy for managing Lakes Powell and Mead. The strategy itself has not been released yet.

Schmidt notes that the statement does appear to give the Bureau flexibility to “respond to crisis” by reducing the delivery of water to several states. However, he adds:

“They acknowledge it won’t work if we just stay critically dry, and of course every climate model for the 21st century, especially with a continually warming planet, says that that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”

Related Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world 19.03.2026 Attribution Guest post: Is climate change making UK droughts worse? 26.08.2025 Drought Global soil moisture in ‘permanent’ decline due to climate change 27.03.2025 Drought West Africa’s deadly rainfall in 2022 made ‘80 times more likely’ by climate change 16.11.2022 Attribution

The post Analysis: The two largest reservoirs in the US have hit record-low levels appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Developers are asking Pittsburgh City Council to vote on another major tax giveaway scheme – giving up to $200 million dollars to a handful of Downtown private real estate companies, without any requirements around public benefit. This vote to implement the Downtown Transit Revitalization Improvement District (TRID) will divert tax revenue from the Strip District, Downtown and the North Shore for the next 40 (!) years into the coffers of private corporations.

Right now, when working people and our public agencies are struggling to make ends meet, Pittsburgh City Council is being asked (via the Urban Redevelopment Authority) to hand the Golden Triangle yet another golden ticket.

Take Action: Tell Council to fund neighborhoods, not developers What is the TRID proposal?

A TRID is a type of legislation intended to fund transit improvements—but this one won’t do that. Instead, here’s how this proposal would work: 

• The City (i.e., taxpayers) would initially borrow $50 million to invest exclusively in the TRID area: the Strip District, parts of the North Shore, and Downtown. This money would effectively be a grant paid to wealthy developers, with the City gambling on future tax revenue to pay down the debt.
  • Many Downtown developers are concurrently challenging their commercial property assessments, so that they could pay lower taxes in the future.
    
• Only 20% of this money would be invested in public infrastructure—but they’ve not named any particular public projects that would benefit. By contrast, the remaining 80% has been earmarked for specific, private, for-profit real estate developers.
  
• All future public tax dollars from Downtown, the Strip District, and the North Shore for the next 40 years would be diverted to a “Golden Triangle Reinvestment Fund”, exclusively financing development in a small pocket of Downtown. This fund would be controlled by the non-elected Urban Redevelopment Agency (URA)—not City Council, a public body that is accountable to the public.

Members of Pittsburgh City Council and the Mayor’s administration have said that we are facing a massive City budget crisis. So why are they fast-tracking a $200 million handout to Downtown developers, with almost no public process? 

What’s at stake

We have already given almost a billion dollars to Downtown developers in tax breaks over the past 5 years. Enough is enough. 

Our communities deserve so much more: public transit infrastructure, affordable housing, local food initiatives, street and sidewalk repairs, childcare programs and more. These are critical investments for the well-being of our City—and we cannot fund them if our City Councilmembers signs away millions in tax dollars to private developers for the next four decades.

Transit riders must tell our elected officials to vote NO on implementing the Downtown Transit Revitalization Investment District (TRID). Public dollars – whether borrowed or generated from tax revenue – should be invested across all communities – from Fairywood to Fineview, Brookline to Bloomfield. Our resources should be allocated through the annual City budgeting process, with robust public input to ensure that our tax resources are distributed equitably and address the needs of the moment.

We say: no more handouts to Downtown corporations until our neighborhoods, our small businesses, our workers and our students are given their fair share!

Take Action Now

After you send a letter, CALL your City Councilmember to urge them to vote NO (find your councilmember here):

• District 1 (Northside, Strip District, Parts of Downtown):
  Bobby Wilson (412) 255-2135
• District 2 (West End, Sheraden, Elliott, Banksville):
  Kim Salinetro (412) 255-8963
• District 3 (Oakland, Southside, Arlington, Allentown):
  Bob Charland (412) 255-2130
• District 4 (Beechview, Brookline, Carrick, Overbrook):
  Anthony Coghill (412) 255-2131
• District 5 (Greenfield, Hazelwood, Lincoln Pl, Swisshelm Park):
  Barb Warwick (412) 255-8965
• District 6 (Manchester, Downtown, The Hill, Uptown, Perry Hilltop):
  Danielle Lavelle (412) 255-2134
• District 7 (Bloomfield, Lawrenceville, Polish Hill, Stanton Heights) :
  Deb Gross (412) 255-2140
• District 8 (Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Oakland):
  Erika Strassburger (412) 255-2133
• District 9 (East Liberty, Larimer, Homewood, Garfield):
  Khari Mosley (412) 255-2137

The post ACTION ALERT: Pittsburgh City Council Considers New Slush Fund for Downtown Developers—on our Dime appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Soy madre y miembro de la comunidad latina que lucha con PPT por un sistema de transporte que realmente sirva a todos. ¿Te unirás a mí haciéndote miembro que paga cuotas?

Me llamo Evelyn Ulysse Alcántara. Uso el transporte público a diario para ir al trabajo, al médico,  actividades de ocio,  reuniones, llevar a mi hijo al colegio— para todo. 

Soy latina y mi inglés no es perfecto, así que cuando me mudé a Pittsburgh me costó usar el transporte público porque había muy poca información disponible en español. Por eso me ofrecí de voluntaria para ayudar como embajadora en los Recorridos de tránsito de PPT. Fue muy frustrante y aislante  intentar aprender a usar el sistema de transporte público por mi cuenta. Sabía que si podía hacer algo para apoyar el aprendizaje de mi comunidad, ¡tenía que hacerlo!   

Ser miembro de PPT no solo ha mejorado mis propias necesidades de transporte. Me abrió la puerta para ayudarme a marcar la diferencia.

Cuando hubo recortes en el transporte público en Beechview, hubo ocasiones en que el autobús o el Tren no venían—y no sabía la razón, porque los cambios sólo se comunicaban en inglés. Pero hoy, si vas a Steel Plaza o Wood Street Station, ¡escucharás anuncios en español! Y hay instrucciones paso a paso en español en la web de PRT. Esto se debe a que PPT y Casa San José se unieron para dar voz a mi comunidad, para que PRT pudiera entender el verdadero impacto que esto estaba teniendo en nosotros.

Este es el verdadero poder de PPT: realmente escuchan a la gente.

Cuando descubrí que PPT, me pedían testimonios sobre el papel que tiene el transporte público en la vida de las personas, para mostrar lo importante que sería un programa de media tarifa. Sabía que tenía que dar mi testimonio, porque necesitábamos actuar para mejorar el acceso. En aquel entonces solo era una idea y un proyecto, pero hoy es una realidad que lleva el servicio de transporte a la gente.

Me encanta el PPT porque sé de primera mano lo que podemos lograr juntos.  

Solo en 2026:

• Llevamos a 120 miembros a Harrisburg para arrojar luz sobre la brecha presupuestaria de 80 millones de dólares y enfatizar la importancia de los servicios para tránsito y viajes compartidos para nuestros representantes.  
• Compartimos habilidades y construimos poder con 170 personas de todo el país, compartimos habilidades y construyeron poder en nuestro Entrenamiento de Primavera 2026. 
• Formamos a 13 becarios de organización comunitaria en toda la colina del barrio de PGH, y las regiones de Lancaster y Lehigh Valley en Pensilvania. 

Por eso quería preguntar: ¿apoyarán el trabajo urgente de PPT haciéndote miembro que paga cuotas hoy?

Puedes apuntarte por solo 2,75 $, ¡el precio actual del billete de autobús del PRT! Ese dinero va directamente a la defensa de un presupuesto de transporte que mueve a TODOS los habitantes de Pensilvania. Todo el mundo merece acceso al transporte público.

¿Nos ayudarás a hacer realidad ese sueño?

The post Transporte Público para la Gente: Únete a la campaña de Socios 2026 appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

Image Description: Evelyn Ulysse Alcantara, a dark-skinned woman in a red PPT shirt, smiles in front of a collaged picture of Pittsburgh

I’m a mother and member of the Latino community fighting with PPT for a transit system that truly serves everyone. Will you join me by becoming a dues-paying member? Donate to become a PPT member!

My name is Evelyn Ulysse Alcantara. I use public transportation daily for going to work, the doctor, leisure activities, meetings, bringing my son to school—everything.

I’m Latina and my English isn’t perfect, so when I first moved to Pittsburgh I struggled to use public transportation because there was so little information available in Spanish. This is why I volunteered to help be an ambassador for PPT’s Transit Tours. It was so frustrating and isolating to try and learn how to use the system by myself. I knew that if I could do something to support my community’s learning, I had to do it!  

Being a PPT member hasn’t just improved my own transit needs. It opened the door to help me make a difference. 

When there were cuts to transit in Beechview, there were times the bus or T didn’t come—and I didn’t know why because the changes were only communicated in English. But today, if you go to Steel Plaza or Wood Street Station, you’ll hear announcements in Spanish! And there are step by step instructions in Spanish on PRT’s website. This is because PPT and Casa San Jose came together to uplift my community’s voice, so that PRT could understand the true impact this was having on us. 

This is PPT’s real power: they truly listen to the people. 

When I first found out about PPT, they were asking for testimonies about the role transit has in people’s lives, to show how important a half-fare program would be. I knew I had to give my testimony, because we needed to take action to improve access. Back then it was just an idea, but today it’s a reality that brings transit service to the people!

I love PPT because I know firsthand what we can accomplish together. 

In 2026 alone, we have: 

• We brought 120 members to Harrisburg to shed light on the $80 million dollar transit budget gap, and emphasise the importance of paratransit and shared ride services to our representatives.  
• We trained 13 community organizing fellows across the Hilltop neighborhood of PGH, and the Lancaster and Lehigh Valley regions of PA. 
• Shared skills and built power with 170 people from across the country at our 2026 Spring Training.

That’s why I wanted to ask: will you support PPT’s urgent work by becoming a dues-paying member today?

You can join for just $2.75—the current cost of a PRT bus fare! That money goes directly towards advocacy for a transit budget that moves ALL Pennsylvanians. Everyone deserves access to public transportation. Will you help us make that dream a reality?

Donate now to join Evelyn as a member—and build transit for the people!

The post Transit for the People: Join the 2026 Member Drive appeared first on Pittsburghers for Public Transit.

In January Congress passed a “minibus” bill that raided $500 million in previously appropriated coal mine cleanup funds to pay for other federal programs. We’re now seeing the first results of that bill: $45.5 million less in mine cleanup funding every year for the next 11 years. Combined with growing inflation, this means fewer jobs will be supported cleaning up mines and more hazardous coal mining damage won’t be reclaimed in Appalachia and across the country.

When it passed in 2021, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided about $10.9 billion for the reclamation of Abandoned Mine Land (AML) sites across the country in fifteen annual grants to states and tribes. The first four years’ worth of grants were awarded between 2022-2025. The minibus bill cuts $500 million from the total AML funding provided under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – but it was unclear at the time of passage if the $500 million would be cut entirely from the last (fifteenth) year of AML grants or equally across the remaining 11 years worth of annual funding. Now we have our answer.

The 2026 AML grants for states and tribes were announced in May and the cuts are here. According to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the $500 million cut “will be applied equally to the remaining 11 grant distribution years, approximately $45.45 million per year.” The figure below shows the annual reduction in funds for each state and tribe, as well as the total cuts that will play out over the next 11 years. Pennsylvania and West Virginia have the largest cuts (by absolute value), at about $15 million and $9 million per year, respectively.

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The cuts are reducing the amount of damage states and tribes can reclaim. Inflation – especially recent rises in fuel costs that can drive up the cost of operating construction equipment – is also lowering the spending power of reclamation dollars even from last year, further reducing the amount of reclamation states and tribes can accomplish in 2026.

States and tribes have a five-year window to spend their FY2026 AML grant, and those agencies will now begin planning for fewer dollars by taking steps like selecting fewer reclamation projects or reducing the scope of projects. In Pennsylvania, for example, the cuts are equivalent to the cost of two large abandoned mine drainage treatment systems.

As we explained in a previous post, the extent of AML damage that needs to be cleaned up is likely twice as large as the existing $10.9 billion in funding– even before $500 million was cut.

This is damage to land and water that has lingered since at least the 1970s, and now residents will have to wait even longer for cleanup. If this cut hadn’t occurred, $45 million per year in more mine cleanup would be put to use across the country in the next few years, removing hazards to the local population and supporting more jobs, such as in construction, doing reclamation work primarily in rural areas. Congress should reverse the $500 million reduction, and should protect the program from similar cuts in the future.

The post Breaking down how much Congress cut AML funds by state appeared first on Ohio River Valley Institute.

June 6, 2026

Read new San Francisco Gate story:

“US Navy finds radiological material in unauthorized storage in San Francisco”

June 2026:

Bayview Hunters Point Community Call to Action and Demands issued by Greenaction and the Marie Harrison Community Foundation, Inc.

June 24th noon rally at San Francisco City Hall to support community demands for health, justice, and full cleanup of all contamination at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard Superfund Site.

June 24, 2026 Call to Action for Bayview Hunters Point

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 4, 2026

Statement on ACT NOW Clean Tech Initiative

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — On June 4, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato signed the Advancing Clean Technology for Neighborhood and Next-Generation Opportunity and Workforce (ACT NOW) Executive Order. In response, Ohio River Valley Institute Industrial Decarbonization Program Manager Justine Hackimer issued the following statement:

Clean technology and advanced manufacturing present a generational opportunity to strengthen Allegheny County’s economy, create high-quality jobs, and build on our region’s long history of industrial innovation. 

For generations, southwestern Pennsylvania’s workers, manufacturers, and research institutions helped power economic growth across the country. As global markets increasingly demand cleaner technologies, our region is well-positioned to compete for the industries that will shape the next generation of manufacturing. 

But realizing that opportunity requires more than individual projects. It takes coordination and smart policy like ACT NOW to ensure workers and local communities directly benefit from investments. We applaud County Executive Sara Innamorato’s leadership in shaping a clean tech future that works for all Pennsylvanians.

By investing in the industries of tomorrow while strengthening the systems that support workers and communities, the region can build a more diverse, resilient economy that creates opportunities for generations to come.

###

 

The post Statement on ACT NOW Clean Tech Initiative appeared first on Ohio River Valley Institute.

Price floors and supply management programs seem common sense to policymakers when it comes to oil and minerals, but what about US farmers and our overall food system? By: Patti Naylor, FFD president, George Naylor, FFD board member, and Laurel … Continue reading →

By Vanessa Mascia Turri

Naples became one of Europe’s most ambitious experiments in democratic water governance after Italy’s 2011 referendum against water privatisation. Yet bringing water back into public hands did not necessarily redistribute power over how water itself would be governed.

In 2011, after the Italian referendum against water privatisation, Naples became one of the most ambitious experiments in remunicipalised water governance in Europe. The city transformed its water utility into ABC Napoli (Acqua Bene Comune Napoli), a publicly owned entity presented not simply as a return to public management, but as an attempt to implement the “democracy of the commons” theorised by the Italian Forum of Water Movements.

Within this perspective, water was understood not only as a public service, but as a common good whose governance should involve the direct participation of citizens and social movements.

Over the following decade, Naples became a testing ground for a broader political question that has emerged across many remunicipalisation struggles: what happens when the language and practices of the commons enter public institutions? The Neapolitan experience shows that bringing water back into public hands does not automatically democratise its governance. Instead, participation became continuously negotiated and reshaped through political conflict, financial pressures and struggles over who should control public resources.

From water struggles to the democracy of the commons

Since the early 2000s, struggles against water privatisation have connected local mobilisations to broader debates around the commons. Struggles against water privatisation in Europe have often gone beyond opposition to market reforms and increasingly connected demands for public ownership with broader claims around the commons and direct democracy, as explored throughout the Reimagining, remembering and reclaiming water series. In many countries, water movements have challenged not only privatisation, but also the idea that essential services should be governed through technocratic and top-down forms of management, increasingly linking water struggles to broader claims around the commons and direct democracy, as discussed in Transforming capitalism? The role of the commons and direct democracy in struggles against water privatisation in Europe.

In Italy, these debates converged in the Italian Forum of Water Movements, one of the broadest water movements in Europe. As broader discussions around the commons in Italy have shown, these debates extended well beyond water itself and raised wider questions about collective resources, democracy and institutional change. Under the slogan “si scrive acqua, si legge democrazia” (“it is written water, it is read democracy”), the movement argued that remunicipalisation should involve not only public ownership, but also direct civic participation in water governance.

Naples became the most ambitious attempt to translate this political vision into institutional practice.

 

Poster from the 2011 Italian referendum campaign against water privatization reading “Water is not for sale.” Image courtesy of the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l’Acqua.

Naples became the most ambitious attempt to translate this political vision into institutional practice.

Yet public and academic debates on remunicipalisation have often focused on privatisation conflicts and legal transitions, paying far less attention to what happens afterwards. How are participatory mechanisms actually organised inside remunicipalised utilities? How much power are institutions willing to share with social movements and citizens once remunicipalisation has taken place?

My article From theory to practice: evaluating civic participation in Naples’ remunicipalised water service examines these questions through the case of ABC Napoli, reconstructing how participation was progressively organised, contested and reshaped during the decade following remunicipalisation.

Participation and the limits of the commons

At the moment of remunicipalisation, Naples faced deteriorated infrastructures, chronic underinvestment and a massive municipal public debt. For many activists of the Neapolitan water movement, remunicipalisation was therefore not only about public ownership, but also about transforming the priorities of water governance through ecological restoration, infrastructural investment and more equitable access to water.

Over the following decade, ABC Napoli experimented with different forms of civic participation. Initially, the municipal government opened the board of directors to representatives linked to the Italian Forum of Water Movements and to environmental associations. Yet local activists who had led the mobilisation against privatisation were largely excluded from these arrangements, generating immediate tensions over who had the legitimacy to participate in the governance of the utility.

The most ambitious participatory experiment emerged with the creation of the Civic Council, a public assembly open to citizens, activists and ABC workers. Meetings were held directly inside the company and addressed issues such as tariffs, infrastructure maintenance, hiring policies and investment priorities. Delegates from the assemblies also participated in discussions with the board of directors, creating one of the most advanced attempts in Europe to institutionalise direct civic participation inside a remunicipalised water utility.

However, participation became far more conflictual once these assemblies started intervening in concrete political and economic questions. Members of the Civic Council promoted long-term infrastructural investments and the recruitment of specialised personnel while defending the financial stability of the utility. According to several interviewees, these priorities increasingly clashed with those of the municipal government, which was more focused on short-term employment policies and the management of public-sector jobs within a broader context marked by debt, unemployment and political pressures surrounding public employment.

These tensions ultimately led to the removal of the board of directors and to the progressive weakening of participatory governance. In the following years, participation increasingly shifted towards weak consultative mechanisms with limited influence over decision-making processes. Many activists gradually distanced themselves from the experiment, while severe financial constraints continued to limit investments in infrastructures and ecological renewal.

Rather than evolving towards deeper forms of democratic governance, the Neapolitan experience progressively revealed the difficulties of institutionalising the “democracy of the commons” within existing municipal structures and political priorities.

Remunicipalisation without democratisation?

Poster from the Italian public water movement following the 2011 referendum campaign, emphasising water as a public right rather than a source of profit. Image courtesy of the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l’Acqua.

The experience of ABC Napoli complicates many celebratory narratives surrounding remunicipalisation. Bringing water back into public hands did not automatically redistribute power inside public governance. On the contrary, the Neapolitan case shows how quickly the language of the commons can become absorbed into existing institutional structures once participation starts challenging concrete political and economic interests.

The weakening of participatory governance inside ABC Napoli did not result from a lack of civic mobilisation or technical expertise. Quite the opposite: activists involved in the water movement developed increasingly detailed proposals on tariffs, infrastructures and long-term investments, becoming capable of intervening directly in the governance of the utility. Participation became problematic precisely when it stopped being symbolic and started questioning how public resources, infrastructures and employment should be managed.

In Naples, these tensions unfolded within a broader context marked by public debt, deteriorated infrastructures, unemployment and long-standing systems of political mediation surrounding public-sector employment. Under these conditions, the “democracy of the commons” increasingly collided with the political and administrative logics shaping municipal governance.

More broadly, the Neapolitan experience suggests that remunicipalisation alone cannot democratise essential services without a real willingness from public institutions to share decision-making power. Commons become politically difficult when they move beyond participation as consultation and start demanding participation as co-governance.

Rather than offering a linear model of democratic transformation, Naples reveals the unresolved tensions that emerge when social movements attempt to institutionalise the commons inside existing state structures. The question, then, is not simply whether remunicipalisation is possible, but whether public institutions are truly willing to democratise the power through which public resources are governed.

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Featured image: Protest sign reading “Public water, public management. Clear?” during a demonstration of the Italian water movement. Photo courtesy of the Forum Italiano dei Movimenti per l’Acqua (acquabenecomune.org).

The post From remunicipalisation to the democracy of the commons appeared first on Undisciplined Environments.