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Waymo LLC, operator of San Francisco’s ubiquitous robotaxis, announced a “Transit Rewards” program Tuesday for the Bay Area. Under the program, Waymo users who also ride transit will get a discount. From the company’s release:

To participate, riders will link their Visa card in the Waymo app. When riders in the SF Bay Area use their Visa card to take a Waymo trip and public transit within 2 hours of each other, we will automatically issue $2.85 in Waymo Cash, which is the cost of a bus fare in San Francisco.

Alongside the launch of our transit rewards program, we’re also announcing a partnership with Caltrain, which accepts tap-to-pay. Waymo will lease 40 dedicated Caltrain station parking spaces to better serve transit riders with staged vehicles. This is a model we hope to replicate with additional transit agencies, ultimately enabling more seamless connections between Waymo’s service and public transit.

“During the pilot, we will evaluate any improved connections to and from the stations,” said Dan Lieberman, spokesperson for Caltrain. “We welcome efforts that encourage transit use and make it easier for people to choose Muni as part of their everyday trips,” said SFMTA spokesperson Michael Roccaforte.

That all sounds nice—why not offer transit riders a robotaxi to solve the “last mile” problem between a transit station and their origin or destination? But Bay Area advocates were skeptical.

“I suspect one of Waymo’s goals here is to create a permission structure for local politicians, one in which they can feel justified when they decide to not do the hard work to improve their local public transit agencies,” wrote San Francisco transit advocate Cyrus Hall. “Look! We’re part of the transit system!”

“Even with a discount, the rideshare services are much more expensive than transit, and lots of single-occupant vehicles cause traffic congestion,” Seamless Bay Area’s Adina Levin told Streetsblog.

Waymo raised the ire of transit and cycling advocates last year when it successfully lobbied the city to allow its vehicles on supposedly “car-free” Market Street. It’s unclear how Waymo can be a “complementary mobility ecosystem” on Market Street, San Francisco’s main thoroughfare, which is already served by the Muni Subway, BART, and several bus and streetcar routes. Advocates stressed that any additional cars, Waymos included, invariably slow buses and streetcars on Market and increase the risk to cyclists and pedestrians.

“Robot cars and ride-hail pull people away from public transportation in addition to increasing car trips,” said Streets Forward’s Luke Bornheimer. “That’s been shown over and over again.”

That said, on a regional level, as with conventional taxis and rideshare, it could still be a helpful last-mile solution. “Outside central cities where transit is less frequent and has shorter hours, even people who rely on transit sometimes benefit from ride-hail services,” said Levin. “The other day I took BART to Oakland and realized that I had gone to the wrong station and the bus would not get to my destination in time. I took an Uber for the last two miles.”

A confused Waymo got stuck in a group bicycle ride and blocked the N Judah tracks on the Duboce Avenue last January. Photo: Streetsblog/Rudick

But advocates weren’t buying that Waymo can be an integral part of the transit system any more than conventional taxis and ride-hail. “Make no mistake, this is a nice benefit if you’re wealthy enough to regularly use Waymo,” said Hall. “But spending ~$15-20 per ride twice a day to get to Caltrain is not affordable or sustainable transportation for everyone, $2.85 discount or not.”

“Community members and our region benefit most from well-funded, frequent, reliable public transit, and policies that encourage sustainable transportation with seamless mobility including first and last mile solutions,” added Levin. “We think about it like the food pyramid, where transit, walking, biking and rolling are the basis of a sustainable transportation diet, and ride-hail services have a place when used more sparingly.”

The Transit Rewards program applies to all 27 San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies that accept direct, contactless payment. Waymo plans to roll out similar transit discount programs in other cities where they operate.

A formal complaint has been made against the Environment Agency (EA) over the way it has handled plans for gas drilling and lower-volume fracking at Burniston in North Yorkshire.

Campaign poster in Burniston. Photo: DrillOrDrop

The complaint, by campaigner Dennis May, said the EA had provided “inaccurate, inconsistent and contradictory information”.

He called for the withdrawal of the current consultation on a draft decision by the EA to grant an environmental permit for the site.

He also said there should be a review of onshore oil and gas permitting in England and the EA should establish scientific definitions that were then universally applied.

The EA has been criticised locally and nationally for the Burniston draft decision document, published on 3 August 2026.

Yesterday, Friends of the Earth formally objected to the decision. Last week, DrillOrDrop reported on concerns that the draft decision document contained errors, uncertainty and missing information.

This morning, the EA announced on its website that the Burniston permit consultation, due to end on 26 September 2026, would close instead 25 days later on 21 October 2026. There was no explanation about why the consultation had been extended.

DrillOrDrop asked the EA why it had delayed the closing date. We have received no response.

“Not acting in the public interest”

Mr May, a member of the Nottinghamshire campaign group Frack Free Misson, accused the EA of failing to act in the public interest and of regarding the public consultation as “a mere formality, irrespective of evidence”.

In his complaint, submitted last week, he said:

“The EA has conveyed inaccurate, inconsistent and contradictory information to the public.”

He said the EA had “aligned with misleading, confected, and conflated terminology employed by the applicant”, Europa Oil & Gas plc.

He also said the EA had failed to remain impartial and had “fallen short of its stated aims to provide information correctly, clearly and in a professional manner”.

Mr May added:

“It is disappointing a statutory regulator has allowed the applicant to set the standard of its discourse with the public. In this, the EA could be seen as acting under the influence of lobbyists and thereby not in the public interest.”

He concluded:

“It is a reasonable expectation for a statutory regulator to demonstrate a consistent and structured scientific approach to the processes it oversees; such is clearly not evident in this case. A recognisable and structured taxonomy, containing terms with robust definitions is a primary requirement.

“Given this evidence, the current consultation should be withdrawn while a review of onshore oil and gas permitting is conducted, with the aim of establishing robust, scientific definitions and parameters, set by the regulator and universally applied.”

The Environment Agency has said it will respond to the complaint within 20 working days (approximately 16 October 2026). DrillOrDrop will report on the response.

Details

Mr May’s complaint focuses on three main areas:

Inconsistent and contradictory information

The complaint gave examples from the draft decision document and draft permit including:

• Contradictory information on the type of hydraulic fracturing fluid to be used
• Contradictory information on which formations would be fracked
• Misidentification of the purpose and targets of the permit application
• Inconsistent and contradictory use of terms to explain the proposed fracking process

Mr May said:

“Such a lack of accuracy and precision in terms of identifying both target formations and the nature of the fracturing fluid is a failure to correctly and professionally convey the most basic of information, a fundamental requirement of any public agency.”

Incorrect and misleading information

The complaint said the draft decision document and draft permit contained incorrect and vague terminology. It said:

“EA propagated and/or failed to amend both incorrect and misleading information regarding the scale of intended operations along with a misconception of the terms ‘conventional’ and ‘unconventional.’”

It accused the EA of being “party to a PR exercise, a role which a statutory regulator should not be involved in”. The complaint added:

“The use of vague, undefined terms is unscientific and thereby inappropriate.”

Mr May said:

“The granting of permits should be undertaken impartially, in a logical, scientific and evidence-based manner. Appropriate terminology should also be framed around a recognisable taxonomy so based, not adopted to suit the whims of an applicant’s PR campaign. To do otherwise could compromise the EA’s position in enforcement proceedings.”

Lack of definition and denial

The complaint also said the EA’s responses to an earlier consultation, summarised in the draft decision document, continued to “perpetuate the lack of definition, misleading information and denial that the target formations are unconventional”.

Mr May said this included:

• Lack of distinction between well and reservoir stimulation
• Arbitrary use of the term proppant squeeze across well and reservoir stimulation
• Claims that seismicity [earthquakes] occurred in previous shale fracks because of the use of “far higher injection volumes” compared to what is proposed at Burniston

On the third example, Mr May said this was not based on fact because the quantities proposed at Burniston were similar stage volumes to those used in fracking at Cuadrilla’s PNR2 well in Lancashire in 2019 that led to earthquakes and a moratorium on associated hydraulic fracturing in England.

He said the EA had:

“adopted a position whereby it is relying upon what has proven to be ineffective shale gas legislation, with thresholds which have never been attained, as a datum upon which to base its assessment of risk.”

EA under fire

The Burniston complaint is the second current challenge to the EA on its permit process in the onshore oil and gas sector in England.

In East Yorkshire, another campaigner, Peter Lomas, is seeking a judicial review of the decision by the EA to grant a permit variation allowing lower-volume fracking at the West Newton-A site.

Yesterday, we reported that Mr Lomas had also applied to the High Court for an interim injunction to stop the fracking operation at West Newton until his legal challenge with the EA had been decided.

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Senators are looking toward the Capitol doors as they prepare to head home and campaign for the midterms. Meanwhile, a group of them has been scrambling to reach a deal that some analysts believe is critical to meet the country’s energy needs. 

A bipartisan group of senators says it has come closer than ever before to reaching a long-desired permitting reform bill, which would make it easier to build new energy projects. Many consider the issue urgent as electricity demand surges across the country, partly because of the tech industry’s massive build-out of data centers. 

“America’s energy demand is surging due to advanced technology and manufacturing, but our outdated federal permitting process remains a massive barrier to building the infrastructure we need to stay competitive,” said Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator from Tennessee, in an August press release.

But the bill’s reception among the public is uncertain due in part to a PR problem: Data centers are a “toxic” subject for voters, according to Alex Lundry, president of D.C.-based public opinion research firm Redbud Consulting. In recent polls, Democrats, Republicans, and independents strongly oppose data centers being built in their communities. 

“If you phrase permitting reform as serving data centers, the polling results get way worse,” Lundry said. This is putting legislators, many of whom are up for reelection in November, in a bind: They want to make it easier to build more electrical infrastructure, which facilitates the data center boom, but don’t want voters to think it’s about data centers. 

The potential bill represents one of the few points of agreement for Republicans and Democrats in Washington, which is that energy permitting is broken.

Complicated studies on project impacts, lengthy reviews by different federal agencies, and legal battles from environmental groups and project opponents constantly delay all kinds of energy projects, industry leaders say.

Lawmakers have tried for years to reform the permitting process, most recently with the failed Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, which made it out of committee but never got a full Senate vote. Now, lawmakers from both parties say growing power demand has given the new attempt more momentum than any previous effort. The highest-ranking members of both parties in the Senate’s two energy-related committees are negotiating the bill’s language.

President Donald Trump has signaled he would stop blocking renewable energy projects in order to entice Democrats toward a deal on the bill. Democrats have worried that even if they make it easier to build renewables in law, the White House could continue making it impossible in practice, with some Democrats indicating that these worries have stalled the bill’s progress. 

“I appreciate very much what the Trump administration has done to move in this direction, but in order to brief colleagues on what this really means, we need just a bit more clarity on exactly what return to regular order for wind and solar projects looks like,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters this week. “So that’s still to be done, but that I think can happen in fairly short order,” 

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, is one of four primary negotiators on a long-sought permitting reform bill in the Senate. Tom Williams / Getty

Politico reported that the senators intend to finish hammering out the bill after the midterm elections, when it could compete with other legislation for attention, especially if Republicans lose control of Congress.

The draft bill’s contents are not public, but stakeholders expect it would make building energy projects easier by reducing the potential environmental and social effects of a project that government agencies must consider when issuing a permit; loosening Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act requirements that slow down transmission line and pipeline permits; and making successfully obtained permits less vulnerable to lawsuits after they’re issued. 

Such a bill would ease the path to construction for renewable and fossil fuel projects alike — especially solar and natural gas, the power sources with the most momentum. Solar power and batteries account for almost 80 percent of the new power generation expected to be built in the United States in 2026, while natural gas was the largest single source of electricity used in 2025, with projections for continued growth. Natural gas in particular has become a go-to power source for data centers, which are projected to use a lot of it in the next decade. 

Unsurprisingly, both the solar and the gas industries support permitting reform. Tim Pawlenty, president of the Solar Energy Industry Association, has said the country would be “constipated” without it.

A colossal surge in electricity demand has long been expected in the United States, even before Big Tech started its data center build-out. Americans are “electrifying” their lives with heat pumps, electrical appliances, and electric vehicles, all important for reducing emissions. The country has also squeezed most of the benefits out of energy-saving lightbulbs and other fixtures, which had kept electricity use flat by reducing power needs as they spread during the 2010s. Added to all that, the United States aims to draw more manufacturing to its shores, which requires electricity if successful. But data centers are accelerating and intensifying the power-demand spike, and straining grids and supply chains. Data center developers like Google have helped lobby for permitting reform.

Environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council want to speed up renewable energy development without weakening bedrock environmental laws; NRDC executives have called for land-use plans that make it easier to site renewable energy projects while protecting local ecosystems. But Democratic legislators are considering compromising on environmental protections to support renewable energy and keep grids reliable. Meanwhile, Republicans, many of whom deny the severity of climate change, want to power new economic growth.

There is another reason legislators in both parties are keen to build, build, build: Many are anxious that hobbling data centers, and the AI systems they enable, will allow China to become economically and militarily stronger than the United States. Trump administration officials, legislators from both parties, and energy industry leaders speaking at the Clean Energy Week conference in Washington, D.C., in mid-September called on America to be “competitive” and “dominant” through energy build-out. 

“While Communist China cuts corners to get ahead, a mountain of red tape has America fighting the energy war with one hand tied behind our backs,” said Senator Rick Scott, a Republican, in a statement last month.

But Lundry, the pollster, warned that these sentiments are losing popularity among voters. “Being competitive with China used to be an effective message, but it isn’t anymore,” Lundry said. 

Instead, Lundry recommended framing permitting reform as a boost for clean power. Lundry’s firm, Redbud, found in a September poll that 71 percent of respondents agreed that “making renewable energy a bigger part of the country’s energy supply is the right move.” Bringing down energy costs is also likely a big win with voters, the survey showed, with 70 percent of respondents saying their energy bills have gone up in the last year.

Action in the other house of Congress makes it clear that lawmakers are well aware of the public’s antipathy toward data centers and fear about rising energy costs. A few days before senators said they were nearly finished with their permitting draft, the House of Representatives passed a bill calling on states (but not requiring them) to force data centers to pay for their own electricity generation. The bill is meant to help shield regular people from rising bills as data centers gobble up power. That bill is now stalled in the Senate, where some Democrats say it’s too soft-handed.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Gas, solar, and tech companies all want this bill. Will Congress pass it? on Sep 24, 2026.

After a successful signature-gathering campaign by Connect Bay Area, the Regional Transit Measure (RTM) will appear on the November ballots for many Bay Area voters, and Greenbelt Alliance is excited to endorse a YES vote on RTM.

If the Regional Transit Measure passes, the roughly $1 billion in revenue per year will support public transit agencies’ improvements to safety, cleanliness, convenience, seamless integration of transit services, and specific capital projects. The new revenue will be sourced from a 1% sales tax in San Francisco County and a 0.5% sales tax in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda, and Contra Costa counties. 

The measure aims to prevent catastrophic funding cuts that could impact regional public transit as soon as 2027. These major impacts will particularly hurt BART, Muni, AC Transit, and Caltrain, but will have many downstream consequences for our entire region. If we don’t approve it, the Bay Area will lose its transit backbone, making our weekly commutes longer, causing a dramatic increase in pollution, and leaving us with less time to be with our friends and family. 

RTM supports a resilient and sustainable future where our communities are able to use public transit with ease, and we can protect our environment from further greenhouse gas emissions from cars. Please join Greenbelt Alliance, alongside organizations such as 350 Bay Area, SPUR, and Public Advocates, in endorsing the Regional Transit Measure! Vote YES on RTM in November to save the Bay Area’s public transit and fight against climate change.

Additionally, learn more about Proposition H in San Francisco to further strengthen the Muni transit system in San Francisco.

Why It Matters

The Bay Area is facing its biggest threat to public transportation in decades. With a looming fiscal cliff, major transit agencies—including BART, Muni, Caltrain, and AC Transit—may soon have to make difficult decisions to close stations, reduce frequencies, and shorten hours of operation. 

To avert this looming crisis, a coalition of advocates came together to launch the Connect Bay Area campaign. Earlier in May, the campaign announced it collected more than 305,000 signatures to qualify a regional transit funding measure for the November ballot—crushing the minimal threshold of 186,000 required signatures. 

Greenbelt Alliance was proud to be part of this grassroots coalition and endorse the Connect Bay Area Campaign.

How We Got Here

"The Bay Area's public transit is a core pillar of our region's ability to usher in a climate-smart, affordable, and just future. Greenbelt Alliance is excited to be a part of this grassroots coalition to help protect and enhance our public transportation and reduce pollution."

Amanda Brown-Stevens, Executive Director

Funding for transit agencies in the Bay Area relies heavily on fares and local revenue sources, so when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and ridership plunged, a substantial amount of that funding disappeared. For a while, agencies were able to stay afloat due to the federal relief stimulus, but that has quickly dried up, and California has not stepped in to address those deficits. Without yearly State funding and with ridership only slowly recovering to pre-pandemic levels, agencies are not seeing the revenue needed to continue operating at full capacity.

To put this into perspective, here is what will happen in 2027 if we do not pass the transit measure:

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)

• Red and Green lines will be phased down to just peak hours in January 2027. The Grey line will close at this time, too. The blue line will close in July 2027.
• 15 stations with the lowest ridership will close, including Millbrae and Warm Springs, by July 2027. 
• 70% reduction in train hours and 25% reduction in system miles by July 2027. 
• 30% fare increase in January 2027, and a 50% increase in July 2027. 
• The agency will face a $355-$385 million budget deficit (30% of the operating budget)
• Without a funding pathway by mid-2028, BART may have to stop all operations. See more details here.

SFMTA Muni

• There will be a 50% cut of Muni services 
• There will be an elimination of fare discounts and pass programs for youth and seniors
• The agency will face a $322-$398 million budget deficit (25% of the operating budget)

AC Transit

• There will be a nearly 40% cut to services
• The agency will face a $51-$72 million budget deficit (10% of the operating budget)

Caltrain

• The agency will run 1 train per hour and cut all weekend service
• The agency will face a $65-$76 million budget deficit (42% of the operating budget)

These monumental disruptions to operations are direct consequences of the fiscal cliff. However, it does not account for the myriad ramifications down the road for managing traffic, tackling climate change, meeting our housing needs, and ensuring an affordable California for all.

“Fuming” with Greenhouse Gases

With 41% of California’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from the transportation sector, losing major parts of our public transit system will allow for even more cars on the road and weaken our ability to fight the climate crisis. Without BART, drivers can expect their commute to extend by 12 more hours per week and see traffic across the Bay Bridge surging by 73%. This means less time with family and friends doing the things we love. 

In the long term, this may lead to worsening climate hazards, including droughts, flooding, and wildfires. More cars will also be a direct threat to our health and well-being, causing more air pollution, compromising air quality, and increasing respiratory-related illnesses. By maintaining our public transit system, we can reduce GHG emissions and avoid these catastrophic changes to our communities.

Communities Connected to Transit

Three words encapsulate our housing abundance strategy: transit-oriented development (TOD). In the last two decades, many urbanists have turned their attention to creating walkable, affordable, and resilient communities that are well-connected to the places where people work, study, and play. A cornerstone of this vision is built on the idea that we should promote more homes near our public transit corridors.

BART TOD projects like MacArthur Station provide residents access to the vibrant Temescal neighborhood, while allowing easy access to commute to downtown Oakland or San Francisco. Even new project proposals like the Caltrain-adjacent Hillsdale Reimagined in San Mateo demonstrate the durability of TOD in renovating underutilized buildings and turning them into lively community spaces. 

That is why Greenbelt Alliance co-sponsored Senate Bill 79 in the California legislature, which makes it easier and faster to build homes near public transit. While SB 79 is now law, the risks of public transit’s fiscal cliff diminish the law’s application by making fewer sites viable for TOD upzoning. Other proposed TOD projects funded by transit agencies will likely be reevaluated, too. This could all delay much-needed affordable housing in the Bay Area and worsen the housing crisis.

Saving public transit goes far beyond just our means of commuting. A healthy public transit system reduces traffic, protects us from pollution, reduces GHG emissions, creates resilient neighborhoods, and supports new housing.

This November, vote YES on the Regional Transit Measure.

The post Vote Yes for the Regional Transit Measure (RTM) appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

For healthier and well-connected communities, Greenbelt Alliance encourages voters in San Francisco to say YES to Proposition H to secure funds for Muni and keep light rail, buses, and cable cars running.

Proposition H, or Stronger Muni for All, is focused on providing financial support for public transit in San Francisco and preventing a once-in-a-generation funding crisis. The proposition will address Muni’s major annual deficit of over $300 million and ensure that the agency is safe, reliable, and affordable. If it passes, Prop H would establish a fair tiered parcel tax that charges 95% of single-family residences a flat $129 annual fee. Larger homes would pay progressively more, and the largest commercial properties would pay up to $400,000 annually. This ensures that average San Franciscans are not burdened by higher taxes while the biggest properties are paying the most. 

Along with organizations such as Transform, SF Transit Riders, and the Sierra Club, we endorse Prop H because a healthy, resilient, interconnected, and sustainable future necessitates a strong public transit system. 

This ballot measure is complementary to the Regional Transit Measure (RTM)‘s goals and will support the region by significantly reducing traffic congestion, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and protecting downtown and citywide economic recovery. Vote YES to save Muni and protect our environment.

 

Photo: L Taraval shuttle bus during Twin Peaks Tunnel construction. By Pi.1415926535 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69525140 

The post Vote Yes on Proposition H to Keep Muni Going Strong in San Francisco appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

Open access notables

The Increasing Incidence of Boreal and Western U.S. Forest Wildfires and Its Causes: An Overview, Wallace et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

This overview of the voluminous wildfire literature addresses the following questions: “How seriously is the current spate of wildfires impacting the boreal forests and the forests of the western United States? Is the current rate of burning of these forests unprecedented? Has it been systematically increasing over the past few decades and, if so, is it in response to human-induced global warming?” The article contains diagrams and tables based on a suite of fire-related datasets: satellite measurements of burned area, fire-related carbon emissions, aerosol optical depth, dating back to around the year 2000, and longer ground-based records of area burned by fires in the western United States. The graphics and tables reveal the remarkable extent of the forested area burned. The average area burned per year has increased by roughly a factor of three since the year 2000. The area burned by severe fires with areas > 100 km2 has been increasing more rapidly than the area burned by smaller fires. Wildfire smoke has also increased appreciably over much of North America. Forested burned area and fire-related carbon emissions are highly sensitive to measures of aridity on time scales ranging from days to decades. Aridity has increased, mainly in response to the warming trend, which is comparable in magnitude to that in climate model simulations of the response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. The evidence presented herein supports the widely held belief that the recent increase in wildfires is mainly due to human-induced global warming.

Net Groundwater Recharge in California Occurs Primarily During Above-Average Snowpack Years, Reager et al., Geophysical Research Letters

In a new application of GRACE and GRACE-FO satellite observations, we estimate basin-scale net groundwater recharge rates for the combined Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Tulare basins encompassing California's Central Valley aquifer. Net recharge is calculated as the temporal derivative of groundwater storage anomalies and compared with precipitation and snow water equivalent over a fixed study area. Net positive recharge is rare, occurring in only six water years since 2004, and is consistently associated with years of above-average Sierra Nevada snowpack. Across the observational record, net positive recharge is observed only in years when snow water equivalent exceeds approximately 21 km3 (17 MAF; ∼121% of the 20-year mean value), with the largest recharge event coinciding with the exceptionally wet winter of water year 2023. These results suggest that above-average snowpack conditions, rather than rainfall alone, are an important enabling condition for basin-scale groundwater recharge under a warming climate.

Concurrent Eurasian Heatwaves Will Intensify Beyond the Mean Warming, Xu et al., Geophysical Research Letters

Heatwaves occurring at the same time over Europe and North China are among the most common simultaneous climate extremes in the Northern Hemisphere. These events are linked by a large-scale atmospheric circulation pattern, the British–Baikal Corridor pattern, which produces high-pressure systems over both regions simultaneously. Using a large ensemble of climate model simulations, we find that these concurrent heatwaves will become much more severe in the future. Importantly, they intensify faster than average temperature increases due to global warming. Even after accounting for background warming, temperatures during these events exceed the regional mean warming by about 0.3°C on average and by more than 0.5°C locally. Surprisingly, the reasons for this additional intensification differ between the two regions. Over North China, the atmospheric circulation pattern strengthens, bringing clearer skies and greater solar heating. Over Europe, however, the circulation pattern weakens, but heatwaves still intensify because drier soils provide less evaporative cooling. These findings challenge the common assumption that the same weather pattern amplifies heat equally wherever it occurs. They also suggest that future heat risks may be underestimated if assessments rely only on average warming, particularly when heatwaves strike multiple regions simultaneously.

Defending the status quo: The role of system justification in public opposition to ambitious climate policy and energy system change, Lloyd et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology

In recent years, environmental psychologists have argued that our field must conduct more solutions-focussed and system-level research if we want to contribute to ambitious and effective climate action. In this paper, we propose that system justification offers a promising pathway towards achieving both of these goals, and investigate its influence on three societally-impactful outcomes: support for climate policy, support for a just energy transition, and endorsement of climate delay discourses. We also test whether experimentally inducing hope could offer a solution to these proposed deleterious effects. We conduct this research in small-to-medium sized communities in Western Canada, many of which are dependent upon fossil-fuels for their continued existence, and thus strongly oppose decarbonization. Using an online survey of these communities (N = 3,400) we find that system justification consistently predicts lower support for climate policies, greater endorsement of climate delay discourses, and lower support for a just energy transition. Additionally, moderation analyses reveal that this relationship is stronger for those with greater proximity to the fossil-fuel industry, and that our hope manipulation had no effect. We explore the policy implications of these findings, arguing that policymakers should (1) aim to narratively detach the status quo from the economic system, and (2) design just transitions policies which act to maintain fossil-fuel communities’ current way of life, rather than trying to improve it. These findings extend system justification theory to three new societally-impactful outcomes; demonstrate its utility for policymaking; and highlight its potential to contribute to transformation-oriented research in environmental psychology.

From this week's government/NGO section:

Findings from a 2026 Survey of Adults Age 18 and Older, Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

The authors found that 53% of Americans are extremely or very concerned about the environmental effects of AI, up from 41% who said the same in 2025. Younger adults ages 18-29 have become particularly concerned, increasing from 38% last year to 60% today and moving from levels similar to other age groups to the highest level of concern. Forty-seven percent of Americans think AI will do more to hurt rather than help the environment, up from 33% who said the same in 2025. The authors also explored attitudes toward climate change, energy policy, and electric vehicles (EVs). Most Americans agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity, a trend that has remained stable in recent years. There is a large partisan divide in these attitudes, however, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to believe climate change is occurring (92% vs. 55%) and is caused mostly by human activity (68% vs. 34%). About 2 in 3 believe that oil and gas companies, the federal government, and large businesses and corporations have a lot of responsibility to address climate change, while just 4 in 10 say the same about developing countries and individual people.

In Hottest Summer on Record, 2 in 3 Americans Say Climate Change Is Increasing Heat-Related Illnesses, Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania

Nearly two-thirds of the American public say climate change is increasing the risk of respiratory diseases and heat- and insect-related illnesses. The author's survey, which was conducted Aug. 4-17, 2026, among 1,904 empaneled U.S. adults, found that 76% report that extreme outdoor heat affected their daily activities at least sometimes in the past year and 38% say poor air quality resulting from wildfire smoke did so. Extreme heat is affecting the everyday lives of most Americans. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) say that climate change is increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses, respiratory diseases, and insect-borne diseases. This is unchanged from August 2025 (65%) and July 2024 (67%) but is significantly higher than 58% in November 2023. Americans generally recognize that heat waves are on the rise. Nearly two-thirds (62%) say U.S. heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense than in the past, statistically unchanged from 61% in August 2025, 65% in July 2024, and 58% in November 2023. Of the four extreme weather events measured in the survey, more Americans report that their daily activities were impacted at least sometimes by extreme outdoor heat (76%) and poor air quality resulting from wildfire smoke (38%). As one would expect, fewer say they were impacted at least sometimes by flooding (20%) and tornadoes/hurricanes (11%), since these events are less frequent. 87 articles in 46 journals by 618 contributing authors

Physical science of climate change, effects

Amplified Cloud-Phase Responses Over Global Mountain Regions Under Climate Warming, Zhang et al., AGU Advances Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026av002380

Anthropogenic Warming Weakens Mild Offshore Winds in Southern California but Not the Extreme Fire-Weather Winds, Madakumbura et al., Earth s Future Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026ef008422

Emerging Divergence Between Dry- and Humid-Heat in China Under Weakening Temperature-Humidity Coupling, Zhu et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd046959

Future Reduction of North Pacific Subtropical Mode Water: Its Impacts on Physical and Biogeochemical Conditions in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, Sugimoto, Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2026jc024776

On the Timescales of Atmospheric Adjustments to Contrail Cirrus Formation, Quarroz et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl125935

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A holistic platform for accelerating sorbent-based carbon capture, Nature, 10.1038/s41586-024-07683-8 95 cites.

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Observations of climate change, effects

Earthquake-triggered cascading hazards under Arctic amplification, Melo et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Open Access 10.1073/pnas.2617210123

Long-term weakening of extreme cold stress in eastern China, Li et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100960

Observational Evidence for Accelerated Warming and Salinification Propagating Into the Deep Mediterranean, Terzi? & Vilibi?, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124518

Spatiotemporal variations in snowline altitude across the High Mountain Asia from 1990 to 2024 Based on Landsat Data, Wang et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.09.007

The Increasing Incidence of Boreal and Western U.S. Forest Wildfires and Its Causes: An Overview, Wallace et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 10.1175/bams-d-25-0193.1

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Sketching the spatial disparities in heatwave trends by changing atmospheric teleconnections in the Northern Hemisphere, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-52254-0 42 cites.

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Instrumentation & observational methods of climate change, effects

A deep learning framework for gridding daily climate variables from a sparse station network, Dumitrescu, Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-8895-2026

Attribution estimates for similar extremes are robust across event definitions, Otto et al., Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04053-2

Improving global and regional ocean heat content by consistently combining GRACE gravity, satellite altimetry and Argo profile observations in a joint inversion framework, Uebbing et al., Earth system science data Open Access 10.5194/essd-18-6945-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Are Our Climate Data Fit for Your Purpose?, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 10.1175/bams-d-23-0295.1 10 cites.

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Modeling, simulation & projection of climate change, effects

Concurrent Eurasian Heatwaves Will Intensify Beyond the Mean Warming, Xu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123850

Future Redistribution of North Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Risk in Two Contrasting CMIP6 Scenarios, Lele et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl123424

Projected Changes in Reference Evapotranspiration Across Indian Climate Regimes Using Bias-Corrected CMIP6 Simulations, Nayak et al., International Journal of Climatology 10.1002/joc.70603

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Abrupt increase in Arctic-Subarctic wildfires caused by future permafrost thaw, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-51471-x 42 cites.

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Advancement of climate & climate effects modeling, simulation & projection

A new Earth Observation–based WRF configuration for urban regional climate simulations over Paris, Kyriakidis et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access 10.5194/gmd-19-8709-2026

Downscaling of Temperatures Over the Eastern Mediterranean for the 21st Century, Gelman et al., International Journal of Climatology Open Access pdf 10.1002/joc.70519

New Constraint on Future Ocean Heat Uptake Revealed by Considering Model Spread of Radiative Forcing, Wu & Gregory, Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123530

The Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project (CFMIP) contribution to CMIP7, Ceppi et al., Geoscientific model development Open Access pdf 10.5194/gmd-19-8693-2026

Using Rapid Temperature Falls to Estimate Future Strong Cold Front Frequency in CMIP6 Climate Projections, Corrales et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124031

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A Comprehensive Evaluation of Mean and Extreme Climate for the Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM), Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 10.1175/jamc-d-24-0004.1 16 cites.

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Cryosphere & climate change

Accelerated mass loss of glaciers across Alaska since the Little Ice Age, Carrivick et al., Scientific Reports Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41598-026-70307-w

Cross-Basin Synergistic Effects Stall Summer Sea Ice Decline in the Chukchi Sea, Dong et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres 10.1029/2026jd047482

Enhanced Erosion Across a Transition From Continuous to Discontinuous Permafrost in Alaska, Özpolat et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007889

Feedbacks and timescales in the modelled transient response of debris-covered glaciers, Hardmeier et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-5365-2026

Modelling climate-induced instability of ice-rich permafrost slopes, Aga et al., cryosphere Open Access pdf 10.5194/tc-20-5225-2026

Net Groundwater Recharge in California Occurs Primarily During Above-Average Snowpack Years, Reager et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl122396

Parameterizing tidal-water intrusions in long-term Antarctic ice-sheet projections, Juárez-Martínez et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-5345-2026

Seasonal Response of the Arctic Sea Ice to Meltwater Runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet, Liang et al., Journal of Physical Oceanography 10.1175/jpo-d-26-0025.1

Spatiotemporal variations in snowline altitude across the High Mountain Asia from 1990 to 2024 Based on Landsat Data, Wang et al., Advances in Climate Change Research Open Access 10.1016/j.accre.2026.09.007

Temporal evolution of the Petermann Ice Shelf estuary constrained by satellite remote sensing observations, Savignano et al., cryosphere Open Access 10.5194/tc-20-5247-2026

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Lake ice quality in a warming world, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43017-024-00590-6 33 cites.

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Sea level & climate change

Anatomy of Interannual to Decadal Sea Level Changes in the GECCO3 Ocean Synthesis, Stammer et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access 10.1029/2026jc024340

Paleoclimate & paleogeochemistry
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A 485-million-year history of Earth’s surface temperature, Science, 10.1126/science.adk3705 242 cites.

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Biology & climate change, related geochemistry

Climate change affects the distribution of cacti species of the genus Melocactus in the Brazilian Caatinga, Cavalcante et al., Tropical Ecology Open Access 10.1007/s42965-026-00444-w

Detection of emergent multiple predator effects in a warming world, Davidson et al., Biology Letters Open Access 10.1098/rsbl.2026.0257

Escalating Ecological Droughts Driven by Compound Soil and Atmospheric Dryness, Song et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71102

Global Projections of Coral Reef Sediment Dissolution in the 21st Century, Yan et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl125720

GROWTH RESPONSES OF CHIHUAHUA PINE (PINUS LEIOPHYLLA) OVER 128 YEARS OF WARMING AND PRECIPITATION REGIME SHIFTS, Todd et al., Dendrochronologia Open Access 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126614

Identifying future climate refugia in central European mountain forests, Berre et al., Journal of Ecology Open Access 10.1111/1365-2745.70439

Increasingly synchronous water limitation portends resilience declines for whitebark pine, Friedman & Germain, Dendrochronologia 10.1016/j.dendro.2026.126615

Reforestation Under Climate Change—A Cross-Regional Deadwood Retention Experiment to Develop Multifunctional Forests on Disturbed Norway Spruce Areas, Putzenlechner et al., Ecology and Evolution Open Access pdf 10.1002/ece3.74357

Spatial Variability in Phytoplankton Response to Projected Increases in Iron and Temperature in the Ross Sea, Cristi et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026jc024364

Summer Heat Stress Downregulates Photochemistry in Coast Redwoods, Klinek et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences Open Access 10.1029/2026jg010052

Synthesis of scale-dependent plant biodiversity change in climate warming experiments, Korell et al., Ecology Open Access 10.1002/ecy.70486

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Nonanthropocentric climate ethics, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change, 10.1002/wcc.131 72 cites.

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GHG sources & sinks, flux, related geochemistry

Abundance of Fe/Al Oxides Governs Soil Organic Carbon Stability in Wetlands Under Drying Conditions, Yao et al., Global Change Biology Open Access pdf 10.1111/gcb.71109

Climate and penguin-mediated carbon burial hotspots in coastal lakes of East Antarctica, Zhao et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105730

Forest Carbon Exchange Dynamics and Integrated Carbon Budget of a Subtropical Island Ecosystem, Han et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences 10.1029/2026jg010032

Heterogeneity in Permafrost Organic Matter Molecular Composition With Depth and Ramifications Upon Thaw in the Western Siberian Lowlands, Anderson et al., Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences 10.1029/2026jg010169

Modeling forest soil organic carbon dynamics under seasonal freeze–thaw cycles: implications for carbon sequestration in cold-region forest ecosystems, Gao et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change Open Access pdf 10.3389/ffgc.2026.1939588

Natural wetland methane emissions simulated by ICON-XPP, Wilkenskjeld et al., Biogeosciences Open Access 10.5194/bg-23-6583-2026

Net carbon losses in Central African forests revealed by high-resolution biomass change maps, Wan et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-77531-y

Nonlinear thermal responses of soil respiration temperature sensitivity under climate change, Yang et al., Global and Planetary Change 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2026.105727

Seven-year continuous measurement of CO2 and CH4 at Atlas Mohammed V atmospheric research station in Northwest Africa, Ouchen et al., Atmospheric Environment Open Access 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122365

Structural Diversity Amplifies the Effects of Functional Diversity on Forest Carbon Storage Across Stand Development, Wang et al., Global Ecology and Biogeography Open Access pdf 10.1111/geb.70309

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Emerging multiscale insights on microbial carbon use efficiency in the land carbon cycle, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-52160-5 119 cites.

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CO2 capture, sequestration science & engineering

Carbon sequestration potential of tree planting under future climate scenarios in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, China, Zhao et al., Urban Climate 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103128

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Feasible deployment of carbon capture and storage and the requirements of climate targets, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02104-0 170 cites.

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Decarbonization

Flash energy droughts in solar and wind resources under climate change, Lin et al., Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02753-3

Hydrogen Storage Technologies: Materials Innovation and System-Level Challenges for a Carbon-Neutral Future, Pranto et al., Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research Open Access 10.1002/aesr.70256

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Diverse decarbonization pathways under near cost-optimal futures, Nature Communications, 10.1038/s41467-024-52433-z 43 cites.

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Geoengineering climate

Mapping justice claims for solar geoengineering, Jinnah et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001054

Uneven Responses of Regional Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Turnover Time to Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, Park et al., Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.21390921

Black carbon
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The politics of knowledge in black carbon mitigation: Policy entrepreneurship of Finnish actors and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, Environmental Science & Policy, 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103881 3 cites.

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Aerosols
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Global aerosol retrieval over land from Landsat imagery integrating Transformer and Google Earth Engine, Remote Sensing of Environment, 10.1016/j.rse.2024.114404 45 cites.

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Climate change communications & cognition

Affective divisions and climate policy polarization, Bäck et al., Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2026.2731596

Future Before My Eyes: How Psychological Distance and Immersive Presentations Relate to Climate Emotions, Schroeder et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103213

Simple logic warnings improve climate argument evaluation across beliefs and partisanship, Bagó & Purcell, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02754-2

Simple logic warnings improve climate argument evaluation across beliefs and partisanship, Bagó & Purcell, Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02754-2

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Durably reducing conspiracy beliefs through dialogues with AI, Science, 10.1126/science.adq1814 305 cites.

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Agronomy, animal husbundry, food production & climate change

Genetically engineered crops increase climate resilience of US fields, [authors did not process], Nature Climate Change 10.1038/s41558-026-02750-6

Historical dynamics of agricultural carbon emissions in the North China plain over the past 300 years, Ye et al., Frontiers in Environmental Science Open Access pdf 10.3389/fenvs.2026.1831579

Long-Term Sustainability of Direct Straw Return Challenged by Soil Carbon Saturation and Emission Trade-Offs, Liu et al., Global Change Biology 10.1111/gcb.71120

Stage-Specific Associations Between Extreme Climate Events and Crop Failures Across China, Huang et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2026ef008789

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Nexus among climate change, food systems, and human health: An interdisciplinary research framework in the Global South, Environmental Science & Policy, 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103885 23 cites.

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Hydrology, hydrometeorology & climate change

Future changes and drivers of socioeconomic exposure to extreme precipitation in the Huai River Basin, Jiang et al., Natural Hazards 10.1007/s11069-026-08417-x

Governance barriers to climate change adaptation in regional catchment management, Kennedy et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104491

Net Groundwater Recharge in California Occurs Primarily During Above-Average Snowpack Years, Reager et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl122396

The 2025–2026 Iberian Atmospheric Rivers Exhibited Moisture Transport Resembling the Early SSP5-8.5 Climate Response, Fernández-Alvarez et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access 10.1029/2026gl123799

Variability and response to climate change of precipitation recycling ratio in the water source conservation area of the upper Yellow River, Yang et al., Atmospheric Research 10.1016/j.atmosres.2026.109333

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Spatiotemporal patterns in persistent precipitation extremes of the Chinese mainland (1961–2022) and association with the dynamic factors, Atmospheric Research, 10.1016/j.atmosres.2024.107600 14 cites.

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Climate change economics
Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
The ocean carbon sink enhances countries’ inclusive wealth and reduces the cost of national climate policies, Communications Earth & Environment, 10.1038/s43247-024-01674-3 9 cites.

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Climate change mitigation public policy research

Affective divisions and climate policy polarization, Bäck et al., Environmental Politics Open Access pdf 10.1080/09644016.2026.2731596

Australian Elected Representatives Underestimate Public Support for Climate Action, Wilkinson & Klebl, Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103217

Climate action disclosure among companies: Implications for achieving global efforts to limit average global temperature rise to below 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, Shimwela et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000951

Defending the status quo: The role of system justification in public opposition to ambitious climate policy and energy system change, Lloyd et al., Journal of Environmental Psychology Open Access 10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103214

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Progress from Chicken Genetics to the Chicken Genome, Poultry Science, 10.1093/ps/85.12.2050 55 cites.

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Climate change adaptation & adaptation public policy research

Adapting the emergency management Enterprise to manage the climate emergency: a critical review, Preston et al., Climate Risk Management Open Access 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100885

Cross-sectoral perspectives on strategies to address climate adaptation and health in cyclone-prone Sofala province, Mozambique, Marrufo et al., Frontiers in Climate Open Access pdf 10.3389/fclim.2026.1912968

Governance barriers to climate change adaptation in regional catchment management, Kennedy et al., Environmental Science & Policy 10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104491

Mapping the urban heat island and climate risk in Padua (Italy): Trends in extremes and perspectives for climate justice in adaptation planning, Ceppi et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103143

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Elevated urban energy risks due to climate-driven biophysical feedbacks, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02108-w 37 cites.

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Climate change impacts on human health

Beyond resolution: An integrated framework for selecting climate data for urban heat-risk assessment, Shin et al., Urban Climate Open Access 10.1016/j.uclim.2026.103150

Climate Informed Dengue Prediction and Future Risk Under a Changing Monsoon Climate in Kerala, India, Yacob & Koll, Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) Open Access 10.5281/zenodo.20096919

Heatstroke in Japan: current status, future risks, and prevention measures under a changing climate, Oka, Climate Risk Management Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.crm.2026.100887

Long-term weakening of extreme cold stress in eastern China, Li et al., Weather and Climate Extremes Open Access 10.1016/j.wace.2026.100960

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Rising cause-specific mortality risk and burden of compound heatwaves amid climate change, Nature Climate Change, 10.1038/s41558-024-02137-5 100 cites.

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Climate change & geopolitics

Mapping and quantifying engagement levels of governments in IPCC approval meetings by topic from text, Bayer et al., PLOS Climate Open Access pdf 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001057

Other

Climate urgency enables political alignment for Latin American power integration, Ramírez et al., Nature Communications Open Access pdf 10.1038/s41467-026-77772-x

Dialogue framework for climate justice: bridging social and environmental justice, Thiele, Environmental Sociology 10.1080/23251042.2026.2732173

Extreme North American heatwaves in 1941 and 2021 drove widespread but contrasting impacts, Anderson & Chartrand, Communications Earth & Environment Open Access pdf 10.1038/s43247-026-04055-0

Internal Variability Dominates the Spatial Heterogeneity of Recent Trends in Eurasian Winter Cold Extremes, Liu et al., Geophysical Research Letters Open Access pdf 10.1029/2026gl124591

Kinetic study of global-scale O3 pollution under 2060s climate and emission scenarios, Hata et al., Atmospheric Environment Open Access pdf 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.122367

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
Climatic controls of fire activity in the red pine forests of eastern North America, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.110219 7 cites.

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Informed opinion, nudges & major initiatives

A global safety net for climate-risk intelligence is urgently needed, Bashir & Adil, Nature 10.1038/d41586-026-02995-3

Adaptation as a catalyst for social change, Adams et al., PLOS Climate Open Access 10.1371/journal.pclm.0001052

Protecting tropical forests is more cost-effective for biodiversity and climate than restoration, Miranda et al., Science 10.1126/science.adx9928

Research Priorities for Robust Climate Assessments in the United States, Kenney et al., Earth s Future Open Access 10.1029/2025ef007336

Most cited from this section, published 2 years ago:
A just world on a safe planet: a Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations, The Lancet Planetary Health, 10.1016/s2542-5196(24)00042-1 173 cites.

Articles/Reports from Agencies and Non-Governmental Organizations Addressing Aspects of Climate Change

Making California’s Electricity Cheaper: An Affordability Agenda for the Golden State, Boyle et al., Grid Lab and Energy Innovation

More than 80% of Californians rank lowering bills as a top or important priority for state leaders, and the state’s elected officials have a duty to address these intertwined problems for their constituents. In response, the authors participated in a workshop of more than 20 California electricity experts to diagnose what is causing rising costs and develop actionable policy solutions that address the scale of the challenge. The authors were informed by but not limited by that workshop; they define a policy roadmap to stabilize and ultimately reduce electricity rates for California’s incoming governor, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the legislature, utilities, and other stakeholders, that will allow California to sustain its clean energy leadership.

Understanding the linkage between transmission deliverability and resource adequacy, Stenclik et al., GridLab and Telos Energy

The authors wanted to bridge the gap between interconnection studies and resource adequacy assessments, two processes that are deeply interrelated, but have historically been treated as separate analytical exercises. Most of the recent attention on generator interconnection has focused on interconnection costs, queue timelines, and transmission cost allocation, while the resource adequacy implications have remained largely unexamined. Despite the central role of deliverability assumptions in resource adequacy assessments, there has been limited research into whether they accurately reflect how resources perform during periods of elevated resource adequacy risk outside of narrowly defined peak-load windows. Inaccurately assumed generator deliverability can have a large affect on resource adequacy outcomes.

Assessing Electricity Resource Adequacy in Pennsylvania and PJM, Knight et al., Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission

The authors developed load projections and evaluated resource adequacy under a set of likely possible futures for PJM's grid and its' Pennsylvania service area. The authors used capacity expansion and resource adequacy scenario modeling to (a) develop projections of future resources through the long term (2040) in light of different load projections and (b) assess system reliability performance through the near term (2030) to better understand the kinds of stresses Pennsylvania’s electric system and the wider PJM grid face. Three scenarios were used. In both the Reference scenario and the High Load And Low Supply scenario, the authors found that from 2027 through 2030, the PJM planning criterion for resource adequacy (loss of load expectation or “LOLE” of 0.1) is not met by PJM. Meanwhile, in the No New Data Centers scenario, LOLE is below this 0.1 threshold.

State of Mind: Mapping Values and Climate Perceptions, Maharashtra Edition, Ek Kutumb Solutions

If technical infrastructure enables the delivery of climate solutions, relational infrastructure enables their acceptance, adoption, and endurance. It comprises the social foundations that shape whether people engage with transitions: the values they hold, the degree of agency they feel, the priorities they seek to protect, the institutions they trust, and the ways in which they make sense of change. To address this missing layer, Ek Kutumb is building the first and largest state-by-state, values-based segmentation of citizens in India. The research seeks to surface the deeply held values and perceptions of climate change, along with experiences of agency, priorities, and trust factors that shape how people respond to climate-related issues and interventions. The first state examined is Maharashtra. Four themes emerge from the Maharashtra findings including the primacy of everyday economic pressures, a deep but locally rooted relationship with nature, broad acceptance of climate change expressed in the language of lived experience rather than scientific terminology, and a trust vacuum in which no institution has yet earned the mandate to lead on climate. The authors segment the population into seven value-based groups, each defined by a distinct configuration of core values. For each segment, they examined their relationship to family and community, as well as their understanding of the environment, climate, and institutions.

State of Global Water Resources 2025, World Meteorological Organization

The authors provide a comprehensive quantitative overview of global water resources, with a focus on hydrological variability and trends. The report's information supports countries, decision makers and stakeholders in understanding the current state of water resources, identifying areas with significant anomalies and supporting effective water management strategies. The authors found that 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years. The past seven years have seen abnormal river flows. Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past 10 years. Widespread glacier loss occurred across all regions for the fourth consecutive year. Asia and Africa are the regions most affected by water-related disasters. Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard hit areas.

State-Led Planning, Development, and Procurement, Spokas et al., Clean Air Task Force

The authors identify how establishing state-led planning and procurement can help state governments in deregulated electricity markets meet their power sector decarbonization goals and lays out the components needed to put that planning in action.

Findings from a 2026 Survey of Adults Age 18 and Older, Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

The authors found that 53% of Americans are extremely or very concerned about the environmental effects of AI, up from 41% who said the same in 2025. Younger adults ages 18-29 have become particularly concerned, increasing from 38% last year to 60% today and moving from levels similar to other age groups to the highest level of concern. Forty-seven percent of Americans think AI will do more to hurt rather than help the environment, up from 33% who said the same in 2025. The authors also explored attitudes toward climate change, energy policy, and electric vehicles (EVs). Most Americans agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity, a trend that has remained stable in recent years. There is a large partisan divide in these attitudes, however, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to believe climate change is occurring (92% vs. 55%) and is caused mostly by human activity (68% vs. 34%). About 2 in 3 believe that oil and gas companies, the federal government, and large businesses and corporations have a lot of responsibility to address climate change, while just 4 in 10 say the same about developing countries and individual people.

In Hottest Summer on Record, 2 in 3 Americans Say Climate Change Is Increasing Heat-Related Illnesses, Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania

Nearly two-thirds of the American public say climate change is increasing the risk of respiratory diseases and heat- and insect-related illnesses. The author's survey, which was conducted Aug. 4-17, 2026, among 1,904 empaneled U.S. adults, found that 76% report that extreme outdoor heat affected their daily activities at least sometimes in the past year and 38% say poor air quality resulting from wildfire smoke did so. Extreme heat is affecting the everyday lives of most Americans. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) say that climate change is increasing the risk of heat-related illnesses, respiratory diseases, and insect-borne diseases. This is unchanged from August 2025 (65%) and July 2024 (67%) but is significantly higher than 58% in November 2023. Americans generally recognize that heat waves are on the rise. Nearly two-thirds (62%) say U.S. heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense than in the past, statistically unchanged from 61% in August 2025, 65% in July 2024, and 58% in November 2023. Of the four extreme weather events measured in the survey, more Americans report that their daily activities were impacted at least sometimes by extreme outdoor heat (76%) and poor air quality resulting from wildfire smoke (38%). As one would expect, fewer say they were impacted at least sometimes by flooding (20%) and tornadoes/hurricanes (11%), since these events are less frequent.

Energy Crossroads: Why managing fossil fuel decline is key to Australia’s green export future, Malbrain et al., WWF-Australia

The authors warn that the Australia's bid to be both a renewable energy superpower and a major fossil fuel exporter is putting its economic future at risk. This dual energy strategy is sending mixed signals to investors and trading partners just as countries across the Indo-Pacific accelerate clean energy investments. Australia could lose up to $70 billion in fossil fuel export value by 2035 as global demand shifts. Yet, findings show Australian governments still provide an estimated $20.1 billion a year in support to fossil fuels, compared with just $4.6 billion for renewable energy.

Understanding Oregon’s Data Center Industry, Wirkkala et al., Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Insight at ECOnorthwest and the University of Virginia

The authors establishes a common foundation for understanding Oregon’s data center industry. They examine the location, scale, and characteristics of existing and planned facilities; electricity and water implications; workforce and economic contributions; property taxes and incentive programs; land use and host-community characteristics; and Oregon’s position relative to selected peer markets. The analysis draws on facility-level data, confidential employment records, economic modeling, county property tax records, geospatial analysis, public utility and water-resource information, and other state, federal, and industry sources. The authors also identify areas where data are insufficient to understand impacts, and further research or reporting is needed. Electricity demand is one of the industry’s most significant infrastructure considerations. Water use depends heavily on facility technology and local conditions. Data centers have a distinct economic profile; relatively few operational jobs, but substantial economic activity. Land-use effects are small statewide, but can be more significant locally.

From Opportunity To Infrastructure: Scaling Rooftop Solar In Commercial Real Estate (UK), Cush and Wakefield, Real Estate:UK, Forsters, and Push Power

The authors found that the UK’s untapped commercial rooftops could become a major new source of solar energy generation with enough output to match that of 20 Hinkley Point C nuclear power stations. This, if used correctly, could massively increase UK renewable energy production, fast-track the UK’s path to net zero, improve national energy security, reduce the need for solar deployment on agricultural land, and drastically reduce energy costs for occupiers amid ongoing energy price uncertainty. The authors used data and responses from 70 real estate organizations with combined assets under management of over £500bn. The authors found that less than 10% of suitable commercial building roof space has been used for solar generation to date, providing just 3-5GW of solar capacity. While solar technology is widely championed in principle, its deployment remains significantly below its technical potential, particularly across the industrial and logistics real estate sector.

The Dirty Truth. They promised you clean energy, but there's a Dirty Truth behind your rising utility bills, Ver Beek et al., Sierra Club

The authors studied the 50 parent companies that own the most fossil fuel generation, comprised of 76 operating companies, which collectively own half of all remaining coal and gas generation in the U.S. They analyzed their plans to retire coal by 2030, not build new gas plants through 2035, and build clean energy to replace fossil generation and serve new load by 2035. The utilities studied scored 7/100, earning an F, worsening their overall score by 11 points since 2021.

Stored Potential. The impacts of utility-scale battery energy storage systems on communities and the grid, Draklellis et al., RMI

The authors examine large-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects across the United States, drawing on available data to assess their reliability contributions, economic impacts, community benefits, and improving safety performance. Batteries help keep the lights on during grid stress. Battery storage can lower electricity costs during high-demand periods. BESS projects can provide meaningful local economic benefits. About New Research

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Chefs are more than culinary innovators. They connect farmers and consumers, shape food culture, and use their purchasing power to influence how food is grown, produced, and served. 

“Chefs are in a very unique position on planet Earth to be changemakers,” says Andrew Zimmern, Emmy- and James Beard Award-winning chef, television host, author, and food advocate. They operate at the intersection of immigration, gender and pay gaps, hunger and food insecurity, food waste, and a range of other global issues.

At “Chefs Save the World,” held in partnership with the James Beard Foundation and CARE at Climate Week NYC 2026, culinary leaders, farmers, and advocates came together to explore how chefs can use their platforms to build a more equitable, resilient, and sustainable food future. Watch the full event replay here.

Throughout the morning, speakers emphasized the importance of diversity throughout the food system—not only in crops and ingredients but among humans.

“If we demand more diversity in our food system, that is what is going to build resilience,” says Chef Bleu Adams, Executive Chef at Black Lamb Group and Director of IndigeHub. And diversity in kitchens builds human resilience, too, she adds.

“Better food begins with embracing diversity. Whether that’s diversity in our fields, diversity in our ingredients, diversity in the people preparing our food, or diversity in the people we welcome around our tables,” says Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg.

Right now, chefs are “operating in the most difficult environment they’ve ever operated in,” says Erica Helms, Chief Growth Officer at the James Beard Foundation.

Meanwhile, food producers and workers face systemic challenges worldwide: “In many parts of the world, the people who are food insecure are the people who are growing the food,” says Emily Janoch, Associate Vice President for Evidence and Learning at CARE. “This is not a charity problem but a systems problem.”

That imbalance also affects the restaurant industry, which navigates pricing food to appropriately compensate farmers and food workers while caring for their own employees.

“How do we balance the really tricky economics of being able to actually charge the cost of food to be able to pay farmers fairly and pay our employees and offer benefits to allow them to stay in this industry?” asks Liz Murray, Chief Operating Officer at The Marlow Collective.

Panelists also spoke to the importance of respecting local knowledge and ensuring communities have the resources to lead their own solutions. Foreign aid, especially in times of disaster, is critically important—but it must allow the skills and knowledge of local communities to lead the way.

“We prefer you give us what we need and trust we will utilize it in the way that best fits our community,” says Chef Adams. And Chef Fariyal Abdullahi, Executive Chef and Partner at Hav & Mar, agrees: “When you have the right partnership, it’s never to override what’s happening on the ground. They have the knowledge; they just need resources.”

Chef Sean Sherman brought the conversation back to the importance of diversity in food systems, calling for greater recognition of Indigenous foodways and the knowledge embedded in regional ingredients. 

Through NĀTIFS, the North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems, Sherman works to revitalize Indigenous food systems and promote greater access to culturally rooted foods. His Ring Diet, or Regional Indigenous Nutritional Guide, offers a framework for understanding the nutritional value of foods connected to local ecosystems.

“We’ve been living under this eurocentrism of our food here in North America…Even in a city like New York, we can find food from all over the world, just not right here where we’re standing. There are no Native American restaurants in this city,” says Sherman. 

“We have a lot of evolving to do as humans and as a global community. Food is that connection.”

Sherman says greater curiosity about different plants and ingredients around the world can help drive change. “There are so many more plants and proteins out there that we haven’t touched.” He adds, “Be curious. That’s the biggest part of how change happens.”

Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.

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 by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.

The post Chefs Are Driving a More Diverse, Resilient Food System appeared first on Food Tank.

Greenbelt Alliance says NO to Measure G in San Francisco to save the Sunset Dunes Park and keep the 2-mile stretch of the Upper Great Highway along Ocean Beach closed to cars and open for people every day. Measure G proposes to reopen the road on weekdays. The campaign says the road would remain part of the car-free park on weekends.

In 2024, we endorsed Proposition K to close this segment of the highway to first establish this stretch of Ocean Beach as a park open to the public. Prop K was successful and won on the ballots, and since then has seen a huge turnout of people, as the city’s 3rd most visited park.

According to KQED, “the majority of voters who live closest to the Great Highway opposed its closure in 2024, and its status remains at the center of west side politics, leading to the recall of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio in 2025 and a now-dismissed lawsuit challenging Proposition K.” Measure G campaign claims that reopening this stretch of the road would lead to better road safety; however, this claim is being denied by pedestrian-safety advocates, including partners like SPUR, who say the campaign’s “new branding misappropriates street-safety imagery and falsely suggests that the proposition would increase neighborhood safety.”

Why It Matters

During the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, a portion of the Upper Great Highway along Ocean Beach closed to cars and welcomed residents to enjoy the highway as a recreational and social public space. But this arrangement was set to expire in 2025, and Proposition K established a permanent closure and oceanside park 

Climate change is currently causing parts of Ocean Beach to erode and making the highway unreliable and threatening its longevity and safety. Before the permanent closure, the highway was already closed up to 65 days per year due to sand removal, costing the City nearly $2 million annually.

Voters have just recently weighed in on the same question, and they said YES to open spaces for public recreation. We support Sunset Dunes again in 2026 and urge voters to vote No on Measure G in San Francisco.

Photo from Friends of Sunset Dunes website.

The post Vote No on Measure G to Keep Sunset Dunes Park Open in San Francisco appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

President Donald Trump’s second term has been a nightmare for global cooperation on climate change. Trump has yanked the United States from the Paris climate agreement, attacked a global agreement on a carbon tax for cargo ships, and threatened countries with tariffs if they get too vocal about climate. 

This week brought a notable exception. World leaders at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday approved a unanimous resolution on how to handle sea level rise, and the United States did not block it from moving forward. The passage of the accord represents a rare win for multilateralism, made all the more notable by the fact that the agreement includes references to climate change and climate aid for developing countries. 

The declaration could bring new momentum to efforts to help small island states, said Philip Davis, the prime minister of the Bahamas, in an interview with Grist.

“Our landmass is less than 3 meters above sea level, we are already seeing our land being swallowed by water, and the global effort to stem the carbon footprint has stalled,” he said. “I think this declaration will perhaps heighten the flow of action.”

For many low-lying countries, the implications of this agreement could be profound. Some island nations, like Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, face almost total inundation over the next century as rising temperatures melt the world’s ice sheets and glaciers. It had never been clear what would happen to those sovereign nations. Under the agreement, those states will continue to exist as political actors even if their landmass disappears. They’ll also retain control over their old maritime borders, the stretch of sea extending from the coastline over which a country has exclusive control for fishing, energy development, and other military and economic activity. 

An aerial view of a strip of land between the Pacific Ocean and a lagoon in Funafuti, Tuvalu. The island nation of around 11,000 people is facing total inundation as sea levels rise. Mario Tama / Getty Images

The declaration is the result of a campaign by the Alliance of Small Island States, an influential bloc of low-lying island nations. Recent rulings from international legal bodies have helped affirm countries’ continued rights in the face of sea level rise, but the world’s leaders had never endorsed those rulings. 

“What was long treated as a legal ‘presumption’ is now an affirmation,” said Kamal Amakrane, the managing director of the Global Center for Climate Mobility and the climate envoy for Trinidad and Tobago, which helped initiate talks toward a global declaration. He noted that the world has agreed to preserve small islands “by consensus, in a year when consensus has been hard to come by.”

The document enshrines strong protections for states at risk of losing land. It holds that countries “can … maintain their maritime zones in the face of physical changes resulting from sea level rise,” a principle that the document calls a “presumption in favor of continued statehood.” That echoes a landmark climate ruling from the International Court of Justice last year, which held that “once a State is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood,” and which affirmed that international law requires countries to respect one another’s established borders.

The declaration will go a long way toward helping secure the future of small island states. For the Bahamas, protecting pristine ocean territory is essential to its tourism-driven economy. Davis said that the legal protections will safeguard his country and others against efforts to claim ocean territory for industries like deep-sea mining.

“This cannot be a free-for-all,” he said. “This cannot be might is right, and might takes what is there.”

The agreement also includes strong language recognizing that developed countries and historic emitters have an “urgent” obligation to provide “expanded access” to adaptation funds for small island states. This money could build seawalls or restore mangrove forests to protect coastlines from rising water, or it could help relocate populations from flood-prone areas. 

Prime Minister Philip Davis of the Bahamas addresses the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025. The Bahamas is seeking to protect its ocean territory from exploitation as its land disappears. Charly Triballeau / AFP via Getty Images

The declaration on its own won’t do anything to increase the money available to states like the Marshall Islands. Wealthy countries are currently giving poor ones about $130 billion a year in grants and low-interest loans for clean energy and adaptation, well below the level that experts believe is necessary to avoid catastrophic impacts. The world agreed in 2024 to reach $300 billion in annual aid by 2035, but it’s too early to gauge progress toward that target. Even then, much of that finance is in the form of loans, which are hard for many island states to afford — the Bahamas has billions of dollars of debt already, much of it stemming from damages after 2019’s Hurricane Dorian.

Even so, the mention of adaptation was welcome for island nations. Language about climate aid has been much contested at recent United Nations climate talks, with wealthy nations rejecting calls for trillions that could build flood walls and elevate sinking islands. Trump has gone further and rejected almost all international aid obligations, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development and pulling out of dozens of treaties. Yet neither the State Department nor other finance-averse countries rejected the language in the sea level rise declaration. (The State Department did not respond to a request for comment by publication.)

The reason for the cooperation by the United States is that legal protections against sea level rise are in every country’s interest, said Bryce Rudyk, a law professor at New York University who also serves as a legal advisor to the Alliance of Small Island States. The United States and other rich nations could lose land to sea level rise, and in some countries a shifting maritime border might jeopardize sovereign control over natural resources like oil, minerals, or offshore wind. 

“Everyone will lose land, and no one wants to lose ocean territory,” he said. “I think that’s why they were fine with making these relatively strong statements. … It’s in everyone’s interest to say, ‘We don’t want states just disappearing.’”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline UN passes first declaration on sea level rise, protecting island nations’ sovereignty on Sep 24, 2026.

Just before I left for Tasmania, I watched Short-tailed Shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris) passing Washington's coast, headed the same direction I was about to go. Around 18 million of these...

Anna Vallery, Coastal Program Manager for Audubon Washington, has long been interested in improving methods used for monitoring seabird and waterbird colonies. She is excited to keep pushing this...

President William Ruto of Kenya has called for COP31’s electrification agenda – a flagship initiative to accelerate the electrification of the global economy – to include a push for electric cookers to replace polluting firewood and charcoal.

The Turkish and Australian co-hosts of the November summit want governments to sign up to a pledge to increase electricity’s share of final energy consumption to 35% globally by 2035 and 50% by 2050. It is currently around 23%.

“We should arrive at COP31 with clean cooking firmly embedded in that electrification and efficiency agenda,” Ruto said during an event on clean cooking organised by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the governments of Kenya, Norway and the US at the ongoing UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

“The kitchen is where the energy transition enters daily lives for nearly one billion people,” the Kenyan president said. He added that schools, hospitals and prisons – as well as homes – need to switch to clean cooking fuels.

COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment

Ruto said that – as well as the climate, health and gender equality benefits of clean cooking – electric cooking can make investment in electricity generation and networks more profitable and ensure households get more value from electricity connections.

LPG or electricity?

According to the IEA, about 6% of sub-Saharan African households – overwhelmingly in southern Africa – used electricity to cook in 2024 – while just under a fifth used liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Despite being a fossil fuel and worse for indoor air quality than electric cookers, LPG is widely regarded as a clean-cooking fuel as the damage it does to the climate and to health is far less than the firewood and charcoal on which most sub-Saharan Africans rely on.

A new IEA report on electrification found that electric cookstoves are 10% cheaper over their lifetimes than LPG stoves. But they are more expensive upfront so restricted access to finance holds back their adoption, as do power cuts, a lack of access to electricity and cultural preferences.

At the event in New York, some speakers promoted electric cookers while others stressed “technology neutrality”, implying that LPG should be used where appropriate.

People gather near a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder distribution agency as they wait for a supply to be delivered on March 19, 2026 in Lucknow, India (Photo: Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images)

UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte was more in the former camp, saying that “clean cooking must be fit for the modern age of energy transitions and the age of electricity” and “genuinely clean and future-facing”, adding that countries can “ride the trends of electrification” to roll out clean cooking.

As disruptions to oil and gas supply chains push up the cost of cooking gas, Kyte asked: “Why should households and governments be locked into solutions that are simply going to be a victim to fossil fuel and price volatility”.

Alexander De Croo, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, said that renewable energy offers the best potential to achieve clean cooking because decentralised clean power can get to everywhere on the African continent. 

Echoing Kyte, he added that “[renewables] detaches you from the volatility of fossil fuel that you see today, very often”, adding that it poses a very low level of risk compared with other energy systems and is one of the easiest ways of reducing emissions throughout the world.

But Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said that country realities are different and so the pathways to achieving clean cooking will require different combinations of LPG, electricity, bioenergy and other solutions.

Technology neutrality

With half of the about two billion people lacking access to clean cooking globally living in Africa, the African Union’s commissioner for infrastructure and energy Lerato Mataboge said the continent prioritises “technology neutrality” and does not have a preference for electricity or LPG if either would help achieve clean cooking. 

She said national circumstances of African countries must be respected, adding that the continent needs a range of affordable, reliable and safe cooking solutions as well as approaches that allow countries to select technologies that are “appropriate to their resources, infrastructure and household needs”. 

She added that financing decisions should not exclude viable solutions “solely because of the energy source from whence they come”. Whatever clean-cooking technology is used, she said that “affordability must extend beyond the purchase of a stove. We must ask if a household can afford the next cylinder refill or the next electricity payment”, she said.

• Sep 23, 2026 News UN Climate Summit: UN chief says world has tools to end fossil fuel age At the UN Secretary-General’s climate summit in New York, countries shared their energy transition plans while Nepal and island nations advocated for more international support Read more
• Sep 23, 2026 News UN backs push to upgrade grids slowing clean power uptake in Africa and SE Asia The Global Grids Accelerator will help turn national and regional plans to expand electricity infrastructure into viable projects on the ground Read more
• Sep 23, 2026 Justice Despite “real progress”, third of countries still lack early warning systems About 60 nations have yet to put in place a multi-hazard early warning system to protect people from disasters before they happen, the UN says Read more

Dola Oluteye, senior fellow in energy and transport policy at the UCL Energy Institute, agreed, telling Climate Home News that – while electric cooking is viable in parts of Africa where reliable electricity, affordable appliances and suitable infrastructure already exist – those conditions remain out of reach for much of the continent.

She warned that making electric cooking the only measure of a clean cooking transition could slow progress in countries where other technologies offer a more immediate solution. “My concern is a purity trap,” Oluteye said.

She pointed to an IEA scenario forecasting that, with clean cooking rolled out quickly, over 60% of people gaining access to clean cooking in Africa from 2024 to 2040 would do so through LPG, compared with 17% through electricity. Bioethanol and biogas combined would account for 11% while advanced biomass cookstoves make up 10%.

Burn Clean-stoves client Loise Wanjiku cooks inside her house at Kachoroba village in Kiambu County, Kenya, August 16, 2023. (Photo: REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi)

“The intermediate solutions cannot be abandoned while the grid catches up,” she said, but added that if handled well, cooking could be “one of the best things that could happen to African electrification”, providing the predictable demand that gives utilities a reason to invest in electricity networks and reliability.

Amina Mohammed, UN deputy secretary-general and former Nigerian environment minister, warned at the New York event against repeating the experience of programmes that supplied cooking technologies without adequately considering whether they actually worked for the women expected to use them.

Speaking after Birol, Ruto, US energy secretary Chris Wright and Norwegian international development minister Åsmund Aukrust, Mohammed joked that she was responding to “four men for whom this is a big women’s problem”.

After Birol said that the IEA had been working on the issue for 25 years, Mohammed said the fact that the problem had not been solved in that time was “probably an indictment of the international community on what is supposed to be a huge problem for women and a billion of them”.

The post Push for cooking to be part of COP31’s electrification agenda appeared first on Climate Home News.

Dear friends,

The 2026 legislative session concluded on August 31, and the next important deadline is quickly approaching. Governor Newsom now has until Wednesday, September 30, to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature.

With AB 2218 and SB 872 now on the Governor’s desk, we need your help urging the Governor to sign both bills into law.

Read more about each bill below and learn how you can call or write the Governor’s office today to voice your support forAB 2218 and SB 872!

Help Support SB 872: The Delta Levees and Canal Subsidence Fund

SB 872, a bill designed to safeguard California’s water supply for decades to come, has been unanimously approved by the Legislature. 

The bill brings together Northern and Southern California legislators, environmental groups including Restore the Delta, and water interests to protect the state’s primary water source.

If signed into law by Governor Newsom, SB 872 would address two major threats to California’s water supply: aging levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and sinking canals in the State Water Project (SWP). Many Delta levees are at risk of failure, raising the threat of catastrophic flooding and ecosystem damage, while sinking land is jeopardizing SWP canals and reliable water deliveries.

Now that SB 872 has moved to the Governor’s desk for signature, we need your help to sign this bill into law!

Two Easy Ways You Can Take Action:

1. Call the Governor at (916) 445-2841, urging his signature on SB 872.

When calling the Governor’s Office, please tell them: 

• As a constituent, I urge you to sign SB 872 into law.
• You support advancing legislation that prioritizes safeguarding California’s water supplies, protecting critical infrastructure, and preparing the state’s water system for future challenges.

2. Alternatively, you can also write to the Governor’s Office, asking for their support on SB 872. 

• Click this link to send a comment urging the Governor’s Signature on SB 872.

Support AB 2218: Water policy: California Native American tribes

On February 19, 2026, Assemblymember Kalra introduced AB 2218, the Indigenous Water Rights Bill sponsored by the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and the Karuk Tribe. 

AB 2218 would establish a clear statewide policy directive acknowledging and seeking to remedy the inequities inflicted upon Tribes in California through historical state-sanctioned acts of termination, removal, and forced assimilation.

The bill directs relevant state agencies, including the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Board, to incorporate this policy into water rights decisions, regulatory actions, permitting, and grantmaking to address identified inequities. Recognizing historic harms and directing state agencies to center Tribal equity in water policy is not simply a symbolic act; it is a pathway toward stronger relationships, more inclusive decision-making, and better outcomes for the ecosystems we all depend on.

Now that AB 2218 has moved to the Governor’s desk for signature, we need your help to sign this bill into law!

Two Easy Ways You Can Take Action:

1. Call the Governor at (916) 445-2841 urging his signature on AB 2218.

When calling the Governor’s Office, please tell them: 

• As a constituent, I urge you to sign AB 2218 into law.
• AB 2218 supports the State’s progress towards equitable water management.
• AB 2218 is an important step toward addressing inequities affecting California Native American Tribes in state water policy and ensuring Tribal interests are meaningfully considered in decisions affecting water.

2. Alternatively, you can also write to the Governor’s Office, asking for their support on AB 2218. 

• Click this link to send a comment urging the Governor’s Signature on AB 2218.

Support SB 872: The Delta Levees and Canal Subsidence Fund

SB 872, a bill designed to safeguard California’s water supply for decades to come, has been unanimously approved by the Legislature. 

The bill brings together Northern and Southern California legislators, environmental groups including Restore the Delta, and water interests to protect the state’s primary water source.

If signed into law by Governor Newsom, SB 872 would address two major threats to California’s water supply: aging levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and sinking canals in the State Water Project (SWP). Many Delta levees are at risk of failure, raising the threat of catastrophic flooding and ecosystem damage, while sinking land is jeopardizing SWP canals and reliable water deliveries.

Now that SB 872 has moved to the Governor’s desk for signature, we need your help to sign this bill into law!

Two Easy Ways You Can Take Action:

1. Call the Governor at (916) 445-2841, urging his signature on SB 872.

When calling the Governor’s Office, please tell them: 

• As a constituent, I urge you to sign SB 872 into law.
• You support advancing legislation that prioritizes safeguarding California’s water supplies, protecting critical infrastructure, and preparing the state’s water system for future challenges.

2. Alternatively, you can also write to the Governor’s Office, asking for their support on SB 872. 

• Click this link to send a comment urging the Governor’s Signature on SB 872.

After the USDA deregulated the GE American chestnut for release, we asked the question regulators keep sidestepping: what does “safety” even mean when a tree can live for centuries, spread pollen for miles, and reproduce in ecosystems we cannot control?

Hours after Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., delivered a resounding defeat to President Trump early this morning, restraining his administration from barring CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House and holding that the ban is likely unconstitutional, the administration defied the order by continuing to deny access to the networks.

Kelly held that the press met the “high bar” to show that the ban likely violated the Fifth Amendment’s protections for due process. He also rejected the administration’s argument that “national security” concerns justified the ban, noting that the news stories the administration pointed to are “routine” and that there is no precedent for applying laws prohibiting disclosure of classified information to reporters.

But after Kelly’s ruling and in spite of the temporary restraining order entered by the court, Politico, CNN, and MSNOW reported today that some of their reporters were denied access to the White House and some also had their press credentials confiscated.
The following can be attributed to Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern:

“The administration was rightly given the back of the hand by Judge Kelly for claiming routine reports harm ‘national security,’ but court orders are just paper unless they’re enforced. Enough is enough. Government officials who continue to deny journalists’ access to the White House in defiance of Kelly’s order should be held in contempt.

“And it’s long past time for judges to start aggressively sanctioning DOJ lawyers when they make frivolous national security arguments to turn Trump’s petty grievances against the press into government policy. That way, we won’t get to the point where Secret Service agents are defying court orders to carry out the president’s authoritarian whims.

“The Pentagon Papers case famously rejected a prior restraint aimed at specific documents the government claimed posed national security risks, and Trump himself lost two cases in which he tried to similarly ban reporters in his first term. Anyone who argues ‘national security’ are magic words justifying banning three entire news outlets from the White House should be not just laughed out of court but sanctioned.

“Trump’s own announcement of the ban admitted it was about coverage he didn’t like. The reports the government cited are years old and one was even based on a briefing from the vice president. Trump beats up on the free press not because of national security but because he’s terrified for the public to see what he and his administration are up to in the people’s house behind closed doors, whether it’s letting classified tech go missing or almost starting a war based on an AI hallucination.

“Those are the stories you won’t see on Trump TV. They bolster national security by exposing real threats to the homeland — government malfeasance and incompetence. Everyone involved in this multipronged and apparently ongoing attack on the Constitution must be held accountable.”
Read Judge Kelly’s full order here

.

The University of Toronto could generate a quarter of its electricity from on-site solar power, according to our new report. Despite U of T’s ambitious climate and sustainability goals, existing solar installations currently supply less than 1% of the university’s total electricity needs. Our new report, Scaling Solar Power at the University of Toronto, finds

The post University of Toronto could generate 25% of its electricity with solar power appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

The Place:

Morrell Nature Sanctuary is a 110-hectare (270-acre) preserve of coastal Douglas-fir forest in British Columbia that volunteers battle to keep safe from invasive species. The sanctuary is a shelter for a biodiverse ecosystem where fir coexist with massive red cedars, Garry oaks, and twisting, hard-as-stone arbutus trees with their shocking, ever-peeling red and pistachio-green trunks. The forest’s undergrowth is dominated by salal, Oregon grape, and ferns. But those are just a few of the more than 100 species of plants that provide a home for animals, including deer and bears. Ravens and barred owls regularly oversee our work.

Why it matters:

According to the Coastal Douglas-fir Conservation Partnership, this type of forest is the most at-risk zone in British Columbia, yet it contains the highest diversity of plant species in the province. Morrell Nature Sanctuary is a volunteer-led organization trying to maintain a small piece of this forest for all.

A barred owl looks down on Morrell. Photo: Tanya Berry (used with permission) The threat:

The forest is in peril. Always creeping in from the edges or growing from bits dropped by birds are invasive Christmas-card perfect holly trees and very pretty, but toxic, daphne laurel. The open, rocky bluffs that the arbutus and Garry oaks favor are at risk of being taken over by Scotch broom. Local lore attributes the broom plague to a sentimental Scot who planted a few seeds to remind him of home. Now the broom has taken over any disturbed (literally and metaphorically) location across large swathes of southwestern British Columbia. It runs rampant up hydro lines, along trails and ditches, and in lots clearcut and then abandoned by developers. We curse the homesick Scot even as we grudgingly admire the bright yellow blooms in late spring.

It’s not just the sanctuary volunteers who engage in the Sisyphean labor of cutting blooming broom as close to the ground as possible. Many groups work to eradicate it, worrying the highly flammable, toxic bush will kill the native species and fuel a forest fire. It is dangerously everywhere.

The invasive-fighting volunteers have heard the arguments. Isn’t it natural evolution to let plants grow as they wish? That’s hard to believe if you witness the monoculture left under the canopy if you let daphne laurel grow at will. Isn’t it a waste of time? I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to liberate an arbutus from a surround of broom and know that even if you need to come back to cut baby broom next year, the arbutus is free for now. Parts of the sanctuary are close to pristine, where breathing is easier for everyone — and that can’t possibly be a waste of time or labor.

So we persist against the holly, daphne laurel, and broom while occasionally tackling other problematic plants in our neck of the woods: Periwinkle, English ivy (homesick settlers take note!) and Himalayan blackberry have also taken root.

My place in this place:

Of all the invasive plants, it’s the blackberry I find most difficult — and not just because of its vicious, rope-thick cane and brambles. There’s actually very little of it in the sanctuary, but when I occasionally come across it, I morph into a blackberry terminator, lasering in on the plant as I approach for the kill.

The author at Morrell.

My technique involves clipping back as much of the vine and cane that I can until the roots are exposed, which I pull out of the ground with specially designed “puller-bears.” These heavy contraptions are very useful for pinching around the base of a plant and then slowly levering the roots out of the ground. They’re indispensable for clearing daphne laurel and smaller holly trees, which will regrow if cut. But never use a puller-bear on broom: You’ll just disturb the soil and create the perfect nursery for thousands of dormant broom seeds to sprout. It’s better to cut blooming broom off at the base, which will likely kill it.

But back to the blackberries. In the sanctuary I gleefully eradicate them. It’s when I leave that problems arise, as I wrestle with my hypocritical lust for a perfectly ripe blackberry. As soon as I touch a plump fruit, I know whether I should immediately pull it to my mouth or drop it in a bucket to freeze for delayed gratification over the winter. The ripe ones come to you willingly, almost falling into your hand as you caress them and then offer explosions of sweetness leaving a lingering, subtle, delicious tartness on your palate. There’s a reason “hints of blackberry” is often used to describe rich red wines.

As I walk to the sanctuary on summer mornings I assess the readiness of the crop, justifying my greediness with every step. They’ll still be there, taking over fields and ditches if I don’t eat them. And it’s free food! (Monetarily, at least.)

The coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem also has native trailing blackberries. Their fruits are smaller and sweeter, and many claim more delicious, than Himalayan blackberries. The trailing blackberry vine is also more delicate, and there’s no cane. While Himalayan blackberries would make an extremely effective defense against invaders, trailing blackberries allow animals to move through and coexist with salal and Oregon grape. Nonnative blackberries grow prolifically, not allowing anything else to grow and even competing with broom in disturbed sites. I believe it’s the alpha blackberry that will win out.

Have I mentioned the thorns the size of tacks that tear at your clothes, sometimes piercing the armor you donned before heading out on the hunt? For a month or so every summer the invasive blackberries dare you to come and get ’em if you’re brave enough to try. It’s not a chore for the unprepared. No matter the weather, you have to wear thick clothing and closed-toe shoes, if not boots. Mesh-topped running shoes won’t last a minute. The wise bring hand clippers to carve out a relatively safe space to pick. My husband carries an old broomstick with a bent nail banged into one end, which he uses to snag berry-laden branches and pull them within reach. He favors cutting his way in where others dare not go and picking in one spot. I wear a thick work glove on my non-picking hand to maneuver fruit nearer as I skim along the surface of the brambles. We’ve enviously watched seasoned warriors lean ladders against three-meter-high blackberry hedges to get at the ones the rest of us can’t reach.

My love of blackberries illustrates the issue at hand. Many invasive plants were originally planted in gardens because they’re pretty or taste good. I, along with everyone else, need to tamp down our selfish need for plants that don’t belong here. Inevitably as I enter the sanctuary, my mouth stained a deep purple, I relax because it’s always cooler there when it’s hot out. On rainy days the towering canopy gives protection. I stop and breathe and know that given the choice of this or blackberries, I will choose the forest every time. That’s what we are fighting to protect.

Who’s protecting it now:

Volunteers. In addition to the Morrell nature sanctuary, volunteers with organizations such as BroomBusters are working in the region to eradicate invasive species, Scotch broom in particular.

Photo: Tanya Berry (used with permission) What this place needs:

The smallest actions, such as ripping out an invasive plant as one walks by, can quickly add up, clearing areas remarkably effectively. But local government leaders also need to step in and recognize the threat posed by invasive plants. The wildfires should terrify us all and spur action to legislate the removal of plants such as Scotch broom or fine those who don’t take action. Another step is to make the disposal of invasive plants easier. Right now, it costs us to take bags of pulled or cut plants for disposal; we need support, not barriers.

Lessons from the fight:

A small group of mostly retired people working a few hours a week can make a surprisingly big difference. But we Morrell volunteers are only working on a tiny piece of the landscape. If more people started working a bit more broadly, I believe much more of the forest could be protected. For example, I regularly walk through a Nanaimo park that’s choking on invasive plants. Holly and daphne are everywhere, and the cedars and firs are covered in ivy. Yet it’s obvious where people have stepped in to eradicate the interlopers, leaving pockets of forest in a clean state. It can be done.

Learn more:

To find out more about the Morrell Nature Sanctuary, visit their website or follow them on Facebook.

To see the work of another invasive fighting volunteer organization, with inspiring examples of small groups who made big impacts, visit the BroomBuster’s website.

To learn more about the coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem visit: https://www.cdfcp.ca/about-the-cdfcp/.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Protect This Place: The Florida Panhandle vs. Petrochemicals

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