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File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Ben Tracy, Climate Central

If you feel like your electricity bill just keeps climbing, you aren’t imagining it. Since 2020, U.S. residential energy prices have surged by about 30%, making power the largest household energy expense behind gasoline, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

But for residents like Alex Curtis, the days of feeling powerless against rising costs are coming to an end. Curtis is waging a war on his electric bill, and his new weapon of choice is a lightweight, thin-film solar panel.

“Oh, it’s super light too,” Curtis remarked as he unboxed the kit on the balcony of his condo in Sunnyvale, California. It weighs just about 10 pounds. 

The ‘plug-and-play’ revolution Unlike traditional rooftop solar, which requires thousands of dollars in upfront costs, specialized mounting hardware, and professional electricians, this system is designed for the everyday consumer. It’s a $400 kit from Bright Saver, a non-profit advocating for “plug-and-play” solar that works for renters and homeowners alike.

The setup is deceptively simple: you hang the panel on a balcony or prop it up in a backyard and plug it directly into a standard wall outlet.

“I did some rough math and this might save me like $30 to $50 a month,” Curtis said.

The magic happens behind the scenes. Once plugged in, a small inverter syncs the solar energy with the home’s existing electrical infrastructure. It took about 15 minutes to get it all set up. Bright Saver’s Rupert Mayer then pointed to a light on the inverter: “Ah, here it is, it’s blue.”

“This is it. Easy,” Curtis replied. Within minutes, he was generating his own clean energy. He estimates it will be enough to power an appliance like his refrigerator. 

Small panels, big impact

Cora Stryker, co-founder of Bright Saver, believes this technology is key to democratizing the green energy transition. It not only cuts an individual’s planet-warming pollution but also their electric bill. 

“Clean energy actually is the cheapest form of energy around,” Stryker said, “and we the consumers should be benefiting from that.”

While these panels won’t take a home entirely off the grid, Stryker says the units can trim monthly costs by 10% to 25% depending on how many panels a user installs. More savings can be had if the panels are paired with batteries that can store excess solar energy. 

“They cover a part of your energy bill and then you do need to draw the rest from the grid as you do now,” Stryker explained. 

The “Balkonkraftwerk” trend

While the technology is just gaining a foothold in the U.S., it is already a cultural phenomenon in Europe. In Germany, these systems are so common they have a specific name: Balkonkraftwerk, or “balcony power plant.”

An estimated 4 million balcony solar units are currently installed in Germany. The U.S., however, has been slower to adopt the tech, largely due to a patchwork of utility regulations and bureaucratic red tape. Utilities in some states have pushed back against the use of these systems citing potential hazards to the safety of the grid and line workers. 

“And that is patently ridiculous for these little systems,” Stryker said. “Those laws were intended for rooftop systems 5 to 20 times as large.”

A changing legal landscape

The tide is quickly turning. In 2025, Utah became the first state to officially authorize plug-in solar. Overall, 34 states and Washington, D.C., have introduced legislation to allow for use of the technology. It has passed in Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Virginia. 

For advocates like Stryker, it’s a matter of personal liberty: “It’s kind of like ‘don’t tell me what to do in my own backyard and on my own balcony.’”

As for Alex Curtis, he knows his Sunnyvale neighbors might have questions when they see the sleek panel hanging from his railing, but he’s focused on his newfound taste of energy independence. 

“I think that’s what gets me excited,” Curtis said. “Being able to power my own stuff and be self- sufficient like in baby steps which is pretty cool.”

Climate Central is an independent group of scientists and communicators who research and report the facts about our changing climate and how it affects people’s lives. It is a policy-neutral 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Dozens of countries have called out growing “coordinated attacks” by fossil fuel interests aimed at undermining the role of climate science in the UN negotiations at the mid-year talks in Bonn.

Under the banner of ‘Friends of Science’, in an overflowing press conference room lined with negotiators and civil society supporters, diplomats from Fiji, Nepal, the European Union, Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Panama vowed to ensure that decision-making in the UN climate process remains based on the “best available science”. That includes reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate science body, they said.

While steering clear of singling out any specific country, they said efforts to cast doubt on established scientific concepts, such as the 1.5 global warming limit, are led by “the usual suspects” and those who think “science threatens their economic prospects”. 

Saudi Arabia and India have opposed calls in draft texts to encourage scientific work on scenarios that would minimise the magnitude and duration of any overshoot of 1.5C, according to one negotiator in the room and summaries of closed-door discussions published by a reporting service. 

UN chief António Guterres conceded last year that a temporary breach of the key warming limit is inevitable, while urging countries to redouble efforts to bring temperatures back down.

‘Polluted narrative’

Scientists have long established that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of man-made climate change and a rapid shift away from oil, coal and gas is essential to curb global warming.

Saudi Arabia is dependent on oil and gas exports, while India largely relies on coal to power its economic development.

One negotiator said that research on how climate action can be equitable for developing countries, produced by Indian universities, had been published too late to be incorporated into the last IPCC assessment report in 2023. This incident led the Indian government to try and discredit the IPCC, they said. Some Indian scientists have argued that the IPCC’s scenarios are unfair on developing countries.

• Jun 12, 2026 News European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels Some European, small island and other nations argue the forthcoming roadmap should be part of UN climate talks, while Russia has resisted this idea Read more
• Jun 17, 2026 News The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI Concerns are growing about the high energy, water and land demands of artificial intelligence tech hubs, while benefits for local people remain unclear Read more

Saudi Arabia and India have played down the importance of making sure that the latest IPCC assessments – regarded as the gold standard of climate science – are available for the next global stocktake, the UN scorecard of climate action around the world. 

“Anyone that is blocking references to science – they are not our friends,” Sivendra Michael, lead negotiator for Fiji, told a press conference, highlighting the rise of a “polluted narrative” both inside and outside the negotiating rooms.

1.5C is a ‘hard limit’

Speaking for the AILAC coalition of Latin American countries, Panama’s Ana Aguilar said they went to Bonn to negotiate positions, not to negotiate the facts laid out by science.

“We see coordinated efforts to cast doubt on the best available science driven by a narrow set of interests, not by the needs of our people,” she added. “We have seen this playbook before… manufacture doubt, delay the response and let the vulnerable people pay this bill.”

Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping) Negotiators, researchers and civil society activists attend a press conference on defending science in the UN climate process in Bonn, Germany on June 17, 2026. (Photo: Teo Ormond-Skeaping)

The ‘Friends of Science’ coalition stressed that the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement cannot be negotiated, as the survival of the most climate vulnerable communities is at stake if it is permanently breached.

“Science tells us that 1.5C is a hard limit for many countries, including the small island developing states and least developed countries,” said Manjeet Dhakal, a negotiator for Nepal. “We still have a chance to keep 1.5 degrees in reach and minimise the overshoot if we act fast and drastically.”

Long-running IPCC standoff

While diplomats claimed attacks on science are broadening, one long-standing issue of contention is whether the latest assessment reports of the IPCC will be ready in time for the next UN global stocktake due to start this November and end in 2028. 

This matters because, as some experts have pointed out, previous IPCC findings played a key role in the first such exercise, which culminated at COP28 in Dubai in the landmark agreement on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it

Since the start of the latest IPCC assessment cycle, known as AR7, a battle over the timing has dragged on for over two years at successive IPCC meetings, with governments repeatedly failing to find a breakthrough. 

A large majority of nations have been pushing for an accelerated timeline that would ensure the AR7 reports can be fed into the UN’s global stocktake. But a group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Russia and Kenya, have said at previous IPCC meetings they want a longer process, arguing a fast-tracked assessment would put a burden on developing countries with limited resources.

Science and the stocktake

That fight has now bled into the Bonn talks where governments began discussing the arrangements for the next stocktake. At a session earlier this week, most developed countries, Latin American and small island states, and the world’s poorest nations emphasised the assessment of collective climate action must be guided by the “best available science” – code for the findings of the IPCC reports.

The Maldives, speaking for small island states, said IPCC science remains “essential to the integrity, credibility and usefulness” of the stocktake. AILAC said that starting the process “on the right footing” requires a political decision on the timeline to deliver the AR7 reports in time. Switzerland said IPCC reports “ask more than is politically comfortable, but that is precisely why they must guide every decision we make”.

Saudi Arabia, however, said no particular scientific input – and in particular what comes out of the IPCC – should be prioritised. Similarly, India warned against creating “some kind of preferred hierarchy” in the role that any specific source of information should play in the process.

Ghana’s Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, who chairs the African Group, told a press conference on Tuesday that some countries think rushing to get IPCC inputs into the global stocktake could “undermine or compromise the IPCC process”. “Africa is for science,” he said, without saying where the continent stands on the IPCC timeline.

Crunch talks in October

At the “Friends of Science” press conference, Dhakal pushed back on the idea that science would have to be rushed to be incorporated. He said the IPCC leadership has “perfectly made it clear” that they can deliver the report before the global stocktake. “It is the scientists who are saying they can deliver it on time,” he said. 

The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace) The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace)

The discussion will be picked up again at the next IPCC session in October, where its boss Jim Skea is hoping to reach an agreement. “As a scientist myself, I cannot overstate the importance of this decision,” he told governments in Bonn last week.

Andreas Sieber, head of political strategy at campaigning group 350.org, told Climate Home News that the debate may sound procedural, “but it is anything but”. “Science is the backbone of the Paris Agreement ambition cycle, and the evidence assessed through AR7 will help determine not only the emissions pathways countries pursue, but also how the world responds to mounting climate losses and who receives support,” he said in Bonn.

The post Science ‘under attack’ from fossil fuel interests at UN climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Seed saving is the practice of collecting and preserving seeds to produce future crops from past harvests, creating a cycle of cultivation that has sustained agricultural communities for millennia. For thousands of years, farmers and gardeners have saved seeds, preserving biodiversity, strengthening food-system resilience, and maintaining cultural traditions.

By continually selecting and replanting seeds, farmers developed crops adapted to local conditions while maintaining genetic diversity that can improve resilience to pests, disease. Seed saving can also help farmers recover from storms, droughts, and other extreme weather.

For many communities, saving seeds is deeply connected to culture, identity, and community life. Many developed sophisticated traditions for collecting, storing, exchanging, and stewarding seeds. “We cannot separate culture and identity from the art, act, and love of growing food,” Sherry Manning, Founder and CEO of Global Seed Savers, tells Food Tank

Seeds can also serve as living records of history. Accounts collected by seed-saving organizations tell of a Holocaust survivor who smuggled bean seeds out of Auschwitz in the folds of her clothing, and gardens cultivated by internees at Germany’s Ruhleben camp during World War I. Refugees fleeing the city of Daraa in Syria carried eggplant and pepper seeds across the border to Jordan and replanted them in exile.

In her essay “Black Land Matters,” Leah Penniman, Soul Fire Farm cofounder, activist, farmer, and author of Farming While Black,  describes West African women who braided seeds into their hair before being forced onto transatlantic slave ships. “The seed was their most precious legacy,” Penniman writes, “and they believed against odds in a future of tilling and reaping the earth.”

There is evidence that hunter-gatherer communities collected and cultivated wild seeds as early as 30,000 years ago. During the emergence of agriculture around 12,000 years ago, communities around the world began selecting and replanting seeds. They gradually transformed wild species into domesticated crops that remain central to global diets today, like wheat, lentils, chickpeas, rice, and sorghum.

Farmers remained at the center of selecting and improving seed varieties for most of agricultural history. “But about 100 years ago, that began to change,” Ira Wallace, Co-owner of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, tells Food Tank.

During the 20th century, mechanization, advances in plant breeding, and the growth of commercial seed companies profoundly reshaped agriculture. As food production became more centralized and food processing more prevalent, many farmers and gardeners shifted from saving seeds to purchasing them each season, and from local varieties to genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties.

A series of court decisions and regulatory changes in the 1980s and 1990s accelerated this shift by expanding intellectual property protections for seeds. Companies gained the ability to patent genetically engineered seeds, plant varieties, breeding methods, and genetic traits, transforming many seeds from a renewable and reusable resource for farmers into proprietary products governed by licensing agreements.

As seed companies consolidated, four firms came to control more than half of global seed sales. Supporters argue consolidation has increased investment in breeding and research, while critics contend it has contributed to the loss of locally adapted varieties. Roughly 75 percent of global crop genetic diversity has disappeared over the past century, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Patent protections generally prevent farmers from saving patented seeds, increasing reliance on commercial suppliers and narrow farmers’ options. Some researchers have also linked consolidation to rising costs; according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, soybean seed prices increased by more than 200 percent between 2000 and 2020, while consumer prices rose 57 percent during the same period.

In recent decades, concerns about biodiversity loss, climate change, and consolidation in the seed industry have renewed broader interest in seed saving. That resurgence has helped fuel a broader movement centered on seed sovereignty, the idea that farmers and communities should have the right to control over the seeds they grow, save, exchange, and develop.

In Kenya, the Seed Savers Network advocates for stronger protections for Indigenous seeds while partnering with smallholder farmers to identify, preserve, and reintroduce local varieties at risk of disappearing. In the Philippines, Global Seed Savers works with farmers to establish community-owned seed libraries stocked with regionally adapted varieties.

Other initiatives focus on returning seeds to the communities that stewarded them. Nonprofits including Seed Savers Exchange have worked to rematriate heritage seed varieties to Indigenous seed keepers, while Native Seeds/SEARCH conserves thousands of traditional Indigenous crops.

Seed banks and seed exchanges have also expanded worldwide. In Norway, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault safeguards more than 1.3 million seed samples representing over 6,000 plant species. In eastern India, Vrihi maintains one of the region’s largest folk rice seed banks and promotes the practice of non-commercial seed exchange. The Crop Trust is dedicated to making crop diversity for use globally, forever and for the benefit of everyone, and operates genebanks worldwide.

Policymakers have also begun revisiting seed laws. In 2021, Maine became the first U.S. state to enshrine a right to food in its constitution, including the right to save and exchange seeds. And in 2025, Kenya’s High Court struck down provisions of the country’s seed law that penalized farmers for saving and sharing Indigenous seeds, a decision advocates described as a major victory for food sovereignty.

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Photo courtesy of Vincenzo Tabaglio, Unsplash

The post Food Tank Explains: Seed Saving appeared first on Food Tank.

PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 12, 2026) –  As the Greater Philadelphia region prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors for FIFA World Cup matches and America 250  celebrations, Clean Air Council has launched an interactive digital map to help visitors and residents reach major events without driving. 

This map highlights event locations and shows public transit and biking options, helping you avoid traffic and parking hassles, reduce pollution, and explore Philly car-free. 

The map is hosted on the Clean Air Council’s website at gophillygo.cleanair.org.

“No one wants to spend their summer sitting in traffic and paying for expensive event parking,” said Titania Markland, Clean Air Council Sustainable Transportation Program Manager. “Traveling car-free to the Philadelphia region’s many events this summer is a win for attendee experience, your wallet, and the environment. We are excited to launch GoPhillyGo: Car-Free Routes to make car-free travel planning easy and fun.”

“The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission is pleased to help fund this effort to make traveling around our region without a car this summer, and beyond, a bit easier, for visitors and residents alike,” said Stacy Bartels, Manager of TDM Strategy and Marketing. “Fewer cars on the roads means less traffic congestion and air pollution, which is good for everyone.”

The fun doesn’t stop at summer’s end. Clean Air Council plans to keep the map updated with events and travel information year-round to promote a sustainable, car-free lifestyle. For more information and to access the map, please visit: gophillygo.cleanair.org.

On quiet streets across the Californian city of Monterey Park, green-and-white “YES on Measure NDC” signs stood on front-yard lawns as volunteers walked door-to-door, drumming up support among residents to vote in favor of a ban on new data centers in their area.

They clarified the ballot wording in English, Spanish and Chinese, while distributing multilingual flyers warning about the rise in electricity demand, industrial infrastructure and environmental impacts associated with AI-related data center development.

Less than a month later, on June 2, Monterey Park voters overwhelmingly approved the ban in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, with 86.4% voting in favor and 13.6% opposed, according to county election results.

Social opposition to data centers is on the rise, especially in the US, as artificial intelligence (AI) and the technology hubs needed to support it stoke competition for electricity, water and land in communities where they are based. Industry advocates say data centers bring economic benefits and do not always result in higher power prices for households.

A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol) A front-yard sign encourages Monterey Park residents to vote “YES on Measure NDC” (No Data Centers) in the San Gabriel Valley, LA County on May 9, 2026 (Photo: Kristen Mayol)

The result in Monterey Park made it the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centers through a voter-approved ballot measure.

“This week our city has been celebrating the landslide results from Measure NDC,” Monterey Park Mayor Elizabeth Yang said in a phone interview.

On social media, Yang described the city’s response as the result of sustained resident organizing and civic engagement. “We want to fulfill our duty of listening to residents,” Yang told Climate Home News.

A community campaign takes shape

The vote came after months of public testimony, neighborhood outreach and organizing surrounding a proposed data center project on Saturn Street in Monterey Park. Here, developers planned to replace an existing commercial office building with a nearly 50-megawatt data center intended to serve growing demand for AI computing.

Supporters of Measure NDC (Measure No Data Centers) argued that keeping this, and other such centers, out of their community would help protect air quality, drinking water resources, public health and local infrastructure.

According to CoStar News, a real estate information platform, the backers of the Saturn Street project – Digico Infrastructure REIT and HMC Capital’s StratCap – had already withdrawn their planning application on April 3 amid growing local opposition and regulatory uncertainty, including the city’s decision to place a data center ban before voters.

Subsequently, on April 20, the Monterey Park City Council adopted an ordinance prohibiting all data centers within the city limits.

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

Company representatives later said they would explore future “productive land uses … supported by the broader community”. Potential alternatives discussed publicly have included housing, although no formal proposal has been submitted.

Reuters reported in May that DigiCo Infrastructure, an Australian company, was exploring “monetisation options” for its two Los Angeles sites after rowing back on the Monterey Park proposal. DigiCo is also selling its Chicago data center for $750 million to pay down debt and fund the development of another site in Sydney.

DigiCo and HMC Capital did not respond to requests for comment for this article.

Potential local benefits of data centers

Industry lobby groups argue that data centers can provide economic benefits to host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents major operators and developers, data centers 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. A recent report by energy consulting firm Energy + Environmental Economics (E3), commissioned by the coalition, found no historical evidence that data centers had driven up residential electricity rates under existing utility pricing structures. It argued that factors including inflation, grid modernization costs, natural gas price volatility and investments in wildfire resilience have played a bigger role in rising electricity bills.

According to E3, large users can, under certain regulatory frameworks, reduce prices for other customers by contributing more revenue to utilities than they cost to serve. In a previous analysis of Amazon data centers, the consultancy found that payments from the facilities exceeded the incremental costs incurred by utilities. The report also noted that regulators across the US have increasingly adopted specialized pricing structures as data center demand has expanded.

An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) An aerial photo shows the Alibaba Zhejiang Cloud Computing Renhe Data Center in Hangzhou, China, on April 11, 2024. (Photo by Costfoto/NurPhoto) Hefty carbon, water and land footprints

The concerns raised in Monterey Park mirror debates over the environmental and infrastructure demands of AI being heard in many countries around the world, from Europe to North America and Asia.

This month, a UN report estimated that the data centers required for AI globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 – roughly twice France’s 2025 power consumption.

This, it calculated, would have a carbon footprint needing some 6.7 billion trees grown over 10 years to offset, a water footprint equal to the annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a land footprint of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area. 

In a 2026 report, Key Questions on Energy and AI, the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers grew by approximately 50% in 2025 alone.

It warned that “social acceptability is also a growing issue, as communities push back against data center projects”, citing concerns about environmental sustainability, electricity affordability, infrastructure strain and democratic participation in land-use decisions.

Global data center electricity consumption by sensitivity case, 2020-2035

Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0) Left axis shows terawatt hours. (IEA: Licence CC BY 4.0)

AI-focused facilities consume substantially more electricity than traditional data centers and often require extensive supporting infrastructure, including cooling systems, industrial electrical equipment, backup generators running on diesel and large-scale energy storage systems.

The IEA also noted that operators are increasingly exploring onsite natural gas generation and battery infrastructure to maintain electrical reliability as AI workloads intensify.

Local concern over industrial infrastructure

Samuel Brown Vazquez, an East San Gabriel Valley community organizer, said doubts about the proposed data center in Monterey Park were informed by broader debates over industrial development in the area.

Brown cited community opposition to proposals that could bring battery energy storage facilities – and potentially data centers – to the former Puente Hills Mall site  in the City of Industry, where residents have raised concerns about pollution, fire risks, and the impacts of new industrial infrastructure on nearby residential neighborhoods and schools.

Many viewed the campaign as part of a larger conversation about how communities should respond to the rapid expansion of AI-related infrastructure across Southern California.

Power-hungry AI data centres seen driving demand for fossil fuels

According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data center projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 amid increasing local opposition.

Mayor Yang wants Monterey Park’s experience to encourage other communities to take a more active role in decisions about AI-related infrastructure. “We’re hoping other cities can follow similarly in banning data centers with proposed ballot measures,” she said, adding that whether such efforts succeed elsewhere will depend in part on how local officials respond to residents’ concerns.

Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol) Materials for the “Yes on Measure NDC” campaign, May, 2026 (Photos: Kristen Mayol)

The new UN report this month called on governments and companies to address AI’s environmental impacts proactively to ensure that the technology develops sustainably and its benefits are shared fairly.

Kaveh Madani, director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, who led the investigation team for the report, said AI “is a technological transformation that is improving the lives of billions of people around the world”. But, he added, it must be used “responsibly”.   

“We have a narrow window to ensure that the backbone of the technological revolution of our era develops within planetary limits, and that the communities who provide the critical minerals for advancing AI and the ones that host its infrastructure and e-waste are also among those who benefit from it,” he said.

This story was developed, reported and produced under the Covering Climate Now (CCNow) Climate Journalism Student Mentorship, which connects USC student journalists with professional newsrooms in CCNow’s global network. Participants receive training, editorial mentorship, and the opportunity to report and publish original climate stories with partner outlets while being paid professional freelance rates.

The post The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI appeared first on Climate Home News.

In January 2025, the Trump administration began shutting down projects within the EPA’s independent science division that touched on climate change and environmental justice. Air quality researcher Thomas Luben, who had worked at the agency for 18 years, was fired for objecting.

Read more on E360 →

When Congress approved a $1 billion Energy Resilience Fund for Puerto Rico in 2022, the money was desperately needed. Multiple hurricanes had battered the island’s notoriously fragile electric grid, and lawmakers envisioned the money supporting rooftop solar and battery systems that could provide resilient backup power during emergencies.

The Biden administration’s Department of Energy developed a plan to distribute the funds to about 40,000 low-income Puerto Ricans, many of whom live with health conditions requiring access to reliable power. Biden officials envisioned a network of solar and battery systems that would keep medically vulnerable Puerto Ricans safe during storms and reduce reliance on the island’s unstable grid.

The Trump administration has different ideas.

The plan all but disappeared after President Trump took office last year. Trump’s DOE has since redirected a large share of the funds to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, the bankrupt utility that operates the island’s grid. The money is now poised to shore up PREPA’s fleet of power plants, which largely run on fossil fuels, and $50 million will fund a new natural gas pipeline. The administration has defended the decision by arguing that PREPA’s infrastructure improvements will ultimately benefit a broader swath of the island’s population.

The process by which Trump’s DOE unilaterally redirected the resilience funds, seemingly against Congress’ intent, has so far been shrouded in secrecy. But public records obtained by Grist under the Freedom of Information Act shed new light on how Trump’s political appointees engineered the change. The documents show that the DOE gave PREPA unusually favorable treatment, in part by soliciting no competing bids for the funds, fast-tracking the review process, and using Trump’s executive order announcing an “energy emergency” as the justification for the award. 

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Most eyebrow-raising, perhaps, was the way that the DOE waived its typical requirement that grant recipients pony up substantial funding of their own to contribute to project costs. Exceptions are sometimes made for indigent recipients or economically distressed communities, but for large organizations such as PREPA — which has nearly $4 billion in annual revenue — the agency typically requires a 50 percent cost share. 

In PREPA’s case, the DOE accepted just a 1 percent cost share, noting that the utility was under “significant financial stress” and that waiving the cost-share requirement is “necessary in order to provide a more stable foundation for Puerto Rico to begin to perform long-term energy planning and repairs.”

Some critics who have worked at the agency in the past are unsatisfied with this explanation.

“The 1 percent cost share is potentially unprecedented for a DOE award of this size, and to a recipient with this much cash flow,” said a former Biden administration DOE official, who spoke under condition of anonymity due to concerns it would affect their current employment. The former official noted that in order for such an exception to be legal, it must have been made by the secretary of energy, Chris Wright, himself. “Congress decreed that cost-share waivers are only supposed to be available via a secretarial determination. They weren’t intended to be used often, and they haven’t been.” 

A spokesperson with the Office for Electricity at the DOE said that the agency “carefully evaluated procurement options and determined that a noncompetitive, sole-source award to PREPA was justified” and that achieving the goals of the energy resilience fund required the use of PREPA. The spokesperson acknowledged that the “reduction from the standard 50 percent cost share is significant,” but noted that the determination was made under authority provided by the Energy Policy Act. 

“PREPA continues to face severe fiscal constraints while maintaining responsibility for critical generation and transmission infrastructure,” the spokesperson said. “Requiring a 50 percent cost share would not have been feasible and would have delayed urgently needed grid stabilization and repair activities, undermining the core purpose of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund.”

The agency seemed well aware that its decision to award the funds to PREPA without considering competing applicants — and without seeking congressional approval for reallocating the funds from their intended use — would likely draw scrutiny. A section titled “Sensitivities” in a memo drafted by the head of the agency’s Grid Deployment Office highlighted that the decision to waive a 30-day congressional notice period, not seek other bids, and “the cost-share reduction may generate negative commentary, as the initial monies were planned to fund solar installations for multi-family housing (limited to common areas), community-based healthcare facilities.” The memo also went on to state that the “sole source designation to PREPA may raise objections to fairness, and perceived undue favoritism.” (“Sole source designation” is the term of art for a noncompetitive award to a single vendor.)

Puerto Rico’s electric grid has long been fragile. The average resident on the island experienced more than 70 hours of outages in 2024. When Hurricane Maria made landfall in 2017, the island’s more than 3 million residents lost power for weeks. It took PREPA more than nine months to restore power to some parts of the island. In the aftermath of the deadly disaster, Congress allocated more than $17 billion to modernize the grid. But almost a decade later, PREPA has completed very few projects with that massive influx of funding, and the utility has continued to navigate bankruptcy proceedings since 2017. The resilience funds being redirected to PREPA are in addition to this earlier allocation. The DOE memo acknowledges these issues, noting that “all parties involved are in less than desirable financial condition.” 

“It is really surprising that DOE would plan to send these sums to PREPA itself, given its record of federal spending,” the former Biden administration official added.

Still, Trump’s DOE came to the conclusion that PREPA was best suited to receive the funds. The memo argued that even if the agency had undergone a time-consuming competitive process — one that would have taken 18 months — it would have ultimately selected PREPA because the operator has sole ownership of the island’s grid. “Given the urgency of the situation, there is no other entity in Puerto Rico with the breadth of capability, asset ownership, and legal mandate to execute energy emergency response, grid stabilization, and recovery projects at this scale,” according to the document.

Read Next Solar was poised to help Puerto Ricans survive blackouts — until Trump axed nearly $1B in funding Naveena Sadasivam

Last month, more than 40 congressional Democrats sent Secretary Wright a letter demanding to know why the agency had redirected the resilience funding. The lawmakers asked for a briefing that would detail the agency’s justification for moving funds to PREPA. 

“DOE’s lack of transparency, wasteful reuse of the funding, disregard for congressional intent, and potentially illegal cancellation of contracts — combined with the resulting increase in energy poverty and loss of energy security — raise serious questions about the Department’s uses of the Puerto Rico-Energy Resilience Fund,” the letter said. 

The lawmakers were particularly concerned about the funds being used to build a natural gas pipeline. On its website, the DOE does not detail funding of the pipeline directly but instead refers to the project as “fuel supply security between San Juan and Palo Seco.” In internal documents, however, the DOE plainly notes that it intends to allocate $50 million to construct a natural gas pipeline. According to reporting in El Nuevo Día, a Puerto Rican publication, local authorities have already been working on building a natural gas pipeline connecting power stations in San Juan and Palo Seco, which is about 9 miles away. 

“Trying to force a liquefied methane pipeline project onto the people of Puerto Rico would help lock in the need to import fuels — keeping methane gas prices exorbitant for decades to come, putting ratepayers on the hook for funding it, and adding to already astronomical electricity costs,” the lawmakers’ letter reads. 

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside the government’s push to divert Puerto Rico solar funds to a bankrupt utility on Jun 17, 2026.

Georgia’s legislature has allotted $2 million for the first year of the Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund. Farm landowners across the state have applied for a piece of that funding to protect their land from development — for housing, warehouses, data centers, and other uses. Applicants will find out in August if they’ve been selected.

Some 30 states have what are known as “purchase of agricultural conservation easement” programs, though the amount of funding varies a great deal from state to state. Texas allocates $2 million annually, while Florida set aside $300 million in 2022 and $100 million in 2024. Georgia’s law, modeled after these initiatives, was passed in 2023, established a formal program to coordinate federal, state, and local match funding, and created an advisory council to review and approve proposals. The legislature passed the initial round of funding in 2024, and the first round of applications closed May 20.

The easements allow landowners to sell the future development rights for their land to an organization, like a land trust. An appraisal process determines the value of those development rights, and the farmer and easement holder negotiate the details of their agreement. The landowner receives an upfront payment, half of which comes from the state funds. The rest is match funding, which could come from a land trust, local government, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which allocates $450 million annually to match dollars in state conservation programs. The landowner can continue farming, growing and harvesting timber, or however else they use their land. They can even sell the land — just not to a developer who will turn it into housing, a strip mall, or an industrial site.

“It’s a compelling alternative to our farming landowners that are feeling a lot of financial crunch and are just being inundated with offers for selling out,” said Katherine Moore, president of the Georgia Conservancy, which advocated for the new state fund.

Those offers to sell can vary widely, depending on location, development plans, and many other factors. Prices in the sale of transitional land — property changing from one use to another — ranged from just over $6,000 to more than $260,000 per acre in 2025, according to a report by Saunders Land, a real estate brokerage and management firm. The value of a conservation easement varies widely too for similar reasons, though a landowner would typically receive less money for an easement than they would in an outright sale, since they’re selling rights rather than the land itself.

One such farmer is Russ Moon, who grows corn, soybeans, and strawberries and raises cattle on his family farm in Madison County, Georgia, outside of Athens. His family has worked that land for four generations, around 100 years. He wants to keep it that way and pass the farm on to his kids one day. Moon said he’s watched more housing and development come to the area over the years. It’s appealing to many, he said, to live near the University of Georgia in Athens and also enjoy the bucolic rural setting. Other farms around him have already sold, he said, and he’s worried that if left unchecked, the development rush will fundamentally change the community.

The irrigation system waters a field on Russ Moon’s family farm outside Athens, Georgia. Russ Moon

“Selling the land is really not an option,” he said of his own plans. “I intend on remaining in agriculture for as long as possible.” 

Moon said he’d only sell if forced to. But that could happen someday, for him or for his kids when they take over. Farming can be an unstable business, subject to weather and changing crop prices and global markets.

“There may be a day where they have to sell, but I don’t want the land to be developed,” he said. “That’s my desire, that’s my family’s desire.”

Some of Moon’s land is in a conservation easement, which he entered into directly with a land trust in 2019. The state’s new conservation fund aims to protect more land in a similar way by providing state funding to help facilitate such deals. 

It’s a critical step, said Moore of the Georgia Conservancy.

“It is unprecedented for Georgia to have such a program, which is a little wild when you think that, you know, agribusiness in total is our number one economic engine in the state,” she said.

Even though agriculture is Georgia’s leading industry, farmers face mounting pressure to sell to developers. The state could lose some 800,000 acres of farmland by 2040, according to the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

“That means 10 percent of our farmland will be gone in the next 15 years or so,” said state agriculture commissioner Tyler Harper. “And that’s a staggering statistic.”

That’s a concern not only because farms provide food and jobs and are a big part of the state’s economy, but also because of the potential climate impacts. 

Converting farmland to other uses can increase greenhouse gas emissions, according to the American Farmland Trust. Topsoil often has to be removed to pave the land, releasing the carbon that’s stored in it. Uses like low-density residential development or industrial operations often produce more emissions than farming. Conservation easements, on the other hand, can encourage farming and management practices that sequester more carbon, and they often protect non-agricultural land adjacent to fields — like woods and wetlands.

State leaders often tout the booming economy, proudly calling Georgia the number one state to do business. But that gives Moon pause.

“The whole time we keep being the number one place to do business, we’re hurting our number one industry,” he said. That damage could be permanent. “Once you develop a piece of property, you’re never going to — it’s never going to go back. You lose farmland, it’s gone forever,” Moon said.

He hopes that getting more farmland into conservation can help maintain some balance before it’s too late.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia is losing farmland fast. Is a state conservation fund enough to save it? on Jun 17, 2026.

The COP31 co-presidents had the idea right on global electrification targets. They got the measurement wrong.

The post We’re targeting 35 pct electrification in less than 10 years – but 35 pct of what? appeared first on Renew Economy.

Trucks and vans represent a major opportunity for emissions reductions. While these trucks make up a small share of vehicles on the road, they account for a disproportionate share of transportation emissions and fuel costs. Electrifying this sector...

Turkiye Urged to Adopt More Climate-Ambitious Zero Waste Policies Declaration Released As World Leaders Meet at Bonn Intersessional 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 17, 2026

Bonn, Germany– As world leaders gather in Bonn, Germany to lay the groundwork for negotiations at COP31, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) has released a public declaration in collaboration with Greenpeace Türkiye, World Wildlife Fund Türkiye, the Microplastic Research Group, and the Plastic Free Türkiye Platform, and  signed on by 124 organizations in almost 60 countries representing zero waste practitioners, policy experts, and community groups. 

The declaration highlights the gap between Türkiye’s promotion of zero waste on the international stage and domestic policies that continue to support practices inconsistent with ambitious climate action, environmental justice, and public health.The signatories urge Türkiye, as host of COP31, to set a high bar for climate ambition by advancing a comprehensive zero waste agenda that addresses the root causes of waste and emissions.

At a press conference last Tuesday, June 9 ahead of the Bonn intersessional, COP31 President-Designate Murat Kurum announced a goal of halving global waste by 2035. While this target is visionary, zero waste advocates remain unclear on the baseline, scope, and implementation of such a goal, and whether it will include reducing plastic production and providing a just transition for waste pickers and workers, as well as other key strategies.

Sedat Gündoğdu of the Microplastic Research Group states:  

“It is good that Turkey has prioritized zero waste on the COP31 agenda; however, it appears that the current plastic waste governance may not be entirely consistent with this ambitious political objective. Specifically, new investments in petrochemical plants, the ongoing waste trade, and the exclusion of waste pickers from the system seem to be at odds with this goal. For the COP31 agenda to be successfully implemented, a phasing out strategy from plastic is necessary. The concept of zero waste should be genuinely pursued, not merely presented as a facade.”

Mariel Vilella, Global Climate Program Director at GAIA, states:

“Zero waste is one of the fastest and most effective climate solutions available today, but it must go beyond waste management. A credible zero waste agenda means reducing plastic production at its source, cutting methane emissions through organics diversion, and ending reliance on polluting technologies such as waste-to-energy incineration and pyrolysis. As COP31 host, Türkiye has an opportunity to show that climate leadership means tackling the fossil fuel and waste crises together while ensuring a just transition that protects waste pickers, workers, and frontline communities.”

Following China’s National Sword policy, which restricted most plastic waste imports into the country, Türkiye emerged as one of the world’s leading destinations for imported plastic waste.  The declaration calls on Türkiye to address its role in the global waste trade, end waste colonialism, and prioritize environmental justice for communities disproportionately affected by waste pollution. 

Berk Butan, Campaigner at Greenpeace Türkiye, states:

 “Real climate leadership at COP31 begins with acknowledging that 99 percent of plastics are made from fossil fuels. A true zero waste strategy requires turning off the tap on plastic production and ending the injustice of waste colonialism that turns Türkiye into Europe’s plastic dumping ground.”

The Declaration calls for: 

• Zero waste strategies that are linked to fossil fuel phase-out and reduced plastic production
• Stronger methane reduction commitments and accountability measures, particularly through organics diversion and landfill methane prevention
• Rejection of false solutions such as waste-to-energy incineration, pyrolysis, and other carbon-intensive technologies
• An end to waste colonialism and a commitment to environmental justice for affected communities
• A just transition that recognizes, protects, and includes waste pickers and waste workers in policy, financing, and implementation

Note to the Editor:

The Joint Declaration: Aligning Zero Waste with High-Ambitious Climate Action for COP31 can be found at: https://www.no-burn.org/joint-declaration-zero-waste-climate-action-cop31/

Press contact:

Claire Arkin, Global Communications Lead

claire@no-burn.org | +1 510-604-7833

###

GAIA is a worldwide alliance of more than 1,000 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 100 countries. With our work, we aim to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution. We envision a just, zero waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights, where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution, and resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped. 

The post 124 Civil Society Groups Call on COP31 Presidency to Turn Zero Waste Ambition into Climate Action first appeared on GAIA.

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release

All eyes on Article 9.1

Bonn, Germany— Under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, Global North countries most responsible for historical emissions and spurring the climate crisis are required to help provide the climate finance necessary for Global South countries to respond to climate change. Yet, year after year, Global North governments come to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and refuse to pay their climate debt while using every tactic in their obstructionist playbook to block any meaningful attempt to discuss, let alone implement, delivery of meaningful climate finance. As the 64th meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies of the UNFCCC (SB64) heads into its final stretch the story is no different. 

Finance remains entirely inadequate. Article 9.1 continues to be contested and diluted. But Global North countries must fulfil their obligations under Article 9.1 and provide public, grant-based, predictable and adequate finance to the Global South. Not as aid or charity, but as the fulfillment of a  a legal and moral obligation. In the final hours of these climate negotiations, climate finance remains a defining test of whether the climate regime is prepared to uphold the principles of equity and historical responsibility. 

Join members of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) to hear about what’s currently happening in the Article 9.1 negotiations and what can be done to set us on a path towards a COP31 that delivers on climate finance obligations.  

WHEN: Wednesday 17 June 2026, 11:00-11:30 CEST (UTC + 2) 

WHERE: Nairobi 4, Main building, Inside the World Conference Center and webcast here

WITH: 

• Aleijn Reintegrado – Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development 
• Meena Raman – Third World Network
• Teresa Anderson – ActionAid
• Wanun Permpibul – Climate Watch Thailand
• Moderated by Rachitaa Gupta, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice

CONTACT: dcj.comms@demandclimatejustice.org 

For more detail on DCJ’s demands across all topics on the agenda for Bonn, read  DCJ’s SB64 Position Paper: Advancing Climate Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis

The post Media Advisory: All eyes on Article 9.1 appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

The scales fall from our eyes Channel Comment brendan 17th June 2026 Teaser Media

Headline policy reform has not translated into improved investment conditions for renewables in Australia, a new survey has found, with 20% saying things have got worse.

The post Investors still “largely downbeat” about renewables, as policy and fossil risks overshadow rewards appeared first on Renew Economy.

• Transit agencies usually hedge against rising fuel costs by keeping a year’s supply of diesel fuel on hand, so they’re not as affected by price variations as airlines. On the other hand, they also can’t raise prices at the drop of a hat. (Smart Cities Dive)
• Because 70 percent of freight is shipped by truck, high diesel costs affect almost every consumer. (Penn Today)
• Truckers don’t want to make last-mile deliveries, which is why they see New York City’s microhub program as a success. (Trucking Info)
• GM is getting into the business of building batteries for data centers. (Tech Crunch)
• After the new Bellevue line opened, Seattle now has the busiest light rail system in the country. (Secret Seattle)
• Houston created a Green Corridor to help soccer fans walk or bike around the city during the World Cup, and many people are hoping the changes stick. (Houston Public Media)
• A new Colorado law requires automakers to recycle electric vehicle batteries. (The Drive)
• Amtrak’s Borealis line between Chicago and St. Paul has drawn more than 400,000 passengers since it launched two years ago. (Minnesota Public Radio)
• Jarrett Walker drew a new bus route map for Des Moines that improves headways in the densest areas. (Human Transit)
• A safe streets advocate argues that Hawaii bikeshare Biki deserves more funding. (Civil Beat)
• Wyoming transit agencies are seeing massive cuts to their federal funding. (Buffalo Bulletin)
• The Hop is shifting to its “festival line” route for the summer. (Urban Milwaukee)
• Aspen is starting a fare-free transit pilot program. (Passenger Transport)
• An epic handshake is happening between unlikely partners in developers, transit advocates and environmentalists over a North Carolina bill banning parking minimums. (WHQR)
• Meet the guys responsible for painting the L.A. Metro. (The Source)
  
  

Global fossil fuel use must halve by 2035 and be phased out entirely by 2070 at the latest if the world is to keep global warming below 1.5°C.

The post “Pouring oil on climate fire:” Global fossil fuel use must halve by 2035 to avoid catastrophic climate damage appeared first on Renew Economy.

Federal energy minister seeks principles-based rule change to ensure retailers are doing more than just the bare minimum to engage with electricity customers.

The post Must do better: Bowen seeks rule change to force energy retailers to do right thing by electricity customers appeared first on Renew Economy.

The autonomous vehicle industry drove onto the scene with resources no transportation industry had ever enjoyed before: billions in capital, the most-sophisticated engineering talent in the world, genuine public excitement, and a regulatory environment that laid down smooth asphalt. For a window of time, the dream of redesigning public transportation from the ground up was genuinely within reach.

But, for the most part, the industry has used it to build a better taxi.

Most public scrutiny around autonomous vehicles has centered on whether the technology works and its various mishaps and misdeeds. Did a Waymo just run a red light? Did Tesla Autopilot cause a crash? Are regulators keeping pace with what’s happening on the roads? This focus misses the larger problem. Technically, the vehicles work well enough, helping to prevent crashes and save lives.

Practically, what has emerged is an industry trend that prioritizes hype instead of mobility equity.

Robotaxis remain operational in narrow geofenced corridors across a handful of major cities, serving riders who already have multiple ways to get around, not to mention Ubers, Lyfts, yellow cabs, etc. Yet 45 percent of the U.S. population has little to no access to adequate public transportation, a figure that has barely moved despite years of industry expansion and billions in cumulative investment. Rather than closing that gap, the AV industry has driven away from it.

The problem runs deeper than simple oversight or neglect. Autonomous vehicles actually exacerbate the problem as robotaxis generate “deadhead” miles at scale, with empty vehicles circling between rides and adding congestion to urban streets without moving a single additional person anywhere. In 2025, deadhead miles accounted for nearly half of Waymo’s total travel in San Francisco, according to California’s Public Utilities Commission. They didn’t contribute new mobility options to the city, only additional traffic competing with transit infrastructure already struggling to function.

Meanwhile, the communities most in need of new mobility options are watching their existing ones disappear. Transit agencies across the country are cutting routes and reducing service hours, not because demand has fallen, but because running low-density corridors, early-morning services, and last-mile connections to transit hubs simply costs too much to justify on current budgets. Routes on low-density corridors are always the first to go when finances tighten, and they are the ones that people with the fewest alternatives depend on most. Nevertheless, the AV industry, flush with capital and engineering capacity, has treated this as someone else’s problem.

Yet, this is precisely where autonomous vehicle economics should change the outcome. The financial case for cutting a transit route rests most heavily on staffing costs. Transportation providers continue to report a persistent bus driver shortage, with one in four transit workers worldwide expected to retire by 2035. Many systems are already operating at a fraction of their required driver capacity, forcing route cuts even where ridership demand exists. At the same time, drivers are expensive, and overnight shifts on low-ridership corridors produce unit economics that no transit agency can defend when facing a budget shortfall. Remove the staffing cost, and the calculus shifts substantially. Without drivers to pay or depots to man in the early hours of the day, a bus running at 5 a.m. on a sparse suburban corridor stops being a financial liability and becomes a service an agency can afford to sustain. Routes that transit operators couldn’t justify keeping become routes they can afford to launch.

The evidence that this works is already accumulating. Driverless shuttles are being deployed along Atlanta’s BeltLine, connecting MARTA rail stations, university campuses, and the Lee and White district on fixed short routes designed specifically to close first-and-last-mile gaps that have long frustrated commuters. In Europe, an EU-backed initiative has launched autonomous transit trials in Oslo and Geneva, focused on integrating demand-responsive driverless vehicles directly into existing public transport networks. What remains unresolved is whether the broader industry will drive down the road where the evidence already leads.

The next phase of AV deployment is being negotiated now, in conversations among technology companies, regulators, and transit authorities, assessing whether this technology has anything practical to offer their networks. Transit operators are resource-constrained and not inclined toward optimism. They need a concrete and near-term return-on-investment case, not a promise of transformation. Years of industry effort have gone into building that case for premium riders in high-density ZIP codes. Building it for the agencies that serve everyone else has barely begun.

Cities that move more people more efficiently generate more economic output and more equitable access to healthcare, education, and employment opportunities. A robotaxi serving upscale passengers in a handful of city blocks will not change those numbers at any meaningful scale. Autonomous vehicle technology is already built for public transit and already operating on public roads. The driver may have left the vehicle, but the industry still has to decide what purpose that vehicle will serve.