News Feeds

• Cities should densify their inner-ring suburbs to reduce car trips and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Another study of 15-minute cities found that, for every 10 percent increase in residents living in walkable neighborhoods, transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions fell by 5 percent. (Cities)
• Air pollution slows the lung growth of children, and even young adults up to age 24. (The Guardian)
• Financially, people who drive a lot and own an aging gas-powered car are better off buying an electric vehicle, which is also better for the climate. (NPR)
• From schedules to accessibility, transit agencies are not doing a good job of adjusting to an aging population of riders, according to a Chinese study of Asian and European cities. (The City Fix)
• The key to winning the PR battle over traffic enforcement cameras is to convince the public they’re not just a money grab by local governments. (CT Mirror)
• An Illinois law reforming Chicago transit governance and pumping $1.5 billion into the system took effect Monday. (Tribune)
• The transit agency in Montana’s capital city, Helena, is facing a $200,000 deficit and considering cutting service, primarily affecting the elderly and disabled. (Free Press)
• The Kansas City Streetcar is studying the feasibility of a third extension. (KCTV)
• Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson joined an annual mass bike ride through downtown to celebrate Wisconsin Bike Week. (WTMJ)
• What should Charlotte call its new transit-oriented, walkable arts and entertainment district? (Ledger)
• Riding e-scooters and other personal mobility vehicles has become a popular after-work activity in Canada. (CBC)
• Car Free America explains how Copenhagen built its famously excellent bike infrastructure.

On April 20, the Federal Highway Administration launched its “Freedom to Drive” initiative, asking governors to nominate their worst traffic bottlenecks for federal capacity expansion. On May 17, House transportation leaders released the draft BUILD America 250 Act — a $580 billion, five-year surface transportation reauthorization, which the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee marked up on May 21.

Taken together, the two announcements amount to the largest federal sprawl subsidy in a generation, proposed at exactly the moment American households can least afford it.

There is a real freedom in being able to drive. But the “freedom” the initiative actually delivers isn’t “freedom” at all, because it leaves households with no alternatives.

For roughly 30 percent of Americans — children, older adults, people with disabilities, and households without a vehicle — driving is not an option. For nearly everyone else, the built environment makes it the only practical way to reach a job or a grocery store. We have grown so used to automobile dependence that we no longer notice the shackles. The “freedom” on offer is pure car-dealer Americana — red, white, blue, and one more promise that the next round of expansion will finally clear the traffic.

Recommended Trump’s ‘Freedom Means Affordable Cars’ Rings Hollow As Gas Prices Surge Kea Wilson March 30, 2026

Start with the household ledger. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that American households spent an average of $78,535 in 2024 — 33.4 percent on housing and 17.0 percent on transportation, more than half of household spending. The Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index sets the combined affordability ceiling at 45 percent of household income, and most U.S. communities routinely exceed it.

But the H+T Index measures only direct household costs. It does not capture the federal subsidy that engineered the sprawl pattern, which households absorb, and it does not show how that subsidy gets returned in degraded form. 

Federal, state, and local governments spent $626 billion on transportation and water infrastructure in 2023, with highways as the largest category. Federal capacity expansion is increasingly deficit-financed, and households pay it back through inflated prices, eroded wages, and higher mortgage rates.

The road bill never goes away. It just gets routed through the dollar.

Recommended Congress Gave States Enough Money to Fix Every Road in America; Some States Set It On Fire Instead Kea Wilson May 11, 2026

Beth Osborne at Smart Growth America has argued for years that the federal performance-measurement framework is structurally biased toward expansion: we count vehicle throughput, not access, and the incentives push state DOTs to build new capacity rather than maintain what they already own. Her organization’s Repair Priorities reports have tracked this misallocation for over a decade. 

Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns arrives at the same diagnosis from a different tradition. He argues that the postwar suburban development pattern is financially insolvent because its maintenance liabilities exceed the tax base it produces, which he calls the “growth Ponzi scheme.”

Different schools, same conclusion: we are buying liabilities and calling them assets.

BUILD America 250 is the diagnosis in legislative form. It does real work—bridges need repair, freight matters, road workers deserve protection. But the architecture is backward. The bill cuts Safe Streets and Roads for All by $1.25 billion, eliminates the Carbon Reduction and PROTECT resilience programs, and repeals the Active Transportation Infrastructure Investment Program — the only dedicated federal source for closing gaps in walking and biking networks, whose first grant round was oversubscribed forty to one.

It then channels new money into capacity expansion at the moment traffic deaths remain at 39,254 a year. In their recent update of the U.S. sprawl index, Shima Hamidi’s Johns Hopkins team ties those deaths directly to the development pattern federal road dollars keep subsidizing: more vehicle miles and higher speeds, which lead to elevated rates of fatal and pedestrian crashes.

Recommended New House Infrastructure Bill: Cuts To Transit, Mixed Bag for Active Transportation Kea Wilson May 20, 2026

The fiscal logic gets worse. The federal gas tax sits at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents for diesel — unchanged since 1993. Users should pay for the infrastructure they use; that has historically been the conservative position.

But even as Congress writes new revenue streams to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, Washington is floating a gas-tax holiday in response to another Middle East conflict. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimates a five-month suspension would cost the trust fund roughly $17 billion — 46 percent of projected FY2026 fuel-tax revenue.

So the user fee that funds roads gets suspended because of an oil shock to which the road system itself made us all vulnerable — while Congress fills the gap by borrowing, and households pay back the borrowing through devalued wages.

That isn’t conservatism. It’s debt-financed dependency with a flag decal.

Recommended Advocates Decry Proposed ‘Gas Tax Holiday’ — And Offer Alternatives to Ease Pain at the Pump Kea Wilson June 23, 2022

A serious conservative transportation policy starts from three principles: maintenance before expansion, pricing before subsidy, and access before throughput.

Roads, freight, emergency access, and rural connectivity all matter. The argument isn’t road abolition. It’s fiscal sanity — and a refusal to keep mailing U.S. households the bill for a development pattern that bankrupts it.

America is not underinvesting in roads. It is overbuilding liabilities and underpricing their true cost. “Freedom to Drive” isn’t a new vision. It’s the same old invoice — stamped urgent, mailed to taxpayers, and wrapped in red, white, and blue.

By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

Listen to the audio version >>

As we saw in the previous commentary, Donald Trump is conducting a full spectrum counter-revolution against the Greentech revolution that is transforming energy production and consumption worldwide. This commentary shows that he has managed to significantly impede the onward march of Greentech in the US, but that Greentech is marching on nonetheless.

Collage featuring a photo of Donald Trump (Trump’s second presidential portrait, taken in June 2025 by Daniel Torok, The White House, Public Domain) and an aerial view of broken solar panels on a rooftop (Envato, Bilanol)

In the aftermath of Trump’s assault, the Greentech revolution in America is churning – both stopped in its tracks and driving forward.

Climate journalist and musician Jael Holzman recently took a “cross-country rock n’ roll tour” with her band Ekko Astral. Shee observed:

“Driving across the country with my band, I saw solar and wind projects in Wisconsin, Kansas, Arizona, and Idaho. One drive from Austin, Texas to Rozwell, New Mexico, sent me through a dizzying maze of wind farms in a western portion of the Lone Star State that surrounded my vehicle on all sides with spinning blades and transmission lines — and fracking rigs, because it was Texas. It felt like some sort of twisted, magnificent energy wonk video game.”

But she also noted:

“I drove through open fields and farmland in the Midwest and the Great Plains, including places where building solar or wind is banned outright. I drove straight through the part of central Idaho where Lava Ridge, once the largest wind farm in the country, would have been built this year if not for Donald Trump.”

First, the bad news

President Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBBA) into law on July 4, 2025. The law rolls back many parts of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act by ending tax credits for wind and solar energy, removing incentives for electric vehicles and home energy efficiency, and increasing support for fossil fuels, nuclear energy, and traditional agriculture. Photo credit: The White House, Public Domain

Trump’s Greentech counter-revolution has succeeded in making many corporations and governments cut back or abandon climate goals and policies. The consequences are catastrophic for the climate – and for the future of the American people.

• A week before the 2024 election, Idaho’s largest electric utility struck a 35-year deal to buy power from the Jackalope Wind project that would span an area the size of Chicago, with hundreds of wind turbines generating clean electricity by 2027. But President Trump’s Interior Department quickly stalled Jackalope’s environmental review. In September, the Idaho utility finally canceled its contracts with Jackalope Wind, citing “uncertainties related to the federal permitting process.” Jackalope is only one of more than 60 large wind and solar farms that are being blocked on federal lands. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, 73,000 megawatts of solar projects on land are currently at risk from political interference due to the Trump administration’s “blockade.”
• After the tax credit for buying an EV was allowed to expire at the end of September, sales of EVs plummeted by about 46 percent. In 2025 as a whole, American businesses and households invested $91 billion in zero emission vehicles, a 5% decrease from the previous year. Ford took a $19.5 billion loss from abandoning a planned battery factory and canceled its F-150 EV. In the face of the global shift to EVs, Big Three’s share of the global auto market has fallen from nearly 30 percent in 2000 to about 12 percent today, while China’s share has risen from 2 percent to 42 percent.
• According to the Rhodium Group’s Clean Investment Monitor, the pipeline of new clean energy and transportation manufacturing investment—measured by new announcements in manufacturing projects—totaled $44 billion over the past two years, down by 70% compared to $149 billion during the previous two years. In the first quarter of 2026, clean energy and transportation investment in the United States totaled $61 billion, a 3% decline from Q4 2025.
• The impacts of Trump’s cuts can be felt in the smallest and most impoverished communities. Solar Holler, a solar developer and installation company with 105 employees across Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Virginia, had been growing 20 to 30% annually. Solar provided 70% of the company’s business. But residential solar tax incentives were cut off under Trump’s big, beautiful budget. The company’s growth forecast for 2026 is down from 30% to “roughly flat.” Appalachian Voices, a non-profit working with local communities, was awarded a half-million-dollar EPA grant to help five former coal communities in Virginia. The grant was summarily terminated by Elon Musk’s Doge.

While the impact of Trump’s policies is just beginning to be felt, they are already pushing back the forward march of the Greentech revolution. For example, late in 2025 the International Energy Agency (IEA) nearly halved its forecast of renewable energy growth in the United States, citing the end of tax incentives, new import restrictions, the suspension of new offshore wind leasing, and restricting the permitting of onshore wind and solar PV projects on federal land.

Tens of billions of dollars of manufacturing projects to build solar panels, batteries, charging stations and other clean technologies have already been canceled, with hundreds of billions of dollars of additional announced investments imperiled. According to the Princeton University-led REPEAT Project, the rollback of Biden-era climate regulations will cause an estimated 7.6 billion tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions to be released in the coming decade, as much as 150 million gas-powered cars would emit in that same time.

The Greentech Revolution: Bloodied but Unbowed

Data source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Short-Term Energy Outlook, January 2026

Despite Trump’s efforts to gut fossil free energy, during his first year in office, solar generation rose by 83 TWh (+27%), meeting 61% of the 135 TWh rise in electricity demand. By mid-year, renewables generated more than half of US electricity for the first month on record. Even without subsidies, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new power generation.

In a report posted on January 16, the US Energy Information Agency said, “We expect the combined share of generation from solar power and wind power to rise from about 18% in 2025 to about 21% in 2027.” Utility-scale solar is the fastest-growing source of electricity generation in the United States, increasing from 290 BkWh in 2025 to 424 BkWh by 2027.” Almost 70 gigawatts (GW) of new solar generating capacity projects are scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027, “a 49% increase in U.S. solar operating capacity compared with the end of 2025.” “The three main dispatchable sources of electricity generation (natural gas, coal, and nuclear) accounted for 75% of total generation in 2025, but we expect the share of generation from these sources will fall to about 72% in 2027.”

In 2025, $278 billion was invested across the U.S. in the manufacture and deployment of clean energy, clean vehicles, building electrification, and carbon management technology – up 5% from 2024. This despite an 11% decrease in the fourth quarter relative to the same period in 2024. Investment to decarbonize energy and industrial production over 2024-5 was up 35% compared to the prior two years. Investment in emerging climate technologies in 2024-25 —clean hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, carbon management and new approaches to decarbonizing the production of cement, iron and steel, and pulp and paper— was 53% higher than in the previous two years. In the past two years, companies have announced a total of $347 billion in new investments in clean energy production and industrial decarbonization projects, a 16% increase compared to the previous two-year period.

Worldwide, the blocking of the Straits of Hormuz and the subsequent crisis in the cost and availability of fossil fuel energy has radically accelerated the Greentech revolution, with countries around the world scrambling to expand their fossil free energy production. Ironically, Trump’s petro-war on Iran is radically accelerating the very Greentech revolution he is attempting to destroy.

The Greentech Revolution is proceeding over, under, around, and through Trump’s counterrevolution. Greentech is an irresistible force; it may not immediately overcome the immovable object of Trump’s obstruction, but it is already circumventing and eroding it.
Subsequent commentaries in this series will show how.

Get “Strike!” via EmailGet “Strike!” via Substack DONATE ONLINE

The post Irresistible Greentech Revolution Meets Immovable Trump Counter-Revolution first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

Not long ago, Bengaluru had a different identity. People called it the Garden City, a place of wide, tree-lined roads, quiet lakes, and a climate so gentle it earned the nickname Pensioners’ Paradise. That city still exists in the memories of older residents, in photographs, and in the stories people tell when they are feeling […]

RNs at Research Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo., will hold a rally on Thursday, June 4 to demand immediate action to address what nurses describe as dangerous patient care conditions impacting emergency and surgical services following the Sept. 8, 2025 closure of units that provide labor and delivery, neonatal intensive care, and obstetrics emergency care services.

Today, Montana conservation organizations challenged the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for dramatically weakening a core benchmark for grizzly bear conservation in Montana’s Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. The lawsuit targets the agencies’ approval of the Larabee Hat Vegetation Project—a large-scale logging and road-building project—for abandoning the science on grizzly bear conservation to obscure the project’s significant impacts to the species.

On behalf of Native Ecosystems Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, and the Council on Wildlife and Fish, the Western Environmental Law Center filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana this morning.

The challenge centers on how the agencies define “secure habitat” for grizzly bears—areas free from roads and human development large enough for a bear to safely meet its daily foraging needs. For decades, science has established that secure habitat patches must provide an individual female grizzly adequate space to forage for 24-48 hours without crossing or nearing motorized routes. The scientific community agrees grizzly bears need thousands of acres to meet these daily needs.

USFS and USFWS followed the scientific consensus and used a 2,500-acre minimum secure habitat patch size when they approved the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest’s Forest Plan in 2021. But in April 2025, USFWS quietly reversed course, redefining “secure habitat” outside the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) grizzly recovery zone as patches of just one acre. USFS followed in May 2025, updating its internal guidance to match.

“There is no scientific support for one-acre ‘secure habitat’ patches,” said David Woodsmall, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “The agencies simply redefined the problem away. A one-acre island of forest surrounded by roads isn’t secure habitat—it’s a death trap for a bear trying to survive there. Federal land managers must follow the law, even under the Trump administration, and pulling policy changes like this out of thin air is clearly outside the law.”

The stakes extend well beyond this single instance. The Larabee Hat project sits in the Divide Geographic Area, part of the only public lands corridor connecting the NCDE and Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) grizzly bear recovery zones. Genetic exchange between these two isolated populations is considered essential to grizzly bear recovery in the contiguous U.S.

“The adverse cumulative impacts of this project would be devastating to wildlife and wildlife habitat, native plants, and aquatic species, which demonstrates why this project generates absolutely no net public benefit,” said Steve Kelly with Council on Wildlife and Fish. “It makes no ecological or financial sense to degrade irreplaceable, untrammeled native forest into failed tree plantations and marginal pastureland for subsidized livestock at great taxpayer expense.”

The project proposes logging on nearly 17,700 acres, including 1,266 acres of clearcuts, more than 1,850 acres of other timber harvest, and 16.8 miles of new temporary roads over the next 15 to 20 years.

Under the old 2,500-acre definition, the Divide Geographic Area contained approximately 41,531 acres of secure habitat. Under the new one-acre definition, that number jumps to 59,143 acres—an artificial increase of more than 17,000 acres that makes the landscape appear far healthier for bears than it actually is.

“We won a court case on a similar issue last year in which the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service tried to shrink the definition of secure habitat for grizzlies from 2,500 acres to 10 acres, which is ridiculous for these wide-ranging bears,” said Mike Garrity, executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. “The Judge said in the ruling: ‘In relying on a 10-acre patch size to define grizzly bear secure habitat in the absence of any scientific evidence showing that such acreage provides adequate habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to use the ‘best available science’ in violation of the Endangered Species Act,’ adding ‘grizzly bears in other ecosystems have been found to need upwards of 2,500 acres of secure habitat.’”

“Here, the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest secretly shrunk grizzly bear secure habitat to one acre in size without telling the public,” Garrity continued. “The Larabee Hat project area is in an important corridor for grizzlies from the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem to connect with grizzlies from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.  For grizzlies to be delisted, they once again have to have one connected population in the Northern Rockies with secure habitat.”

“Changing the parameters of what qualifies on paper as habitat doesn’t make more habitat,” said Sara Johnson Ph.D., a wildlife biologist for the Forest Service for 14 years. “It just makes it easier to approve more logging and more roads while ignoring the real consequences for grizzly bears. The law doesn’t allow it, and we will apparently have to be the people who say ‘no.’”

This case builds directly on a successful 2025 legal challenge, in which a federal court struck down a similar attempt to shrink grizzly bear secure habitat patch size on the Custer-Gallatin National Forest, finding the approach scientifically unjustified and harmful to bears in fragmented landscapes.

“The court already rejected this approach once,” said Woodsmall. “These agencies are trying the same thing again in a different forest. We intend to stop it again.”

 

Contacts:

David Woodsmall, Western Environmental Law Center, 971-285-3632, woodsmall@westernlaw.org

Mike Garrity, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, 406-459-5936, wildrockies@gmail.com

Steve Kelly, Council on Wildlife and Fish, 406-920-1381, troutcheeks@yahoo.com

The post Lawsuit challenges USFS’, USFWS’ drastic redefinition of “secure habitat” slashing grizzly protections in critical connectivity corridor appeared first on Western Environmental Law Center.

Certain light-duty vehicles have the potential to earn around $3,000 per summer, and school buses $12,000, by enrolling in the state’s virtual power plant, a state program manager said.

A 70-foot geyser of toxic oilfield wastewater erupted near Loving, New Mexico, after a pipe component failed at a disposal site operated by NGL Energy Partners. Loving is located in the Permian region, which produces roughly 6.6 million barrels of crude oil per day. About 40 barrels of wastewater were released, highlighting the growing problem caused by enormous volumes of “produced water” generated during oil and gas extraction.

Produced water is highly saline and can contain petroleum chemicals and radioactive materials. The state recently banned the discharge of treated produced water to ground and surface waters. Most of it is disposed of by injecting it deep underground. However, New Mexico’s oil boom has led to rapidly increasing wastewater volumes—more than 2.7 billion barrels in 2025 alone—putting pressure on disposal systems. The state is running out of suitable injection sites, and wastewater injection has been linked to earthquakes, brine leaks, and similar blowouts. In 2024, over 4 million gallons of produced water were spilled by oil and gas companies.

The geyser incident has intensified debate over whether treated produced water should be reused outside the petroleum industry. Industry advocates say that advanced treatment could turn it into a valuable water source and reduce disposal pressures, but the water’s composition is not fully understood, large-scale treatment remains unproven, and reuse could create new health and environmental risks.

Quick hits Trump nullifies 50 years of limitations on off-highway vehicles

E&E News | Yahoo News

Public lands face increasing threats in Trump era, advocates warn

Axios

More than 95% of national refuge lands could allow more hunting

KUNC

Opinion: The Forest Service is too important to be a political pawn

Los Angeles Times

Trump’s wildfire overhaul faces a pivotal review

E&E News

Interior appeals ruling vacating endangered species regulations

Bloomberg Law

Wyoming’s ‘Path of the Pronghorn’ is a signature away from protections

WyoFile

New political players have upended a fragile peace in Colorado’s oil and gas wars

Colorado Sun

Quote of the day

If the federal government is going to move the Forest Service, reorganize its parts and further downsize this agency, every American should demand that key questions be answered first. Members of Congress should lead the charge through effective and bipartisan oversight.”

—Dan Glickman and Ann Veneman, former secretaries of Agriculture, Los Angeles Times

Picture This

@Interior

From neighborhood parks to remote wilderness, America is full of places to relax, explore, and make lasting memories. Whether you’re hiking a trail, paddling a river, or watching a sunset, everyone can celebrate Great Outdoors Month and enjoy the natural splendor of our country.

 

Feature image: Permian Basin oil and gas development; Source; SkyTruth/Flickr

The post 70-foot wastewater geyser erupts in New Mexico oilfield appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

By Cecilia Allen, Global Zero Waste Cities Program Director, GAIA

(c) Nipe Fagio

Lo que antes se consideraba un sueño de idealistas,  «basura cero» es ahora una corriente dominante. Incluso ha entrado en el lenguaje de la ONU: el organismo elaboró una resolución en la que instaba a los gobiernos a «promover iniciativas basura cero», estableció un Día Internacional Basura Cero y creó un Consejo Asesor Basura Cero; además, el PNUMA, ONU-Hábitat y otros organismos de la ONU utilizan el concepto en campañas e informes. Este año, basura cero fue nombrado una de las principales prioridades de la Agenda Global de Acción Climática. La Fundación Basura Cero de Turquía, uno de los principales promotores de estos esfuerzos, está organizando su segundo Foro Global Basura Cero bajo el lema «Camino a Antalya: basura cero como acción climática». Turquía será la anfitriona de la COP31 sobre el clima.

Si bien este avance es emocionante, las palabras importan. Cuando los mismos organismos de la ONU que se supone deben promover basura cero reconocen las plantas de incineración de residuos para generar energía y la reutilización de las cenizas volantes altamente tóxicas de los incineradores como una solución basura cero, significa que algo anda mal. Del mismo modo, cuando Pakistán afirma que busca una economía “basura  cero” al aumentar la capacidad de conversión de residuos en energía, las alarmas suenan entre los defensores de basura cero en todo el mundo: la incineración es un oxímoron para basura cero. Lo que nos muestran estos ejemplos es que es necesario adoptar y defender enérgicamente una verdadera definición de basura cero.

¿Qué es basura cero?

El concepto «basura cero» surgió hace 30 años al adaptar objetivos de fabricación como el de «cero defectos» a los residuos sólidos. Basura Cero es tanto una visión como un plan de acción. Como plan de acción, incluye estrategias para eliminar la idea de «basura»: prevención de residuos, rediseño, reutilización, cambios en los patrones de consumo, reciclaje, compostaje y otros métodos para re procesar la materia orgánica. Basura Cero se guía por el objetivo de reducir progresivamente el vertido en vertederos e incineradoras, un criterio para juzgar la eficacia de los programas y políticas de residuos.

Como visión, su objetivo final es cambiar la forma en que producimos, consumimos y procesamos los desechos para que nuestra economía de materiales se ajuste a los límites planetarios. Esto no solo se refiere a los materiales, sino a nuestra relación con ellos, con el medio ambiente y entre nosotros. Es por eso que «basura cero» tiene sus raíces en la justicia ambiental: apoya el florecimiento de todos, independientemente de la raza, la clase o cualquier otra identidad, y los derechos de la naturaleza. Los sistemas basura cero se basan en la comunidad, reconocen a los recolectores de residuos como trabajadores, eliminan las «zonas de sacrificio» que suponen una carga desproporcionada para las comunidades pobres y marginadas, y sitúan a las personas en el centro de las soluciones.

Esa es la belleza del sistema basura cero: ofrece una alternativa alentadora a un sistema lineal que perpetúa la eliminación, el agotamiento de los recursos, el cambio climático y la contaminación que amenazan la salud pública y el bienestar. No sucederá de la noche a la mañana, pero establece una dirección clara.

Defender basura cero

Existen múltiples debates dentro del movimiento ambientalista sobre la cooptación del concepto basura cero. ¿Debemos dejarlo pasar? ¿Defenderlo? Hay argumentos sólidos en todos los lados de la mesa. Pero nuestro objetivo es expandir el verdadero basura cero a nivel mundial. La generalización significa que las ideas se aceptan como normales porque la mayoría de la gente las comparte; eso es por lo que miles de comunidades, funcionarios gubernamentales y empresas han trabajado durante décadas. Luchar contra esta apropiación es, por lo tanto, una parte inevitable de la generalización.

Cada vez que se presenta un proyecto de conversión de residuos en energía o de plásticos en combustible como «basura cero», las autoridades en la materia deben aclarar las cosas. La incineración de residuos para generar energía perpetúa la generación de residuos porque requiere materia prima para quemar, compite con la reutilización y el reciclaje por materiales de alto poder calorífico, depende de materias primas de origen fósil como los plásticos, produce emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero y genera residuos peligrosos. Nada de eso podría estar más lejos del concepto basura cero.

Lo más importante es que el concepto basura cero no es solo un concepto abstracto.

Durante más de tres décadas, cientos de ciudades, miles de comunidades y muchos profesionales del sector de los residuos han liderado la transición hacia él. Han demostrado que es posible lograr más del 90% de separación en origen, tasas de desvío del 80% o más, mejores condiciones de trabajo para los recolectores de residuos y economías locales basadas en la reparación y la reutilización. También demuestran que seguir la jerarquía de residuos crea más empleos, reduce más las emisiones de metano y mejora la salud pública.

Facilitar la implementación de la iniciativa «basura cero» 

En los últimos años, más gobiernos, instituciones financieras, universidades y profesionales del sector de los residuos han adoptado la visión «basura cero» y han priorizado las medidas en las etapas iniciales por encima de la eliminación. Eso es alentador, pero se necesita mucho más. Por ejemplo, solo el 1 % de la financiación internacional destinada a la reducción de metano en el sector de los residuos se destina a estrategias «basura cero», como el compostaje.

Si los bancos multilaterales de desarrollo y otras instituciones financieras internacionales destinaran el 99 % restante, en lugar de a sistemas nocivos de tratamiento final como incineradoras y megavertederos, a la prevención y recuperación de residuos orgánicos a nivel comunitario, se nivelaría el campo de juego: habría más incentivos para un cambio en los patrones de producción y consumo, y los gobiernos locales y las comunidades acelerarían la transición hacia basura cero. Si los gobiernos que afirman perseguir basura cero actuaran en consecuencia, liderarían la transición e inspirarían a otros.

Los organismos de la ONU, como el PNUMA, ONU-Hábitat y el Consejo Asesor Basura Cero, tienen la responsabilidad especial de establecer una visión clara para los gobiernos y las instituciones, y promover una agenda auténtica basura cero para impulsar la sostenibilidad ambiental, la equidad social y los sistemas económicos que respeten los límites naturales.Mientras continuamos trabajando hacia un futuro basura cero, honremos su verdadero espíritu, que impulsa el cambio de los sistemas. Y apoyemos y ampliemos los programas y políticas de eficacia probada que los gobiernos, las comunidades, los recolectores de residuos, las ONG y las empresas están sosteniendo. Protejamos el término y honremos la práctica: pongamos en práctica el verdadero basura cero.

Rommel Cabrera/GAIA, 2019. Waste pickers collecting separated waste from households. Tacloban City, the Philippines.

The post En defensa del verdadero espíritu  «basura cero» first appeared on GAIA.

A new report from National Nurses United finds that three major Catholic hospital systems have spent the last decade leading the health care industry in the closures of pediatric care units. Among the country’s ten biggest hospital chains, three Catholic systems (Ascension, CommonSpirit, and Trinity) shuttered pediatric units at the highest rates of any major systems.

Nurses from National Nurses United will protest in St. Louis on June 3. Nurses first plan to protest outside the district office of U.S. Representative Wesley Bell to call on him to return and refuse campaign contributions from Palantir and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

This factsheet shows that Ontario can easily accommodate enough solar and wind installations to meet the projected provincial demand for electricity in 2050.  These options will be lower cost and faster to deploy than new nuclear. Read the factsheet

The post Does Ontario Need New Nuclear to Keep its Lights on in 2050? appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies will need to be deployed at rates even faster than those seen for solar power, if the world is to have a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C by 2100, says a new report.

Nearly all pathways to meeting the Paris Agreement’s highest ambition of keeping global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in 2100 involve CDR techniques – ranging from tree-planting to sucking CO2 from air with machines.

This is in addition to steep and immediate emissions cuts.

Scientists expect carbon emissions to push warming beyond 1.5C in the decade ahead, meaning that the target can only be achieved “from above” via large-scale CDR that brings down global temperatures.

These temperature trajectories are known as “overshoot” pathways.

The third “state of CDR” report, written by more than 50 scientists, says that countries’ current CDR plans would fall short of what is needed to limit warming to 1.5C by more than 5bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) per year by 2050.

Global CDR would have to increase fourfold – from 2.2GtCO2 in 2026 to 8.75GtCO2 by 2050 – to have a chance of meeting the 1.5C target by 2100, according to the report.

It adds that deploying CDR can be a “gradual process”, making the period 2026-30 “crucial” for “establishing CDR’s role in limiting climate damages” in the future.

Below, Carbon Brief covers the key findings of the third state of CDR report. (This follows from Carbon Brief’s coverage of the first report in 2023 and second report in 2024.)

• What is CDR?
• What are current levels of CDR?
• How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?
• What does the science say about the potential and costs of CDR?
• What have governments pledged on CDR?
• What is the current funding and research landscape for CDR?
• How is policy impacting CDR demand?

What is CDR?

According to the report, the definition of CDR is:

“Human activities capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it durably in geological, terrestrial or ocean reservoirs, or in products. This includes human enhancement of natural removal processes but excludes natural uptake not directly caused by anthropogenic [human-caused] activities.”

.innerArt>ol { font-family: 'PT Serif'; font-size: 18px !important; }

In addition to this, the report includes “three key principles” for CDR, which are:

1. The captured CO2 must come from the atmosphere, not from “fossil sources”.
2. The subsequent storage “must be durable”, so that the CO2 is not soon reintroduced to the atmosphere.
3. The removal must result from human intervention that is in addition to Earth’s natural processes.

In this report, a CDR method is considered durable if it is able to lock up carbon for “decades or more”.

The report classifies CDR techniques as either “conventional” or “novel”.

“Convential” CDR techniques are “well established, already deployed at scale and widely reported by countries as part of [land-use] activities”.

The methods included in this group are tree-planting, ecosystem restoration, agroforestry (trees in agriculture), improving soil carbon in croplands and natural lands, and durable wood production.

“Novel” CDR techniques have “lower level of readiness for deployment and, as a consequence, are currently deployed at smaller scales”, says the report.

Some examples of different CDR methods are listed on the graphic below.

The graphic also shows whether carbon is captured through biological or chemical processes, as well as how “ready” the method is and for how long it can store carbon, among other features.

CDR techniques and their characteristics. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report says that CDR is “needed alongside deep and rapid emissions reductions” to give Earth a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C. It continues:

“It should play a smaller role than emissions reductions given uncertainty around the feasible levels of scaling, sustainability limits, storage availability and the risk of reversal, among other constraints. 

“In general, CDR should be seen as a limited resource that will need to be used prudently.”

It adds that CDR can “fulfil three major functions”. 

In the near term, CDR can help reduce “net emissions”, it says.

In the medium term, CDR can “counterbalance residual emissions” to achieve net-zero CO2 or net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, the report continues. 

(“Residual emissions” are those that cannot be eradicated through technologies or societal changes, such as methane emissions from rice production.)

Research suggests that global warming is likely to stop, more or less, once net-zero is achieved globally.

In the long term, CDR can “help achieve net-negative emissions”, a state where CO2 removal exceeds emissions, says the report.

In this state, humans could lower global temperatures. This may allow the world to limit global warming to 1.5C by 2100, even if the temperature target is surpassed earlier on in the century. 

Future trajectories where temperatures exceed the 1.5C limit before being brought back down again through CDR techniques are known as “overshoot” pathways.

Back to top

What are current levels of CDR?

The report says that, at present, “99.9%” of existing CDR is conventional, land-based techniques such as tree-planting and ecosystem restoration.

The world currently removes 2.2GtCO2 per year, equivalent to around 5% of gross global CO2 emissions, it continues.

The largest contributors to removing CO2 from the atmosphere are China, the US, the EU, Brazil and Russia.

The chart below shows the amount of CO2 removed each year over 2014-23 by the largest contributors, through tree-planting (afforestation) and forest restoration (reforestation).

CO2 removed via afforestation and reforestation each year by the world’s largest contributors to current CDR. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

“Novel” CDR, such as biochar and direct air capture, currently removes just 2m tonnes of CO2 annually at present, according to the report.

However, these methods have been growing at a rate of 40% per year – “similar to successful technologies like solar energy, but insufficient for the scale-up required to meet the Paris temperature goal”, says the report.

The graphic below illustrates how the contribution of conventional CDR currently dwarfs novel CDR, but how the latter techniques are quickly growing.

A graphic illustrating the contribution of “conventional” and “novel” to current CDR methods. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report says that investment in CDR companies recovered in 2025 following a dip – and its “share of all climate-tech funding” grew to 2.6%.

The report also notes that, at present, most CDR efforts are unevenly distributed across the world.

For example, two-thirds of conventional CDR in voluntary carbon markets is in Latin America, according to the report. (Voluntary carbon markets are where companies can buy credits for carbon-reducing or removing projects, such as tree-planting, to claim that they have “offset” some of their own emissions.)

In addition, most pilot projects that aim to demonstrate novel CDR methods are located in only a few countries, such as Sweden, Denmark and the US, says the report.

The chart below shows the location and timeline of demonstration projects that have been announced, are under construction or in operation globally.

Location and timeline of demonstration projects that have been announced, are under construction or in operation globally. Credit: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report continues:

“While first-movers play important roles, if their actions do not diffuse more widely, vulnerability emerges, as evidenced by the impact of US climate policy dismantling.”

(For more, see: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)

Back to top

How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?

The report examines three scenarios where global temperature rise is limited to “well below” 2C by 2100:

• A current ambition scenario, based on national climate pledges (but omitting the US);
• A highest-possible ambition scenario;
• A delayed ambition scenario, which is consistent with current targets until 2035 and then switches to the highest ambition scenario.

The pledges considered in the report are “nationally determined contributions”, or NDCs, which countries submit periodically to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). NDCs lay out a country’s climate ambition.

Under the current ambition scenario, the report projects a total of 5.9GtCO2 of CDR by 2050 and 12GtCO2 by 2100. 

This scenario would result in end-of-century warming of 1.7-2.7C. Importantly, the report says, this scenario does not result in the world reaching net-zero CO2 levels, “meaning that global temperatures would continue to rise, albeit at a much more gradual pace, beyond 2100”.

Under the highest-possible ambition scenario, CDR scales up to 8.8GtCO2 by mid-century and 15.3GtCO2 by the end of the century.

This scenario assumes “full buy-in by all nations”, with economics, scale-up and sustainability providing the main constraints on CDR deployment, the report says. 

The highest ambition scenario results in global temperatures peaking at 1.7-1.8C around 2050 and the world achieving net-zero emissions around that time. 

Under the delayed ambition scenario, CDR would scale up to 7GtCO2 by 2050 and 23.6GtCO2 by 2100. This scenario shows global temperatures peaking between 1.7C and 2.0C. 

This scenario requires larger CDR deployment in the long term than the highest-ambition scenario does, due to the larger cumulative emissions caused by delaying deep emissions reductions.

In both the high ambition and delayed ambition scenarios, the world reaches “deeply net-negative CO2 emissions” by 2100, the report says. This continued deployment of CDR will further draw CO2 from the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures back down to 1.5C.

The chart below shows annual global greenhouse gas emissions through the end of the century under current ambition (red), highest ambition (green) and delayed ambition (blue) scenarios.

Annual emissions, in GtCO2e per year, for the three scenarios: current ambition (red), highest ambition (green) and delayed ambition (blue). Source: Edwards et al. (2026)

While global CDR capacity scales up more slowly in the first and third scenarios, the report notes that, in all three cases, “novel CDR reaches gigatonne-scale deployment by 2050”.

Back to top

What does the science say about the potential and costs of CDR?

There is a wide range of both carbon-removal potential and associated costs between different methods of CDR, according to the report.

However, it also notes that these numbers “range widely” in the scientific literature. 

The discrepancies in estimates of carbon-removal potential are due to a number of factors, the report says, including a lack of available scientific data, inconsistencies in the assumptions made in assessing technical feasibility and a lack of agreement on what, exactly, “potential” means.

These elements also influence the cost of different CDR methods, but additional factors – such as deployment costs in different areas, technological approaches and scope – also play a role in establishing price differences. Because of this, the report says, “cost estimates are often difficult to compare across methods, complicating design and policy decisions”.

The chart below shows the reported range of mitigation potential (left) and reported range of costs (right) for different CDR methods. The top four rows indicate conventional CDR methods, while bottom 11 rows show novel CDR methods. The chart refers to “mitigation potential”, rather than removal potential, because some estimates do not distinguish between removals and avoided emissions.

(Avoided emissions refers to the difference in emissions from carrying out a project, compared to a hypothetical alternative – such as the reduced emissions from halting deforestation.)

The darker colours indicate estimates that are more constrained, meaning that they are either based on stricter assumptions or there is more agreement between different estimates.

Annual mitigation potential (left) and cost range per tonne of CO2 (right) for conventional and novel CDR methods. Orange bars indicate the range of values reported, with darker colours indicating less uncertainty about the estimates. Source: Edwards et al. (2026)

The report notes that for most removal methods, the low end of the potential is around 1GtCO2 per year, while the upper limit of costs is more than $200/tCO2.

The least expensive CDR approaches are forestry-based methods, soil-carbon sequestration and biomass burial. For forestry-based methods, the report puts the cost of CDR at $5-$53 per tonne of CO2 removed. Soil-carbon sequestration costs reach as high as $150 per tonne of CO2 removed, but could have negative overall costs “when accounting for crop yield increases potentially resulting” from changed farm-management practices, the report says.

However, it adds that “these CDR methods are typically associated with lower levels of permanence” than other methods.

Other relatively low-cost methods include coastal wetland restoration, biochar, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and enhanced rock weathering, while ocean alkalinity enhancement is a medium-cost option. 

The most expensive methods include direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) and direct ocean carbon capture and storage (DOCCS).

The report also notes that a total estimate of CDR removals cannot be obtained by adding up the removal potential of all of the separate methods, since different methods can compete for scarce resources. For example, BECCS, biochar, biomass burial and biomass sinking all rely on the same base input – biomass – and therefore cannot all be maximised at the same time.

Back to top

What have governments pledged on CDR?

While many countries include some amount of CDR in their national climate plans, there is currently a large gap between the amount of CDR pledged in these plans and the amount that will be needed to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C by the end of the century, says the report.

This quantity is referred to as the “CDR gap” – the difference between what is pledged and what is needed. 

The size of the CDR gap is dependent not just on the pledges made by countries, but also the choice of the “benchmark” scenario against which the pledges are measured. Lower – or delayed – emissions reductions lead to larger shortfalls in the long term, meaning “CDR must subsequently be scaled to very high levels”, says the report.

Current NDCs and other country submissions to the UNFCCC total 2.5GtCO2 per year of removals in 2030, 2.7GtCO2 per year in 2035 and 3.6GtCO2 per year in 2050. 

This gives a CDR gap of 0.3GtCO2 in 2030, 1.2GtCO2 in 2035 and 5.2GtCO2 in 2050, according to the report. These figures are obtained using assumed “immediate, ambitious action at all levels to reduce emissions” and the most-ambitious estimates of CDR set out in national pledges. Together, this provides a “lower bound” for the CDR gap, says the report.

By comparison, a 10-year delay in implementing ambitious emissions reductions will result in the need to remove at least an additional 150GtCO2 from the atmosphere, compared to the most ambitious scenario. (See: How much CDR is needed to reach net-zero goals?)

The report says that the CDR gap has widened since the second state of CDR report was released in 2024, due to the US leaving the Paris Agreement. It adds that other countries have “not delivered a step change in ambition” in their latest round of climate pledges.

It also cautions that “credibility issues with national pledges may mean that the CDR gap is actually larger than what we assess here”.

The report notes that current CDR pledges by companies are “substantially higher than country pledges”, at 5GtCO2 per year in 2050. However, it adds, “credibility in these announcements is low”.

Back to top

What is the current funding and research landscape for CDR?

Funding of CDR research and development – as well as investment in CDR companies – has continued to increase in recent years.

In total, there has been around $5.6bn in grant funding distributed to CDR research since 2005, according to the report’s analysis. Roughly one-third of this has come in the past three years.

Funding for CDR research grants grew 13% each year between 2022 and 2025, the report says, and the corresponding number of research publications grew at a similar rate.

Funding was largely targeted at a handful of key areas, notably soil carbon sequestration, biochar and forest-based CDR. 

DACCS and BECCS only make up a small number of active grants, but together account for around two-fifths of all funding due to “substantially larger” project sizes.

Despite the growth of research grants and scientific publications, the report concludes that early-stage innovation in CDR is “uneven” and says there is “no strong evidence of a step-change”. 

It notes that much of the support for CDR has come from projects with a broader focus, rather than those that focus specifically on CDR.

The authors also point to a decline in “inventive activity”, as measured by patenting of CDR-related innovations. While patenting for emissions-cutting technologies in general has been on an upward trajectory, CDR patenting peaked in 2011.

Meanwhile, the report highlights the “remarkable” sustained investment in CDR companies, against a backdrop of falling investment in climate-related technologies. It notes that CDR now accounts for around 3% of overall “climate-tech funding”.

Yet, again, it says future developments remain “uncertain”. Since the previous 2024 “state of CDR” report, companies have scaled back their ambitions and policy reversals – notably in the US – “underscore that funding uncertainty remains a key barrier”. (See: How is policy impacting CDR demand?)

An upward tick in funding in 2025 was driven primarily by a “surge” in grants from predominantly public institutions, as well as $0.5bn in debt financing for a single BECCS project in Sweden. 

Reliance on such funding sources “highlight[s] the volatility of the CDR innovation ecosystem”, according to the report.

The report also has a chapter focusing on the voluntary carbon market, which it describes as “propelling most of the current demand for novel CDR”.

The scale of this market remains fairly small, with contracts for 0.04GtCO2 of removals signed last year. 

Moreover, the concentration of sales within a small number of buyers – particularly Microsoft – remains a “critical vulnerability”, the authors note. 

Back to top

How is policy impacting CDR demand?

The report analyses CDR policies in G20 nations – which together account for three-quarters of global emissions – to assess how they are acting to support CDR across their economies.

In total, 140 countries have announced net-zero targets, including virtually all of the world’s major emitters. In doing so, the report points out that the governments of these nations have “implicitly included a role for CDR in their climate plans”.

However, this does not always translate into measures specifically designed to scale up CDR. 

Only the EU has adopted a binding, quantified removals target into law – namely, the goal to reach 310m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) of annual net removals in the land sector by 2030.

Overall, conventional CDR is the main focus of policy, with various governments focusing on tree planting to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

Among G20 nations, only the UK and Australia have set specific goals to scale up novel CDR, such as BECCS and DACCS, over the coming decade.

The report highlights some nations, including Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, as taking proactive steps to incentivise CDR. 

The authors point to national strategies, financial support for CDR and efforts to integrate it into emissions trading systems (ETS) as examples of effective policy making.

(The report also stresses that the US, which was previously a “leader” on CDR, has now “frozen or dismantled funding and support” for CDR under the Trump administration.)

Most of the successful policies highlighted in the report focus on supporting the supply of CDR, with “less attention so far on creating demand”. 

This is significant because CDR “generally lacks a natural market”, meaning there are not automatically buyers willing to spend money on emissions removals. Therefore, the authors say, policy interventions are important to create markets and boost demand.

“Compliance” carbon credits – referring to credits that can be used to meet legally mandated emissions targets – provide a way to support demand, according to the report authors. 

Only some ETSs, such as those used in New Zealand and Australia, allow the use of credits based on forest-related removals for compliance. (It is worth noting that such credits are controversial, as removals by forests are not always permanent.)

The report also highlights the need for “foundational policies to create a governance framework for CDR, including rules for quantification of removal, guidelines for community engagement and the minimisation of negative environmental impacts”.

Back to top

Overshoot: Exploring the implications of meeting 1.5C climate goal ‘from above’

Global temperature

|

08.10.25

Negative emissions: Scientists debate role of CO2 removal in tackling climate change

Negative emissions

|

26.06.24

Nine key takeaways about the ‘state of CO2 removal’ in 2024

Negative emissions

|

04.06.24

CO2 removal ‘gap’ shows countries ‘lack progress’ for 1.5C warming limit

Negative emissions

|

03.05.24

jQuery(document).ready(function() { jQuery('.block-related-articles-slider-block_2bd3d79ad421b87c92a5450e024d1e6c .mh').matchHeight({ byRow: false }); });

The post Q&A: The current state of ‘carbon dioxide removal’ around the world appeared first on Carbon Brief.

The Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente, launched a new Food is Medicine Toolkit to provide clinicians and medical practitioners an evidence-based guide to improve health outcomes through nutrition interventions.

“If you care about health, nutrition has to be at the top of the list. Not top five, not top three, top of the list. Poor nutrition is the single leading cause of death and disability in the United States and around the world,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian—Director of the Tufts University Food is Medicine Institute.

“We need to make sure that we’re implementing the right programs… built on the most promising evidence… so that they can be most effective. Because at the end of the day, what we want is improved health outcomes and lower cost of care,” asserts Pam Schwartz, Executive Director of Community Health at Kaiser Permanente. The Toolkit is designed to help practitioners and patients alike, featuring comprehensive modules and infographics based on the most relevant dietetic evidence.

The toolkit offers templates for structuring food is medicine (FIM) programs tailored to fit the needs of specific institutions and patient populations, recognizing that “there is no single best model.” These templates aim to assist care teams with community partnerships and the successful implementation of FIM interventions.

While coverage for healthcare-administered dietary intervention programs varies across states, the Toolkit represents a positive shift in how clinicians and patients understand the relationship between food and personal health.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Eduardo Cano, Unsplash

The post Putting Food at the Forefront: Tufts Unveils New Toolkit for Clinicians appeared first on Food Tank.

By 2050, recycling could fulfill half of Europe’s demand for critical raw materials, according to a new analysis. The final report of the European Union-funded Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials (FutuRaM) project provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of what the authors call Europe’s “urban mine”—seven different waste streams that contain materials necessary for green energy, digital technology, and modern industry.

Critical raw materials are a set of 42 elements identified by EU officials as key to the green transition but vulnerable to supply chain disruptions due to geopolitics. They include materials needed for batteries, electric vehicles, and solar and wind power infrastructure.

Today these materials are mostly sourced from outside the EU, including cobalt from China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, lithium from China and Australia, and platinum from South Africa. Such materials may be reusable in theory, but are often lost when products containing them are discarded today.

In the new study, researchers took stock of critical raw materials across all 27 countries in the EU, plus the UK, Switzerland, Iceland, and Norway. They mapped several waste streams containing these materials in greater detail than a previous iteration of the project had done, and added a few more.

The new analysis details critical raw materials in electrical and electronic waste; end-of-life vehicles; batteries; retired wind turbines; industrial slags and ashes; debris from building construction and demolition; and mining waste.

The researchers made their data available on the Urban Mine Platform, a website that helps visualize critical materials in waste streams across the bloc using a common and transparent methodology.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:Engineers create dissolving circuit boards that can be recycled over and over again

 

In 2022, 5.2 million metric tons of critical raw materials were embedded in goods that entered the market, with 2.1 million metric tons embedded in discarded wastes and 1.4 million metric tons recovered, the researchers calculated.

A greater and greater mass of critical raw materials will be in circulation as electrification, renewable energy, and digital technologies accelerate. By 2050, between 8.4 and 12.2. million metric tons of critical materials could be placed on the market annually, annual waste generation could reach 5.2 to 6.4 million metric tons, and recovery could be 4.7 to 5.7 million metric tons.

More critical raw materials in circulation means more potential for recovery even in a business-as-usual scenario. On the current trajectory, recycling could replace about one-third of new critical raw materials needed by 2050. That figure rises to 47% with better recovery systems and up to 56% if strong efforts are made to develop a circular economy.

Currently, five critical raw materials including platinum and rhodium have well developed recycling programs and with recovery rates over 80%. But as many as 17 of the elements, including cobalt, lithium, and rare earth metals such as dysprosium and neodymium, could achieve recovery rates of more than 80% by 2050, the researchers assessed.

Recycling critical raw materials would improve the security of supply chains and enhance Europe’s technological and industrial independence, the report argues.

It would also save carbon emissions. Already, the net climate benefit of recycling critical raw materials from European waste streams amounts to about 39 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. By 2050, the emissions benefit could reach just over 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Unlike past assessments, the new report moves beyond quantifying the amount of materials present in waste streams and analyzes which ones are actually recoverable into usable secondary materials. The researchers adapted a UN approach to assess the feasibility of mining and energy projects to apply it to recycling. An online tool based on this rubric will help gauge which recycling efforts are most worth pursuing, reducing uncertainty for investors and aiding scale-up of recycling infrastructure.

Source: Iattoni G. et al. “Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials: Project Final Report.” 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.

Eventos Próximos eventos Reflexiones sobre la seguridad en una época de profunda crisis civilizatoria Este es el primero de una serie de seminarios web que dará inicio al ciclo con un debate conceptual sobre la seguridad en una época de profunda crisis civilizatoria. Se analizará cómo se ha concebido tradicionalmente la seguridad a través del orden internacional, el Estado-nación, la soberanía, la militarización y la gestión de amenazas, al tiempo que se cuestionará cómo las comunidades y l…

Democracia radical: recuperando las raíces del autogobierno y la autonomía - Presentación de un folleto desde Indonesia Día y horario * Día: 15 de abril * Hora: 11am GMT * Formato: Evento híbrido Introducción Ante la escalada de crisis globales —el colapso climático, el agravamiento de las desigualdades económicas y el dominio persistente de los sistemas neoliberales—, la necesidad de repensar la democracia nunca ha sido tan urgente.

[ Tejedores] TGA es una “red de redes”. Cada una de esas redes actúa en diferentes partes del planeta identificando y conectando Alternativas. Son los Tejedores. [ Apoyos] Diversas organizaciones progresitas, post-desarrollo y/o anti-capitalistas apoyan esta iniciativa. Tambien lo hacen académicos, activistas y referentes.GTAGTAGTA

Global of [Weavers] GTA is a “network of networks”. Each of those networks acts in different parts of the planet by identifying and connecting Alternatives. They are the Weavers. [Endorsements] Many progressive, post-developent and anticapitalist organizations around the world endorse this initiative. Also many academics, activists and referents do so.GTAGTAWeaversGTAGTAalternativesAlternatives