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Much like human languages, the vocalizations of sperm whales evolve over time, as disparate populations of whales develop distinct dialects. A new study shows how an isolated population of sperm whales in the eastern Mediterranean developed its own dialect based on vocalizations used by other whales.

Read more on E360 →

Headline News:

• “Giant Shipping Firm Dips A Small Toe Into Wind Power ” • DHL’s latest decarbonization step is being enabled by its French branch, VELA Transportation. VELA has focused it business on pallets packed into ships that are small enough to be pushed across the Atlantic crossing, with wind power alone providing for their propulsion. [CleanTechnica]

Cargo catamaran (Courtesy of VELA Transportation)

• “Groups Launch Ads Targeting Colorado’s Third District Over Big Oil Immunity Effort” • This week the Sierra Club and Make Polluters Pay released a series of ads targeting Representative Jeff Hurd and raising awareness in Colorado’s 3rd district about a congressional Republican effort to give fossil fuel corporations immunity from climate damages. [CleanTechnica]
• “Congress passes war powers resolution, offering rare rebuke of Trump” • The Senate adopted an Iran war powers resolution by a 50-48 vote in a symbolic, yet rare, rebuke of President Donald Trump. Four Republican Senators, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul, voted for the resolution. It had passed earlier this month in the House. [ABC News]
• “Trump Administration Announces $17.5 Billion In Loans For Ten New Large Nuclear Reactors” • The Trump administration is providing $17.5 billion to speed development of ten large nuclear reactors to meet the rising power demands of big data centers. Nuclear plant construction could begin by 2030 and they could start operating in the mid-2030s. [ABC News]
• “‘No Immunity for Big Oil’ Campaign Delivers 135K Signatures to Democratic Leadership” • Former Washington Governor Jay Inslee and the “No Immunity for Big Oil” campaign will deliver a letter signed by 390 organizations and over 135,000 people to Congress urging rejection of proposals to shield fossil fuels from accountability. [Center for Climate Integrity]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Colombia and the Netherlands, which co-hosted the first conference the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels earlier this year, say they have held “constructive” discussions on bringing the meeting’s outcomes to the COP31 climate summit.

Speaking on the sidelines of London Climate Action Week, the outgoing Colombian environment minister and Dutch climate policy minister, said COP31 presidencies Australia and Türkiye were “open” to suggestions on how to reflect the discussions in Santa Marta on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas at the end-of-year summit.

What format this might take, “we don’t know yet,” said Colombian minister Irene Vélez Torres.

“We had this very interesting conversation with COP31 and they were clearly open for suggestions about what is needed in the discussion in Türkiye, and we were explicit about the need to engage with the phasing out of fossil fuels,” she said.

• Jun 18, 2026 News Bonn climate talks end in “gridlock” on adaptation and emissions-cutting Splits between developed and developing countries over finance and science held back progress on key areas of climate action, leaving disappointment and much work for COP31 Read more
• Jun 18, 2026 Comment The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation Consultations are underway on reforms to streamline the talks, which take too long to produce outcomes that are often not adequate to tackle the scale of the climate crisis Read more

Australia and Türkiye will jointly preside over the COP31 climate conference, which is taking place in the Turkish resort city of Antalya in November. Türkiye will lead on the action agenda, referring to initiatives that lie outside of the formal negotiations, while Australia will chair the negotiations.

Dutch minister Stientje van Veldhoven said the outcomes of the Santa Marta conference could be part of COP31’s action agenda,

“We are here to facilitate action on one particular part of what COP has agreed to do, namely transitioning away fossil fuels so there is a very logical connection to the COP process, and we will make sure that we continue to bring this coalition of the willing, this coalition of the doers back into the COP process,” she said.

At the event in London, UN secretary-general António Guterres urged countries to reduce their fossil fuel dependencies, arguing that “economies based on renewables are much more secure than economies based on the imports of fossil fuels”. He added that the transition to renewables is “unstoppable”.

European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels

Including the fossil fuel transition in UN climate negotiations, rather than the action agenda, is likely to be controversial among governments. While nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels at COP28, at COP30 last year Saudi Arabia, Russia and others successfully opposed a push to agree for a roadmap to be drawn up on how to meet this goal.

Despite the lack of agreement, the Brazilian government which presided over COP30, is drawing up a global roadmap. But the Russian government has said it opposes this roadmap being referenced in UN climate talks.

Finding agreement on referencing the Santa Marta process in UN climate talks is also likely to be difficult. Last week in Bonn, the chair of the African Group of Negotiators, Antwi-Boasiako Amoah from Ghana, criticised “minilateral initiatives and coalitions of the willing” as distracting political attention and lacking the legitimacy that comes from multilateral climate negotiations, where any country can veto anything.

Strengthening the COP process

The Santa Marta conference kick-started a diplomatic process outside of the formal UN climate negotiations to offer a space for governments to make progress and find solutions to wean their economies away from fossil fuels.

Around 60 countries, including many large fossil-fuel producers attended the meeting after being frustrated by failed attempts to get UN climate talks to sign off on the global roadmap away from fossil fuels. They agreed to work towards voluntary national roadmaps away from fossil fuels.

A 170-page report summarising the outcome of the conference published on Tuesday says that the Santa Marta coalition of countries will seek to influence the formal UN negotiations.

The report says Colombia proposed to build “a strong coalition to bring these discussions to the second Global Stocktake”, a process in which countries will review climate progress and agree on measures forward at COP33 in 2028.

A sign shows the logo and themes of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, April 2026 (Photo: Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development)

Colombia also suggested organizing “a high-level event during the next COP presidency” to discuss Santa Marta outcomes, while Italy proposed an event during the UN General Assembly.

“We will make sure that Santa Marta conference is not a separate, parallel process to the COP” but “strengthens” the negotiations without becoming a formal part of them, said van Veldhoven, adding that the process will remain “a conversation” to demonstrate that transforming economies away from fossil fuels is possible.

COP30 CEO Ana Toni from Brazil told a separate event in London that the response to the second Global Stocktake “will probably need several pages” to deliver an agreed commitment to transition away from fossil fuels. The Santa Marta report says that Brazil’s global roadmap should also be included in the response.

Colombian election signals u-turn

Colombia, which has been one of the most proactive countries promoting a global transition away from fossil fuels, is likely to reverse course after the election of right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella as the country’s new president at a general election on Sunday.

The newly elected president has branded himself as an ally of US president Donald Trump, and has promised to reverse a current halt on new coal, oil and gas licenses, as well as venture into “responsible fracking” without overlapping with protected areas or high-mountain páramo ecosystems.

Vélez Torres said the current Colombian government has already “delivered to the international community and to our sub-national forces, social forces, movements, academia” a process to keep the energy transition moving forward.

She told Climate Home News she hoped the work the government had done could be picked up by social movements in Colombia to demand change from the incoming government. “What we did cannot be erased, and we have had our voices heard, and we have been as radical as any other government could have been.”

The minister said the elections have left the country facing a “dark night” that “can really shift the politics in terms of energy transition and environmental protection”, but said she is certain that their “legacy will continue being there”.

The post COP31 presidency ‘open’ to reflecting Santa Marta in UN climate process, ministers say appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Kwami Kpondzo – Extractive Industries, Tourism and Infrastructure Campaign Coordinator at Global Forest Coalition.

‎‎Time is running out, yet countries continue to pursue solutions that ultimately fuel the climate crisis by allowing polluters to carry on with business as usual. These so-called solutions include, among others, REDD+ and carbon markets.

‎The three-day REDD+ Global Summit held in Nairobi from 19 to 21 May 2026 made it clear that REDD+ initiatives are primarily projects that facilitate the financialisation of nature. Countries are seeking opportunities to generate funding rather than addressing the root causes of the climate crisis.

The gathering in Nairobi gave more fuel to countries to get involved in REDD+ projects. For some countries present at the summit, such as Togo, Senegal, and Mali, they were trying to better understand the process in order to get involved. Countries want to get involved in REDD+ projects for benefit purposes only. This means multiplying danger for Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and women and youth who are the real guardians of forests. 

From the presentations, mainly from the World Bank, VERRA, EMERGENT and Conservation International, it seemed clear that their approach was to draw countries’ attention to the benefits they will gain from REDD+ rather than putting emphasis on the social and environmental safeguards mechanisms under the Warsaw framework. The traditional and local knowledge were not at the centre of the discussion, even though it is a crucial issue in REDD+ projects.

‎The Warsaw Framework for REDD+, adopted at COP19 in 2013 and expanded at COP21 in 2015, includes measures on social and environmental safeguards. Decision 15/CP.19 addresses the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation, while Decision 17/CP.21 provides further guidance on ensuring transparency, consistency, comprehensiveness, and effectiveness in reporting how all safeguards referenced in Decision 1/CP.16, Appendix I, are being addressed and respected. REDD+ is now firmly embedded in Article 5.2 of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement.

Environmental integrity is at the heart of the Warsaw Framework and is composed of three key concepts: Transparency, which requires countries to publish monitoring data such as satellite images and inventories; Verification, which involves monitoring compliance with social and environmental safeguards—including the rights of local communities, Indigenous peoples, and biodiversity—and obliges countries to involve an independent body to confirm the amount of CO₂ avoided; and Adjustments, which require the host country to record emission reductions in its registry and authorize a portion to be transferred as carbon credits to another country or company, while avoiding double counting. If adjustment measures are respected, carbon credits can then be used under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement or in voluntary markets.

This REDD+ summit was held to lend credibility to the REDD+ process and to provide opportunities for organisations such as VERRA, Conservation International, EMERGENT, etc. to share information on the tools that support the smooth running of the REDD+ process. These organisations are mainly into the voluntary Carbon Market, which operates outside the UNFCCC compliance framework”, said Kwami Kpondzo – Extractive Industries, Tourism and Infrastructure Campaign Coordinator at Global Forest Coalition.

Before the adoption of the Warsaw Framework and its additions, several REDD+ projects were implemented in different regions, and their assessments revealed similar negative consequences. The Mai Ndombe REDD+ project, which began in 2011, was carried out by two North American companies—Environmental Restoration Associates (ERA) and Wildlife Works Carbon (WWC). These projects resulted in the misappropriation of funds intended for REDD+ activities on the ground, preventing the equitable sharing of benefits. Project managers did not obtain free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) from communities before establishing the programme. Communities were not adequately informed about REDD+, and the project failed to consider customary land rights, preventing communities from claiming their rights to carbon. It also failed to honor commitments made in various protocols signed between project promoters and the communities involved.

The Guaraqueçaba Climate Action Project is a forest conservation initiative covering nearly 19,000 hectares in Paraná, Brazil. Launched in 2001 by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and SPVS, it is one of the world’s first carbon offset projects funded by major US companies—American Electric Power, Chevron, and General Motors—all historically among the largest greenhouse gas emitters. The project led to loss of livelihoods and forced displacement, as well as the erosion of traditional knowledge and connection to the land. It also resulted in increased militarization and police presence, with local and Indigenous communities facing restrictions on their traditional ways of life.

The implementation of REDD+ projects following the Warsaw Framework has resulted in the same negative impacts as earlier initiatives.

A 2018 review by the Centre for International Forestry Research found that REDD+ had failed to deliver tangible results on biodiversity conservation or on supporting the livelihoods and sustainable development of forest-dependent communities. The review noted that the real drivers of forest loss were often overlooked by powerful actors involved in REDD+ policies and projects. There was a lack of clarity about who benefited from REDD+ and the extent of those benefits, and there was limited meaningful participation for rights-holders in REDD+ projects. Too often, local needs were ignored, and the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent for Indigenous Peoples—as well as tenure and forest governance rights in general—were seldom properly respected. Furthermore, most REDD+ strategies were found to be gender-blind and insufficiently addressed the specific rights, roles, needs, and aspirations of women.

The concept and operationalisation of REDD+ remain unclear. As a result, the implementation of REDD+ projects often appears designed to confuse Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and even the countries where these projects take place.

The first UNFCCC REDD+ summit held in Nairobi in May 2026 highlighted diminishing possibilities for accessing funding to continue forest conservation and carbon offsetting projects in the future. This raises an important question: Why invest existing funds in projects that fail to solve the climate crisis, destroy the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities, and distract countries from taking real climate action?

Instead of halting deforestation and forest degradation, REDD+ has commodified forests and forest life as carbon, rather than recognising their intrinsic value. These projects even count monoculture tree plantations as forests, misleadingly presenting reduced deforestation figures while ignoring the destruction of primary forests and biodiversity. In reality, monoculture plantations are harmful, are not true forests, and do not store carbon as primary forests do. Where do the carbon credits to be sequestered, sold, and turned into profit actually come from? 

It is clear that polluters want to continue emitting CO₂, which is why they support REDD+ processes and carbon trading schemes. Is REDD+ truly a solution to climate change? We are losing forests at an alarming rate despite the proliferation of REDD+ projects. Now is the time to consider alternative approaches.

In this time of escalated imperialist aggression by the United States and its allies, Cuba faces renewed threat of military aggression, compounding more than six decades of counter-insurgency and illegal blockades led by the United States. It is imperative that we uphold the Cuban people’s fight for liberation, itself situated in a long history of revolutionary resistance. Science for the People stands with Cuba in their struggle against US imperialism, and reiterates the call by the National Network on Cuba (NNOC) to unite to stop US military escalation and the blockade. 

We condemn in the strongest terms the decades-long economic and military blockade against Cuba enforced by the United States and its allies. The blockade has cost Cuba 134 billion USD over more than sixty years (12 million USD daily), and has contributed to severe hunger, healthcare crises, and deaths in Cuba [1]. Despite this long-running, crippling combination of economic/technological sanctions and blockade, the Cuban revolution is ongoing. We see evidence for this in the revolutionary advancements in people-centric science and medicine in Cuba: their commitment to sustainable agriculture, effective training of scientific personnel, leadership in medical education and medical internationalism, and vaccine deployment both domestically and internationally. 

From 1962 onwards, Cuba’s National Immunization Program has successfully eliminated numerous life-threatening infectious diseases, including polio, malaria, measles, and rubella. The number of medical doctors per capita in Cuba (7.5 per 1000 people) is nearly three times that in the United States After the revolution, Cuba’s infant mortality rate dropped and life expectancy rose significantly. Cuba also provides a model for people-centric scientific advancements outside of the medical sphere. The national literacy campaign of 1961 drastically reduced illiteracy in Cubans over ten years of age from 23% to 3%, in just one year. In the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Cubans trained as scientists and engineers—totaling 1.8 researchers per 1000 people, which is significantly above the Latin American average (0.4) and approaches that of Europe (2.0). As of 2006, Cuba has demonstrated a commitment to sustainable agriculture, with a 95% reduction in the annual use of chemical pesticides compared to the 1980s [2]. As of the mid-2010s, women account for almost half of Cuba’s science and technology personnel. Even with long-running and ongoing oppression by the United States, Cuba provides a beacon of inspiration for what is possible when people and governments create a society where science serves the people. 

Continuing our long history of Cuban solidarity via political education, resource sharing, material aid, and direct visits, we urge SftP members and supporters (as well as all anti-imperialist scientists) to join the global movement for an organized peoples’ struggle against Western hegemony and the US war machine. The core demands of the international No War on Cuba Campaign at present are:

1. An end to all military escalation against Cuba,
2. The removal of Cuba from the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list,
3. An end to the economic blockade,
4. The return of Guantánamo Bay to the Cuban people,
5. And normalized relations between the United States and Cuba.

The revolutionary Cuban advancements in science, medicine, education, literacy, and sustainability are currently suffering under the increasing economic and military pressure being applied by the United States. Over 80% of people living in Cuba have spent their entire lives under the blockade, and the US government’s most recent escalation since January 2026 has drastically increased the deliberate starvation of the Cuban people. The island’s historically low infant mortality rate is creeping back up, and its National Immunization Program is now at serious risk because of economic and technological restrictions [3]. Cubans are currently suffering from over 20 hours of power outages daily, and children on the island are no longer receiving their state-subsidized milk rations. Make no mistake: these are the genocidal effects of an inhumane blockade being sustained by the US empire, targeted directly at the Cuban people.

We echo the campaign’s call for an International Week of Action from June 28th through July 4th, and are responding with locating and collecting material aid. Please fill out the survey to get involved and contribute to the supply drive. In addition, please find the linked NNOC resources for organizing your own local events, power mapping, and preparing for a coordinated National Rapid Response. 

Now is the time to act materially for the international movement in solidarity with Cuba and oppressed peoples of the world. We fight in solidarity with Cuba, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and against the US empire, to build a future in which all peoples can flourish in equality and dignity. ¡Cuba sí, bloqueo no! ¡Viva Cuba Libre!

—

[1] https://misiones.cubaminrex.cu/en/articulo/cubas-report-2018-resolution-724-united-nations-general-assembly-entitled-necessity-ending#_Toc518654274

[2] Helen Yaffe, We are Cuba!: How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World (Yale University Press, 2020).

[3] https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18mDAjPLnC/

June 23, 2026 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Statement on Tenth Circuit Decision over long-running attack on National Monuments – 6.23.26 Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments remain protected following 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Denver, CO – Today, the federal 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision on an appeal brought in August 2023 by the State of Utah, Blue Ribbon Coalition, and others challenging President Biden’s October 2021 use of the Antiquities Act to restore the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments. The Circuit Court’s decision did three principal things: (1) it reversed the district court’s dismissal of the underlying lawsuits brought by Utah and others, (2) it affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the Blue Ribbon Coalition and other individual plaintiffs, and (3) it remanded the case to the district court to consider whether President Biden’s 2021 orders were lawful. Below is a statement from SUWA Legal Director Steve Bloch and additional information.  

“Today’s decision confirms a key point that the lower court previously got wrong: federal courts can hear challenges to a president’s use of the Antiquities Act to establish or diminish a national monument,” said Steve Bloch, Legal Director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “We are confident that President Biden’s restoration of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments – which this appeal sought to undermine – was within his powers under the Antiquities Act. His executive orders establishing the monuments protected irreplaceable cultural, biological and geological resources found nowhere else in the world. For over 100 years, no court has ever overturned a President’s use of this authority, and we fully expect President Biden’s actions will be upheld and these National Monuments will remain protected.”

Additional information: 

In August 2022, the State of Utah, along with Garfield and Kane Counties, filed a lawsuit challenging President Biden’s lawful use of the Antiquities Act to restore the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in October 2021. The Blue Ribbon Coalition and several individuals filed a separate lawsuit which also challenged restoration of the monuments. Soon afterward, SUWA and a coalition of conservation organizations intervened in these lawsuits on behalf of the U.S. to defend the monuments; five sovereign Tribal Nations also intervened on behalf of the U.S. to defend Bears Ears National Monument. In August 2023, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit and these appeals followed; SUWA’s statement on the 2023 dismissal can be found here.  

### 
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org. 

 

 

The post SUWA Statement on Tenth Circuit Decision over Long-Running Attack on National Monuments – 6.23.26 appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

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The post Tell Congress: No Immunity for Big Oil appeared first on Stop the Money Pipeline.

Bold Nebraska was concerned, like communities across the country, that Big Tech was trampling on property rights and polluting water without regard to anyone’s energy bill or clean air. So we, along with allied groups and citizens across the state, encouraged lawmakers to put guardrails and real accountability in place on data centers.

Bold worked with Senators Spivey, McKinney, and Machalea Cavanaugh on a bill that we believe is the first-in-the-nation to require both a decommissioning plan and a Community Benefits Agreement, while also mandating disclosures on key issues that the community has been demanding, like water and electricity usage.

Nebraska Data Center Law:

LB 1111 is a data center bill that was sponsored by Senators McKinney, Spivey and Machaela Cavanaugh, which was also supported by Bold Nebraska. Key guardrail provisions from LB 1111, including disclosure and transparency, and requiring decommissioning plans and a community benefits agreement, were included in another data center bill, LB 1010, which passed the Nebraska Legislature and was signed into law this year. The new law holds data centers accountable and provides for transparency that no other state has been able to pass. Nebraska is already home to more than 30 data center facilities, operated by tech giants including Meta and Google.

Nebraska is believed to be the first state in the nation to pass a law requiring Community Benefits Agreements for data center projects. A Community Benefits Agreement is an actual contract between the developer and impacted local communities that require the developer to ensure local community members benefit directly from the development activity – so these billion-dollar data center projects are obligated to pay back millions of dollars annually to impacted communities.

Nebraska is also now one of the first states to impose a statutory requirement for data centers to implement decommissioning plans, so that rural communities are not left holding the bag when these massive facilities housing huge amounts of hazardous environmental waste go out of business or are no longer of use.

The public disclosures that data centers in Nebraska are now required to provide include:

• The name of the proposed data center.
• The names of the developers and owners of the proposed data center.
• The physical size of the proposed data center in square feet.
• The location of the proposed data center, including street address and County.
• The annual electricity demand of the proposed data center.
• The annual water usage of the proposed data center.
• The sales and use tax exemptions that the proposed data center utilizes or expects to utilize.
• Any incentive payments for the proposed data center under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act and the Nebraska Advantage Act.
• All energy efficiency, load management, and conservation measures implemented by the proposed data center.
• All commitments by the proposed data center to use renewable energy.
• The service life of the proposed data center.

Community Organizing Resources:

All of these resources are focused on putting communities first. 

Bold Data Center Resources for Communities & Organizers: 

• View and download (PDF)

Bold Energy Builders Toolkit for Rural Communities

• View and download (PDF)

AI Now: A policy-driven resource that has sample laws, ordinances, white papers, and more.

• https://ainowinstitute.org

NAACP Stop Dirty Data Centers: A coalition site that many groups, including Bold Alliance, helped provide resources for, including sample Community Benefit Agreements (CBA).

• https://naacp.org/campaigns/stop-dirty-data-centers
• bit.ly/naacpcba (NAACP sample CBA for data centers)

“My community is being polluted every single day by a coal plant that stays open largely to power data centers. This bill finally forces public disclosure of the electricity and water demands we’ve been demanding — and couldn’t get. It puts people in the driver’s seat with legally binding Community Benefits Agreements and decommissioning plans, so we’re not left cleaning up a corporate mess decades later.” 

—Nebraska State Senator Terrell McKinney

“Communities deserve to know basic facts about data centers when deciding what’s best for their towns. Nebraska had zero guardrails on data centers before this law, and now developers must, if a community decides this is right for their town, enter into a Community Benefits Agreement and put a decommissioning plan in place. No data center should be able to run roughshod over a community while making billions of dollars. Communities and those who live near these massive projects deserve to generate wealth and be protected from any public health and environmental harms. This law provides guardrails to protect communities and put them first, not big corporations.”

—Jane Kleeb, Bold Alliance Founder and Director 

“We are pleased to see that the Legislature passed LB 1010 on a vote of 49 to zero to establish important guardrails on data centers, including requiring data centers to pay the full cost of electricity and ensuring that no costs are passed on to other retail customers. We greatly appreciate the leadership of Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, Senator Terrell McKinney and Senator Ashlei Spivey in introducing the original legislation and making sure that necessary amendments were added to LB 1010. We want to recognize the importance of requiring data centers to bear all decommissioning costs and requiring them to enter into community benefit agreements with communities affected by the data center. This legislation provides a great opportunity for local communities to tailor their community benefit agreements to meet the needs of their community. This could include projects that mitigate the data center’s use of water or other natural resources, or funding for projects the community cannot otherwise afford such as low-income energy efficiency programs, solar and battery powered community resilience hubs or assistance with affordable housing. These agreements should be funded at a meaningful level and funds should be provided throughout the operational life of the facility because the companies behind data centers are some of the richest corporations on the planet.”
—Ken Winston, Chapter Director of the Nebraska Sierra Club

An entire wolf pack was murdered by a hunter on a snowmobile. It’s time to end this senseless killing.

The head of the United Nations has launched an initiative aimed at holding artificial intelligence companies accountable for their exploding environmental impacts, including their carbon emissions, the amount of water and land used for data centres, and the energy they consume.

During a speech at London Climate Action Week on Tuesday, António Guterres noted that AI can accelerate climate solutions, among other key challenges, and said its potential must be harnessed.

“But AI is also hungry for land, water and power,” he emphasised, adding that the data centres needed to run AI models already consume more electricity than most countries. 

The UN Secretary-General repeated a call he first made in July 2025 for all big AI companies to commit to power every data centre with renewable energy by 2030. 

Some tech firms have announced they are sourcing or building out clean energy to run their hubs, but growing power demand is also contributing to gas-fired generation in the US, according to data from Global Energy Monitor.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that data centres are set to more than double the emissions from the electricity they use between 2024 and 2030 in a high-growth scenario. But AI’s use could lead to far larger reductions in the energy sector through efficiency gains if adopted widely.

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‘No more hidden costs’

Proposing the new “AI Environmental Transparency Initiative” on Tuesday, Guterres also urged big AI firms companies to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of their systems, including their carbon, water, and land footprints.

“No more hidden costs. No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean,” he said in a major speech on responding to the world’s twin climate and energy crises. “If AI is to help build a better future, it must be honest about what it costs us now.”

A report issued earlier this month by the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health noted that most current assessments of AI’s environmental cost focus on carbon emissions from training models. But, it added, this misses a substantial part of the picture. 

Every kilowatt-hour of electricity for AI also carries a water footprint, from cooling and generation, and a land footprint, from infrastructure and supply chains, it said. 

Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?

The report estimated that AI data centres globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 –  more power than all but five countries and roughly twice France’s 2025 consumption.

Offsetting this carbon footprint by 2030 would require growing some 6.7 billion trees over 10 years, it calculated. Producing power for the data centres would consume water equal to the basic needs of 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa for a year and take up land of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area.

The European Union said earlier this month it will develop minimum energy-efficiency standards for both new and existing data centres, with a “needs assessment” ​due by 2027, Reuters reported. It’s also planning ⁠a sustainability label for data centres, covering criteria including water use and clean energy supply – but that has been delayed.    

US community push-back 

Asked after his speech what the response had been, the UN chief said “we’ll see”, without giving more details.

But, he argued that, in his view, the push for transparency “is perfectly reasonable and even positive for the AI industry, because eventually some people will say that they consume much more than they really do”. “I think the truth is essential,” he added. 

Concerns about the environmental impacts of AI and the infrastructure needed to run the technology have led to growing opposition in some communities, especially in the US.

This month, Monterey Park in Los Angeles County was the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centres through a voter-approved ballot measure. The developers behind a proposed centre in the area had already pulled the project in April amid an increasingly hostile local environment and regulatory uncertainty.

The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI

According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data centre projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 as communities pushed back against them. 

Industry lobby groups argue that data centres can provide economic benefits in their host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents big operators and developers, data centres generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.

The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households.

Force for good?

The UN chief said benefits can be few in the places that are home to the data centre, while “communities are often left in the dark about the environmental impact of the infrastructure rising around them”.

Guterres said companies have an “obligation” to be clear and open about the services they are offering but also the level of resources they require. 

“Transparency is essential for the decisions that communities must make – and transparency is essential even for the future of artificial intelligence, and to make sure that artificial intelligence is essentially a force for good,” he told an audience of climate professionals in London

A senior UN official told journalists ahead of Tuesday’s announcement that the AI industry has started to talk about and disclose some of their impacts, but those efforts are not yet comprehensive enough. 

The hope is that the new initiative will “encourage the industry to come together and take further action on it”, the official said.

The post UN asks AI companies to reveal full environmental impacts appeared first on Climate Home News.

June 23, 2026 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Statement on three BLM Travel Management Plans moving forward – 6.23.26 Solitude, wildlife, and cultural resources all at risk from off-road vehicles use, statewide 

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Salt Lake City, UT – Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced it was moving forward on three Travel Management Plans in Utah: Trail Canyon (east of Zion National Park), Dinosaur North (near Dinosaur National Monument), and the Dolores River (northeast of Moab). Travel plans guide where motorized recreation is and is not allowed on public land; the agency is accepting public comment on the Trail Canyon and Dinosaur North Plans. Below is a statement from SUWA Senior Attorney Laura Peterson and additional information.  

“After years of dragging its feet, the BLM is suddenly racing ahead to finalize three plans for off-road vehicles (ORVs) – plans we expect will wrongly promote motorized recreation over the interests of all other public land visitors,” said Laura Peterson, Senior Attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “These three landscapes highlight the beauty and diversity of public lands in Utah, but one thing unites them: none of them should be transformed from quiet, wild places into motorized playgrounds.”

Additional information: 

The Trail Canyon, Dinosaur North, and Dolores Triangle travel plans – totaling approximately 816,000 acres of public lands – are three of 11 travel plans the BLM is completing as part of a court-supervised settlement agreement between the BLM, conservation groups, and ORV groups. Covering more than 6 million acres of BLM-managed lands in eastern and southern Utah, these plans will determine where motorized vehicles will be allowed on some of Utah’s wildest public lands. To date, the BLM has completed five of the 11 plans and is currently working on new plans for some of Utah’s most beloved landscapes. At the behest of the Trump Administration and some motorized recreation groups, the BLM is reconsidering the previously completed Labyrinth Canyon, San Rafael Swell, and San Rafael Desert plans. Read more about SUWA’s litigation to ensure these travel plans follow federal laws to protect public lands and resources. 

The Trail Canyon plan (draft environmental assessment) has a 30-day public comment period running June 22 – July 22;  the BLM is hosting a public meeting on July 9, 2026, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Kanab Center (20 N. 100 E., Kanab, UT 84741). The Dinosaur North plan (draft environmental assessment) has a 30-day public comment period running June 22 – July 22. 

### 
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org. 

 

 

The post SUWA Statement on three BLM Travel Management Plans moving forward – 6.23.26 appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Under John Cook's supervision, Monash University's honours student Ruby Flack spent her thesis deconstructing climate myths in the CARDS taxonomy. With involvement of an interdisciplinary team, her honours thesis was subsequently converted into the paper “Identifying Flawed Reasoning in Contrarian Claims about Climate” and recently published in Environmental Communication (paywalled) with a free pre-press manuscript available here.

What follows is a quick summary based on John Cook's thread on Bluesky. In the new paper, the authors identify the logical fallacies in a comprehensive taxonomy of contrarian claims about climate change from Coan et al. (2021). An important aspect of this initial research was that it didn't make any judgements about whether the claims were misleading. That's what this new research set out to do.

Figure 1: CARDS Taxonomy - Only “childless claims” (claims with no sub-claims) were deconstructed, indicated by solid color boxes. “Parent claims” (claims with sub-claims) were excluded from deconstruction, indicated by boxes with no coloured fill. All level 1 claims are parent claims, while all level 3 claims are childless claims. Grayed-out claims were excluded from this analysis due to insufficient example paragraphs.

The authors argued that there are a number of limitations to fact-checking. While science myths (like the bulk of the myths debunked by Skeptical Science) are ripe for fact-checking, other types of myths such as policy claims, conspiracy theories, and ad hominem attacks are more challenging. Fact-checking also struggles with arguments that contain hidden premises (or unstated assumptions) which are especially insidious because they can hide where the argument misleads.

They therefore proposed logic-checking as a complement—not a replacement!—to fact-checking. This involves identifying the presence of logical fallacies—an alternative way to tag arguments as misleading. One of the benefits of logic-checking is, that it can address forms of misinformation that fact-checking struggles with. It also has another benefit which will be mentioned later.

In 2018, John Cook worked with critical thinking philosophers to develop a step-by-step methodology for logic-checking. It involves deconstructing claims into an argument structure (one or more premises leading to a conclusion), then checking for hidden premises followed by examining each premise for logical fallacies (Cook et al. 2018):

Figure 2: Simplified deconstruction workflow from Cook et al. (2018)

For this new paper, the authors expanded the 2018 flowchart to make it more practical, working with a variety of real-world misinformation. This was necessary because climate myths can come in a variety of flavours, so before they can be deconstructed, an exemplar version of each contrarian claim needed to be developed. 

Exemplars were sorted into four types depending on how varied the arguments were within each claim. The first two types were where every version of the claim could be represented by the same argument. For example, the argument “CO2 lagging temperature disproves the warming effect of CO2” essentially always takes the same form. The third type was when a claim appeared in different forms but one argument dominated. E.g., the claim “Arctic isn’t melting” took various forms such as “there’s still lots of Arctic sea ice” but most of the time, this argument took the form “Arctic sea ice hasn’t significantly decreased recently.” The fourth type was when some versions of a claim was recategorised into other claims. 

Figure 3: Deconstruction workflow from Flack et al. (2026)

They also clarified the differences between some fallacies that conceptually can be difficult to distinguish—such as cherry picking from slothful induction, and misrepresentation from oversimplification. Wendy Cook created this lovely infographic for the paper.

Figure 4: Infographic explaining two conceptually difficult to distinguish fallacies (from Flack et al. 2026)

The result of this work was a detailed summary of climate myths from the CARDS taxonomy, how each of them was deconstructed, any hidden premises in each myth, and ultimately the logical fallacies in each myth. This table is intended as a resource for anyone wishing to write debunkings of climate myths that use the fact-myth-fallacy format. A more detailed PDF-version of the deconstructed climate contrarian claims is available for download here.

Figure 5: Sample from table 3 summarizing deconstructed climate contrarian claims (Flack et al. 2026)

The authors also identified the most common fallacies in climate misinformation. Slothful induction and cherry picking were the most common, followed by oversimplification and misrepresentation. Single cause (a form of oversimplification) came in fifth.

Figure 6: Bar chart of the most common fallacies in climate misinformation (from Flack et al. 2026)

One of the most significant findings was that 91% of the claims analysed contained hidden premises with fallacies. Almost all misinformation tries to hide how it misleads. This underscores the importance of logic-checking as an essential tool in countering misinformation.

Logic-checking segues seamlessly into logic-based corrections that explain misleading techniques in misinformation. In 2017, John Cook published research finding that logic-based corrections neutralise climate misinformation across the political spectrum. In other words, logic-checking depolarizes misinformation that otherwise has a polarizing effect on the public (Cook et al. 2017).

Bottom line: logic-checking is beneficial both epistemologically (help identify misleading content that fact-checking struggles with) and with communication (neutralising polarizing misinformation). Hopefully, this research will spark both more research and practical interest in logic-checking. 

Reference:
Flack, R., Cook, J., Ellerton, P., Kinkead, D., Coan, T., Boussalis, C., … Dargaville, R. (2026). Identifying Flawed Reasoning in Contrarian Claims about Climate Change. Environmental Communication, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2026.2663476 

The Pembina Institute supports Canada’s goals in Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy:Building new infrastructure to double Canada’s electricity supply by 2050 and meet growing demand.Accelerating...

Europe is sweltering through an intense heat wave that is setting temperature records in the U.K. and France. It comes on the heels of another record heat wave in May.

Read more on E360 →

Raymond’s hands look worn from sourcing water for people in his community. 

In an image, his left hand is shown draped over a block of wood, reflecting years of hard work and determination as he pushes a cart filled with pails of water through the streets.

The picture was taken by Danelle Fraser, a woman in her thirties who lives in Rose Town, Jamaica. She puts herself, and her family, into the photo essay, revealing how they must wake up early every day and travel to neighbouring communities to fetch water.

The residents of Rose Town, in West Kingston, have been forced to do this for decades after their own water pipes stopped working.

The photos are personal history, depicting the efforts of local people making do without access to a reliable water supply, leaving their community less resilient and more exposed to climate-related shocks.

“It has been over 23 years now since I saw water running through the pipes of my house in Gordon Lane,” writes Danelle in the essay.

Women’s lived experience

She is one of six women in Jamaica chosen to take part in the first phase of the Envisioning Resilience initiative in 2023. Led by the NAP Global Network and Lensational, a non-profit social enterprise, the project is designed to enable women to tell their own climate stories through photography. 

So far, these stories have ranged from how street vendors are surviving extreme heat to the Rastafari community’s attempts to adapt to drought.

The project, extended to another seven women in 2025, was born out of an understanding that women and girls are more severely impacted by climate change. The UN estimates the crisis is pushing tens of millions more women than men into poverty and food insecurity around the world. Global warming is worsening gender inequalities and making it harder for women to survive and become more resilient to extreme weather events.

“Women are one of many vulnerable groups and one that often lacks agency when it comes to decisions of critical importance such as climate change,” explained Orville Grey, head of secretariat for the NAP Global Network.

“Empowering women to speak to their lived experience [and] capture that through creative communication tools such as photography is a unique way to get them involved in the process of developing adaptation plans that are fit for purpose and inclusive,” he added.

Raymond, a resident of Gordon Lane, is seen pushing his own cart, loaded with water-filled pails, by hand. Photo: Danelle Fraser, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2023) Raymond, a resident of Gordon Lane, is seen pushing his own cart, loaded with water-filled pails, by hand. Photo: Danelle Fraser, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2023) The power of individual action

Starting in 2021, Envisioning Resilience initially ran pilots in Ghana and Kenya before expanding to Jamaica in 2023. The initiative formed a new partnership with GirlsCARE, a feminist climate justice organisation, based in the Caribbean country. Ayesha Constable, founder of GirlsCARE, told Climate Home News that participants on the programme are selected through a targeted call shared across their national network.

“We intentionally focus on reaching young women and girls from vulnerable communities, including rural and inner city areas,” she said. “The selection process… ensures a cohort that is both engaged and reflective of the communities most impacted by climate change,” she added.

The group goes through a training programme of between four to six months, learning professional photography skills through workshops and individual assignments. Participants are also provided with policy training and a grounding in how their stories are connected to wider climate concerns.

Jamaica set for post-Melissa payout but experts warn of limits to hurricane insurance

“We sometimes say if you only had one day to tell this story, what words would you use, what actions would you take to do so?” explained Lydia Wanjiku, CEO of Lensational.

Envisioning Resilience offers a rare opportunity for women from different backgrounds to tell these stories, reach a wider audience, and gain valuable skills along the way. The photo essays are collected online and the stories have received widespread media attention.

“Ultimately, we want participants to embrace their own agency, and recognise the power of individual and collective action in driving change, and to carry forward the principles of justice, care and equity in whatever paths they choose,” added Constable of GirlsCARE.

From pilots to policy

The wider intention in Jamaica is that the photo essays influence the development and implementation of new climate policies. When the stories are complete, they are shared in a dialogue that brings the newly trained photographers together with adaptation policymakers. 

According to Angie Dazé, director of gender equality and social inclusion at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the policy dialogues “flip the script, allowing the conversation to be led by the women and their stories, placing the government representatives in listening mode”.

Lensational is seeing interest from some countries in using the programme as a core part of national policy processes. The essays have validated some issues that government departments have known about, while others have shone a light on new areas of concern.

Women must be a starting point, not an afterthought, for adaptation

“We have really tried to embed policy and storytelling elements into the training, ensuring the projects are more targeted and aligned with what policymakers are working on,” added Wanjiku. The intention is to support women to articulate their stories with policy concepts in mind, broadening their reach and impact.

The approach seems to be paying off in Jamaica. Wayne Robertson, permanent secretary at Jamaica’s Ministry of Water, Environment and Climate Change, said the initiative had “meaningfully supported the Jamaican government in strengthening climate adaptation policy development by bridging the gap between technical planning and lived community experience”.

He added that the photo essays are supporting Jamaica’s National Adaptation Plan process and contributing to existing efforts by reinforcing the need for “inclusive, locally informed and participatory adaptation planning” and allowing for “a more people-centred understanding of climate risk.”

Participants on the initiative go through a six-month training programme. Photo: Jik Reuben, Lensational Faye Edwards, a street vendor in Kingston, awaits customers as the midday heat rises at her stall on Seymour Avenue. Photo: Shekinah Wright, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2025). Participants on the initiative go through a six-month training programme. Photo: Jik Reuben, Lensational Faye Edwards, a street vendor in Kingston, awaits customers as the midday heat rises at her stall on Seymour Avenue. Photo: Shekinah Wright, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2025). Jamaica’s growing climate impacts

Jamaica is a natural choice to run an initiative of this kind. As a small island developing state in the Caribbean, it is vulnerable to rising sea levels, coastal erosion and intense cyclones and hurricanes. A 2024 USAID assessment found that these stressors are likely to increase due to climate change.

Grey, of the NAP Global Network, commented that Jamaica is “dealing with rising temperatures impacting ambient heat both in day and night-time, increased severity of hurricanes, longer duration droughts, increased variability in rainfall, increased impacts of coastal erosion due to storms… and warmer oceans”. These climate stresses all have economic impacts on agriculture, tourism, fisheries and productivity.

A tale of two women: What climate vulnerability actually looks like

Many Jamaicans now have direct experience of what it means to live in a hotter world. In October 2025, Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, battered the island, causing multiple fatalities and almost $9 billion in economic damages. Researchers rank Melissa as one of the strongest storms ever recorded – with winds of up to 185mph (295km/h) – and the costliest hurricane in Jamaica’s history.

Climate change played a direct role in making the storm worse, according to a study from Imperial College London. Its storm model, called IRIS, found that climate change increased Melissa’s extreme rainfall by 16%, with a hurricane of its kind made four times more likely due to rising temperatures.

Collective action for resilience

Surrounded by the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, the new recruits to the Envisioning Resilience initiative picked up their cameras to record the event. 

Ashlee Gooden travelled to Treasure Beach on Jamaica’s south coast a few days after the hurricane made landfall. She spent time documenting how one family, the Ritchies, had prepared for what was to come. Fishermen tied down the zinc roof, with sandbags placed on top for extra support. Plywood was nailed to windows, and essential food items stockpiled in the days leading up to the storm.

Gooden’s essay demonstrates not only the physical impacts of Hurricane Melissa – destroyed businesses and beach debris – but how the close community has bounced back,  although a full recovery could take years. “One member of the community even opened their backyard to be used as a makeshift trail, allowing residents to bypass the blocked main road,” she writes.

A restaurant in Treasure Beach bears the scars of Hurricane Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience A residential property damaged by two severe hurricanes within two years: Beryl and Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience A restaurant in Treasure Beach bears the scars of Hurricane Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience A residential property damaged by two severe hurricanes within two years: Beryl and Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience No one left behind

The UN reports that in recent years the development of National Adaptation Plans under the UN climate process has moved from formulation to “implementation readiness”.

As adaptation policy matures, the photo essays produced by women on the Envisioning Resilience initiative are supporting governments to create plans that are more sensitive to the climate-related issues communities are now facing. 

Jamaican official Robertson said the initiative “strengthens gender-responsive adaptation by creating space for women, youth, and community members to share their experiences and priorities”.

While much work has been done to centre women’s issues and decision-making within the climate debate, researchers acknowledge it is still not a high priority for some countries. The photo essays can help change that, by providing an insight into stories that “don’t typically get heard in adaptation policy conversations”, according to IISD’s Dazé.

“The project is about a shift in mindset on the role that women are playing and their adaptive capacity. Women are resilient in their own right,” she added. “Women are already adapting to climate change, and policymakers are getting to see them as agents of change.”

Adam Wentworth is a freelance journalist based in Brighton, UK

The post Women in Jamaica are opening eyes with climate photography appeared first on Climate Home News.

UN chief António Guterres called on Tuesday for stronger action to cut emissions of planet-heating methane, taking aim at the fossil fuel industry’s practices and profits, and pointing to coal, oil and gas as the root of today’s climate and energy crises.

In a major speech at London Climate Action Week, with the British capital under a heatwave warning, the UN Secretary-General said countries had not done enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with what is needed to keep warming below the globally agreed goal of 1.5C. 

“The task before us is to strictly limit the overshoot, shorten its duration, and bring temperatures down below 1.5 degrees Celsius as fast as possible,” Guterres said. One way of doing that, he added, is by cutting methane emissions first.

He noted that methane – a potent greenhouse gas that traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide – is responsible for around one-third of global warming but breaks down in the atmosphere within a decade or two.

“That means that aggressive cuts could produce visible temperature relief within a generation,” the UN chief emphasised, launching a global call to action on methane covering fossil fuel production, agriculture and organic waste disposal.

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Of the three main sources of methane, he singled out the fossil fuel industry, where he said “the most immediate gains can be made”.

He cited the International Energy Agency (IEA) finding that around 70% of oil and gas methane emissions can be eliminated using existing technology, mostly at low or no net cost. This is because the gas leaking from coal mines and oil and gas production facilities can be captured and then used or sold.

Despite this, in 2025 alone, Guterres said some 167 billion cubic metres of gas were flared – as much as Africa consumes in a year.

“I am urging the fossil fuel industry to step up and do what is long overdue,” added the UN chief, whose term ends this year.

Guterres said voluntary action “is no longer enough” and there were similar global precedents for getting rid of harmful substances, including leaded petrol and ozone-depleting chemicals. “Methane pollution must be next,” he emphasised.

Methane emissions stuck at highs

The latest Global Methane Tracker report from the IEA shows that methane emissions from fossil fuels remained at very high levels in 2025, with no sign of a decline globally despite progress in some countries. In 2025, energy generated 41% of global methane emissions, followed by agriculture (40%) and waste (17%).

On Tuesday, a World Bank tracker showed that global gas flaring rose for the third year in a row in 2025, wasting an estimated $54 billion worth of gas by burning it off.

Demetrios Papathanasiou, the World Bank Group’s global director for energy, said that at a time when many countries are struggling to expand their access to affordable and reliable energy, “the economic development costs of continued flaring are simply too high”. “The gas currently flared could be captured to power industries and businesses, create jobs and strengthen energy security,” he said in a statement.

As well as easing climate change, the IEA says capturing waste methane could help improve gas market security after Iran’s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz removed close to 20% of global liquefied natural gas supply from the market. 

The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, last year called on leaders at the UN General Assembly to draw up a “legally binding global agreement” to reduce methane emissions, an idea that is also supported by France. 

Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible

However, Guterres stopped short of supporting such a solution on Tuesday, throwing his weight instead behind a proposal for governments to set a new global standard for net near-zero methane emissions across the value chain in the oil and gas sector.

This initiative, outlined in a report on the new call to action, would establish a common, internationally recognised methane intensity benchmark, for use by both producers and consumers. Compliance with the standard would then become a condition for financing, procurement and long‑term market access.

Voluntary action ‘not enough’

In recent years, countries and companies willing to act on the methane problem have teamed up on the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, and the UAE-led Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter, signed by over 50 oil and gas companies. But their success has been limited in real terms.  

Speaking at a separate event on Monday, Jonathan Banks, vice president of methane pollution prevention at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), said the global pledge had been successful in creating “high-level political buy-in”, raising more money to detect methane emissions and helping countries plug their sources.

But it “is not there to be this all-encompassing binding treaty that drives emissions down”, he added.

At last year’s COP30, 11 countries representing around 10% of global oil production and 18% of gas exports signed a pledge to “drastically reduce” methane emissions in the fossil fuel sector, including by eliminating routine gas flaring and venting.

Comment: Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) also runs a system that detects methane leaks around the world. It has issued more than 5,000 alerts across 33 countries, but received responses in only 12% of cases.

Meghan Demeter, a programme manager at the UNEP service, said on Monday that countries face several barriers to responding to the alerts, including limited capacity to interpret the data and act on it, as well as funding shortages, particularly among national oil companies.

A senior UN official told journalists that existing initiatives on methane had raised awareness of the issue but had failed to deliver the emissions cuts needed. “’It’s absolutely critical that governments step in and strongly regulate the oil and gas sector,” he added.

Norway leads the way

As an example of how this could work, the call to action report singled out Norway, which banned routine flaring in 1971, imposed a tax on emissions from petroleum production and transport in 1991, and increased its tax on flaring and methane emissions in 2017. It now has one of the lowest methane emissions intensities of upstream oil and gas production in the world. 

The report said that if all countries matched Norway’s standards, global methane emissions from oil and gas operations could fall by roughly 90%.

Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes

It added that China, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar reduced or maintained their methane emissions from oil and gas production between 2023 and 2024, even as output increased, indicating a decline in the emissions intensity of their operations.

On Monday, the Fossil Fuel Regulatory Programme (FFRP), a UNEP-backed initiative that works with governments to strengthen regulatory frameworks for cutting methane emissions from their energy sectors, added Egypt, Brazil, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to its existing partners, Ghana, Kazakhstan and Iraq.

Windfall tax on fossil fuel profits

Guterres also made a strong push for states to hit the very deep pockets of fossil fuel companies with windfall taxes, as countries like the UK, Italy or Spain have done in recent years.

He said fossil energy giants had reaped ”extraordinary profits”, with the eight biggest making an extra $6.5 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, which included only one month of the Middle East crisis which has pushed up oil prices.

“These are windfall gains born of pain – of instability, hardship and dependence. I urge governments to tax them,” said the UN chief. 

He added that the proceeds should be used “where they belong: helping vulnerable families and communities, and accelerating the shift to clean, affordable energy”.

The post UN chief says fossil fuel industry must cut methane for warming “relief” appeared first on Climate Home News.

Kudos to VJayBombs, ingenious street artists who once emblazoned L.A. with projections of ICE hauling off Jesus, and who just hit D.C. to plaster “Guardians of Pedophiles" on the Kennedy Center's "literal cover-up" and murky regime minions - bats, worms, turtles - on the besieged Reflecting Pool. Growing more ideological as the fascist stakes rise, they use peaceful but splashy projection bombing to "make our voices heard," sensibly arguing, "If you're gonna say something, say something."

It seems only apt an anonymous collective of renegades chooses as weapons the visual tools of their oppressors, slathering multiple regime cover-ups - like the attempted removal from National Parks of information on slavery and other historical facts that “disparage Americans past or living” - with their own rowdy retorts. Large-scale, dissident projections are part of a relatively new protest tradition, "accessible, disruptive, but not violent," that evidently grew from the Occupy movement. In 2013, using an Illuminator- like projector that came out of a car roof like a turret, one Charles Lechner projected an image of a ballot box stuffed with dollar bills onto Michael Bloomberg’s New York apartment; the Mayor, unamused, had him arrested.

VJayBombs began about ten years ago when three filmmakers and neighbors in a Koreatown apartment complex started

projecting abstract visuals onto nearby buildings during house parties. That pastime evolved during the lead-up to the 2024 election into "Life's Projections," peaceful guerrilla protest that "sits right in the sweet spot of all our skill sets"; they now have over 300,000 online followers and merch - ICE guy with gun: "Our humanity" - to help raise funds. Moving through group chats, location-scouting, brainstorming - what will resonate, how to highlight absurdity and communicate clearly in seconds - they've progressed from "total novices" who blew a fuse by trying to run power through a car lighter to a large-venue projector.

Their goal is to effectively merge message with architecture in a story that unfolds like a digital billboard or comic strip and gets "the longest legs online - as many eyes as possible." Their projections across L.A. have ranged from No Kings messages to Matt Gaetz as Butt-Head to a spoof of Trump's endless, babbling State of the Union speech, with Trump holding the Statue of Liberty hostage amidst flashing messages of "Immigrant Bad!" and “Forget the Files!” A Super Bowl parody, "Redacted Bowl," featured Trump and cronies as football players with their stats matching their references in the Epstein files. Last week's UFC cage match became Donald Trump vs. the Epstein Files celebrating "the pound-for-pound best cover-up in history."

D.C.'s besieged Kennedy Center and besmirched Reflecting Pool - now the surreal scene of a Stalinist police stop - were logical, tempting next stops. A week after a court ruling forced the removal of Trump's name from the Center, the tarp hung in the dark to hide a fragile narcissist's shame and fury from a gleeful crowd is still there, obscuring not just the spot where the name allegedly came down but the entire facade. In a June 19 court filing, Center lackeys say it's to do maintenance on the marble. Lawyers for Rep. Joyce Beatty, who filed the original lawsuit, say it's a lame move to soothe "broken egos,” one that both conceals whether officials have in fact complied with the court and reduces a once-vaunted arts venue into a "lifeless husk."

Frustrated visitors to the site have their own ideas: One suggested Trump is focused on "trying to deface America’s symbols before he finishes defacing the country," and another proposed using the tarp to cover the brackish debacle that is now the Reflecting Pool. Others have simply moved on to pay tribute to VJayBombs artists for giving Trump "a lesson in the law of unintended consequences" and projecting "what we all wanted" on the Kennedy Center: A "Guardians of Pedophiles" montage of Trump, Epstein, regime toadies - Bondi, Johnson, Patel - with, "No one bends the knee like the GOP,” and a guy climbing a ladder towards the name "Donald," its letters slowly cascading down to form the word "pedo."

In their weekend art spree, VJayBombs also took to other D.C. landmarks. At the Lincoln Pool, they placed in that now-sorry site a fitting array of swamp creatures: McConnell as turtle, Hegseth as crocodile, Vance as worm, Rubio as fish, Stephen Goebbels Miller a bat hanging upside-down, bald head glinting. At the DOJ, Ted Cruz popped up as a grotesque sex worker in Trump underwear. Hard to unsee, but VJayBombs argue, these dark days, it's "more important than ever to use whatever skills we have to push back." Their art "gives people a new way to engage," they say. "We all have more power than we think...Real change doesn’t come from one big event - it comes from countless small acts that, together, move the needle."

Aiqun Yu, Christine Shearer and Joe Hittinger work at Global Energy Monitor, a US-based organisation that seeks to provide the worldwide energy transition with transparent data and analysis.

With global oil and gas prices soaring at the start of the Iran war, China quietly broke ground on three major coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemical projects worth roughly $10 billion in two regions with abundant coal resources.

But as a Chinese saying goes, “three feet of ice does not form in a single day”. China’s push to use coal as a substitute for imported oil and gas has been gathering momentum since the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022, prompting a recalibration of energy security priorities in Beijing and beyond.

The policy raises new concerns, threatening China’s climate goals and growing reputation as a global clean energy leader by creating renewed demand for coal.

A new expansion wave

Over the past three years, China has entered a new cycle of investment in so-called “modern coal chemicals”, differentiated from conventional coal chemicals. Four pathways – coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-olefins, and coal-to-ethylene glycol – account for the bulk of new modern coal-chemical capacity under development.

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According to Global Energy Monitor data, proposed and under-construction coal-to-gas capacity is approaching three times current operating capacity. Together, 34 projects under active consideration represent more than 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in planned investment and could add roughly 300 million tonnes of annual coal demand if completed, equivalent to South Africa’s entire coal mining capacity.

Most projects are in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Ningxia, regions with plentiful coal resources and relatively low mining costs. Xinjiang has emerged as the epicentre of the new boom, accounting for more than half of all proposed modern coal chemical projects.

Why the world abandoned coal chemicals

Coal chemicals are often presented as an emerging industry, but the technologies themselves are more than a century old.

Earlier “conventional” coal chemistry was a byproduct of coking, a process run primarily for iron and steel making. “Modern” coal chemistry instead uses gasification to convert coal into synthesis gas, a versatile building block for fuels, plastics, fertilisers and other chemicals that would traditionally be made from oil or gas.

These modern processes were developed in the early 20th century and expanded during periods of wartime fuel shortages. For example, Germany relied heavily on synthetic fuels during the Second World War while South Africa developed similar technologies in the apartheid era to reduce vulnerability to international sanctions.

A livestreamer promotes coal during a livestreaming session for Huaze Coal Industry on the Douyin app, in this illustration picture taken June 15, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration A livestreamer promotes coal during a livestreaming session for Huaze Coal Industry on the Douyin app, in this illustration picture taken June 15, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration

Once cheap oil and gas became widely available, however, most countries moved away from coal chemicals, which required large amounts of energy, water and capital investment, and generally produced more pollution and carbon emissions than the conventional alternatives.

Today, only a handful of commercial coal gasification facilities operate outside China.

China has already tested this theory once

The current expansion is not China’s first attempt to build a major coal chemical industry.

A previous boom emerged during the 2010s, driven by many of the same arguments: high oil prices, concerns over energy security and expectations that technological improvements would unlock a new era of coal-based industrial growth.

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The outcome was far from successful. Dozens of projects were proposed, but many were delayed, suspended or scrapped before completion, and there were difficulties among those that did get off the ground.

Three of China’s four operating coal-to-gas projects reportedly spent much of the past decade operating at a loss, and several large coal chemical facilities generated only marginal returns despite government support.

Policy support is driving the revival

Backers say technological improvements have made the industry more competitive than it was a decade ago.

Yet coal chemical projects remain highly dependent on oil and gas prices. When international prices rise, coal-derived products can appear competitive. When prices fall, the economics often deteriorate rapidly.

More than changes in technology, government policy has played a pivotal role in the sector’s revival.

Following power shortages in 2021 and the energy market disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy security became a national priority. Coal production expanded, particularly in western China, boosted by government support.

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A key policy change in 2022 exempted coal used as industrial feedstock from certain energy consumption controls, easing regulatory pressure on coal chemical projects.

The impact of such measures highlights the degree to which coal chemicals depend on expansive and favourable policy treatment to remain viable.

At the same time, the current expansion is creating new demand for an industry confronting structural decline as China races to renewables in electricity generation.

The cost to China’s climate leadership

Converting coal into fuels and petrochemical products also releases substantially more carbon dioxide than conventional oil- and gas-based alternatives, which themselves are a major source of emissions. 

Proponents argue that coupling production with green hydrogen and carbon capture could resolve the emissions problem, but the arithmetic doesn’t support this. 

Sinopec’s flagship Dalu coal-to-olefins plant, paired with a 10,000 tonne-per-year green hydrogen demonstration, displaces less than 2% of the plant’s annual coal use. Replicating this across the proposed buildout would consume enormous quantities of clean energy just to partially decarbonise an inherently dirty process.

China could instead leverage that same industrial capacity and policy support to lead the development of cleaner chemical pathways, such as green ammonia for fertiliser, bio-based and CO2-derived feedstocks for plastics, and e-fuels or biofuels where liquid fuels are still needed. 

Rather than locking in another generation of coal-dependent infrastructure, China should learn from the lessons of the past and seek a cleaner and more viable industrial future.

The post China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past appeared first on Climate Home News.

Heat records are again being smashed across Europe as the region is engulfed in another historic heat wave this week. France, Spain, and the United Kingdom face the most severe threat—Monday is on track to be France’s hottest day on record. The heat is affecting millions, as schools are closed, outdoor recreation and festivities are limited, and fatalities are already starting to add up. A recent attribution analysis found that Europe’s record-breaking heat this year “has the fingerprints of climate change all over it.”

In response, Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, issued the following statement:

“Across Europe, millions are suffering from heat that would have been practically unimaginable a generation ago. This isn’t a natural disaster. The fossil fuel industry’s pollution and decades of deception about the impact of burning fossil fuels has spurred this extreme heat, which has already killed multiple people. Decades ago, scientists at Exxon were discussing with other oil companies research connecting climate change with ‘suffering and death due to thermal extremes.’ These companies knew of evidence that their conduct would cause these harms, and orchestrated campaigns of climate denial to undermine that evidence. They should be held accountable.”

In our latest, Scott talks with Hannah Kass and Priscilla Grim, both Stop Cop City activists, and defendants in the campaigns legal struggles. Listen in: Guest Bios// Hannah Kass one…