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Canada’s largest gold miner, Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX, NYSE: AEM), reported record 2025 reserves of the precious metal and a 135% surge in annual profit, lifting its dividend as higher gold prices boosted revenue.

Year-end gold mineral reserves rose 2.1% to a record 55.4 million ounces, supported by exploration success and the initial declaration of reserves at the Marban deposit in Malartic following the March 2025 acquisition of O3 Mining. Reserves totalled 1.33 billion tonnes grading 1.30 g/t gold.

Measured and indicated resources increased 9.6% to 47.1 million ounces, or 1.2 billion tonnes at 1.22 g/t, while inferred resources climbed 15.5% to 41.8 million ounces, or 522 million tonnes at 2.49 g/t.

Net income for the year ended December 31, 2025, jumped to $4.46 billion, or $8.89 per share, from $1.9 billion in 2024, as revenue rose 44% to $11.91 billion on stronger gold prices.

The company met its full-year production target, producing 3.45 million ounces of gold in 2025. That compares with 3.4 million ounces in 2024. Fourth-quarter output reached 841,000 ounces, in line with consensus estimates.

Full-year all-in sustaining costs rose 8% to $1,339 per ounce, largely due to higher royalty payments tied to stronger gold prices.

In addition to gold, Agnico produced 2.5 million ounces of silver, 8,446 tonnes of zinc and 5,393 tonnes of copper in 2025.

The company increased its quarterly dividend to 45 cents per share from 40 cents, effective the March quarter of 2026.

“Agnico Eagle has never been better positioned, with the strongest balance sheet in our history,” president and CEO Ammar Al-Joundi said in the statement.

He added that the company’s project pipeline could lift annual gold production by 20% to 30% over the next decade to more than four million ounces by the early 2030s.

Agnico Eagle launches $130M Avenir unit for critical minerals

BMO analyst Matthew Murphy said projects at Malartic, Detour Lake, Upper Beaver and Hope Bay could add 0.7 million to one million ounces a year over the next decade, pushing output above four million ounces in the early 2030s. He also pointed to progress on a second shaft at Malartic and potential additional production from the Marban satellite pit later in the decade.

Agnico ran an average of 120 diamond drill rigs in 2025 and completed 1.4 million metres of core drilling across its portfolio.

2026 plans

For 2026, the company expects exploration and project spending of $565 million to $635 million, with a midpoint of $600 million. That includes about $384 million for capitalized and expensed exploration and roughly $216 million for advanced exploration projects, studies and other corporate development work.

Key priorities include continued drilling at the Detour Lake underground project, assessing the full potential of the Canadian Malartic property, advancing regional synergies in Abitibi and expanding exploration at Hope Bay.

Shares of Agnico Eagle rose nearly 1.7% in pre-market trading Friday in New York to $205.21. The stock has climbed 104% over the past year, giving the company a market capitalization of about $103 billion.

Market sentiment has reflected the company’s strong performance over the past year. The miner topped MINING.COM’s Global Mining Power Rankings in the large-cap category for a third straight month in January. 

The rankings highlight companies viewed by investors, analysts and industry insiders as delivering operational consistency, financial momentum and strategic progress across market capitalizations.

Mads Christensen is Executive Director of Greenpeace International.

As the military and diplomatic establishment gather for the annual Munich Security Conference, the air will be thick with talk of “strategic autonomy” and “energy security.” But there is little autonomy to talk of when sovereignty is for sale, and security is a hollow promise while regional stability depends on the weaponized resources of a rival power.

We are witnessing the unmasking of a 19th-century worldview: Resource Colonialism. In Venezuela, the mask slipped quickly; the world watched as the United States Navy deployed off the coast, reviving gunboat diplomacy for the 21st century. This was confirmed by President Trump’s declaration that the U.S. would exercise ‘de facto control’ over Venezuela’s oil industry. 

In Greenland, the ‘prize’ is territorial expansion, and minerals, coveted for economic gain and military security. The rush for Greenland’s minerals threatens to replicate every abuse of the oil age: building on the same colonial mindset, displacing Indigenous communities, poisoning local water, and overriding democracy. Rhetoric toward Greenland has shifted from pressure to hostility, then manifesting in the ‘framework of a future deal’ as announced by VP Vance.

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Emboldened by his bestseller ‘The Art of the Deal’, and the myth that he is the world’s ultimate businessman, Trump has replaced diplomacy with acquisition. His administration is treating sovereign territories and Indigenous homelands as if they were a real estate portfolio in Manhattan. 

Global liquidation sale

The fact of the matter is that Trump’s transactional worldview, where everything has a price tag, is not leadership but a global liquidation sale. Backed by a cabal of fossil-fuel billionaires, this circle of autocrats is treating the 21st century like a distressed asset to be stripped bare, regardless of the costs to the rest of us.

But growing up in Denmark and working in the Arctic for many years, there is one thing I know for certain: Greenland is not a deal to be made. It is not a place to be defined or controlled by anyone other than the people of Greenland. 

And this is not just an American problem. Look East, and you see the mirror image. As Greenpeace has documented, Russia has transformed into a total “fossil fuel war economy.” The Kremlin’s aggression is funded almost entirely by oil and gas exports, creating a feedback loop where extraction finances its war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as internal oppression.

In response, European leaders have finally agreed to end Russian gas imports, but are blindly rushing headlong into a dependency on American liquefied fossil gas. Trading dependency on Putin for dependency on Trump, however, is not a security strategy: it’s a high-stakes game with very poor cards. 

This is a message European diplomats need to bear in mind in Munich this week as they gather to discuss urgent issues such as energy security: the more Europe depends on the US for energy, the greater the vulnerability to pressure by Trump.

Climate action is “weapon” for security in unstable world, UN climate chief says

Every euro spent on US oil and gas strengthens Trump’s authoritarian agenda at home and colonialist ambitions abroad, threatening Europe’s independence and security. The only way for Europe to achieve true energy security is to phase out fossil gas and accelerate the shift to a fully renewable energy system. 

The ‘Art of the Deal’ mindset treats the world like a chessboard and uses the fact that the board is burning to advance its interests. To Trump, the melting ice in Greenland isn’t a global catastrophe but just a door opening to get to the minerals underneath. But when we treat the climate crisis as just another ‘variable’ in a trade war, we lose the ability to cooperate. 

Path to peace and security lies in clean energy

True security is not trading Russian gas for American fracking. It means phasing out fossil fuels and accelerating the shift to a fully renewable energy system that makes no dictator or president the master of Europe’s lights, whether they sit in Moscow, Mar-a-Lago or elsewhere.

True security is a just transition away from fossil fuels, not a military scramble to burn them faster. Expanding oil extraction anywhere undermines global climate goals and increases climate risks everywhere. A fossil-free, peaceful future requires breaking the link between energy systems, militarisation and exploitation.

Explainer: What is the petrodollar and why is it under pressure?

The leaders gathering in Munich have a stark choice. They can acquiesce to the dogma that might make right and that sovereignty is for sale, or they can recognise that true security requires charting another path entirely with a rules-based global order at its heart.

Rejecting resource colonialism needs to go hand in hand with boldly displaying different leadership: one that reclaims the moral compass. True leadership is built on solidarity, not threats. A healthy society isn’t measured by the profits of a few, but by the wellbeing of the many. Success isn’t about who wins; it’s about who thrives. 

We are defined by what we save, not what we take.

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In advance of a January 30 meeting in Ottawa between Canada’s federal, provincial, and territorial ministers responsible for early learning and child care, Child Care...

The post Ministers meet, but the future of $10-a-day child care remains uncertain first appeared on Spring.

Sarah Hess started taking her toddler, Josie, to New Orleans’ Mickey Markey Playground in 2010 because she thought it would be a safe place to play after Josie had been diagnosed with lead poisoning. 

Hess had traced the problem to the crumbling paint in her family’s century-old home. While it underwent lead remediation, the family stayed in a newer, lead-free house in the Bywater neighborhood near Markey, where Josie regularly played on the swings and slides.

“Everyone was telling us the safest place to play was outside at playgrounds, so that’s where we went,” Hess said.

Josie’s next blood test was a shock. “It skyrocketed,” Hess said. Josie’s lead levels had leapt to nearly five times the national health standard. 

When the soil at Markey was tested in late 2010, it too was found to have dangerously high levels of lead. But the city took no meaningful action to inform Markey’s users or make the park safe. Parents started posting warning signs at the park and flooded City Hall with outraged calls and emails. Holding Josie in her arms, Hess made an impassioned speech to the City Council. 

A child’s shoes are left in the dirt next to the playground at Mickey Markey Park in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans in November 2025. It’s common for children to play barefoot at this playground. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

In short order, the city had hired a company to test Markey and other parks, and pledged to fix the lead problem wherever it was found.

“I couldn’t have been more pleased,” Hess said. “They were totally into it. My impression was they were going to make them all lead-free parks.”

But a Verite News investigation conducted over four months in 2025 found that lead pollution in New Orleans parks not only persists, it is more widespread than previously known. Dozens of city parks with playgrounds remain unsafe, including Markey and others that underwent city-sponsored lead remediation in 2011. The city does not appear to have conducted any major remediation or lead testing of parks since that time.  

The findings indicate that city officials fell short in their cleanup efforts then, and that a very large number of New Orleans children are exposed to excessive amounts of lead now, said Howard Mielke, a retired Tulane University toxicologist and one of the nation’s leading experts on lead contamination.

“It’s a failed program,” he said. “They didn’t do what they needed to do to bring the lead levels down in a single park.”

Verite News reporters tested hundreds of soil samples from 84 city parks with playgrounds in fall 2025. Adrienne Katner, a lead contamination researcher with Louisiana State University, verified the results. The testing found that about half the parks had lead concentrations that exceed a federal hazard level established in 2024 for soil in urban areas. 

“I am surprised they haven’t been tested and mitigated,” said Gabriel Filippelli, an Indiana University biochemist who studies lead exposure. “If there’s evidence of kids playing in soils that are as high as [Verite’s testing] described, that’s kind of horrifying.”

Public health researchers and doctors say that children under 6 absorb lead-laden dust more easily than adults, contaminating their blood and harming the long-term development of their brains and nervous systems. There is no known safe exposure level for children, and even trace amounts can result in behavioral problems and lower cognitive abilities. 

Find out what the lead levels are at New Orleans playgrounds window.addEventListener('message',function(event){if(event.origin!=="https://veritenews.org")return;if(event.data.type==='resize'){const iframe=document.getElementById('verite-nola-map');if(iframe){iframe.style.height=event.data.value+'px'}}},!1)

New Orleans is in financial straits with a budget deficit of about $220 million, and it’s unclear what priority or resources Mayor Helena Moreno will, or even can, allocate to restart lead remediation efforts. In response to the financial crisis, Moreno has eliminated dozens of positions and plans to furlough 700 employees one day per pay period to save money. Moreno’s administration did not respond to requests for comment.

The city doesn’t routinely test for lead in parks, said Larry Barabino, chief executive officer of the New Orleans Recreation Development, or NORD, Commission, the agency that oversees most of the city’s parklands. He confirmed the last significant effort to test parks ended in 2011. 

He called Verite’s results “definitely concerning” and pledged to work with city departments and local experts to potentially remediate unsafe parks. 

“Safety is our number one priority here at NORD,” Barabino said. “If there’s anything that’s a true environmental concern or risk, that’s something that we believe in definitely making sure we take action.”

Andrea Young heard similar pledges 14 years ago. Like Hess, Young had a child who frequented Markey and had high lead levels in her blood. The mothers helped form a community group called NOLA Unleaded that pushed the city to clean up Markey and other parks. Young thought they had succeeded, but said she now realizes that the city had not done enough. 

“It makes me question the value of the work that [the city] did, and the safety we felt in letting our kids play there again,” Young said with a trembling voice. “It just sort of shakes me up a little bit, you know?”

Testing New Orleans parks

Verite News conducted soil tests on the city parks that property inventories and maps list as having play structures. Samples were taken from surface soil, which is most likely to come into contact with children’s hands and toys or be inhaled when kicked up during play or blown by the wind. 

Lead is typically found in very small amounts in natural soil. The average lead abundance in U.S. soils is 26 parts per million, equivalent to less than an ounce of lead per ton of soil. 

Soil samples collected by Verite from New Orleans parks averaged about 121 ppm — nearly five times the national average. 

Verite reporter Tristan Baurick tests lead levels while reporter Halle Parker maps the exact GPS coordinates of the reading at Mirabeau Playground in the Gentilly neighborhood of New Orleans in September 2025.
Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

The federal hazard level for lead in soil was 400 ppm until early 2024, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden lowered it to 200 ppm for most residential areas and 100 ppm in areas like New Orleans with multiple sources of lead exposure, including contaminated soil, lead paint, and large numbers of lead pipes.

More of a guide than a mandate, the EPA screening levels can steer federal cleanup actions and are often adopted by state and city governments to inform local responses to lead contamination.

California has long had a much lower standard of 80 ppm. Of the New Orleans parks Verite tested, 52 — or about two-thirds — had results that fail California’s standard. 

In October, President Donald Trump’s administration rolled back the EPA screening standards. The administration retained the 200 ppm threshold for residential areas but eliminated the 100 ppm level for areas with multiple lead sources.

The administration didn’t dispute the validity of the 100 ppm threshold, but argued that a single level “reduces inconsistent implementation and provides clarity to decision-makers and the public.”

The change, according to Mielke, doesn’t align with the science, which has long shown that children are harmed when exposed to soil with levels below 100 ppm. He was one of several scientists who had pushed for lower thresholds since the EPA established its first screening levels more than 30 years ago.

Families spend time at Confetti Playspot in Algiers Point on the West Bank of New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

Mielke said the 100 ppm screening level should still be applied in urban areas, especially New Orleans. The city has a long history of soil contaminated with lead from a combination of sources, including lead-based paint, leaded gasoline, and emissions from waste incinerators and other industrial facilities. Lead particles spread easily by wind, eventually settling in the topsoil. 

Verite found lead levels above 100 ppm at numerous places that get heavy use by children. Lead contamination more than four times that level was recorded near the slides at Markey, outside a playhouse in Brignac Park near Magazine Street and at a well-worn spot under an oak tree at Desmare Park in Bayou St. John. 

Elevated lead levels tended to follow the age of the neighborhood. The city’s older neighborhoods, including the Irish Channel and Algiers Point, had some of the highest lead levels, while Gentilly and New Orleans East, which were developed mostly after the 1950s, tended to be lower, according to Verite’s findings.

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Verite spoke to more than a dozen parents at playgrounds across the city, and most were surprised at the levels of lead in the parks. 

In the Irish Channel, Meg Potts watched her son run around the dusty playground at Brignac. All of Verite’s samples at the park surpassed the threshold the EPA deemed safe for urban areas, reaching nearly 600 ppm. 

Potts knew high lead levels existed in the city, but didn’t realize her neighborhood park could be a source of exposure for her son. 

“ I’m just thinking about all of this now because he’s had to go in and have his lead tested,” she said. “He’s like right on the cusp of having too high lead.”

The invisibility of lead makes it challenging for parents to manage among other priorities. Meghan Stroh, whose children often play at Markey, said it’s hard for parents to protect their children from every threat, but tackling lead at parks is one way the city could help. 

Children play at Desmare Playground in the Bayou St. John neighborhood of New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

“It’s a concern that I have amidst a myriad of others,” she said while holding her 10-month-old daughter on her hip. “So, it would be nice to have one thing checked off the list.”

Katner, the LSU researcher, said Verite’s results can serve as a starting point for city officials to conduct more comprehensive testing in parks, noting that even a single lead hotspot in a park is concerning.

“ It doesn’t matter where it is in the soil; there’s exposure there,” she said. “The kid playing in that part of the park is going to get the highest dose.”

A legacy of lead 

Before the 1970s, lead was nearly everywhere. A 2022 study estimated that the vast majority of the U.S. population born between 1960 and 1980 was poisoned by dangerously high levels of lead in early childhood. On average, lead exposure has resulted in a loss of 2.6 IQ points for more than half the population through 2015. 

Lead pollution from cars spread into areas near roads, especially major thoroughfares, until leaded gasoline was phased out by 1996. Similarly, emissions from trash incinerators and industrial sites contaminated the surrounding soil. New Orleans had at least eight incinerators that blew toxic gases and lead dust over several neighborhoods, including Algiers Point and St. Roch, until they were closed in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Today, the most pervasive source of lead in soil is degraded paint. Lead-based paint was used extensively for homes and buildings until it was banned in 1978. In New Orleans, most of the houses were built before 1980, according to the 2024 American Community Survey. As the paint deteriorates, Tulane University epidemiologist Felicia Rabito said it can chip or turn into toxic dust.

Edith Salmon, 10 months, plays with dirt and other debris scattered across the playground’s rubber tiles at Mickey Markey Park in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

“ The leaded paint goes straight into the dust and it goes straight into the soils, which is a major source of exposure for young children in the city,” said Rabito, who studies lead poisoning and other health conditions.

Children under 6 years old are especially vulnerable, in part because they love to stick their hands in their mouths. Rabito stressed that kids don’t have to eat the soil directly to be harmed. Children putting their thumbs in their mouths after playing on a seesaw or eating a dropped Cheerio can be enough. 

Even a one-time exposure to contaminated soil can raise the level of lead in a child’s blood, Rabito said. They’re at an even higher risk if they have a calcium deficiency.

”Lead mimics calcium, so the body essentially thinks that the lead is calcium,” Rabito said. After the lead enters the bloodstream, it’s hard to fully remove. Most of it is stored long-term in the body’s bones, accumulating over time and potentially releasing into the bloodstream again later.  

Rabito recommended that parents steer clear of contaminated playgrounds because it’s hard to avoid exposure. 

Lead paint peels off a pole at Hunter’s Field Playground in New Orleans in September 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

The only way to know if a child has lead poisoning is a medical test. By state law, Louisiana healthcare providers are required to ensure every child between 6 months and 6 years of age receives at least two blood tests by age 1 and age 2. 

But the law did not include a way to enforce those testing requirements, so many providers don’t test, according to a 2017 report from the Louisiana Department of Health. The screening rate has always been very low in New Orleans, Rabito said. In 2022, fewer than one in 10 children under 6 years old were screened for lead poisoning in the city, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“ There’s not anything that we can say about lead poisoning or lead levels in children in Orleans Parish with any scientific certainty,” Rabito said. “ As you see from your own testing, there are different pockets of contamination depending upon where you’re playing. Parents really need to get their children tested.”

Limited soil testing, patchy fixes

In 2010, Claudia Copeland joined Hess and other Markey regulars in having their kids tested for lead. One of Copeland’s children, born in Germany, had a blood lead level considered normal at the time. But her younger, New Orleans-born child showed elevated levels that set off alarm bells for Copeland, a molecular biologist.

“There really is no safe level, but it was really bad,” she said. 

Copeland hurriedly made signs and posted them around the park. “THE SOIL IN MARKEY PARK IS TOXIC!” they blared in big black letters. 

Claudia Copeland, a mother and activist who pushed the city to remediate Mickey Markey Park in 2010, poses for a portrait at the park in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans in December 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

“The city was aware, but they just were not doing anything,” Copeland said. “Parents needed to know. We were all so ignorant about what was in the soil. You know, we’re all saying ‘a little dirt never hurt.’”  

Outcry from parents prompted the city to first fence off and padlock Markey, and then promise a more comprehensive response. 

The New Orleans health commissioner at the time, Karen DeSalvo, said the city should do “everything we can to understand what the risk might be and to remediate it.” But she also appeared to minimize the dangers of lead at city parks, saying other health risks, like the flu, were greater. 

“In the scheme of the many public health challenges that kids have, it’s not the greatest challenge, honestly,” DeSalvo told The Times-Picayune in February 2011. 

Then-mayor Mitch Landrieu was more definitive, pledging a swift, far-reaching action. 

A child goes down the slide at the Daneel Playground in Uptown New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

“The city will take all necessary measures to investigate possible lead contamination in other parks and playgrounds and remediate them as soon as possible,” he said in March 2011. 

Two months later, testing and remediation were completed at several parks. Members of NOLA Unleaded celebrated and brought their kids back to familiar playgrounds. 

But Verite’s review of work orders shows that the city’s testing and remediation efforts were limited to a small number of parks. Despite city leaders’ assurances of a broad response, only 16 parks were tested in 2011, according to documents obtained through public records requests. 

Mielke and NOLA Unleaded’s members believed most or all of the city’s parks were tested, pointing to Landrieu’s promises and an article in the Atlantic that reported that the city agreed to “test all of the public parks in the city.”

“I guess I kind of believed that, and then you realize that that’s not actually true,” said Young after learning the city’s testing was more limited than she thought. “If the majority of the parks they tested were high [in lead], what would make them think all the others are fine?”

A weathered sign warns drivers that there are children playing nearby at Evans Playground in Uptown New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

Landrieu did not respond to a request for comment. DeSalvo, who retired last year as Google’s chief health officer, said “extremely limited resources” forced the city to weigh its response to lead contamination with the many other health threats residents faced.  

“We worked to address the range of exposures whenever possible with the resources we could muster,” she said. 

Of the 16 parks the city tested, only two — A.L. Davis in Central City and Norwood Thompson in Gert Town — had levels below 400 ppm, the federal threshold at the time, and were deemed safe by Materials Management Group, or MMG, which was and still is the city’s environmental consultant. One park, Evans in the Freret neighborhood, was found to have lead levels as high as 610 ppm but wasn’t remediated for reasons not made clear in testing documents and progress reports submitted by MMG. Thirteen parks, including Markey, underwent remediation after testing showed the properties exceeded the 400 ppm threshold that MMG used to determine soil hazard levels.

Fourteen years later, Verite’s testing found A.L. Davis and Norwood Thompson have comparatively low lead levels, although A.L. Davis had one sample slightly above the 100 ppm threshold. 

Evans, which did not undergo remediation despite unsafe lead levels in 2011, had the highest lead reading of all soil samples collected by Verite. Alongside a low-hanging oak branch, on ground worn bare by children’s play, Verite recorded lead at 5,998 ppm, a level nearly 60 times the urban soils threshold and more than twice that of Verite’s second-highest sample, taken at Soraporu Park in the Irish Channel. 

In 2011, MMG recommended remediation at Evans, including installing a fabric layer topped with clean soil in three areas, including the northeast corner where Verite collected the 5,998 ppm sample. MMG noted in a 2015 progress report that it had not performed the work, but the firm did not explain why. 

Zen Trismegistus, right, relaxes on an inflatable couch she brought from home while she watches her daughters Axeliah Dupuy, 10, and Zeniya Walters, 3, play nearby at Easton Park in the Bayou St. John neighborhood of New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

MMG did not respond to requests for comment.  

Documents obtained by Verite show that the city’s remediation efforts focused on covering patches of contaminated soil rather than the comprehensive treatment Mielke recommended to city leaders in 2011. Mielke had urged the city to fully cover play areas with clean soil, a strategy his research showed was highly effective in reducing lead exposure. 

In 2010, Mielke led an effort to reduce lead exposure at 10 child care center playgrounds in New Orleans. He and his team covered the entire footprint of each playground with water-pervious plastic fabric and then six inches of Mississippi River sediment from the Bonnet Carre Spillway, a source of clean, cheap, and easily accessible soil. Lead levels fell, with most playgrounds testing below 10 ppm. 

The remediation at city parks also used fabric and soil layers, but the coverings were mostly limited to areas with lead levels above 400 ppm, leaving many hazardous areas exposed. Testing and remediation reports obtained by Verite typically show soil capping in only two or three spots, with most of each park remaining untreated. 

The remediation at Comiskey Park in Mid-City, for instance, was limited to a 200-square-foot circle in a soccer field and a 400-square-foot strip along a basketball court. No remediation was done near the playground, where Verite’s testing detected lead levels between 155 ppm and 483 ppm. 

At Easton Park in Bayou St. John, the 2011 remediation covered four areas totalling about 4,700 square feet, but the park’s playground was left untouched. Verite measured four samples around the playground that exceeded the 100 ppm threshold, including 1,060 ppm and 603 ppm readings near Easton’s swingset.

The soil cover at Markey was more extensive than in other remediations, stretching across much of the park’s playground and shaded picnic area. But Verite’s testing found high levels of lead in the remediated area, including two samples above 200 ppm and one just above 400 ppm. 

“That’s kind of shocking,” Copeland said. “At Markey, the kids play everywhere, and in the sandy areas, they really dig down. I’ve seen holes going almost three feet down, like they’re playing at a beach. They could be getting into contaminated soil and distributing it around.”

Mielke was surprised to learn that the remediation results were far more limited than he recommended. He was blunt in his assessment of the work. 

“They worked on too small an area, and they should have been using … large amounts of soil and covering over large areas,” he said. 

Hess, a New Orleans native who recently moved to Colorado, said failing to deliver on projects is all too common in New Orleans, a city infamous for chronic dysfunction and mismanagement.     

“It’s so sad to have done such a shit job,” she said. “But that’s so New Orleans. I’m sorry. I don’t live there anymore, but it still makes me sad.”

A roadmap for cleanup?

Barabino, the recreation district CEO, said he would share Verite’s results with city project managers and MMG. 

“It’s definitely concerning if it’s at the level that’s considered a true risk of threat, and we would get it to [the] capital projects [administration] immediately to get MMG out there, so we could take the steps needed to remediate and make those areas and grounds safe for our kids and families to use,” Barabino said. 

Filippelli said the city should conduct comprehensive testing of every park and do regular checkups. But because lead contamination in New Orleans parks is extensive and city leaders are struggling to close a large budget deficit, Filippelli recommends that the city remediate the worst parks first. 

Twins Justice and Jamar Johnson, 6, play in the grass with Stevie Irish, 5, at Soraparu Playspot in Uptown New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

He and Mielke don’t believe the city must take the route of full remediation, which involves digging up lead-tainted soil and trucking it to a hazardous-waste landfill. That’s very costly and is usually unnecessary if a park is properly capped with clean soil, Filippelli said. 

Verite obtained cost estimates for 10 of the 13 parks targeted for remediation in 2011. The total cost was $83,000 in 2011, or about $120,000 today. The work covered more than 1.3 acres across the 10 properties. Compared with similar remediation efforts described by Mielke and Filippelli, the city’s remediation efforts were very expensive. Filippelli estimates that similar work can be done for about $20,000 per acre — about a fifth of what was spent to remediate just over an acre at New Orleans parks.

Evans, Markey, and many other parks with high lead levels have about an acre of open soil or grass that could be capped for about $20,000. Some parks with the biggest lead problems are the smallest in size. Soraporu Park, which scored the second-highest lead levels in Verite’s testing, would need about a half-acre of coverage. Union and Brignac parks, each less than a quarter acre, could be capped for about $5,000, according to Filippelli’s rough estimates.  

Mariah Lee carries her daughters in her arms at the Lafitte Greenway playground in New Orleans in November 2025. Christiana Botic / Verite News and Catchlight Local / Report for America

Remediation should be coupled with efforts to reduce contamination from nearby sources, primarily old houses, Rabito said. 

“When you clean up soil, you’re not going to do it much good if you haven’t identified what’s contaminating the soil,” she said. In many cases of recontamination, the culprit was a nearby house that was shedding lead paint. 

“Which means the soil was clean for a hot minute before it got recontaminated,” she said. “So, we need to make sure that those homes are cleaned up and maintained in a lead-safe way.”

Cleaning up New Orleans parks will also likely require sustained public pressure, said the parents involved with the lead issue in 2011. 

“I was not intending to kick butts or make anybody look bad,” said Copeland of her efforts to alert parents about the dangers at Markey. “But nothing would have happened unless all these parents were calling in to the city.”

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Two Verite News reporters were trained to use an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer to test 531 soil samples over a month in late 2025. The XRF is a $30,000 handheld device that can detect the unique traits of lead at trace levels, down to 10 parts per million. The analyzer is widely used by government and university scientists.

The reporters tested 531 soil samples over a month in late 2025, following protocols developed by retired Tulane University toxicologist Howard Mielke and vetted by three other lead-contamination researchers. The reporters tested surface soil in and around play structures and other areas of parks that children use. Of the more than 110 parks in New Orleans, Verite concentrated on the 84 that city property inventories and maps list as having play structures. The reporters collected between three and 11 samples at each park, depending on the size, site accessibility, and levels of contamination. The GPS was accurate to within a few feet depending on cloud cover and signal blockage from buildings and trees.

Verite’s results were reviewed by Adrienne Katner, a lead-contamination researcher at Louisiana State University. She verified the testing’s accuracy by comparing it with a smaller set of park soil samples collected by her team last summer. Due to the limitations of Verite’s sampling method, the results can’t be used to describe the state of a whole park. But they provide a starting point for city officials to conduct more comprehensive testing that could guide remediation.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Poison at play: Unsafe lead levels found in half of New Orleans playgrounds on Feb 13, 2026.

Five years ago, climate activists stunned corporate America by winning three seats on Exxon Mobil’s board. Similar revolts have forced some of the nation’s biggest companies to address climate change. Now, the federal regulator overseeing shareholder rights is making it harder for small investors to convey their concerns. 

In November, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, announced that it would essentially stop weighing in on whether companies must put shareholder proposals to a vote. Then, in January, the agency said it would no longer allow investors with less than $5 million in shares to use its online system to send communiqués, known as exempt solicitations, to fellow shareholders. Such documents are often used to lay out an investor’s stance on a given issue, including climate action. 

The SEC says the moves are an attempt to rein in the scope of government and ease burdensome regulation. But others see them as a way to contain the influence of potentially irksome investors. “We are concerned that they limit the voice of [company] owners,” Steven Rothstein, chief program officer for Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit working with companies and investors, said of the changes. “Shareholders are being cut out of the process.”

The SEC had already made it harder to place a resolution on the voting docket during President Donald Trump’s first term. And companies are still allowed to block such proposals for several reasons — for example, if they can’t reasonably implement them or if they amount to micromanagement of business operations. But, prior to November, companies could expect the SEC to offer guidance on whether the government would take action if a proposal was excluded. While technically non-binding, these so-called “no action” letters were a strong sign that the government would let the company’s decision stand.

The SEC said it would retreat from its role as arbiter for at least a year, citing “resource” considerations and last fall’s prolonged government shutdown. Andrew Behar, CEO of the shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, wouldn’t be surprised if the SEC extended the pause. As he put it, “they are no longer going to be the referee.”

The government also lamented that the “large volume” of requests often require prompt attention from staff. According to nonprofit think tank The Conference Board, which has more than 2,000 companies as members, last year the SEC ruled on 291 “no-action” requests from companies on the Russell 3000 stock market index. That’s up from 207 the previous year, and 144 in 2023. “It was too much,” said Ariane Marchis-Mouren, an expert in corporate governance at The Conference Board. “This is a way for them to shift the responsibility to the companies.”

Marchis-Mouren argues that without the SEC’s input, companies face greater legal risk from investors or the SEC, which could make them think twice before excluding proposals. But Behar and other activists worry the opposite will occur: Because the SEC has rarely taken enforcement action in this arena and lawsuits are often prohibitively expensive for smaller shareholders, there is little left to prevent companies from omitting resolutions they don’t like. 

“Exxon wouldn’t put them on their proxy statement,” said Behar, giving an example. Still, he remains unsure whether the new SEC approach will spur activists to flood companies with proposals, or shy away. What’s more clear, however, is the impact on exempt solicitations. 

Advocacy nonprofits and corporate gadflies have been the main drivers of exempt solicitations, according to data from The Conference Board. As You Sow topped the list, writing more than 200 of them since 2018, on a range of concerns, including climate change. But, under the new rules, Behar said groups like his would be almost entirely sidelined. 

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul S. Atkins testified before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on February 12. Win McNamee / Getty Images

Some argue that this is a good thing — that exempt solicitations have devolved into a platform for activism that’s better reserved for other platforms. “These notices were not meant to be the means for any shareholder to broadcast its views via EDGAR,” an SEC spokesperson told Grist in a statement, referring to the commission’s official online system. Shareholders can instead use “press releases, emails, websites and social media, and electronic shareholder forums.” 

But Rothstein argues that the targeted nature of the official SEC systems helps give often niche or nuanced issues more weight. “People may not see that newspaper story or that radio interview or whatever it might be,” he said. An exempt solicitation, on the other hand, “reaches the people voting.”

Ultimately, Behar said, limiting small investors’ options for holding corporations accountable removes incentives for those companies to constructively engage with advocates. “Companies generally sit down with us,” he said, noting that As You Sow had more than 100 such engagements last year alone. “It’s all part of a process.”

On Wednesday, SEC chairman Paul Atkins doubled down on his deregulatory push in testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services. He said that, in addition to the steps already taken, the SEC is reevaluating the frequency of financial statement reporting, which is now quarterly, and considering scaling back other disclosures a company must make. Lawmakers asked him about this apparent shift toward shareholders having access to less information. 

“In general, it comes down to the company’s decision as to what they believe is material or not,” he said during an exchange with Representative Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts. “Our rules are geared to the company.”

The SEC did not respond to follow-up questions from Grist, including whether the one-year pause on no action letters will be extended or, without them, how the government plans to enforce noncompliance.

Rothstein worries that the current trajectory could have broader consequences for the economy. 

“Engagement has made our capital markets great,” he said, arguing that tamping the dialogue between companies and its owners will reduce transparency and could make people less likely to buy stock in U.S. companies. “We think that is very harmful to the American economy.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline It just got harder for shareholders to push companies on climate on Feb 13, 2026.

In what one sage deemed "amateur-hour, clown-fucker, reality-show dictatorship shit," this week's House hearings on ICE abuses, Epstein cover-ups and other GOP atrocities showcased a parade of rancid, lying, stonewalling MAGA lickspittles and deplorables - loudest among them sneering "bad acid trip come to life" Pam Bondi - facing off against a for-once united cohort of smart, angry, truth-telling Democrats with righteous history on their side and, finally, no fucks left to give. We are here for it.

Deep in his delusional bubble, the mad child-king ostensibly in charge of these evil cretins told Fox News Wednesday that Americans are living in "the greatest period of anything we’ve ever seen." Maybe he meant how he's been bravely standing up for a bridge he thinks Canada ripped us off for while forgetting he praised it when it was built, and paid for, by Canada. Or maybe it's 'cause in exchange for idiotically spending our money trying to prop up dirty, pricey, inefficient coal - "the 19th century called and it wants its fuel source back" - and glitching out en route, the "simplest mark of all time" got another shiny participation trophy as the “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal." "Lookit his happy face!" the Internet chortled. "The big special boy is so big and so special!" Also, "Marvel is running out of Superheroes" and "This is the saddest thing I've ever seen."

Possibly sadder is MAGA Reps. Andy Ogles and Mark Alford still melting down about Bad Bunny's "pure smut" half-time show wherein "children were forced to endure explicit displays of gay sexual acts" that are "illegal to be displayed on public airways" which is why he wants a Congressional inquiry into said "unspeakable depravities," though they might be confusing them with Epstein's, which they've notably ignored. Also sad is another bigly fail by US Attorney Jeanine Boxwine to get a grand jury indictment for fake crimes, in this case against Dem Sens. Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and four Reps, all veterans, for their video reading the law out loud to remind military they have the right not to obey illegal orders. The kicker: Her attempt was so ludicrous that reportedly zero grand jurors thought she hit the famously low ham-sandwich bar for probable cause.

In this week's House hearings, it was clear Dem lawmakers, like the rest of us, had reached the famed point in 1954's McCarthy hearings when an appalled Joseph Welch, at the limit of his tolerance for McCarthy's lies and cruelty, exclaimed, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" That fierce moral outrage, and the strength and clarity needed to vent it, has been evident in besieged Minnesota for weeks - In grand jurors' refusal to indict so-called "rioters,” in protesters' profane, hilarious anthem pillorying ICE Barbie, in neighbors seething at the masked, armed rabble that just caused a multi-vehicle crash in St.Paul, the latest in endless ICE crimes and transgressions. "Oh my God, you guys are so....evil. I can feel it, " railed one resident. "Jesus. Fucking incels, racists, murderers, thugs. What are you doing?!"

So it was that, in Tuesday's House Homeland Security Committee hearing, when acting ICE director Todd Lyons whined in his opening statement that "to say the men and women of ICE are Gestapo (is) wrong" and hurts their alleged feelings, Rep. Dan Goldman wasn't having it. "People are simply making valid observations about your tactics, which are un-American and outright fascist," he said. Goldman cited their racial profiling, asking people for their papers, use of excessive force and other forms of intimidation, likening them to Nazi/ Soviet regimes and shutting down Lyons' protestations as "unnecessary speaking." "I have a simple suggestion," Goldman said calmly. "If you don’t want to be called a fascist regime or a secret police, then stop acting like one." Tell it to power-mad, I-want-my-blankey ICE Barbie, reportedly fascisting it up big time over her goons. Jesus.

Other Dems minced no words. Rep. LaMonica McIver: "Mr. Lyons, do you consider yourself a religious man?" "Yes, Ma'am." "Well, how do you think Judgment Day will work for you with so much blood on your hands?" "I'm not gonna entertain that question." "Oh, ok, of course not. Do you think you’re going to hell, Mr. Lyons?" "I’m not gonna entertain that question." When the Chair chides her about "standards of decorum," she blithely notes, "Well, you guys are always talking about religion, so it's OK for me to just ask a question, right? Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you." (Comment: "We need more Black women in Congress.") She goes on, "How many government agencies, Mr. Lyons, are you aware of that routinely kill American citizens and still get funding?” "Ma'am, I'm not gonna entertain that." "Of course you're not. This is exactly why we should not be funding this agency...The people are watching you."

And so it went. Quoting Lyons' earlier testimony he "wanted to see a deportation process like Amazon Prime, but with human beings," Eric Swalwell asked, "How many times has Amazon Prime shot a mom 3 times in the face?" "None," said Lyons, lamely noting he meant it "needs to be more efficient" and he'd added, "we deal with humans so we can't be like them." Swalwell, coolly, "Speaking of humans, how many times has Amazon Prime shot a nurse 10 times in the back?” Online, commenters clarified, "Obviously, Amazon Prime doesn't shoot you in the face. You have to pay for Amazon Prime Plus to get that level of service," though, "you'll still get ads unless you step up to Premium, and you'll have to pay for the ammo." From another, "Is this the first time Amazon has been used as the good guy in a comparison? Fuck him up."

Rep.Delia Ramirez ripped Lyons: "My mother, a Guatemalan immigrant and (finger in air) an American taught me I have a responsibility to look evil in the eye and you have used your power to perpetrate great evil, and it's time you answer to this committee for the lawlessness you have empowered." She named Good, Pretti, Marimar Martinez - "Do something bitch" - and myriad other crimes: 100 court orders violated, dozens of tear-gas attacks despite a court order, banned chokeholds, warrantless arrests, 3,800 children in detention, roving patrols, plate switching, observer intimidation. On ICE demands to "respect the mission": "I have as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color... the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Their activities were immoral and criminal, and so are yours."

Wednesday, A.G. Pam Bondi appeared before the House Judiciary Committee in a rabid attempt to make them forget her months of covering up the Epstein files, missing deadlines, redacting perps, releasing survivors' names and otherwise ignoring them by "shouting, lying and being a cold bitch." Over five hours, in "an astonishingly contemptuous performance," she failed to answer a single question. Acting out "a sociopathic tween," she shrieked, veered, lied, argued, sniped, stonewalled, deflected, rolled her eyes and mean-girled through a book of scripted smears at Dems daring to seek accountability: "Insolent, Shouty Brat Brings Burn Book To Congress." She was "a nasty piece of work," a "demented skank," a "Nazi redneck bleach blond Barbie," a "historic villain" who once vowed to "put human trafficking monsters (behind) bars" and will now be shunned "in every room she ever walks into for the rest of her life," to die "as a disbarred lawyer and a national disgrace...Her cheese has slid off her cracker."

She was snippy queen of the frantic non-sequiturs, with "an unmistakable stench of desperation" in her tantrums. When Jerry Nadler asked how many Epstein perps she's indicted - zero, duh - she raved, "You all should be apologizing. You sit here and you attack the President, and I am not going to have it." Then she wildly pivoted - what child rape? - yelling, "The Dow is over 50,000, the S&P at almost 7,000, the NASDAQ is smashing records, Americans’ 401(k)s are booming. That’s what we should be talking about." WTF. When Zoe Lofgren asked her about redacting traffickers' names, she sneered, "I find it interesting she keeps going after President Trump, the greatest president in American history. She didn't say how much money she took from Reid Hoffman, did she?" Asked about Ludnick's ties to Epstein, she bickered, "what is ties?", scowled "shame on you," scoffed, "I'm stunned you want to keep talking."

Jamie Raskin, the Committee's Ranking Member, repeatedly called bullshit: "You can filibuster all you want, but not on our time. The way it works is, we ask you a question, you answer it. I warned you at the outset of this hearing." Bondi exploded. "You don't TELL ME anything,” she shrieked. “You’re a washed-up, loser lawyer." Then, mad-Lady-Macbeth-like, she muttered, "You’re not even a lawyer." (Raskin, a graduate of Harvard Law School and former editor of Harvard Law Review, is a longtime professor of Constitutional law at American University, and has written several books.) Unflappable, Raskin coolly accused her of running an Epstein cover-up of "staggering incompetence." "You've turned the people's Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” he charged. “Trump orders up prosecutions like pizza, and you deliver every time."

Bondi blocked questions from Becca Balint with smears against Merrick Garland - Balint: "Weak sauce" - then with charges of anti-Semitism. Balint, whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust: "You want to go there?! Really?!" Ted Lieu asked if Trump attended parties with underage girls; Bondi rolled her eyes. "This is so ridiculous," she said. "They are trying to deflect from all the great things Donald Trump has done. There is no evidence he has committed a crime. Everyone knows that." Lieu: "I believe you just lied under oath, which is a crime." Bondi, screaming, "Don't you ever accuse me of committing a crime!" Jared Moskowitz noted Trump's name appears over a million times in the Epstein files, "more than God's name in the book about God." Grinning, he mused about her Burn Book zingers: "I'm curious. Just flip to Moskowitz. Because we’re in the Olympics, I’m going to give it a grade. Give me your best one. Whaddya got?"

With almost a dozen Epstein survivors sitting behind Bondi in the hearing room, Pramila Jayapal asked them to stand and raise their hands if they'd tried and failed to meet with DOJ officials. They all did. She asked Bondi to turn around and apologize; Bondi stood her ground: "I'm not going to get in the gutter with this woman and her theatrics." Noting an earlier claim that any victim who wants to talk to the DOJ has done so, Dan Goldman took up her quest. He asked how many had met with the DOJ: None. How many had reached out asking to: All. Of those who reached out, how many were ignored: All. And despite "their shameful, despicable efforts to intimidate," how many are still willing to talk to them? All. Bondi, still sitting, still hating, still steadfastly unperturbed, breezily flips her fake blond hair back, gazing into space.

Jasmine Crockett declined to "ask any questions of this witness because (she) has no intention of answering them." She turned to Ballint. "Right or wrong? Raping children." Ballint: "Wrong." "Killing random citizens." "Wrong." Etc. Crockett: "OK, thank you. I never woulda got that from our witness, who is somehow a lawyer but doesn't understand how it works with witnesses. I'm not sure what law school you went to (Stetson)... but you don’t seem very good at your job...Americans are looking for answers (not) protecting pedophiles and creeps. You will be remembered as one of the worst Attorney Generals in history." Bondi cuts in to rave about immigrants convicted of crimes in Texas. Crocket cuts her off: "CONVICTED! So what we talkin’ about? Convict some of these perpetrators who raped these women sitting behind you that you won’t even acknowledge are here!” She stalks out. Bondi is still babbling about Hakeem Jeffries and some money.

Observers were aghast at the wretched Bondi spectacle. Online, one older woman conceded "I'm sure this will get taken down" but spoke her mind for all of us: "Bondi is an absolute cunt, and needs to rot in prison for the rest of her life. What an evil evil woman. My God." Trump loved it: Bondi was "fantastic." John Pavlovitz, pastor and father, looked on at her "masterclass in gaslighting," and wondered, "How does someone become Pam Bondi?" He muses about "the meandering road to losing one's soul...so completely bereft of empathy, so seemingly unencumbered by other people’s suffering, and so strident in the face of simple accountability." As someone's daughter, he writes, "I'm sure there’s a story you have to tell yourself to keep the self-loathing at bay and let you sleep at night...I hope whatever you got for your soul was worth it to you. It sure as hell isn’t for the rest of us."

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After failing to get some of their main asks at the COP30 climate summit in November, European Union environment ministers are considering a new strategy for international climate negotiations which they describe as “less naive”, and more “realistic” and “pragmatic”.

On their way into a meeting to discuss the strategy in Cyprus last Friday, several ministers and officials hinted that the EU should take a tougher line in the United Nations (UN) climate talks and make more use of its power as a climate finance donor and trade partner.

At COP30 in the Brazilian city of Belém, the EU pushed – along with other countries including the UK and some Latin American and small island nations – for stronger outcomes on transitioning away from fossil fuels, including a global roadmap. But after fractious all-night talks, the group was left disappointed as big fossil-fuel producers and most African states did not come on board.

Last week, reflecting on those results, Belgian climate minister Jean-Luc Crucke told reporters that Europe should be “realistic” and “better prepared”. Speaking in French, he said multilateralism should not mean that “it is always the same people who contribute while others do not”.

Hungary’s state secretary for environmental affairs Aniko Raisz said the EU must learn the lessons of COP30. The EU “has nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be shy of, we are not lacking ambition”. But, she added, “we need realism, we need pragmatism and we need to show that we are competitive”.

• Nov 27, 2025 Politics EU alliance with climate-vulnerable nations frays over finance trade-off Negotiators from the EU and from small island states – usually well-aligned at UN climate talks – have expressed disappointment in each other after COP30 Read more
• Nov 22, 2025 News COP30 fails to land deal on fossil fuel transition but triples finance for climate adaptation Instead of a global agreement to create roadmaps to shift away from fossil fuels and end deforestation, Brazil announces voluntary initiatives Read more

According to Radio France Internationale, an official from the office of French climate minister Monique Barbut told reporters before the meeting in Cyprus that the EU must be “less naive” and “more assertive, more demanding and more transactional if we want to have an impact in these negotiations”.

“We are in a tougher world where the European Union, when it comes to climate negotiations, is more isolated,” the quoted official said, before questioning whether the EU should “continue to demonstrate climate and financial solidarity with countries” that have not met their obligations under the Paris Agreement.

“We have tools like trade agreements,” whose implementation could be conditional on compliance with the Paris accord, the unnamed source added.

Speaking after the ministers’ meeting, European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said the EU “is financing by far the most of climate action abroad” but “unfortunately, solidarity and reciprocity do not always go hand in hand. and that has to change”.

According to analysis by think-tank ODI Global, the US has never paid its fair share towards rich countries’ climate finance commitments and, under the Trump Administration, has now pulled back from climate finance almost entirely, leaving the EU as by far the biggest provider.

Trade and finance as leverage

Discussions are still at an early stage, details of the new strategy have yet to be published and the European Commission did not respond to a request for comment. But a source who speaks regularly to EU officials said they expect the bloc to become more selective in who it gives climate finance to, placing greater weight on the EU’s own commercial and geopolitical interests.

The source told Climate Home News that a higher proportion of funding may be given on a country-to-country basis, rather than through UN climate funds like the Green Climate Fund (GCF) where it is harder to control. Several European nations recently blocked Oman from getting GCF climate finance for an early warning system, sparking accusations of “discrimination” and “political considerations” from developing countries.

Trade could also be used as leverage. The EU’s recent trade deals with New Zealand, Kenya, Chile, India and the South American Mercosur bloc all included clauses specifying that both sides should implement the Paris climate agreement. Those provisions have yet to be used, despite backtracking on climate action from the New Zealand government.

• Feb 9, 2026 News Vanuatu pushes new UN resolution demanding full climate compensation The Pacific island nation wants the UN General Assembly to enforce last year’s landmark court decision on states’ climate responsibility, a first draft shows Read more
• Feb 9, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies Beijing is bracing for a tsunami of spent EV batteries by taking steps to boost recycling – a strategy that could also cut its reliance on imports of clean energy minerals Read more
• Feb 5, 2026 Politics Congress rescues aid budget from Trump’s “evisceration” but climate misses out While the package sidelines dedicated climate programmes, restored funding for nature, agriculture and health could still indirectly support climate action Read more

At UN shipping talks in October, the Trump administration used threats of tariffs and visa restrictions on individual negotiators to achieve its aim of delaying green regulations, outmanoeuvring the EU and its allies.

“In a world where Trump is inserting clauses into trade agreements and using bullying tactics, it’s important for Europe to look at how it can – in a values-based way – use all of its assets too,” former German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan told Climate Home News.

Morgan, one of the EU’s lead negotiating figures at COP27, COP28 and COP29, said the EU should integrate climate into all areas of foreign and economic policy and combine trade, investment, climate and energy security files. She also urged the bloc’s members to hire more high-level climate diplomats.

After a change in the German government, Morgan’s climate envoy position was abolished and now no major EU country has a climate diplomat of ministerial or deputy ministerial rank, making it harder to organise meetings with foreign ministers.

Jennifer Morgan with advisers and ministers at COP29 on December 3, 2023 (Photo: Kiara Worth/UNFCCC)

The EU’s diplomats in the European External Action Service should collaborate more with the European Commission divisions dealing with climate (DG CLIMA) and international partnerships (DG INTPA) so that the EU can “speak with one voice in capitals and internationally”, Morgan said.

But, she suggested, “Trump-like transactionalism should be avoided” as “countries need to come together to build the clean economy, not divide and rule to keep the old”.

Too transactional already?

The EU has already faced accusations that it is too transactional and doubling down on this strategy could backfire. At COP30, negotiators from the world’s poorest countries, African nations and small islands criticised EU attempts to trade promises on adaptation finance for commitments to cut emissions. “Adaptation is a right, not a bargaining chip,” said Africa’s then lead negotiator Richard Muyungi.

Avantika Goswami, climate lead at the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, told Climate Home News: “It is unfortunate that the EU is seeing a fractured world and choosing to be transactional and ‘pragmatic’, rather than reinforcing their commitment to international cooperation and a multilateral regime based on justice and reparations.” She added that, as the EU has not yet fully eliminated its own dependence on fossil fuels, this strategy is “hypocritical”.

The Asia Society Policy Institute’s Li Shuo also warned the EU against taking a harder stance. “In turbulent times, the line between assertiveness and hypocrisy grows thin,” said the China specialist, adding that the EU’s new strategy could further isolationism and damage its relationships.

He said the EU should engage better with other powers like China to advance its interests. Other than an EU-China summit in July 2025, there has been little recent climate diplomacy between the two, despite hopes their partnership would deepen after Trump decided to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement.

The post After disappointing COP30, EU mulls “less naive” strategy for climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

A version of this piece was featured in Food Tank’s newsletter, typically released weekly on Thursdays. To make sure it lands straight in your inbox and to be among the first to receive it, subscribe now by clicking here.

Next week, I’ll be writing to you from Australia.

Australia—like everywhere on this planet—is beautiful and complicated. It’s one of the most biodiversity-rich countries in the world, from the arid Outback to tropical urban coastlines to temperate rainforests in Tasmania. At the same time, also like many other nearby South Pacific island nations, Australia is experiencing the effects of the climate crisis particularly acutely.

Nine out of the country’s 10 warmest years on record have taken place within the past two decades. As sea levels rise, more than 1.5 million Australians are at risk. And severe weather events are becoming much more devastating: The summer bushfire season, which peaked last month, was the worst in more than five years and burned around 1 million acres (400,000 hectares).

It’s also a place where people struggle to afford food. The country’s official Bureau of Statistics reports that 1 out of every 8 Australian households is food-insecure, but organizations like OzHarvest say it’s actually closer to a staggering 1 in 3 households.

But here’s what gives me hope: In the face of these cascading crises of food insecurity, climate change, and land degradation, Australia is showing how farmers and ag system leaders can be key players in building more resilient food and climate systems!

This year, Australia is stepping up in a big way on the global stage as the country prepares to lead negotiations at COP 31, the United Nations climate change conference in Turkey, this fall. And on the ground, sustainability work has long been deeply engrained: The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), for example, has worked since 1965 to push governments and businesses to not only protect but also regenerate the country’s wildlife and natural resources—and to support farmers doing the right thing.

“Australian farmers care for over half the country’s land, nurturing some of the richest ecosystems on this incredibly biodiverse continent,” Nathaniel Pelle, the Business and Nature Lead at ACF, told Food Tank. “It makes sense for a conservation organisation like ACF to work with farmers who are producing food in harmony with nature—we know we can’t fix our climate nature crisis without farmers.”

And because some 22 percent of food waste in Australia originates on farms, we need farmers on the front lines of building food security, too. Every week, the organization OzHarvest saves over 250 tonnes of good food from over 2,600 food donors and delivers it directly to more than 1,500 charities. Agriculture, the organization has said, is “largely untapped for food rescue.”

“We have forgotten how to value our farmers and the effort it takes to grow food,” Ronni Kahn, the Founder and Visionary in Residence of OzHarvest, told me on the Food Talk podcast.

Uplifting the voices of farmers—giving farmers the microphone to tell their own authentic stories—is itself a food system intervention! As Pelle put it: “With smart, sustainable practices, and the community’s support, farmers can heal damaged land, restore soil health, lock away carbon, and help create a food system that works for people and nature.”

Next week, on the opening night of Adelaide Fringe, Food Tank is presenting “Voices of Australian Farmers: A Love Story,” with our partners OzHarvest, Woolworths, Aquna Murray Cod, and the Australian Conservation Foundation. We’re so excited to celebrate Australian farmers as the kickoff to the world’s second-largest annual theater festival—and we’re thrilled to announce that the evening’s special celebrity guest host is none other than the renowned actress, director, and regenerative farmer Rachel Ward.

For the evening, we’re handing the stage over to mushroom farmer Georgia Beattie; cod aquaculturist Mat Ryan; poultry and beef farmer Hannah Greenshields; Ngarrindjeri Elder and pipi harvester Derek Walker; grain farmer Matthew Haggerty. We believe deeply in the power of bringing artists and farmers together for deeper collaborations like this, so we’re grateful for an amazing creative team including director Shannon Rush, the Artistic Associate at State Theatre Company South Australia; producer Isabella Strada; and musician Jamie Hornsby.

If you’re in the Adelaide area and want to join us, be sure to grab a ticket before they sell out! Public tickets are HERE, but as a Food Tanker, you can CLICK HERE to reserve a free spot as our special guest.

Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you at another “Voices of Farmers” event! Within just the next few months, we’re visiting Dublin, Ireland; Austin, Texas, during SXSW (find info and access free tickets HERE); Boston, Massachusetts; and more.

In Australia just as in each of your home communities, it’s the wisdom of farmers that can help solve our most pressing challenges!

Hearing farmers’ stories firsthand—listening as they describe the love they have for the land, for their animals, for the food they produce—is incredibly powerful. I’m moved to tears and filled with hope by these folks who literally embody resilience in the face of the climate crisis.

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

Photo courtesy of Jeff Muir, Unsplash

The post In Australia, Farmers Lead the Way to a More Resilient Food System appeared first on Food Tank.

Between February 24 and 28, the ICARRD+20 will take place 20 years after the first edition and bring together representatives from more than 70 countries.

The post Popular movements gather in Colombia for 2nd international agrarian reform conference appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The climate crisis inflamed wildfires that left 23 people dead in Chile and devastated forests in Argentina that host some of the world’s oldest trees, scientists have found.

Read more on E360 →

During the Second World War, the Communist Party led efforts to secure shelter for ordinary Londoners amidst the horrors of the Blitz. Fergus Lamb examines the lessons we might draw from this today

The post Storming the Savoy: a communist history of the Blitz appeared first on Red Pepper.

Alberta’s electricity system is entering rapid change. Electric vehicles, rooftop solar and behind-the-meter technologies are reshaping electricity consumption and grid pressures. At the same time, interest is growing in time-varying rates (TVR) to...

Angus Taylor has been elected leader of the federal Liberal Party, deposing Sussan Ley just nine months into her stint as the first woman to head the party.

The post “Well done, Angus:” Liberals elect “failed” former energy minister to lead party appeared first on Renew Economy.

In this episode, Kate and Aaron are joined by Professor John Ruple, a public lands law expert at the University of Utah and former attorney at the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), to discuss the Trump administration’s dismantling of the CEQ’s authority over NEPA regulations. He breaks down what the Trump administration means when it claims to have ended NEPA’s “regulatory reign of terror” and why removing uniform environmental review standards creates chaos for public lands.

News

• For $1 Million, Donors to U.S.A. Birthday Group Offered Access to Trump – New York Times
• Potential conflicts over celebrating America’s 250th anniversary spill out in congressional hearing – Associated Press
• Concessionaire Nominated To Run National Park Service – National Parks Traveler

Resources

• Watch this episode on YouTube

Credits

• Produced & hosted by Aaron Weiss and Kate Groetzinger, edited by Lilly Bock-Brownstein
• Feedback: podcast@westernpriorities.org
• Music: Purple Planet
• Featured image: David Korzillus, BLM

The post What gutting the Council on Environmental Quality means for public lands appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Another five-hour battery reaches financial close, this one to piggy back over an existing gas connection in Australia's most advanced renewable state.

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Sam Reynolds, the head of Octopus Australia, on why he hopes to build the country's biggest battery, and the emergence of solar-battery hybrids. Plus: AGL and Origin's fossil fuelled profits, with a green tinge.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Why batteries are getting bigger and marrying solar appeared first on Renew Economy.

Sometimes finding the love of your life is as simple as stepping away from the computer screen for a bit and enjoying the great outdoors. That’s how David met Serena–on a wildflower hike in the Marin Headlands—a meeting that almost didn’t happen if it weren’t for some “lucky stars” and the motivation to go explore. Thirteen years later, the couple is still going strong. This is their Greenbelt Alliance love story.

It was April 28, 2013. He was David D. Schmidt, Bay Area native and veteran Greenbelt Alliance outings leader since ’92. On this beautiful spring day (naturally), David was co-leading a wildflower hike in the Marin Headlands with Greenbelt Alliance Outings Coordinator and possible Cupid-in-disguise, Ken Lavin. She was Serena Enger, a recent Bay Area transplant by way of Boston and veteran Greenbelt Alliance outings-goer since 2008. So was it love at first sight?

As he puts it, “ When we sat down for lunch, I looked around and saw her, and I wanted to have lunch with her. So I sat down next to her, and we talked for a while. At the end of the hike, I wanted to keep in touch, so we exchanged numbers. I was working six days a week, long hours, and I almost missed the hike because I thought I needed a rest—I almost missed meeting Serena!  I thank, as the saying goes, my lucky stars that I went.”

She says, “He came bearing books, and as a librarian and passionate reader, I was pleased. He had such an impressive and poetic knowledge of wildflowers, the history of the bay, sustainable development, and so forth, but he was also a very kind person, and that attracted me to him.”

Their ensuing courtship reads like a Greenbelt Alliance outings calendar. On that first date, they went for a hike in Sonoma’s Jack London State Historic Park. On date two, they explored the Presidio and Golden Gate Park together. Date three took place in Rancho Corral de Tierra, a big swath of land stretching southward from Montara Mountain to Half Moon Bay.

David and Serena were a match made in the greenbelt. They’re both avid readers. They both enjoy history and politics. They like watching foreign films together at the Castro Theater. And they obviously both love Greenbelt Alliance outings. 

Six months after meeting, David proposed to Serena atop Mount Tamalpais.

“We hiked along the Matt Davis Trail on Mount Tam that’s above Stinson Beach—it’s a beautiful area with those quintessential rolling, mound-like hills of Marin County with great views of the Pacific and the whole Bolinas Ridge,” Serena recalls. “And David proposed to me on the trail as the sun was setting and we had this tremendous view of the Pacific Ocean behind us.”

To celebrate their love, they go on wildflower hikes in the Marin Headlands every April, where it all started. And their bonding love for nature endures. They spend a lot of time hiking and are currently re-landscaping our home with California indigenous plants and flowers. “It’s restorative, rejuvenating, for us.” David has also just published the book, San Francisco Bay Area:  An Environmental History (with incredible tidbits of history about Greenbelt Alliance, too).

So, this weekend if you find yourself still looking for love in all the wrong places, skip the dating apps—try looking elsewhere, like David and Serena. Maybe in the greenbelt. On one of our upcoming outings, perhaps?

“Greenbelt hikes make you feel good in two ways: First, you’re in a beautiful natural area, breathing deeply, and you always feel relaxed at the end, even if you’re tired.  Second, you learn about the great ongoing work of the Greenbelt Alliance to save natural places and foster resilient, vibrant urban places – a positive, hopeful vision we all need! You always meet other people who love nature, and you just might meet someone special!,” said David.

Happy Valentine’s Day from the matchmakers at Greenbelt Alliance!

 

 

 

Originally published on February 13, 2015, by Alex Chen. Updated by Daniela Ades with information from David Schmidt and Serena Enger.

The post A Match Made in the Greenbelt appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

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Concern about system security has already delayed the closure of Australia's biggest coal generator. But a landmark battery project may provide a quicker and cheaper solution.

The post The little battery that could pave the way for ageing coal generators to be shut down on schedule appeared first on Renew Economy.