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Europe’s climate movement is often portrayed as the domain of younger generations. Yet from landmark legal victories to everyday practices of sustainability, a different picture is emerging: older Europeans are proving to be among the most committed and effective climate actors. As the continent continues to age, could this overlooked demographic reshape how climate action is understood and mobilised across Europe?

In April 2024, a group of Swiss women, most of them in their 70s and 80s, stood on the steps of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, surrounded by a wall of microphones and cameras from around the world. They had just heard the verdict in one of the most significant climate cases in European legal history. The KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz had won.

The ruling found Switzerland in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights for failing to adequately protect its citizens from the effects of climate change. The judgment, formally known as Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland, now sets binding legal precedent across all 46 Council of Europe member states. Switzerland has since pushed hard for the case to be closed, but the Committee of Ministers, which monitors its implementation, has refused the request twice.

The story of how about 3,000 Swiss women forced their country to one of the highest courts in Europe is striking in its own right. Yet it also points to something broader: a growing, largely invisible force within the climate movement that Europe’s ageing democracies might not be able to overlook for much longer.

Beyond the generational divide

The climate movement’s most visible faces – such as activists Greta Thunberg in Sweden or Féris Barkat in France – tend to be on the younger (if not much younger) side, and it has become common to identify Gen Z as its most fervent defender. But researchers who study the intersection of ageing and environmental engagement argue that the mainstream perception of generations within the climate movement may be flawed.

“There is a slight tendency for younger generations to have opinions that are more favourable towards climate policy,” said Jan Rosset, a sociologist at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland who has studied climate engagement across age groups in Switzerland alongside political scientist Jasmine Lorenzini. “But all generations are very favourable to climate policies. There is no real generational divide.”

That finding echoes the conclusions of a 2025 study published by Parlons Climat, a French research organisation, which found that older adults take climate change and environmental degradation just as seriously as the rest of the population. The myth of a disengaged older generation does not seem to hold up to scrutiny.

What differs across generations, Rosset and Lorenzini found, is not the level of concern but the form that engagement takes. Older adults are significantly more likely to buy local and seasonal produce for environmental reasons, to renounce air travel on ecological grounds, and to practice unglamorous household sustainability: buying second-hand, reducing electricity use, cooking from scratch. Younger people, on the other hand, might be more likely to adopt plant-based diets and participate in public protests. It should, however, be noted that the data is mixed.

Researchers who study the intersection of ageing and environmental engagement argue that the mainstream perception of generations within the climate movement may be flawed.

“On almost every indicator, it is people in mid-life, those between roughly 35 and 60, who engage the least,” Rosset says. “But that is not an ideological position. It’s a question of time and capacity; they have demanding jobs and family responsibilities. It is a life-cycle issue, not a generational one.”

Rosset and Lorenzini also found a consistent gender gap: across all age groups, but especially among older adults, women showed significantly more favourable attitudes toward climate action and higher levels of engagement than men.

“This gap was almost stronger than other socioeconomic factors, like income or education level,” Rosset said.

The case that set a precedent

When Greenpeace Switzerland began exploring the possibility of legal climate action in the mid-2010s, it ran into an obstacle: Swiss law does not allow class actions. Any case would need to be brought by individuals who could demonstrate they were personally and particularly affected. The research pointed to one group. Studies following the 2003 European heatwave – which killed an estimated 70,000 people across the continent, with the elderly among the hardest hit – had shown that older women died in disproportionate numbers. More recent research has confirmed this vulnerability: a 2024 study by Penn State researchers found that older women reach dangerous heat thresholds at lower temperature and humidity levels than older men and that middle-aged women are as heat-vulnerable as men over 65.

Heatwaves increase illnesses, causing heat stroke, heart and lung problems, diabetes complications, mental health issues, and trouble with daily activities. The vulnerability of older generations is not just physical: many live alone, have limited mobility, or cannot easily access emergency services. People in cities face “heat island” effects, where concrete and asphalt trap heat, while rural residents often have fewer cooling centres or medical resources. Climate change also worsens air quality, raising levels of ozone, fine particulate matter, and other pollutants, which worsen respiratory and heart conditions. These combined factors make ageing populations especially vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change.

One senior activist who committed herself to the Swiss climate fight is Elisabeth Stern, a cultural anthropologist and board member of KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz. “It was clear that when I got retired, I would use my time in a climate group,” she said. “I tried a few that were not the right fit for me until I found the KlimaSeniorinnen, who I sort of met on the same eye level.”

Stern’s fellow activist, Anne Mahrer, KlimaSeniorinnen’s co-president, had spent years watching climate policy stall in parliament as a member of the Swiss National Council. When a colleague reminded her of the Urgenda case in the Netherlands, where a court had ordered the Dutch government in 2015 to cut emissions, the question became: could something similar be done in Switzerland? In August 2016, KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz was formally established to achieve that goal.

The Swiss courts, however, were not moved. At every level, the association was told it lacked standing. One court noted that the women were concerned not only about Swiss emissions but wanted to reduce them worldwide. Another placed winter tourism in the same category of climate-affected interests as the health of women threatened by heatwaves. The most striking argument, Stern recounts, was that the women might not still be alive by the time global warming reached 1.5 degrees and therefore could not complain. “If you follow their reasoning, climate action in court would only be possible when it’s already too late,” Mahrer said.

The European Court of Human Rights took a different view. It declared the application a priority case, engaged seriously with reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and referred the case to its Grand Chamber of 17 judges. “Unlike politicians, who do not listen to scientists, the judges listened to the scientists, and they took into account the third-party interventions in support of the case,” Mahrer explained.

The court delivered its verdict on 9 April, 2024. It found Switzerland in violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the right to respect for private and family life – which the court ruled encompasses a right to effective state protection against the severe effects of climate change on life, health, wellbeing, and quality of life. Switzerland was also found to have violated Article 6 – the right to a fair trial – for its domestic courts’ refusal to hear the case on its merits.

The ripple effects spread quickly and travelled farther than anyone had anticipated. The ruling is now cited in climate litigation across Europe. In South Korea, groups of young activists successfully pursued a similar case. In the Netherlands, residents of the island of Bonaire have taken legal action against the Dutch state, drawing on the KlimaSeniorinnen precedent. The International Court of Justice, prompted by the small island nation of Vanuatu, issued an advisory opinion in July 2025 stating that governments which fail to protect their populations from climate harm are acting unlawfully, reinforcing the Strasbourg ruling and opening new avenues for litigation worldwide.

Across Europe, a generation of older activists has been following a similar model. European Grandparents for Climate, active in Belgium and Norway, and Omas for Future in Germany and Austria, are building on the same instinct: that people who have watched the world change across six or seven decades have both a particular stake in the future and a special capacity to act.

European Grandparents for Climate participates in demonstrations, writes letters to ministers, and monitors parliamentary votes on climate at both the Belgian and European levels. In Germany, Omas for Future joins Fridays for Future strikes, runs climate workshops in schools, and has organised nationwide campaigns such as the “Klimabänder” initiative, in which thousands of handwritten climate messages were bicycled to Berlin ahead of the 2021 federal election.

Sustainability by habit

Beyond courts and campaigns, there is a quieter dimension to older adults’ climate engagement, rooted not in ideology but in force of habit and the practical knowledge of generations who lived before the age of mass consumption.

Serge Guérin, a French sociologist and author of Et si les vieux aussi sauvaient la planète? (“And what if the Elderly Also Saved the Planet?”), points to a kind of practical sustainability that older generations carry without naming it as such. They grew up returning glass bottles for a deposit, cooking whatever was in season, and mending rather than replacing. A startup working on bottle recycling, he recalls, found it far easier to explain the concept to older people because “When they were young, they used to return the milk bottle, the wine bottle, and get a few cents back. For them, it was totally normal,” he says.

Helene Blasquiet-Revol, a geographer whose research examines civic engagement among seniors in rural France, describes what she calls “ordinary” forms of climate engagement: practices so ingrained they are not even labelled as activism. For instance, she found that community gardens established by older residents in the Allier region gradually opened up to schools and youth workshops, transmitting practical knowledge in ways that were rarely planned or publicised.

There is a quieter dimension to older adults’ climate engagement, rooted not in ideology but in force of habit and the practical knowledge of generations who lived before the age of mass consumption.

Researchers are increasingly identifying the potential for a form of intergenerational knowledge transfer that is already happening informally, and which could be deliberately cultivated. Rosset, for instance, found that among older climate activists, there was no statistically significant relationship between having children or grandchildren and the propensity to get involved, meaning people were not fighting for their own descendants. “It is really universal,” Rosset said. “It is a solidarity expressed towards future generations, towards all of humanity. We did not expect that result at all.”

Renewal needs the old

Europe is ageing fast. According to projections from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, the share of older adults across EU member states is growing steadily and will continue to do so for decades, driven by declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. This demographic shift also increases the need for climate-adapted healthcare, adequate urban planning, and social support systems for vulnerable seniors.

“There is a widespread idea that with generational renewal, the problem will be solved, that new generations will be more environmentally conscious,” Rosset said. “Our research shows this is not the case. And in addition, there will be more and more older people.”

Guérin also notes that designing urban environments, housing, and transport for ageing populations often produces outcomes that are better for both people and the planet. Accessible public transport means more people leave their cars behind. Shared housing models reduce per-capita energy consumption. Local services cut down the need for long-distance travel. And when older people are less isolated, they are in better health.

“When you reduce isolation, people use fewer resources, they are less at risk and share more,” Guérin said, adding that these shifts can lower both land use and carbon footprints. “When you take vulnerability into account, you very often improve things for everyone. And it’s really when people feel their capacity to act, especially at the local level, that things begin to move.”

Stern sees the perception gap playing out in real time in media coverage. “There are certain media and certain politicians who want us to believe that interest in the climate has vanished,” she says. “It is in their interest to tell people: ‘It has vanished anyway, so you don’t have to get involved, just enjoy life.’ But the truth is, when you ask people what concerns them a lot, the climate crisis comes up either first or second.”

The KlimaSeniorinnen continue to monitor Switzerland’s compliance with the Strasbourg judgment, sending observations to the Committee of Ministers, lobbying ambassadors, and speaking at universities across the country. For Stern, meaningful compliance means confronting Switzerland’s financial sector, which through continued investment in fossil fuels generates emissions many times greater than those in the country itself. A documentary about the association’s decade-long legal journey recently toured cinemas.

Whatever the future of the climate movement and its coverage, it is clear that the generational conflict narrative is not accurate. The evidence from researchers points to something more complicated and more hopeful: a Europe where different generations, engaged in different ways, with different tools and different knowledge, are already working on the same problem.

Anne Jellema is Executive Director of 350.org.

The war on Iran and Lebanon is a deeply unjust and devastating conflict, killing civilians at home, destroying lives, and at the same time sending shockwaves through the global economy. We, at 350.org, have calculated, drawing on price forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Goldman Sachs, just how much that volatility is costing us. 

Even under the IMF’s baseline scenario – a de facto “best case” scenario with a near-term end to the war and related supply chain disruptions – oil and gas price spikes are projected to cost households and businesses globally more than $600 billion by the end of the year. Under the IMF’s “adverse scenario”, with prolonged conflict and sustained price pressures, we estimate those additional costs could exceed $1 trillion, even after accounting for reduced demand.

Which is why we urgently need a power shift. Governments are under growing pressure to respond to rising fuel and food costs and deepening energy poverty. And it’s becoming clearer to both voters and elected officials that fossil dependence is not only expensive and risky, but unnecessary. 

People who can are voting with their wallets: sales of solar panels and electric vehicles are increasing sharply in many countries. But the working people who have nothing to spare, ironically, are the ones stuck with using oil and gas that is either exorbitantly expensive or simply impossible to get. 

Drain on households and economies

In India, street food vendors can’t get cooking gas and in the Philippines, fishermen can’t afford to take their boats to sea. A quarter of British people say that rising energy tariffs will leave them completely unable to pay their bills. This is the moment for a global push to bring abundant and affordable clean energy to all.

In April, we released Out of Pocket, our new research report on how fossil fuels are draining households and economies. We were surprised by the scale of what we found. For decades, governments have reassured people that energy price spikes are unfortunate but unavoidable – the result of distant conflicts, market forces or geopolitical shocks beyond anyone’s control. But the numbers tell a different story. 

• Apr 28, 2026 News Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out Around 60 governments that want to make progress on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas are meeting in Colombia to work out how they can do it an equitable way Read more
• Apr 24, 2026 Comment Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action Cities will help identify concrete pathways for an equitable shift to clean energy at the Santa Marta conference, with C40 members aiming to halve their fossil fuel use by 2030 Read more

What we are living through today is not an energy crisis. It is a fossil fuel crisis. In just the first 50 days of the Middle East conflict, soaring oil and gas prices have siphoned an estimated $158 billion–$166 billion from households and businesses worldwide. That is money extracted directly from people’s pockets and transferred, almost instantly, into fossil fuel company balance sheets. And this figure only captures the immediate impact of price spikes, not the permanent economic drain of fossil dependence. Fossil fuels don’t just cost us once, they cost us over and over again. 

First, through our bills. Every time there is a war, an embargo or a supply disruption, fossil fuel prices surge. For ordinary people, this means higher costs for energy, transport and food. Many Global South countries have little or no fiscal space to buffer the shock; instead, workers and families pay the price.

Second, through our taxes. Governments around the world continue to pour vast sums of public money into fossil fuel subsidies. These are often justified as a way to protect the most vulnerable at the petrol pump or in their homes. But in reality, the benefits are overwhelmingly captured by wealthier households and corporations. The poorest 20% receive just a fraction of this support, while public finances are drained.

Third, through climate impacts. New research across more than 24,000 global locations gives a granular account of the true costs of extreme heat, sea level rise and falling agricultural yields. Using this data to update IMF modelling of the social cost of carbon, we found that fossil fuel impacts on health and livelihoods amount to over $9 trillion a year. This is the biggest subsidy of all, because these massive and mounting costs are not charged to Big Oil – they are paid for by governments and households, with the poorest shouldering the lion’s share. 

Massive transfer of wealth to fossil fuel industry

Adding up direct subsidies, tax breaks and the unpaid bill for climate damages, the total transfer of wealth from the public to the fossil fuel industry amounts to $12 trillion even in a “normal” year without a global oil shock. That’s more than 50% higher than the IMF has previously estimated, and equivalent to a staggering $23 million a minute.

The fossil fuel industry has become extraordinarily adept at profiting from instability. When conflict drives up prices, companies do not lose, they gain. In the current crisis, oil producers and commodity traders are on track to secure tens of billions of dollars in additional windfall profits, even as households face rising bills and governments struggle to manage the fallout. 

Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say

This growing disconnect is impossible to ignore. Investors are advised to buy into fossil fuel firms precisely because of their ability to generate profits in times of crisis. Meanwhile, ordinary people are told to tighten their belts.

In 2026, unlike during the oil shocks of the 1970s, clean energy is no longer a distant alternative. Now, even more than when gas prices spiked due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, renewables are often the cheapest option available. Solar and wind can be deployed quickly, at scale, and without the volatility that defines fossil fuel markets.

How to transition from dirty to clean energy

The solutions are clear. Governments must implement permanent windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies to ensure that extraordinary profits generated during crises are redirected to support households. These revenues can be used to reduce energy bills, invest in public services, and accelerate the rollout of clean energy.

Second, we must shift subsidies away from fossil fuels and towards renewable solutions, particularly those that can be deployed quickly and equitably, such as rooftop and community solar. This is not just about cutting emissions. It is about building a more stable, fair and resilient energy system.

Finally, we need binding plans to phase out fossil fuels altogether, replacing them with homegrown renewable energy that can shield economies from future shocks. Because what the current crisis has made clear is this: as long as we remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain vulnerable – to conflict, to price volatility and to the escalating impacts of climate change.

The true price of fossil fuels is no longer hidden. It is visible in rising bills, strained public finances and communities pushed to the brink. And it is being paid, every day, by ordinary people around the world.

It’s time for the great power shift. 

Full details on the methodology used for this report are available here.

The Great Power Shift is a new campaign by 350.org to pressure governments to bring down energy bills for good by ending fossil fuel dependence and investing in clean, affordable energy for all.

Logo of 350.org campaign on “The Great Power Shift” Logo of 350.org campaign on “The Great Power Shift”

The post What fossil fuels really cost us in a world at war appeared first on Climate Home News.

Christopher Wright is the principal analyst at CarbonBridge, a decarbonisation consulting firm.

The Santa Marta Conference has rightly been hailed as a pivotal opportunity to re-imagine the world’s relationship with fossil fuels. However, the sixty-odd countries gathered this week represent only 15% of the world’s total fossil fuel production, and a small but critical handful of nations in attendance remain deeply committed to expanding their fossil fuel output.

While the discussions at Santa Marta have focused on overcoming economic dependency on fossil fuels, the reality on the ground for many of these countries is that fossil fuel production continues to rise. Despite the rapid global growth of renewable electrification, fossil fuel output has similarly increased.

• Apr 28, 2026 News Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out Around 60 governments that want to make progress on transitioning away from coal, oil and gas are meeting in Colombia to work out how they can do it an equitable way Read more
• Apr 21, 2026 News Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say As climate diplomacy resumes in Berlin, ministers say the Iran war-driven fuel crisis is exposing the risks of fossil dependence Read more

This trend is evident even among the countries gathered at Santa Marta, where according to a CarbonBridge analysis, net fossil fuel production has grown over the last five years, particularly driven by expansions in oil and gas output.

Across all countries gathered in Santa Marta, approximately 14 countries are responsible for the lion’s share of oil production, which has increased by 4% since 2020. Similarly, just eight countries account for 96% of the conference’s natural gas production, which has collectively grown by 5% over the past decade. 

While coal production has seen a slight decline since 2020, recent production increases in Turkey and Pakistan, with renewed growth in Australia, could similarly see increased production in the near future.  

However, most surprisingly, only six countries present at Santa Marta account for over 80% of fossil fuel production among all nations in attendance: Canada, Australia, Brasil, Mexico, Norway and Nigeria. 

For these nations, the transition journey ahead is complex. All six countries are aiming to significantly expand renewable energy capacities, and Norway stands as a global leader in electric vehicle adoption. 

However, fossil fuel production is not merely a domestic concern for these countries; it plays a central role in their international exports, and remains a foundational pillar of their economic utures. In fact, a deeper look into trends and regulatory frameworks across this suite of countries indicates that their current trajectories are geared toward continued fossil fuel expansion.

Canada

In Canada, oil and gas production continues to climb, with 2025 marking a year of record highs. Oil production rose by 4% to reach 5.34 million barrels per day (MMb/d), while natural gas production surged by 3.4%, reaching 8.2 billion gigajoules. And only yesterday, Shell made a $13.5 bln bet on Canada’s oil and gas future.

Led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, Canada is set to implement an industrial carbon pricing scheme and could double Canada’s clean energy capacity over the next two years. However, he has also been vocal about his support for new oil and gas expansions, new pipeline developments, and has even set a goal to transform Canada’s largely non-existent liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry over the next 15 years, with aspirations to rival the production capacity of the US by 2040.

Brazil

Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras has committed to a massive USD $109 billion expansion of their production to 2030. This hefty investment follows a record 11% production increase in 2025, with Petrobras pumping out 3.77 million barrels per day. Despite hosting the UN climate negotiations last year and generating 89% of the country’s electricity from low-carbon sources in 2025, Brazil’s drive for fossil fuel expansion highlights the gap between national climate transitions and critical export opportunities. 

Australia

Australia, the world’s second-largest coal exporter, faces a similar dislocation between its domestic electricity transition and its export economy, as it prepares to assume a leadership role at COP31. Australia is home to the world’s highest solar power per capita and leads the world in home battery rollouts. However, it remains critically dependent on fossil fuel exports, even as questions arise over long-term demand. Currently, gas export volumes, which dipped in 2025, are projected to reach record levels by 2027; pending legal action against the Barossa, Scarborough, and Browse expansions. While thermal coal production is projected to decline slightly through 2030, increases in metallurgical coal are expected to offset these declines, in part due to recent pro-mining regulatory shifts in Queensland.

Mexico

Mexico is one of three major oil producers that make up over 60% of the conference’s annual oil production. However, its oil industry recorded the largest output declines of any major producer in Santa Marta over the last decade. The state-owned oil company Pemex, currently carries close to $100 billion in debt, and was granted $12bn in debt support from the government last year. When combined with import shifts from the US, and potential competition from Venezuela, there is a real chance that Mexico’s oil production could decline further going forward. However, the goal right now from Pemex and the Mexican government, is to increase current production by close to 10% by 2030.

Nigeria

Nigeria’s national oil company, NNPCL, has similarly seen declines over the last decade, but is now pursuing a $60 billion partnership to expand its oil and gas output and solidify its role as one of Africa’s largest fossil fuel producers. This comes even as the federal government was granted $800,000 to explore opportunities to transition away from oil expansion last year. 

Norway

In contrast to these countries, Norway stands as one of the few major oil producers at the conference projected to decrease its fossil fuel output. With a forecasted 15% reduction in oil and gas production by 2030, Norway appears to be taking early steps toward a transition. However, the decline in production is more a reflection of the age of its existing oil fields than a proactive shift in government policy. Despite acknowledging the need to diversify its economy, the Norwegian government continues to explore new oil and gas fields, plans to launch new licensing rounds, and hopes to spur on further oil and gas investments, which have almost doubled since 2017.  

For these nations, the road ahead is fraught with complexities. While the Santa Marta conference offers an opportunity for dialogue, and renewable energies will undoubtedly continue to expand, the largest fossil fuel producers gathered in Colombia remain structurally focused on growth, rather than phase-downs.

Dollars and cents continue to drive economic decisions, especially in the midst of a global energy crisis. Despite growing calls to utilise this opportunity to reshape development pathways, countries most economically embedded in existing energy markets will need far more convincing, before turning their backs on billions in fossil fuel revenues.

The post Six nations at Santa Marta could shape fossil fuel futures appeared first on Climate Home News.

Forest destruction in the tropics eased by over a third in 2025, thanks in large part to Brazil’s stronger environmental protection which drove forest loss not caused by fires to a record low in the country, an annual survey showed.

In 2025, the world lost 4.3 million hectares of tropical primary rainforest – an area roughly the size of Denmark, according to data from the University of Maryland hosted on Global Forest Watch. That is 36% lower than in 2024 when climate-fuelled fires pushed forest disappearance to a record high.

Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch at the World Resources Institute (WRI), said the drop was “encouraging” and proved what “decisive” government action can achieve. But she cautioned that part of the decline reflected “a lull” after an extreme fire year and forest destruction remains far too high to meet international goals to protect forests and limit global warming to acceptable levels.

Deforestation was 70% higher than it needed to be in 2025 to meet a global pledge to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030, which 145 countries first committed to at COP26 nearly five years ago, the report said. Brazil, which holds the COP30 presidency, has promised to deliver a global roadmap guiding countries toward that goal before this year’s UN climate summit.

“Achieving this goal in the coming years will not be easy as forests become more vulnerable to climate change and as humanity’s growing demand for food, fuel and material sourced from forests in the land they stand on continues to grow,” Goldman told journalists.

Agriculture, fires cause most losses

Primary tropical forests – such as the Amazon in Latin America, the Congo Basin and rainforests in Southeast Asia – are critical carbon sinks that help regulate the global climate by absorbing vast amounts of planet-heating CO2. Their loss weakens one of the world’s most important defences against planetary heating.

Agricultural expansion, driven both by industrial agribusinesses and shifting cultivation for subsistence, returned to being the leading cause of forest destruction in the tropics last year, the Global Forest Watch analysis found. After hitting a record high in 2024, fires – which are usually started by humans – still contributed to around a third of forest destruction in those critical regions.

Climate change is increasing fire risk in the tropics by creating hotter, drier conditions that allow blazes to spread more easily.

Lula’s policies drive progress in Brazil

Trends in global forest destruction are significantly influenced by what happens in Brazil, home to the world’s largest remaining rainforest. In 2025, the South American nation recorded a 42% fall in primary forest loss and its lowest-ever rate of forest loss caused by reasons other than fire.

Analysts said Brazil’s progress in tackling forest loss is a result of the stronger environmental protection and enforcement actions introduced since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to office in 2023, after years of budget cuts and policy rollbacks under his pro-business predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula’s administration revived the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm), an anti-deforestation framework that coordinates actions across federal agencies and promotes strengthened monitoring, commodities tracking and support for sustainable livelihoods.

The Brazilian government also beefed up the activities of the federal environmental agency Ibama, which between 2023 and 2025 issued 81% more infraction notices and 64% more fines than in the previous two-year period.

“Brazil’s progress shows what’s possible when forest protection is treated as a national priority,” said Mirela Sandrini, executive director of WRI Brasil, adding that the success is derived from building partnerships between the government, civil society, academia, local communities and the private sector.

Neighbouring Amazon country Bolivia recorded the second-highest amount of primary forest loss in the world last year, despite being home to a fraction of the forest held by other rainforest nations like Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Fires, likely started by humans, were the main cause of forest destruction in Bolivia, alongside the expansion of cattle ranching and crops such as soy and maize, the WRI analysis said.

Forest loss also remained high last year in countries including Peru, Laos and the DRC.

Malaysia and Indonesia showed stable and relatively low levels of forest loss compared to the highs reached in the mid-2010, although experts said Jakarta’s plans to massively expand food and energy production risk threatening the progress seen in the past decade.

Global policies and cash needed

Analysts said protecting the world’s remaining tropical forests will depend not only on national political leadership but also on global policy and financial developments.

Those include the creation of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), a major new rainforest protection fund launched by Brazil at COP30. The mechanism, which gives financial rewards to countries that keep trees standing, has been billed as an historic opportunity to finance forest production. But it is far from raising the $125 billion of public and private investment needed for it to reach a meaningful scale and is unlikely to start making payments until 2028.

• Apr 10, 2026 Comment How a global roadmap can meet the promise to halt deforestation Meeting the goal requires political will and a pathway that brings together efforts and drives implementation. An international roadmap can deliver this Read more
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After failing to secure a negotiated agreement on forest protection at COP30, Brazil promised it would deliver this year a global roadmap charting a course to end deforestation by 2030.

The COP30 presidency said it has received 177 contributions from governments, UN agencies, business groups and civil society with suggestions on what the document should include.

What countries want in the roadmap

The Coalition of Rainforest Nations, which includes 50 countries, wants the roadmap to adopt a “global carbon budget” lens, mapping out region by region where CO2 emissions cuts are most urgent and where existing forest carbon stocks must be protected.

The negotiating bloc also wants finance, including from carbon markets, to be given a prominent space in the document, which will need to obtain broad support from governments to be effective. Without it, the roadmap “risks becoming yet another [plan] collecting dust on the shelves of posterity”, its submission said.

Colombia said interventions should focus on tackling the root causes of deforestation, pointing out that forest loss in the country is concentrated in regions afflicted by deep inequalities, high levels of poverty and the widespread presence of organised crime.

Indonesia wants the roadmap to function as a collaborative platform that “strengthens partnerships”, but warns that international initiatives should “avoid unilateral measures that may undermine trust and effective cooperation”, a thinly veiled rebuke of the European Union’s deforestation regulation.

In its submission, the United Kingdom said the roadmap should focus on a small number of “critical interventions” that can unlock the greatest progress, such as securing legal land rights for Indigenous communities, encouraging sustainable land use and introducing demand-side measures to promote deforestation-free products.

Meanwhile, Russia voiced its opposition to the creation of a “universal roadmap” to end deforestation, saying it instead wants to see a “dedicated dialogue” on forests where countries just exchange best practices.

The post Brazil leads “encouraging” decline in global rainforest destruction in 2025 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Government ministers and officials from close to 60 countries are on the ground in the Colombian coal-port city of Santa Marta for high-level discussions at the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.

Speaking at the opening plenary, Selwin Hart, special adviser to the UN Secretary-General on climate action and just transition, said that three out of every four people on the planet live in countries that are net importers of fossil fuels, exposing them to “shocks they did not create and cannot control”.

Against the backdrop of the Iran war, which has caused oil prices to spike, he said the urgency of transitioning away from fossil fuels “is no longer only a climate or environmental imperative. It is a security imperative, an economic imperative and a development imperative.”

Delaying the transition will only make it “more disorderly, disruptive and costly, Hart warned, adding that so far the shift to renewables has been highly concentrated in rich economies and China – “leaving most of the developing world behind”.

Comment: Santa Marta marks a new chapter in climate diplomacy

Meanwhile, a group of 18 nations – mostly made up of small island states and the host country Colombia – called on the Santa Marta summit to recognise the “urgent need to negotiate a new international instrument” for leaving coal, oil and gas beneath the ground. 

They are pushing for the conference to back a formal negotiation process for a binding “Fossil Fuel Treaty” and make progress on new mechanisms for international cooperation and finance including an importers-exporters club, a global just transition fund and a debt resolution facility. 

Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice for ActionAid International, said UN climate talks remain essential to ensure all countries act together to tackle global warming. But, she added, “a new Treaty can act as a parallel and complementary space for those that want to move faster in key areas such as phasing out fossil fuels, just transitions and debt justice, without first having to get sign-off from all nations”. 

Partner content: To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”

Aside from a summary report and a statement from the co-chairs, the expected outcomes from Santa Marta’s high-level debates remain unclear. While this is a source of anxiety for some delegates, others say it’s a breath of fresh air compared with the rigid format of COPs.  

Here are highlights from the high-level segment of the conference on April 28:

Host nations seek to revive flagging multilateralism

As right-wing demonstrators outside the conference venue chanted in Spanish that “fossil fuels are a god-given resource”, hosts Colombia and the Netherlands kicked off the first international dialogue of countries on reducing their dependence on coal, oil and gas. 

Both countries reiterated that the conference is meant to drive forward discussions where UN talks like COPs have fallen short.

Delegates had to endure long queues under the sun to enter the five-star resort hosting the high-level segment, as security was tightened in preparation for Colombian President Gustavo Petro this afternoon.

The country’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres opened the talks in a packed room, expressing her frustration with “fossil colonialism” and the failure of the last few COPs to debate pathways away from fossil fuels. 

“Beyond frustrations, we’re summoned today to overcome the crisis of multilateralism,” she said, adding that Santa Marta seeks to become a “deeper, more democratic and more effective” alternative. “We need a multilateralism without de facto vetoes.”

At last year’s COP30 in Belém, a group of 80 countries called for the design of a global roadmap to phase out coal, oil and gas, but it was blocked by large oil producers and consumers like Saudi Arabia, Russia, India and China.

Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven noted that the energy transition will not be easy, as fossil fuel systems are “hard to disentangle” from economies. She urged countries to have an “open dialogue” and said the conference is about “strengthening multilateralism”.

Some governments also expressed the need to reinforce the UN climate negotiations, with EU climate chief Wopke Hoekstra saying “the COP process is unfortunately not always delivering what it should”, as he urged countries to “make the most” of Santa Marta. Vanuatu’s climate minister Ralph Regenvanu said commitments made here must bolster talks at COP.

Fossil fuel producers want flexibility, Indigenous peoples reject business as usual 

The plenary in Santa Marta adopted a different style for its high-level dialogue compared to the UN process, as government interventions were interspersed with speakers representing social groups, from women to the private sector, who had prepared their contributions at meetings over the past three days. 

The result was a mix of views, with some large oil and gas-producing nations urging caution over how ditching fossil fuels could affect their economic development, while civil society groups piled on the pressure to decarbonise fast.

Türkiye – a large coal producer and consumer that will host COP31- said progress on a just transition “will benefit from an approach that takes into account different national circumstances, capacities and development priorities”, hinting at the need for flexibility for emerging economies.

While this year’s COP president, Murat Kurum, has said that relying on fossil fuels could lead to energy insecurity and “climate collapse”, his country drew criticism for publishing an action agenda for COP31 that does not mention fossil fuels.

Türkiye sets COP31 dates and appoints Australian cattle farmer as youth champion

Oil-rich Nigeria went even further, with the country’s regional development minister, Momoh Abubakar, emphasising he would host an event on a “phase down” of fossil fuels in Santa Marta. “It is ‘phase down’, not ‘phase out’ that is giving room for transition and diversification to drive sustainable development,” he said.

Norway – which supplies Europe with much of its oil and gas – said the country is “strongly committed” to the “era of renewables”. “This needs to be happening in close coordination between all producers and consumers,” said the country’s climate minister Astrid Hoem, as global energy markets are highly interconnected.

Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples and other groups called out what they judge to be a government-led process, winning loud applause for their interventions. The Indigenous delegate said they don’t want to see “another form of colonialism cloaked as a just transition”.

“We will not stand by as our kin, our lands, our waters and our non-human relatives suffer to maintain the status quo,” she said. “This structure will not be where we found our salvation and liberation.” 

Some social groups called for specific measures to be included in the conference’s main output, which Colombia has said will be a summary report. Academics called for action on methane while the private sector recommended the removal of fossil fuel subsidies that keep oil and gas prices “artificially low”. NGOs said they want Santa Marta to recognise the need for a “Fossil Fuel Treaty” to ban new extraction.

France’s climate envoy pictured during the High-level Segment of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia on April 28, 2026 (Photo: Colombia Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development) France’s climate envoy pictured during the High-level Segment of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia on April 28, 2026 (Photo: Colombia Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development) France delivers first fossil fuel transition roadmap

France came to Santa Marta bearing a gift that was delivered to the podium: its new national roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

Benoît Faraco, the country’s climate envoy, said France was “very proud” to be one of the first countries to publish a domestic roadmap, and encouraged others to follow suit. Both Colombia and Brazil are working on draft roadmaps but have yet to finalise them.

Cat Abreu, director of the International Climate Politics Hub said it was “a big moment to have the world’s first national roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels”. She added that the plan “rationalises France’s existing energy policies and targets into a clear direction of travel to phase out fossil fuels and it sends a strong signal to other countries that they can do the same”. 

The document, which amalgamates different energy and decarbonisation plans, confirms targets France had previously set for ending the consumption of each fossil fuel: coal by 2030, oil by 2045 and fossil gas by 2050.

To get there, France aims to close its last two coal-fired power plants by 2027, carry out large-scale electrification of transport, develop alternative heating methods such as heat pumps and improve energy efficiency through building renovation, the roadmap says. France already decided a decade ago to end fossil fuel exploration and exploitation on its territory by 2040.

Faraco said France is focused on electrification and clean electricity because they provide value to local communities, will shape the future of industry, and “bring solutions when fossil fuel brings problems”.

France’s electricity mix is already 90% low carbon, he said, thanks to nuclear and renewables, and it generates revenues for the national budget by exporting green power. 

France, he added, will help African nations to unleash wind power, and provide support to other countries on the frontline of the current energy crisis.   

Colombian president Gustavo Petro at the stage of the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta. (Photo: Colombia’s Ministry of Environment) Colombian president questions whether capitalism can really go green 

Preceded by an Indigenous ceremony, Colombia’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, stopped by the conference plenary on Tuesday afternoon to warn about the consequences of continuing with the expansion of fossil fuels. 

“One question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil fuel energy system?” he said. “Today I’m sceptical.”

Petro also criticised last year’s COP30 for failing to formally adopt a process for a global roadmap away from fossil fuels, despite scientific warnings of the need to halt all new coal, oil and gas. Colombia was one of the strongest backers of the initiative.

The country is heading into an election in late May, where Petro’s designated successor Iván Cepeda is leading in the polls against far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella. 

After a relatively brief speech that secured a standing ovation from the audience, the Colombian president quickly exited, escorted by his security team.

The post Santa Marta: Ministers grapple with practicalities of fossil fuel phase-out appeared first on Climate Home News.

Professor Elisa Morgera is the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights.

In the global fight against catastrophic, human-induced climate change, diplomacy plays a vital role.

Historic initiatives like the Paris Agreement and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage were the consequence of tireless, coordinated international efforts of states, civil society and scientists. The role of COP, and other summits like it, remains key. However, they are coming under increasing pressure.

Last year the climate COP30 was unable to take a decision on fossil fuels, despite calls from over 80 states, as well as children and youth, medical professionals, Indigenous peoples and climate justice movements. A landmark deal to cut global shipping emissions was put on ice and global talks to develop a much-needed treaty to end plastic pollution were stalled by a few states who wish to avoid even mentioning fossil fuels in international negotiations.

• Apr 23, 2026 News Sixty countries head to Santa Marta to cement coalition for fossil fuel transition After last year’s COP30 disappointment, governments will seek a renewed push to phase out fossil fuels at the first global summit on the theme in Colombia Read more
• Apr 23, 2026 Energy Prospects for global green shipping deal boosted by US tariff ruling, analysts say While divisions remain over the international shipping’s Net Zero Framework, the US’s main threat may now have been partly neutered Read more

In these instances, the process of building consensus was hijacked by actors whose priorities lie in the continued exploration and production of fossil fuels, magnifying the views of a handful of powerful states at the expense of all others.

In recent months, illegal aggressions in Venezuela and Iran, armed conflicts, political turbulence and economic instability have conspired to make international cooperation harder. At the same time, the impact our reliance on fossil fuels and petrochemical fertilisers has on the cost of living, energy and food insecurity has been laid bare.

Against this backdrop, a new idea was born at COP30: the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which the Colombian government is co-hosting with the Netherlands in Santa Marta this week.

Inclusion and implementation

It represents the possibility of a new kind of multilateral forum: one that foregrounds the voices of those most impacted by the climate crisis and is relentlessly focused on implementation. It is only open to states that wish to make progress and discuss how – not if – to move away from fossil fuel dependency. And it is set to draw on the insights of Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and peasants, civil society, cities and academics, women and youth, who are often left out of international negotiating rooms.

The talks centre on how to ensure that the transition away from fossil fuels is also a just one: a transition that protects workers, communities and the environment, respects human rights and builds public legitimacy, rather than imposing new costs on those least responsible for the crisis.

To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”

The conference is also unpacking how international cooperation must work for countries and communities facing fiscal dependence, debt burdens and limited implementation capacity. It aims to identify the financial and technological support required from the Global North to allow other countries to leapfrog into sustainable renewables-based economies.

In addition, it will seek to address the harmful international legal barriers – such as the thousands of international investment agreements which include investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions – that allow foreign corporations to sue states for measures adopted in the public interest.

Solutions that tackle injustice

These are complex, but necessary conversations to be had for all governments. Most international fora are being used to “avoid the conversation”. We have many of the solutions, but we need to ensure they’re implemented in ways that benefit all countries and sectors of society, not just a few.

Santa Marta aims to strengthen a “coalition” of ambitious states, who are responsive to the voices of those most affected by climate change. It also aims to mobilise scientists, lawyers, economists, policy and energy experts, and the medical community to support states, as well as cities and citizen initiatives to pilot promising approaches around the world. Through a deeply inclusive and participatory approach, at every level, Santa Marta can pave the way towards solutions that are co-developed and respond directly to what’s needed on the ground.

New panel of climate scientists calls for fossil fuel transition roadmaps

This will be key for achieving a just transition. Many countries, especially in the Global South, are not held back by a lack of ambition, but by structural barriers: debt, high borrowing costs and international rules that still reward continued fossil fuel extraction over managed decline at the expense of people’s health and economic well-being.

Santa Marta comes at a critical moment: environmentally, morally, economically but also legally.

Legal accountability on fossil fuels

The landmark advisory opinion on climate change, issued last July by the International Court of Justice, made clear that states have a legal obligation to act effectively and ambitiously on climate change, and that fossil fuel expansion, production, consumption and subsidies are not in line with these international obligations. It followed similar rulings, by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in 2024 and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, also in 2025.

The transition away from fossil fuels is not simply an environmental necessity, but an urgent matter of security, resilience and health. It is a human rights imperative. And an inherently exclusionary approach focused on major powers will not deliver all the benefits of a fossil fuel-free global economy.

Vanuatu pursues new UN resolution to turn ICJ climate opinion into action

The Santa Marta conference is set to address this and look at how fossil-fuel-dependent countries can diversify on fair terms, how communities can access and produce affordable and reliable renewable energy, and how the transition can deliver visible social and economic gains instead of reproducing new forms of exclusion, dependency, and insecurity.

At Santa Marta we can make meaningful, lasting progress through a diplomacy of implementation, inclusion and legal accountability that can provide a new yardstick for all the other multilateral processes on climate change and other fossil fuel-related issues, such as plastics, food, health, taxation and the protection of peace.

A full statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Santa Marta Conference can be found here.

The post Santa Marta marks a new chapter in climate diplomacy appeared first on Climate Home News.

Evidence that Parkinson’s, the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease globally, may be linked to pesticides used in agriculture has been accumulating for decades. Yet, after finally appearing to take experts’ concerns seriously, EU authorisation bodies have failed to take meaningful action. An excerpt from Dirk de Bekker’s book Het pesticidenparadijs (“Pesticide Paradise”).

“If you are the CEO of Bayer, tossing and turning in bed at night, how can you justify this to yourself… Suppose that Roundup is the cause of Parkinson’s, how are you able to sleep soundly?”

It is 29 March 2022. Sitting opposite me is Bas Bloem, professor of neurology and an internationally renowned expert on Parkinson’s disease. He has just explained to me, speaking rapidly and in precisely formulated sentences, which processes in the brain are disrupted when someone develops Parkinson’s disease. Although he speaks fluently and barely pauses for breath, something changes in him from the moment the words “pesticides” and “glyphosate” are uttered. His gaze becomes more intense, his voice louder, and his sentences a fraction slower.

We are at the Parkinson’s Center of Expertise at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, in the southeast of the Netherlands. Here, scientists are working on treatments for a disease that does not yet have a cure. Current therapies, procedures, and medication are aimed at slowing down and alleviating the symptoms. Tremors, stiff movements, and difficulty speaking – those are what the general public is familiar with, but describing Parkinson’s as “that shaking disease” is incorrect, says Bloem. “The disease is like an iceberg.” Most symptoms – including depression, dementia, bowel dysfunction, sleep disorders, balance problems, loss of smell, and pain – are often just as serious but are hidden beneath the surface.1

Most people with Parkinson’s experience many symptoms simultaneously. Often, new ones continue to develop and become increasingly severe. As a result, the disease is very disruptive – both physically and mentally – for patients and their loved ones.

Bloem is sounding the alarm. Parkinson’s is the fastest-growing neurodegenerative disease – not only in the Netherlands, where the number of cases has risen by 30 per cent over the last 10 years, but worldwide.2 There are now approximately 12 million people globally with Parkinson’s. According to recent estimates, this figure will more than double by 2050 to 25 million.3

This explosive increase can be partly explained by age: Parkinson’s is more common at advanced ages, and the global population of older people is growing. Furthermore, average life expectancy is rising worldwide. However, even after adjusting for ageing, researchers are seeing rapid growth. So there is more to it than that.4

As early as the 1980s, there were strong scientific indications that exposure to pesticides was an important risk factor for the development of Parkinson’s disease. Over the past 10 years, the evidence supporting this has grown significantly.

For this reason, Bloem views Parkinson’s as a disease not primarily caused by ageing per se but by “all sorts of rubbish” in our environment. By this, he means pesticides and other hazardous substances. As people live longer, there is more time for them to be exposed to these substances. Furthermore, the disease often develops over decades before it manifests itself. As people live longer on average, this also means that accumulated neurological damage has a greater chance of becoming apparent.

As early as the 1980s, there were strong scientific indications that exposure to pesticides was an important risk factor for the development of Parkinson’s disease.

Growing concerns

A disease that is growing explosively, the increasingly clear link to pesticides, the fact that there is still no prospect of a cure – all of this is cause for concern. But Bloem’s full-blown alarm comes from somewhere else: a conversation he had at the Dutch Board for the Authorisation of Plant Protection Products and Biocides (the College voor de toelating van gewasbeschermingsmiddelen en biociden, Ctgb) in late 2020.

At his request, the Dutch authorisation body agreed to personally meet with him in November 2020 to explain step by step how the approval procedure for pesticides works. The meeting was intended to allay his concerns, but the opposite happened: he was struck with terror. “It was only then that I fully realised that we actually know nothing when it comes to the risk of Parkinson’s.”

During the presentation, Bloem was told that existing approval tests for the neurotoxicity of pesticides only examine external characteristics in laboratory animals. For example, do the animals move more slowly or display apathetic behaviour after coming into contact with a pesticide? “That is completely inadequate,” according to the neurologist. “It takes years for Parkinson’s to develop; you don’t immediately see anything on the outside. You therefore need to look inside the relevant areas of the brain: does the substance damage the substantia nigra?”

The substantia nigra (Latin for “black substance”) is the area of the brain where dopamine is produced. This chemical plays a key role in essential functions such as movement, memory and well-being. In people with Parkinson’s, the substantia nigra deteriorates, slowly but surely. It is only when 60 to 70 per cent of the substantia nigra has already been affected that the outward symptoms of Parkinson’s become noticeable. But by that point, the disease has already been long in the making. “You also need to know if, say, 40 per cent of the substantia nigra is destroyed and you can’t yet see anything externally. Currently, this is simply not tested.”

Bloem and his fellow neurologists are increasingly seeing patients in their clinics who report having been exposed to pesticides. They are not alone: more and more general practitioners and physiotherapists working in agriculture-intensive regions are also voicing concerns about the rising number of Parkinson’s cases they are seeing in their practices.5

The cover of Dirk de Bekker’s book Het pesticidenparadijs (“Pesticide Paradise”).

“I recently had a woman with Parkinson’s at the outpatient clinic. She had just buried her husband, who also had Parkinson’s. In addition, six other people in her street had the disease. They live next to a field where small planes used to spray pesticides,” says Bloem.

Over the years that I have been publishing on pesticides, I have also regularly heard striking accounts from people with Parkinson’s who attribute their illness to pesticides. They mention having peeled bulbs for years, or working for the parks department with pesticide tanks on their backs and spray guns in their hands, or growing up on fruit farms where they played hide-and-seek in the orchards. I’ve also heard from people who have worked with pesticides for long periods of time in laboratories, in greenhouses, or on their own fields. Multiple members of a family are sometimes affected by the disease.

Puzzles and cocktails

The sheer frequency with which such personal anecdotes crop up is striking, although they prove nothing in themselves. But these stories do not stand alone.

A growing body of scientific studies shows that Parkinson’s disease occurs significantly more frequently among people living in areas of intensive cultivation. In France, for example, Parkinson’s is 8.5 per cent more common in the most intensive wine-growing regions compared to the national average.6 Consequently, the French government officially recognises Parkinson’s as an occupational disease among winegrowers.7 Studies in the United States and Canada, among other places, reveal the same pattern: in the examined regions, Parkinson’s disease is spread across the map like a patchwork quilt, and the areas with the most intensive farming practices – and the highest pesticide use – stand out most clearly in terms of the number of cases.8

It is virtually impossible to establish a definitive causal link in this type of “map-based study”. To do so would require a great deal of specific data: which substances were used, where and when? What is the residential history of the individuals who became sick in the area under investigation? What is their occupation? What did they eat? What is their genetic makeup? Are there other polluting activities in the area? The aim of such research is therefore not to establish or rule out an irrefutable causal link; it is about identifying a potential problem. In combination with other studies, the puzzle can then be pieced together more fully.

Although the scientific puzzle is not yet complete, the pieces that are already in place suggest that the explosive rise in Parkinson’s disease over the past decades can at least partly be attributed to exposure to pesticides. There is, for instance, a historical piece of the puzzle: the rapid post-war growth in Parkinson’s largely coincides with the period when pesticide use increased dramatically. In itself, this is not very convincing evidence, but together with the piece showing that the disease occurs more frequently in areas with intensive arable farming and high pesticide use, the picture changes. It becomes even clearer when you add the piece showing that farmers and gardeners in particular have a significantly increased risk of developing Parkinson’s.9

Therefore, contrary to what various agricultural organisations still regularly claim, the missing pieces of the puzzle do not so much lead to the question of whether a link exists, but rather to the question of exactly how strong that link is, and which specific substances are responsible. Scientists are also wondering whether there are substances that pose no risk individually, but can be dangerous in combination. This, in turn, raises other questions: what is the smartest way to investigate such “pesticide cocktails” without having to test an endless number of combinations? Are there genetic factors that increase the risk of harm following exposure to pesticides? Are there interactions between pesticides (or cocktails of pesticides) and other pollutants in the environment? And what is the situation with other neurodegenerative diseases, such as ALS and dementia, for which links to pesticides also exist?10

It has already been established that some specific pesticides, such as rotenone and paraquat, can damage the substantia nigra. This was not discovered during the official assessment of these pesticides but later in independent studies (and subsequently they were withdrawn from the European market). However, this type of research has not been carried out on the vast majority of substances, let alone for pesticide cocktails.

A recent large-scale study has found that trifluralin and tribufos, two pesticides frequently used in combination on cotton plantations in the United States, do not pose a proven risk for Parkinson’s when used individually. When used together, however, they prove to be highly damaging to dopamine-producing brain cells, suggesting that they can indeed cause Parkinson’s in combination.11 This highlights the importance of taking pesticide cocktails into account in the authorisation process, and placing this topic high on the research agendas of independent scientists in relation to both Parkinson’s and other conditions.

Lack of action

According to Bloem, the way the risk of Parkinson’s is handled in the authorisation procedure violates the precautionary principle. “Given all these clear links, should we say that we are only going to ban this rubbish once it has been irrefutably proven that they cause Parkinson’s? Or, with all the evidence that already exists, should we say that we are only going to re-authorise the substances once it has been proven that they are safe? In reality, what happens is the former, meaning the burden of proof has been reversed.”12

The way the risk of Parkinson’s is handled in the authorisation procedure violates the precautionary principle. 

Bloem is not calling for an immediate ban on all pesticides. He does, however, advocate for subjecting the substances that are already authorised to a special Parkinson’s test as soon as possible. And as far as he is concerned, this should become standard practice when new pesticides are assessed. To this end, a testing procedure must be developed that makes it possible to look inside the brains of laboratory animals following prolonged exposure. There, it must be determined whether the substantia nigra has been damaged – for example, by counting the number of dopamine-producing cells. In the near future, it should be possible to carry out this procedure without subjecting animals to testing, by isolating the relevant cells outside their bodies.

The weedkiller glyphosate seems to be the most appropriate substance to first undergo testing for a link to Parkinson’s disease. It is by far the most widely used pesticide, and everyone is exposed to it to a greater or lesser extent. Moreover, several studies suggest a link between glyphosate and the development of Parkinson’s. The evidence, though far from conclusive, gives neurologists more than enough reason to be on alert.13 In addition, an increasing number of studies are emerging that show that even low doses of glyphosate can lead to disruptions in the gut flora.14 Such disruptions in the microbiome might – indirectly – increase the risk of Parkinson’s due to the communication between the gut and the brain. Researchers suspect that these disruptions could lead to a change in the structure of alpha-synuclein, a protein essential for communication between nerve cells. In mice, it has been established that this altered protein can reach the brain, where it subsequently damages the substantia nigra.15

Notably, the Dutch pesticide authority, the Ctgb, supported Bloem’s call for the speedy development of a Parkinson’s test. The November 2020 presentation was a wake-up call not only for the neurologist, but also for the Ctgb itself. This was evident in the fact that a few months later, in March 2021, the Ctgb wrote a letter to the agency responsible for pesticide risk assessment in the EU – the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA – asking it to facilitate research into the development of an adequate testing procedure for Parkinson’s.16

The EFSA could not ignore this appeal by the Ctgb. Not only is it one of the leading national authorisation bodies with which the EFSA cooperates, but also, in its appeal, the Ctgb explicitly referred to Bloem – internationally renowned and known to frequently pop up in the international press to voice his concerns. Bloem’s message and extensive media reach have made many people in the pesticide world – from regulatory authorities to pesticide manufacturers – quite nervous.17

The EFSA responded just two weeks later with a proposal to organise a working conference “to take stock of the situation from a scientific and multidisciplinary point of view”.18 But over a year later, as I learned during my conversation at that time with Bloem at the Parkinson’s Centre of Expertise, that conference was yet to happen. Bloem could not contain his frustration. “How on earth do you explain to future generations – with a disease that is skyrocketing and an environmental role that seems so obvious – that we are not taking more decisive action?”

Breakthrough and disappointment

Six months later, however, on 8 September 2022, Bloem was again in high spirits. The conference that the neurologist had been pushing for over the past two years had finally taken place.19 In the presence of the EFSA and an international panel of experts, he was able to share his concerns about the authorisation procedure and Parkinson’s disease. And this had yielded results. All 49 attendees – experts affiliated with the EFSA as well as external research institutes and national authorisation bodies – reached an agreement. This is a rare occurrence among such a large group of international, often independent-minded experts. “There was broad consensus that the currently existing procedures […] offer an inadequate assessment of the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease in case of human exposure,” the minutes of the meeting state. The EFSA emphasised the urgent need to develop a new testing method that can actually provide insights into the risk of Parkinson’s. “A real breakthrough,” said Bloem. This was the first time that the EFSA had unconditionally acknowledged that the system it uses to assess pesticides was flawed.

The EFSA decided it would issue a call for tenders for a 3.5-million-euro contract aimed at the development of the required test. Specialised scientists were invited to submit bids.

The EFSA personally approached two Dutch research organisations with the request that they respond to this call: the Radboud University Medical Center (Bas Bloem’s employer) and RIVM, the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment. “That’s how strongly they felt about our case,” explained neurotoxicologist Harm Heusinkveld, who attended the conference on behalf of the RIVM. For years, toxicologists at the RIVM had also been worried about pesticides and Parkinson’s – concerns that were finally being taken seriously by the EFSA with this research call. ‘‘Afterwards, we thought: guys, something is really going to happen now.’’20

This sense of urgency and enthusiasm felt by many researchers was heightened by the fact that the European re-evaluation of glyphosate was taking place at the same time. If the EFSA call for tenders were to be released quickly, there might still be an opportunity to use the weedkiller as the first case for the Parkinson’s test under development, perhaps even before the reassessment of the pesticide was completed.

Seven long months passed before the EFSA finally sent out the official Parkinson’s tender on 9 April 2023. But when he read the text, Bas Bloem immediately realised that something was wrong. “At the meeting, everyone was in complete agreement: we need to develop a good new testing method for pesticides and Parkinson’s. And then I read the call, in which the EFSA has made no money whatsoever available for such a new testing method. It was as if that conference had never taken place.” He lets out an audible sigh over the phone. His voice, so enthusiastic after the conference, is now filled with disbelief. Neurotoxicologist Harm Heusinkveld reacted with the same astonishment: “This is a huge mystery. I really haven’t the faintest idea how they arrived at this.”

The original intention was to develop a comprehensive Parkinson’s test in one go, based on the substantia nigra. But the promise made earlier by the EFSA to issue a research brief for this purpose was not fulfilled. The research brief set out in the call specifically concerned the development of a testing method focused on the mitochondria, the cell’s energy powerhouses. “But that test already exists, so you’d just be rehashing the same thing all over again. Besides, that test is far too limited,” commented Heusinkveld.

The Radboud University Medical Center and the RIVM were so taken aback by the research mandate that landed in their inboxes that they sent a joint letter on 17 July to EFSA Director Bernhard Url to express their disappointment. It is particularly noteworthy that a third party signed on to their objection: the Ctgb.

It is unusual for the Ctgb to hold a view that is at odds with an opinion of the EFSA. These two authorities, one working at the national level and the other at the European level, cooperate closely within the same legal framework. The letter, which came into my possession during an investigation into glyphosate for De Groene Amsterdammer, offers a rare glimpse behind the scenes.

“Specifically, we were disappointed as to what the call envisioned to achieve, considering […] the broad agreement that an ambitious and novel approach was required,” the three parties wrote. “We had the clear impression from the workshop that the EFSA had decided to move forward, but the recent call solely repeats steps that had already been taken earlier. […] The resulting testing strategy will not provide full insight in the potential of chemical substances to induce or progress [Parkinson’s disease].” In conclusion, the RIVM, the Radboud University Medical Center and the Ctgb stated that, “despite the explicit question and encouragement” from the EFSA, they would not be competing for funding for the proposed research.

A contested report

Four months later, in July 2023, the EFSA announced its recommendation to renew the authorisation for glyphosate for the maximum period of 15 years. Bloem was stunned, and he was not the only one. Scientists all over the world criticised the EFSA’s decision in a reaction that was unusually vocal for the scientific community.

Although during previous glyphosate authorisations the debate revolved primarily around the risk of cancer, this time concerns about Parkinson’s dominated. Ecotoxicologist Peter Leendertse succinctly summarised the essence of the many scientific comments on the re-authorisation: “If there are so many questions surrounding a substance, surely you cannot approve it for the maximum term? Extend it by two years if there is no other option, and in the meantime, ensure that you get clarity on the risk of Parkinson’s disease.”21

In an effort to calm tensions, the European Commission ultimately decided to reduce the maximum term from 15 to 10 years. As far as critics were concerned, this was little more than a token gesture. They pointed out that not only independent studies but also the EFSA’s own assessment report provided sufficient grounds for revoking the license altogether.

The glyphosate report runs to a total of 6,354 pages. What is striking is the large number of “data gaps” that are mentioned. The EFSA generally uses this term to indicate that knowledge is lacking and further research is required. Data gaps can thus influence the decision to grant authorisation and the potential duration of that authorisation.

The EFSA identified data gaps regarding the effects of glyphosate on gut flora, biodiversity and groundwater, amongst other things. However, none of these were considered “critical concerns”. That determination already made many scientists raise their eyebrows – but what the report says regarding Parkinson’s led to even greater surprise. There is no mention of a data gap anywhere in the passages on Parkinson’s disease, giving the impression that there is no lack of information on this topic whatsoever. On the contrary, the report’s conclusion is that current evidence “does not trigger a concern for parkinsonism”.22

Although the EFSA acknowledged that risks of Parkinson’s could not be ruled out under the current authorisation procedure, the agency chose to ignore this conclusion in its glyphosate report.

“Absurd”, said ecotoxicologist Peter Leendertse. “Of course there is a huge data gap when it comes to Parkinson’s. Surely the report should mention that no reliable testing procedure exists. The findings of that conference are now simply being swept under the carpet.”

In short, although the EFSA itself acknowledged at the September 2022 conference that risks of Parkinson’s could not be ruled out under the current authorisation procedure, the agency chose to completely ignore this conclusion in its glyphosate report published the following summer.

The minutes of the September 2022 conference (which I obtained shortly afterwards) proving that the EFSA knows (and acknowledges) that a good Parkinson’s test does not exist have never been officially released. This is highly unusual – a considerable amount of information from comparable EFSA conferences is publicly available, ranging from advance announcements, participant names and meeting transcripts to complete video recordings. It is as if the much-heralded meeting in the late summer of 2022, attended by 49 international experts, including six EFSA staff members, never took place; as if the unequivocal conclusion regarding Parkinson’s was never reached.

Three EFSA staff members who attended the conference were also directly involved in the reassessment of glyphosate. Therefore, the assessors had first-hand knowledge of the discussions held during the conference regarding Parkinson’s disease and the lack of a sufficient test. Nevertheless, they did not include any of this in the dossier when the neurotoxicity of glyphosate was re-examined.

What makes the course of events even more peculiar is that during the re-assessment of glyphosate, the EFSA worked closely with the Ctgb. Alongside the national pesticide authorities of Hungary, Sweden and France, the Dutch authority was one of the responsible parties to which the assessment work had been outsourced. In other words, the Ctgb itself played a leading role in the decision to extend the authorisation for glyphosate for the maximum period. This is difficult to reconcile with the critical letters it sent to the EFSA during the same period: the first, dated 9 March 2022, requesting that EFSA Director Bernhard Url make room for research into a testing procedure for Parkinson’s disease, and a joint letter with the RIVM and Bas Bloem on 17 July 2023 complaining that the EFSA had broken its promise to make funds available for a Parkinson’s test.

It is as if there were two completely different Ctgb bodies. Whilst one was sending critical letters to the EFSA regarding Parkinson’s, the other was assisting the EFSA with the re-authorisation of glyphosate without raising any critical objections to the fact that the substance has not been tested for a link to Parkinson’s – even though such testing might be more urgent for glyphosate than for any other European-authorised pesticide.

The missing test

In a formal response to my questions, the Ctgb stated that a “very extensive data package” was available during the re-evaluation of glyphosate, containing “many more studies than merely the required ones”, including epidemiological research. While there may not be an adequate test to rule out Parkinson’s, said the Ctgb, the assessors decided that there was no cause for concern after studying a great deal of other supplementary information. “That is something different from being able to establish this with scientific certainty,” the Ctgb concluded.

The EFSA in turn denies that the conclusion regarding Parkinson’s disease reached at the conference has ever been its official position. The meeting was “merely informative” and should only be seen as “preparatory exchanges” for subsequent future tenders, the agency informed me shortly after the publication of the glyphosate report. EFSA also stressed that the assessment of glyphosate was carried out entirely “in line with the current legal framework”.

When I published the outcomes of the conference in De Groene Amsterdammer in September 2023, I received an angry email from the EFSA. The September 2022 meeting had not been a real “conference” at all, the message said, but merely a “procurement meeting”. And the outcomes of that meeting, the EFSA communications department emphasised once again, in no way represented the official position of the EFSA. “It’s a pity,” the email concluded, “[that you] decided to provide an angle which does not factually represent reality”.  

This reaction did not surprise me. By making information from the meeting minutes and the Ctgb’s letter to the EFSA public through my publication, the European pesticide authority was left exposed. After all, these documents prove that what the EFSA publicly states about Parkinson’s disease does not correspond with its own behind-the-scenes views on the matter.

What the EFSA publicly states about Parkinson’s disease does not correspond with its own behind-the-scenes views on the matter

The fact that the EFSA has neither publicly disclosed the conference’s conclusions nor included them in its assessment of glyphosate is, I suspect, essentially a legal strategy. If, following the conference, the EFSA had officially acknowledged that there is a gaping hole in the authorisation system, this would have provided the necessary ammunition for parties seeking to obstruct pesticide use. Invoking the precautionary principle in court is much easier if the shortcomings of the authorisation procedure regarding Parkinson’s disease are officially documented by EFSA itself. In that case, EFSA would be admitting that the risk of Parkinson’s disease “cannot be determined with sufficient certainty”, one of the basic conditions for invoking the precautionary principle.23

Due to the lack of a Parkinson’s test, the risk of the disease cannot be completely ruled out in connection with any authorised pesticide. Officially acknowledging this on the record could throw the authorisation system – and with it the entire pesticide industry and the world of agriculture – into chaos. This would also happen if the EFSA were to officially acknowledge that the pesticide models it uses were not developed in a neutral manner.24

When Bloem and the Ctgb sat down together in November 2020, both the neurologist and the pesticide authority realised that the authorisation procedure was flawed with respect to Parkinson’s. Three to five years: that would be the time needed to develop an adequate testing protocol, thought Bloem. “I think we need to do this together as soon as possible,” confirmed the then director of the Ctgb, Ingrid Becks-Vermeer, emphasising the need for a Parkinson’s test when I questioned her in 2022. She envisioned a development process lasting “a number of years”.25

More than five years have passed since Bloem’s meeting with the Ctgb, and the EFSA conference took place three and a half years ago. The authorisation system still does not include a Parkinson’s test. Legally speaking, the EFSA may be able to defend this situation. The question, however, is how long they can keep up their defence in a society increasingly confronted with Parkinson’s disease.

This article is a lightly edited translation from Het pesticidenparadijs (“Pesticide Paradise”), an investigative book by Dirk de Bekker on the hidden world of pesticides, published by De Arbeiderspers in the Netherlands in January 2026.

1. Over the past few years, I have interviewed Bas Bloem on several occasions. Parts of these interviews have previously appeared in publications such as the podcast Red de Lente and the Dutch periodical De Groene Amsterdammer. See for example: De Bekker, D., et al. (24 January 2023). “Parkinson en pesticiden” [Parkinson’s and pesticides]. Red de Lente, season 2, episode 3. De Bekker, D. (25 September 2023). “De gezondheidsrisico’s van glyfosaat” [The health risks of glyphosate]. De Groene Amsterdammer. In this text, I draw on all the conversations held. Where necessary, I mention the date on which these conversations took place in the main text. ︎
2. Van der Gaag, B.L., Hepp, D.H., Hoff, J.I., Van Hilten, J.J., Darweesh, S.K.L., Bloem, B.R., and Van den Berg, W.D.J. (8 September 2023). “Risicofactoren voor de ziekte van Parkinson” [Risk factors for Parkinson’s disease]. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 167. ︎
3. Su, D., Cui, Y., He, C., Yin, P., Bai, R., Zhu, J., Lam, J.S.T., Zhang, J., Yan, R., Zheng, X., Wu, J., Zhao, D., Wang, A., Zhou, M., and Feng, T. (2025). “Projections for prevalence of Parkinson’s disease and its driving factors in 195 countries and territories to 2050. Modelling study of Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.” BMJ, 388e080952. ︎
4. See for example: Bloem, B.R., Hoff, J., Sherer, T., Okun, M.S., Dorsey, R. (2021). “De parkinsonpandemie: Een recept voor actie” [The Parkinson’s pandemic: a call to action]. Poiesz Publishers. ︎
5. Opten, N., Wildenborg, F., Bolwerk, P. (2023). ‘Hoe het gifspook door de Betuwe waart. “Aan hun manier van lopen kun je zien dat ze het ook hebben.”’ [‘How the poison spectre haunts the Betuwe: “You can tell by the way they walk that they have it too.”’]. De Gelderlander. 3 November. 
   Folkerts, N. (23 July 2025). “Bestrijdingsmiddelen zorgen voor onrust in Drentse dorpen: ‘Op één dag zag ik vijf patiënten met parkinson’” [“Pesticides cause unrest in Drenthe villages: ‘In one day I saw five patients with Parkinson’s.’’]. Trouw. ︎
6. Kab, S., Spinosi, J., Chaperon, L., Dugravot, A., Singh-Manoux, A., Moisan, F., and Elbaz, A. (2017). “Agricultural activities and the incidence of Parkinson’s Disease in the general French population”. European Journal of Epidemiology, 32(3), pp. 203-216. ︎
7. Within the EU, in addition to France, Italy – and more recently Germany – also recognise Parkinson’s as an occupational disease. ︎
8. Barbeau, A., Roy, M., Bernier, G., Campanella, G., and Paris, S. (1987). “Ecogenetics of Parkinson’s Disease. Prevalence and environmental aspects in rural areas”. Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences/Journal Canadien des Sciences Neurologiques, 14(1), pp. 36-41.
   Hugh-Jones, M.E., Peele, R.H., and Wilson, V.L. (2020). “Parkinson’s Disease in Louisiana, 1999-2012. Based on hospital primary discharge diagnoses, incidence, and risk in relation to local agricultural crops, pesticides, and aquifer recharge”. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(5), 1584.
   Li, S., Ritz, B., Gong, Y., Cockburn, M., Folle, A.D., Del Rosario, I., Yu, Y., Zhang, K., Castro, E., Keener, A.M., Bronstein, J., and Paul, K.C. (2023). “Proximity to residential and workplace pesticides application and the risk of progression of Parkinson’s diseases in Central California”. The Science of the Total Environment, 864, 160851.
   After Het pesticidenparadijs was published,a Dutch study appeared showing regional clustering of Parkinson’s in the Netherlands, but no clear overlap with intensive arable farming areas was found. Although pesticide use and exposure were not taken into account, the authors suggested that the Dutch regional disparities “are not readily explained by known environmental indicators, warranting further investigation”. See: Simões, M., Peters, S., Huss, A., Darweesh, S. K., Bloem, B. R., & Vermeulen, R. (2026). “Incidence and spatial variation of Parkinson’s disease in the Netherlands (2017–2022): a population-based study”. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, 62, 101565. ︎
9. Elbaz, A., Clavel, J., Rathouz, P.J., Moisan, F., Galanaud, J., Delemotte, B., Alpérovitch, A., and Tzourio, C. (2009). “Professional exposure to pesticides and Parkinson Disease”. Annals of Neurology, 66(4), pp. 494-504. ︎
10. See for example: Meerman, J.J., Wolterink, G., Hessel, E.V., De Jong, E., and Heusinkveld, H.J. (2022). “Neurodegeneration in a regulatory context: The need for speed”. Current Opinion in Toxicology, 33, 100383. ︎
11. Paul, K.C., Krolewski, R.C., Moreno, E.L., Blank, J., Holton, K.M., Ahfeldt, T., Furlong, M., Yu, Y., Cockburn, M., Thompson, L.K., Kreymerman, A., Ricci-Blair, E.M., Li, Y.J., Patel, H.B., Lee, R.T., Bronstein, J., Rubin, L.L., Khurana, V., and Ritz, B. (2023). “A pesticide and ipsc dopaminergic neuron screen identifies and classifies Parkinson-relevant pesticides”. Nature Communications, 14(2803). ︎
12. For more background information on this ruling, see: Darweesh, S.K.L., Vermeulen, R.C.H., and Bloem, B.R. (2024). “Paraquat and Parkinson’s Disease. Has the burden of proof shifted?”. International Journal of Epidemiology, 53(5). ︎
13. See for example: Bloem, B.R., and Boonstra, T.A. (2023). “The inadequacy of current pesticide regulations for protecting brain health. The case of glyphosate and Parkinson’s Disease”. The Lancet Planetary Health, 7(12), pp. e948-e949. ︎
14. Lehman, P.C., Cady, N., Ghimire, S., Shahi, S.K., Shrode, R.L., Lehmler, H., and Mangalam, A.K. (2023). “Low-dose glyphosate exposure alters gut microbiota composition and modulates gut homeostasis”. Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, 100, 104149.
    Matsuzaki, R., Gunnigle, E., Geissen, V., Clarke, G., Nagpal, J., and Cryan, J.F. (2023). “Pesticide exposure and the microbiota-gut-brain axis”. The ISME Journal, 17(8), pp. 1153-1166.
    Puigbò, P., Leino, L.I., Rainio, M.J., Saikkonen, K., Saloniemi, I., and Helander, M. (2022). “Does glyphosate affect the human microbiota?”. Life, 12(5). ︎
15. Singh, Y., Trautwein, C., Romani, J., Salker, M.S., Neckel, P.H., Fraccaroli, I., Abeditashi, M., Woerner, N., Admard, J., Dhariwal, A., Dueholm, M.K.D., Schäfer, K., Lang, F., Otzen, D.E., Lashuel, H.A., Riess, O., and Casadei, N. (2023). “Overexpression of human alpha-Synuclein leads to dysregulated microbiome/metabolites with ageing in a rat model of Parkinson disease”. Molecular Neurodegeneration, 18(1).
    Silva, B.A., Breydo, L., Fink, A.L., and Uversky, V.N. (2012). “Agrochemicals, a-Synuclein, and Parkinson’s Disease”. Molecular Neurobiology, 47(2), pp. 598-612.
    Uversky, V.N., Li, J., Bower, K., and Fink, A.L. (2002). “Synergistic effects of pesticides and metals on the fibrillation of a-Synuclein. Implications for Parkinson’s Disease”. NeuroToxicology, 23(4-5), pp. 527-536. ︎
16. De Leeuw, J.F. (9 March 2021). Subject: possible relation between the use of specific pesticides and the development of Parkinson’s Disease. Ctgb, reference number 202103090024. ︎
17. See for example: Brzeziński, B. (2025). “Parkinson’s is a man-made disease”. Politico. 14 April. Bloem, B., Boonstra, T. (11 October 2023). “Glyphosate: ‘En tant que médecins spécialistes des maladies neurodégénératives, nous avons trois conseils à donner au ministre de l’agriculture Marc Fesneau’” [“Glyphosate: ‘As doctors specialising in neurodegenerative diseases, we have three pieces of advice for the Minister for Agriculture, Marc Fesneau’”]. Le Monde. ︎
18. Url, B. (n.d.). Subject/Re.: Possible relation between the use of specific pesticides and the development of Parkinson’s Disease. EFSA, Ref. ic2021-24570142. Although the letter is undated, the upload date provided by the Ctgb (23 March 2021) suggests that it was probably received two weeks later (and in any case no later than that). ︎
19. The following reconstruction is partly a reworking of my earlier research article in De Groene Amsterdammer, which was published on 25 September 2023. ︎
20. Quote from: De Bekker, D. (25 September 2023). “The health risks of glyphosate”. De Groene Amsterdammer. ︎
21. Ibid. ︎
22. Álvarez, F., et al. (2023). “Peer review of the pesticide risk assessment of the active substance glyphosate”. EFSA Journal, 21(7), paragraph 9. EFSA. (July 2023). Peer Review Report on Glyphosate, Part 3 of 6, p. 163. ︎
23. Commission Communication on the precautionary principle (2 February 2000), Document 52000dC0001, p. 3. ︎
24. Elsewhere in the book, I write about the pesticide models that are currently in use to calculate the distribution of pesticides through the environment. I conclude that these models, which form the basis of the authorisation system, were developed in close cooperation with the pesticide industry. ︎
25. Quoted from: De Bekker, D., et al. (5 June 2022). “The director of the Ctgb responds”. Red de Lente, season 1, episode 8. ︎

A group of leading climate scientists has called on governments to develop roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels “anchored in science and justice”, alongside the launch of a separate panel of experts that will give scientific advice on how to navigate the energy transition.

Unveiled on Friday in Santa Marta, Colombia, a set of a dozen policy recommendations, summarising the Santa Marta Academic Dialogue, is intended to feed into ministerial discussions on equitable ways to reduce dependence on coal, oil and gas during next week’s “First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels”.

The policy insights urge countries to create “whole-of-government” plans to “dismantle legal, financial and political barriers” to the energy transition.

Sixty countries head to Santa Marta to cement coalition for fossil fuel transition

Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said the push for a global transition away from fossil fuels offers “a light in the tunnel” during a “very dark moment” of geopolitical conflict and climate extremes.

“Science is here to serve,” Rockström told a packed Santa Marta Theatre. “We’re today launching the Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition (SPGET) as a service, as a global common good for all countries, all sectors, all regions to connect to the best science enabling a transition away from fossil fuels.”

Draft roadmap for Colombia

Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres said the new SPGET panel “addresses a longstanding shortcoming” in international climate science, by creating a scientific body dedicated solely to overcoming the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.

“It’s a first-of-its-kind, designed to organise in the next five years the scientific evidence that allows cities, regions, countries and coalitions to take the big leap,” Vélez told the event in Santa Marta.

As an example of how countries can move forward – even when their economies are closely tied to the production and use of dirty energy – a group of European scientists presented a draft roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in Colombia, with inputs from the Colombian government. It will be used as a basis for further consultation in the Latin American nation to define the way forward.

To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”

Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and co‑author of the roadmap, said it shows “a clear pathway to economic and societal benefit”, with average annual investment of $10.6 billion producing net economic benefits of $23 billion per year by 2050.

The document says fossil fuels in Colombia can be phased out through energy efficiency measures, coupling renewable generation with energy storage, and switching to electrified transport. But, it adds, the government will need to plan for reduced revenue from fossil fuel exports, which roughly half by the mid-2030s.

“What matters now is moving beyond headline targets to create credible, policy-relevant roadmaps, enabling a just and effective transition,” Forster said in a statement. Brazil is also working on a national roadmap for its own economy, as well as leading a voluntary process to produce a global roadmap.

IPCC hobbled by politics

Currently, the world’s top climate science body – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – requires countries to sign off on each “summary for policymakers” of its flagship science reports. This has led to a politically fraught process that has increasingly seen some oil-producing governments making efforts to weaken its recommendations.

In a bid to focus scientific debates on the phase-out of fossil fuels, the new SPGET was created based on a mandate from last year’s COP30. It is also meant to come up with scientific recommendations at a faster pace than the IPCC’s seven-year cycle.

Natalie Jones, senior policy advisor at the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), called the new scientific panel “historic”, as it will be “more specific, more targeted and potentially more agile” with its advice on phasing out coal, oil and gas than the IPCC’s exhaustive scientific synthesis reports.

Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action

The panel will be co-chaired by Cameroonian economist Vera Songwe, PIK’s chief economist Ottmar Edenhofer and Gilberto M. Jannuzzi, professor of energy systems at Brazil’s Universidade Estadual de Campinas. It will be composed of between 50 and 100 scientists divided into four working groups: transition pathways, technological solutions, policies and finance.

Under the 12 insights for the Santa Marta process, the other group of scientists recommended banning new fossil fuel infrastructure, mandating “deep cuts” in methane emissions, implementing carbon levies on imports, and de-risking clean energy investments via interventions from central banks, among others.

Co-author Peter Newell, professor of international relations at the UK’s University of Sussex, said “there are many different challenges along the way – and not all of them have to do with lack of evidence”, but the phasing out of fossil fuels “is one part of the story and it’s important to address it”.

The original version of this story incorrectly reported that the new Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition had called on governments to develop roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels “anchored in science and justice”. This appeal came from a separate group of scientists that worked on recommendations ahead of the Santa Marta conference. The article has now been amended.

The post Climate scientists call for fossil fuel transition roadmaps appeared first on Climate Home News.

Despite not yet paying out any money, a UN-backed fund meant to address the loss and damage caused to developing countries by climate change could face “liquidity issues” by the end of next year, its head warned today.

With ten projects already requesting $166 million in total, the fund’s Executive Director Ibrahima Cheikh Diong warned a board meeting in Zambia that the fund was likely to be “oversubscribed” and should anticipate cashflow problems.

A framing paper prepared by the fund’s secretariat similarly warns that “given the current status of the capitalization of the Fund, there is a risk of the Fund exhausting its capital by the end of 2027, which could result in a loss of operational momentum and expose the FRLD to reputational risk”.

Since governments agreed to set up the fund at UN climate talks in Egypt in 2022, wealthy nations have promised $822 million, but delivered just $449 million.

The fund is expected to approve its first projects at its next board meeting in July. Early proposals submitted include strengthening responses to floods in Bangladesh and the Nigerian city of Lagos, and improving water infrastructure in Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa last year.

A woman walks over debris, outside a store where food is being distributed, after Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Black River, Jamaica, October 30, 2025. (REUTERS/Octavio Jones ) Millions not billions

ActionAid Zambia climate justice coordinator Michael Mwansa told the board meeting that he was concerned about “the failure of the Global North governments to deliver on their climate finance obligations, making it largely impossible to scale up [the fund’s initial stage] significantly, if at all”.

“Pledges remain nowhere near the billions and even the trillions needed to address loss and damage to the Global South,” Mwansa added, highlighting reports which found that financing loss and damage could cost developing countries up to $400 billion a year.

The fund’s board discussed its strategy for raising more money at its meeting this week while climate campaigners called, in an open letter, for it to aim to secure $50 billion a year from developed countries starting next year, rising to $100 billion a year by 2031 and $400 billion by 2035.

The World Bank-hosted fund aims to have revenue-raising rounds known as replenishments every four years, with the first in 2027.

Governments have agreed to “urge” developed countries to contribute but only to “encourage” other nations to do so and the fund’s secretariat wants to appoint a “high-level champion” to lead the replenishment team.

The fundraising strategy will be discussed further at the next board meeting in the Philipines in June.

The campaigners’ open letter calls for developed countries to contribute more and for them to introduce taxes on fossil fuel companies, financial transactions, luxury air travel and wealth to raise money for the fund.

“Rich countries must be held strictly accountable for the devastation they have caused,” said Climate Action Network International head Tasneem Essop. “Their failure to fulfil their responsibility to the Loss and Damage Fund is not just an oversight; it is a shameful betrayal of humanity.”

The post New loss and damage fund could run out of money next year appeared first on Climate Home News.

Irene Vélez Torres is Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, and Mark Watts is Executive Director of C40 Cities.

The science is unequivocal. The world must transition away from fossil fuels. What remains uncertain is whether our institutions, economies and political systems are prepared to deliver the transformation required at the necessary speed and scale.

For too long, this transition has been framed as a technological substitution challenge. Replace fossil fuels with renewables and the problem is solved. But this view overlooks a deeper reality. Fossil fuels are embedded in economic systems shaped by extraction, inequality, and dependence. Moving beyond them requires structural transformation, not only of energy systems, but of the way economies are organised and governed.

This is both a global and a territorial challenge. And it is precisely at the intersection of national leadership and urban action where the transition becomes real.

Today, the energy system accounts for more than three-quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions, while fossil fuel expansion continues despite clear scientific warnings. This contradiction reflects entrenched financial and institutional incentives that continue to favour short-term extraction over long-term stability.

Recent global crises have exposed the consequences. Volatility in fossil fuel markets has translated into rising energy costs, fiscal pressure and growing inequality. A system that depends on geopolitical instability cannot guarantee reliable or affordable energy for people. Nor can it sustain resilient economies.

• Apr 23, 2026 News Sixty countries head to Santa Marta to cement coalition for fossil fuel transition After last year’s COP30 disappointment, governments will seek a renewed push to phase out fossil fuels at the first global summit on the theme in Colombia Read more
• Apr 21, 2026 News Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say As climate diplomacy resumes in Berlin, ministers say the Iran war-driven fuel crisis is exposing the risks of fossil dependence Read more

This is why Colombia has argued consistently in international spaces that the transition away from fossil fuels is not only an environmental necessity, but a matter of justice. It requires moving beyond an extractive model toward economies that protect life, redistribute opportunity and recognise the value of territories and communities.

In Colombia, the challenge is immediate. Fossil fuels represent a significant share of exports and public revenues, and entire regions depend on these industries. Addressing this reality demands deliberate strategies to overcome economic dependence, manage fiscal constraints, and enable productive re-conversion without reproducing new forms of extractivism.

But this transformation will not be delivered by national governments alone. Cities are not just implementers of policy. They are strategic actors in reshaping demand, accelerating innovation, and demonstrating that a different model is already possible.

Cities turn climate goals into real-life improvements

Urban areas account for the majority of global energy use and emissions. Yet they are also where the benefits of the transition are most immediate and visible. From expanding clean public transport to reducing air pollution, from improving energy efficiency in buildings to scaling decentralised renewable systems, cities are turning long-term climate goals into tangible improvements in people’s lives.

Across the C40 network, cities are already reducing emissions while strengthening economic resilience. These experiences show that transitioning away from fossil fuels lowers costs, improves public health and creates jobs. They also demonstrate something equally important: that climate action, when designed around people, can rebuild trust in public institutions.

Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift

The Mayor of London has delivered the world’s largest clean air zone. Melbourne has enabled new wind farms that now supply 100% of municipal operations. In Curitiba, solar investments are cutting public energy bills by 30% while creating inclusive jobs.

Johannesburg’s US$140-million green bond, oversubscribed by 150%, has mobilised strong investment into clean energy and efficiency projects. And in Colombia, Bogotá established a low-emission zone (ZUMA) in a vulnerable neighborhood, improving air quality and public health for nearly 40,000 people.

A solar farm near the Brazilian city of Curitiba (Photo: C40 Cities) A solar farm near the Brazilian city of Curitiba (Photo: C40 Cities)

These actions are part of a shared global effort to halve fossil fuel use in C40 cities by 2030, a goal that is not only achievable but already in motion. Crucially, it also contributes to the global target of tripling renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade, set by nearly 195 countries at COP28.

This is what makes cities indispensable to a just transition. They operate closest to citizens, where energy systems intersect with daily life. They are uniquely positioned to ensure that the transition is not only fast, but fair.

Structural barriers to national and urban action

At the same time, cities cannot act in isolation. Their ability to lead depends on national frameworks that align policy, regulation and investment, as well as on an international system that enables rather than constrains transformation.

And this is where the global dimension becomes critical. Many countries in the Global South face structural barriers, including high borrowing costs, debt burdens and legal frameworks that limit policy space. Reforming the international financial architecture, expanding access to affordable finance, and addressing constraints are essential to unlocking both national and urban climate action.

Recognising this, Colombia and the Netherlands are convening the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta. This is not a space for abstract commitments. It is a platform for implementation, designed to bring together those ready to move from ambition to action.

To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”

Crucially, the conference places cities and subnational governments at the heart of this effort. Alongside national governments, civil society, workers, Indigenous peoples and the private sector, cities will help identify concrete enabling pathways to advance a just, orderly and equitable transition.

These pathways are not theoretical. They focus on three interconnected priorities: transforming energy supply and demand, overcoming economic dependence, and strengthening international cooperation. What cities bring to this agenda is the capacity to operationalise these priorities, translating them into policies that reshape infrastructure, mobility, housing and local economies.

Energy transition means redefining development

The objective is clear. To build a coalition of countries and cities willing to move forward, not by negotiating new principles, but by implementing them. A coalition that reflects a shared understanding that the transition must be grounded in equity, democratic participation and real delivery.

What is at stake goes beyond energy. It is about redefining development in a way that is compatible with climate stability and social justice.

The costs of delay are already evident. Continued investment in fossil fuel expansion deepens climate risk, economic vulnerability and inequality. By contrast, accelerating the transition opens pathways for more resilient, inclusive and sustainable economies.

Cities are already showing what this future looks like. National governments can scale it. International cooperation can enable it.

From Santa Marta, the message is clear. The end of the fossil fuel era is not only necessary. It is already underway. The task now is to ensure that it is just, that it is coordinated, and that it is irreversible.

The post Why the transition beyond fossil fuels depends on cities and collective action appeared first on Climate Home News.

A recent US court ruling restricting President Trump’s ability to impose sweeping tariffs has improved the chances of an international deal to cut emissions from shipping, observers of UN maritime talks have said.

Government officials meeting at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London this week and next are resuming negotiations on a proposed set of measures known as the Net-Zero Framework (NZF), aimed at tackling the sector’s roughly 3% share of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Last October, Trump and his officials threatened any government voting to adopt provisionally agreed green shipping measures, known as the Net-Zero Framework (NZF), with tariffs that would make it harder for their businesses to export to the USA.

The intervention helped derail talks, with governments narrowly voting to postpone for a year the adoption of the NZF.

The framework, provisionally agreed in April 2025 after years of negotiations, would penalise the owners of particularly polluting ships and use the revenues to fund cleaner fuels, support affected workers and help developing countries manage the transition.

The delay plunged the future of the NZF into doubt. Vanuatu’s climate minister said the delay was “unacceptable” given the urgency of tackling climate change. A final decision on the NZF is not expected until November.

• Jan 23, 2026 Politics IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it Read more
• Feb 27, 2026 Politics Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen US President Donald Trump and his allies want to weaken the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework, but Pacific island countries say they have compromised enough Read more
• Oct 17, 2025 Politics US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned Read more

Tariff threat neutered

Since the last round of negotiations, the political landscape has shifted. In February 2026, the US Supreme Court ruled that Trump had no legal authority to impose sweeping tariffs without approval from Congress.

Rockford Weitz, professor of maritime studies at Tufts University, said that his officials would have “a more challenging time” using tariffs as threats at this month’s shipping talks than they did in October.

University College London professor Tristan Smith, a close observer of IMO talks, agreed that the tariff threat is “not quite as potent as it was last year”. He noted that the US also no longer benefits from the element of surprise. In October, Washington began lobbying governments only shortly before the talks, leaving little time for countries supporting the NZF to coordinate a response.

This time, Smith said supporters of the framework – which include most European countries, Pacific Islands and some African and Latin American states – are “working very closely together” to resist the US’s pressure.

He added that the US’s attempt to promote liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transition shipping fuel, rather than renewable-electricity-based solutions like ammonia or methanol, by weakening the NZF has been undermined by the spike in the cost of gas triggered by the Iran war.

Attempts to re-negotiate

But divisions remain in the talks scheduled to run until Friday next week. Ahead of this round of negotiations, some governments have proposed re-negotiating the core tenets of the NZF, while others insist it should be adopted in November largely as provisionally agreed in April 2025.

This debate played out last week on a webinar hosted by the African Futures Policies Hub. Liberian diplomat Grace Nuhn said the emissions-reduction requirements included in the NZF are “over-zealous” and “over-ambitious” and do not reflect the limited availability of clean fuels, while penalising “transitional fuels” such as LNG and biofuels.

In a formal submission, Liberia – alongside US ally Argentina and Panama – has proposed weakening emission targets and ditching any funding mechanism for the framework involving “direct revenue collection and disbursement”.

Liberia and Panama host the world’s two biggest ship registries, meaning their governments earn revenue from allowing shipowners from around the world to register vessels in their countries.

The NZF would penalise owners of ships that emit more than certain agreed amounts and use that revenue to clean up the maritime sector, help workers through the green transition and compensate for any negative impacts of the transition on developing economies.

Shipping’s climate deal sets up battle over pollution calculations for gas and biofuels

Japan has also proposed that, in order to reach a compromise with the NZF’s opponents, emissions reduction targets and requirements to pay into the IMO’s Net-Zero Fund are weakened.

Yuki Inoue, a diplomat from Japan’s transport ministry, told the webinar that this would reduce the perception that the NZF is a “carbon tax”. Japan wants to get all governments “back to the discussion table”, he said.

NZF a “fragile compromise”

But Tuvalu’s IMO negotiator Pierre-Jean Bordahandy said that the NZF itself is a “fragile compromise” reached after lengthy discussions and is the “only viable path forward” to meet the sector’s climate targets agreed in 2023.

Tuvalu and six other Pacific nations have vowed to try to make the NZF more ambitious if it is reopened for negotiation. With rising sea levels threatening their survival, “time is not on our side”, Bordahandy told the webinar.

Brazil has also pushed back against attempts to renegotiate. Diplomat Adriana de Medeiros Gabinio warned that it would be unrealistic to expect countries to rewrite a deal in a matter of months after more than two years of negotiations involving over 100 nations culminated in the April 2025 vote in favour of the NZF.

She added that proposed changes to the NZF would not address climate change and food insecurity and “seem aimed at addressing diplomatic pressure imposed by a small group of countries rather than the issue itself”.

The IMO Secretary General Arsenio Dominguez speaks to US, Saudi, Brazilian, European and other delegates at talks on 17 October 2025 (Photo: Joe Lo)

Mexico has defended the framework’s funding mechanism. Raul Zepeda Gil, an advisor to the country’s IMO mission, said the net-zero fund is essential to ensure developing countries can access financing for cleaner ships and infrastructure. Without the fund, “then just a few countries will be available to participate in the transition”, he warned

Some countries that previously supported delaying the NZF now appear more aligned with its backers. Kenya was among 16 African nations that voted for postponement last October.

But this month Michael Mbaru, maritime lead for the Kenyan government’s climate envoy office, told journalists that Kenya supports the NZF and hinted that other African and developing countries would follow.

“From the Global South perspective, as you’ve seen from the submissions from Africa, we are moving forward in terms of the framework as is”, he said, adding “we feel like we have compromised enough and we feel like the framework provides the best package.”

“If we are to reopen these discussions, we need to reopen them to strengthen the revenue, not to weaken the revenue”, he said.

Tacit or explicit approval?

Brazil’s Adriana de Medeiros Gabinio warned that even if the NZF is officially adopted in November, its opponents are trying to change the rules by which it comes into force as a “safety net to block” it.

The US and its allies want to shift away from a system of tacit approval where, after the NZF is approved at the IMO talks, its rules are automatically applied unless a certain number of countries object.

They prefer explicit approval instead, meaning it would not come into force unless enough governments – representing a certain percentage of the world’s shipping fleet – actively indicate support for it.

Critics say this change would give a small number of countries with large shipping registries the power to block implementation. Liberia has the world’s biggest shipping registry, which is run by a US-based company, followed by Panama and the Marshall Islands.

The Marshall Islands has long been one of the most vocal supporters of the NZF but, with its officials and its shipping registry income vulnerable to US retaliation, did not sign on to the recent Pacific proposal vowing to strengthen the NZF if it is re-opened.

Commenting on the chances of the NZF being approved, Smith said “there are lots of things which I think generally are much better and stronger than they were last year.”

“I can’t tell you now that that means we’re not going to have a difficult conversation and I can’t put odds on what the outcome is but I think things have improved on the energy transition question,” he said.

The post Prospects for global green shipping deal boosted by US tariff ruling, analysts say appeared first on Climate Home News.

Em Fenton is Senior Director of Climate Diplomacy at Opportunity Green, supporting climate-vulnerable countries in multilateral negotiations, such as the International Maritime Organization.

Governments are gathering in London this week and next to advance the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in a global effort to reduce emissions from international shipping. The meeting may not make headlines outside climate circles, but what happens there matters far beyond shipping.

The international shipping sector underpins around 80% of global trade and contributes roughly 3% of global annual emissions.

The NZF represents the best, most equitable solution currently viable to address this issue and, last April, a large majority of countries voted to put it forward for formal adoption through the IMO’s process.

The framework is a compromise from the most ambitious possible design, but it still represents a hard-fought victory for multilateralism, with countries coming together to create a solution aimed at the global best interest and providing a solid foundation for a just and equitable transition. 

It combines a technical fuel standard (setting emissions limits on the fuels used in ships) and an economic element that puts a price on emissions from international shipping.

• Oct 17, 2025 Politics US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned Read more
• Jan 23, 2026 Politics IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it Read more
• Feb 27, 2026 Politics Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen US President Donald Trump and his allies want to weaken the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework, but Pacific island countries say they have compromised enough Read more

A system under attack

With a global swing towards nationalism in recent years, some countries are increasingly placing domestic priorities over global climate action, despite legal obligations to act. And in doing so, they are overlooking the reality that abandoning multilateral decarbonisation efforts will ultimately exacerbate domestic challenges. 

This trend is most notable the US’s withdrawal or removal of support from the Paris Agreement, the WHO and the UN Human Rights Council, but is also playing out in other areas, such as India’s decision to withdraw its bid to host COP33. All this begs the question: just how resilient is multilateralism in a period of intense geopolitical tension? 

The system was built on two assumptions that now appear increasingly fragile: that countries would act through multilateral efforts in the collective interest; and that agreed action would be implemented at a scale and pace commensurate with need.

Coupled with this drift from its central purpose is an observable decline in its effectiveness across all five domains in which it operates – but most notably in climate action.

Because international shipping is inherently global and cannot be meaningfully regulated through unilateral or regional action, the IMO is one of the few institutions capable of delivering effective decarbonisation at scale. Failure to make progress at the IMO therefore sends a powerful signal about the limits of international cooperation more broadly, particularly on climate action. 

IEA slashes pre-war oil demand forecast by nearly a million barrels per day

Within this context, progress has faced three distinct forms of resistance: rejection of the need for action, procedural delay or obstruction, and efforts to weaken outcomes to the point where ‘success is effectively meaningless.

At recent IMO meetings, these dynamics have become more pronounced, culminating in a successful move by the US and Saudi Arabia last October to delay the formal decision to adopt the NZF by a year.

The matter now sits in procedural limbo. This was further complicated by abstentions from two European Union countries (Greece and Cyprus), despite the broader EU’s support for adoption. Greece has subsequently affirmed their support for the US and Saudi position. 

These procedural delays were accompanied by threats from the US administration of retaliatory measures, including tariffs, withdrawal of visa rights, or imposing fees on nationals visiting US ports.

Making the case for multilateralism

The stakes here extend well beyond shipping. 

For multilateralism to remain meaningful, it must be able to produce binding outcomes – even when powerful states object. The IMO process is one of the few remaining forums where every country’s voice carries equal weight and no single state can exercise a veto.

If that process can be undermined through procedural delay and coercive pressure, it sets a precedent for other multilateral negotiations, particularly in climate governance.

This week in London, countries have a concrete opportunity to demonstrate that multilateralism still works – by being present in the room and actively supporting climate ambition. 

This remains the most effective way to achieve climate goals, create the economic conditions for investment in the maritime transition, move away from an overreliance on fossil fuels, and protect the very foundations of multilateralism. 

The alternative is not just a failure for shipping; it is a signal to every difficult negotiation that follows that obstruction works. 

The post This week’s IMO green shipping talks are a test for multilateralism appeared first on Climate Home News.

Almost 60 governments are due to gather in the Colombian city of Santa Marta this week for what is being billed as the first global summit on phasing out coal, oil and gas, where experts say new coalitions could help speed up the energy transition beyond the slower pace of UN climate talks.

At last year’s COP30 UN conference, a group of some 80 countries backed the idea of a global roadmap away from fossil fuels, but it was blocked by fossil fuel-producing nations. To move past these obstructions, Colombia and the Netherlands decided to convene the fossil fuel phase-out summit, which will host ministers for high-level discussions on April 28 and 29.

The 57 countries headed to Santa Marta includes COP31 hosts Australia and Türkiye, as well as European, Latin American, Asian, African and Pacific nations. Some large fossil-fuel producers are on the list, including Canada, Norway, Brazil and Nigeria, but the US, China, India and Russia will not attend.

At this week’s Petersberg Climate Dialogue, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told governments that “when multilateral processes move slowly, concrete alliances of the willing can take us a long way”, in a hint at the voluntary initiatives expected to emerge from the Santa Marta discussions.

• Apr 21, 2026 News Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say As climate diplomacy resumes in Berlin, ministers say the Iran war-driven fuel crisis is exposing the risks of fossil dependence Read more
• Apr 21, 2026 Comment To avoid COP mistakes, Santa Marta conference must be shielded from fossil fuel influence The first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels must learn the lessons from the struggling UN climate process and free itself from polluting influence Read more

Brazil’s COP30 CEO Ana Toni told journalists this week that UN negotiations can “take a long time”, adding that the Santa Marta summit can start a complementary process to “keep the debate about transitioning away at the highest political level”. Brazil is working on a separate roadmap for a global fossil fuel transition due to be presented ahead of COP31, which will draw on the Santa Marta conclusions as well as submissions from countries and other interested parties.

At a webinar hosted by Climate Home News, Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres said the Santa Marta summit is winning “global attention” in part because countries have reached a “breaking point” at UN climate talks, which have been gridlocked by fossil fuel-producing countries.

“There is a natural blockade of those themes in the multilateral agendas,” the Colombian minister said. The recent conflict in the Middle East has added renewed importance to the debate by “showing us that we cannot be dependent on fossil fuels anymore”, she emphasised.

Toni also noted that, in the context of the war in Iran, “if anybody had a doubt, I think now it’s absolutely clear we need to take those very hard steps.”

Several climate ministers at the Petersberg Dialogue – including Türkiye’s COP31 president Murat Kurum – urged countries to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by boosting renewable energy deployment not only for climate reasons but also for energy security.

The effects of the oil and gas crisis driven by the Iran war, which has cut off exports from the Middle East, are already showing in the real economy. Countries in Africa and Asia are importing record amounts of solar power components from China, in an effort to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.

Opportunity for “inflection point”

While the Santa Marta conference will not deliver a major negotiated agreement, observers said it could spur new coalitions and contribute to speeding up the energy transition by exploring the concrete policies and finance needed to drive an equitable shift away from fossil fuels. A summary report of the proceedings is due to be published by June.

WWF’s global climate lead, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who served as COP president for Peru in 2014, said in a statement that reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels requires “a rapid, global shift to renewable power, smarter grids and efficiency”.

“We need a ‘coalition of the willing’ to show us the way. Santa Marta is an inflection point and an opportunity that we should not miss,” he said.

Natalie Jones, senior policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), said countries have the opportunity to form a “coalition of doers” that sends the message that “the transition is happening, and the countries that are here are the ones making it happen”.

To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap”

In the lead-up to the conference, a group of Pacific island nations – which have historically championed a 1.5C limit to global warming and a phase-out of fossil fuels – launched a declaration for a “fossil fuel-free Pacific” and urged countries to “support the ongoing development of a comprehensive, robust, actionable global roadmap” away from fossil fuels. Many island economies are still highly dependent on expensive fossil fuel imports, though most are already adding solar, geothermal and other renewables.

Toni noted that several coalitions on fossil fuels already exist – such as the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA) in which members commit to phasing out oil and gas domestically or a Dutch-led coalition to phase out fossil fuel subsidies – but these must be strengthened.

Beginning of a process

Aside from governments, the Santa Marta conference will also host Indigenous people and local communities, scientists, cities, unions, green groups and the private sector to share research and recommendations on how to best phase out fossil fuels.

These civil society actors will meet from April 24 to 27 for preliminary discussions that will inform the debate among ministers.

On Friday, scientists are expected to launch a new high-level panel that will provide advice for policy-makers to support the international transition away from fossil fuels, as well as a scientific report laying out key recommendations for governments. According to a draft seen by Carbon Brief, these range from halting fossil fuel expansion to cutting methane emissions from the energy sector and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.

Another barrier to the clean energy transition that will be on the agenda in Santa Marta is an international system formally known as “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS), which enables companies to use trade agreements to sue governments that block private-sector projects like coal mines or oil exploration.

Ahead of the conference, more than 340 civil society organisations signed an open statement saying that ISDS “threatens a just transition from fossil fuels and the urgent need for a social and ecological transformation for people and the planet”. They called on governments to start building a coalition of countries committed to freeing themselves from ISDS, after Colombia announced recently it would withdraw from the system. Doing so will be complicated in practice and require coordinated action among states, experts told Climate Home News.

Colombia pledges to exit investment protection system after fossil fuel lawsuits

Colombian minister Vélez explained that one of the key outcomes from Santa Marta will be to kickstart a longer process that continues next year with a second fossil fuel phase-out conference in the Pacific island state of Tuvalu. Jones of IISD said “this is only the start of a process” in which more nations can decide to participate later.

“Other countries that wish to join this space in good faith would be welcome, so it’s a question of whether fossil fuel producers are ready to have these conversations in all their complexity,” she added.

This article was updated after publication to reflect the total number of countries whose attendance was confirmed by the Colombian government.

The post Sixty countries head to Santa Marta to cement coalition for fossil fuel transition appeared first on Climate Home News.

China exported a record amount of solar components and photovoltaic panels last month, signalling that manufacturers are benefiting from stronger demand for clean energy technologies as the Iran war has caused oil and gas prices to soar and threatens supply shortages. 

The world’s second largest economy exported solar panels, cells and wafers capable of generating 68 gigawatts (GW) in March – the equivalent of Spain’s entire solar capacity, according to analysis of data from Chinese customs authority by global energy think-tank Ember. 

March’s volume was more than double exports in February and 49% more than the previous record set in August 2025. Three-quarters of the increase came from exports to Asia and Africa. 

As well as the Middle East conflict, a rush by Chinese manufacturers to export solar modules and cells before an export tax rebate ended on April 1 – adding 9% to solar panel costs – was a major driver of the export spike. 

• Apr 7, 2026 News Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom? Renewable energy developer Karl Boyce talks to Climate Home News about China’s VAT rebate cuts and the biggest challenges for Africa’s efforts to boost energy access Read more
• Apr 21, 2026 News Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say As climate diplomacy resumes in Berlin, ministers say the Iran war-driven fuel crisis is exposing the risks of fossil dependence Read more
• Apr 21, 2026 News Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift Energy think tank Ember said fossil fuel electricity fell slightly in both countries simultaneously for the first time, tipping the global balance Read more

“The volumes exported are absolutely gigantic,” Euan Graham, senior analyst at Ember, told Climate Home News. 

“We will see over the coming months how much of that was linked to the tax rebate and how much of that is additional demand – that might vary by region. But certainly a big part of this is the response to the energy crisis,” he said. 

China ends tax rebate on solar exports 

For Qi Qin, China analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, March’s export surge was most likely driven by the end of the tax rebate, which brought forward demand, with high energy prices bolstering the trend. 

“Policy deadlines can create a sharp one-month jump in export, while by comparison, higher oil and gas prices caused by the war are… more likely to support demand over the medium term rather than explain such a strong spike in one single month,” she told Climate Home News. 

Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced that the solar export tax discount was coming to an end in an effort to prevent trade disputes and cut-throat competition for low-price exports among Chinese manufacturers.

In a note at the time, Trivium China, an analysis firm that specialises in monitoring Chinese government policy, said Beijing had become frustrated with state tax resources being used to subsidise overseas consumers. “The rebate end date is all but certain to trigger one of the largest module production booms in history” to beat the April export price hike, it said.

Solar manufacturing booms outside China

Across the world, 50 countries set records for Chinese solar imports in March, while a further 60 saw the highest import levels in six months. Chinese solar exports to Africa reached 10GW last month, a 176% increase compared with the previous month while exports to Asia doubled to 39GW. 

The increase is partly driven by growing solar manufacturing and assembly capacity outside China, as countries seek to produce more of their own solar capacity as well as export panels to other markets. In October last year, Chinese exports of solar cells and wafers overtook already assembled solar panels. In March alone, Chinese solar panel exports reached 32 GW while cells and wafers exports amounted to 36 GW. 

India, which is rapidly building out a solar manufacturing industry, is increasingly importing wafers from China, which can be manufactured domestically into solar cells and assembled into panels. Chinese solar exports to India were up 141% in March compared to February. 

In Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia all imported over 1GW of solar for the first time in a single month, predominantly in the form of solar cells that are then assembled into panels. Exports to Nigeria, which is seeking to significantly ramp up its solar assembly capacity, rocketed 519% – the largest percentage increase. 

“We’ve eagerly awaited the first signs of how countries around the world are responding to the energy crisis and this is just the first piece of evidence we have. The full effects of it will be revealing themselves for months to come, both in terms of the immediate consumer response and also more structural government policy changes,” said Graham of Ember.

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High levels of national debt in parts of the Global South could hinder efforts to move away from fossil fuels, a new report warns, as more than 50 countries gather this week in Colombia for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.

The report, published by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative in the lead-up to the flagship conference, argues that the current debt architecture is trapping developing countries in a “feedback loop” in which fossil fuel revenues are needed to service debt, while fossil fuel expansion locks countries into borrowing even more.

The cycle, according to the report, leaves very little fiscal space for highly indebted countries to end their reliance on coal, oil and gas revenues, even when their leaders want to phase out fossil fuels. This is the case for some first-mover countries such as Colombia, which is hosting the conference in Santa Marta.

Amiera Sawas, one of the report’s authors and head of research and policy at the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said the conflict in the Middle East is making this “debt injustice and fossil fuel entrapment” even more evident.

“What we have to start understanding is that both fossil fuels and debt are actually extractions from the Global South,” Sawas told the report’s launch during the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings in Washington DC this month. “Many countries are paying more in debt servicing than they are getting in climate finance.”

• Apr 21, 2026 News Fossil fuel crisis offers chance to speed up energy transition, ministers say As climate diplomacy resumes in Berlin, ministers say the Iran war-driven fuel crisis is exposing the risks of fossil dependence Read more
• Apr 21, 2026 News Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift Energy think tank Ember said fossil fuel electricity fell slightly in both countries simultaneously for the first time, tipping the global balance Read more

Since 2010, low and middle-income countries (LIMCs) have more than doubled their external debt, reaching an all-time high of $8.9 trillion two years ago. They paid about $415 billion in interest on that debt in 2024 – 2.4 times higher than a decade earlier.

At the same time, in some cases like Colombia, Egypt and Jordan, austerity measures agreed as part of IMF and World Bank loan programmes restrict governments from investing in cleaner sources of revenue like renewable energy, the report says.

Leading countries constrained by debt

Colombia – one of the countries leading the global call for a transition away from fossil fuels – is facing precisely such financial barriers to achieving its transition, said Camilo Rodríguez, another of the report’s authors and a research analyst with Oil Change International.

The country has halted all new oil and gas licences and published an energy transition plan estimating transition costs at about 7-10% of its GDP. Yet the government depends on fossil fuel revenues to service its $265-billion public debt, meaning it must find an alternative source of income to cover debt payments.

Rodríguez said debt “is the main barrier nowadays to promote the energy transition and the industrialisation of the economy”.

The South American country has only grown more dependent on fossil fuels over time, as they represented 36% of exports in 2001 and now account for about 52%. Austerity policies still in place after IMF loans have left very little room for investing in Colombia’s energy transition plan, the report says.

Other countries have shown similar patterns. Jordan – despite its staggering public debt equivalent to 90% of GDP – became one of the fastest-growing markets for wind, solar and electric vehicles in the Middle East region. From 2014 to 2021, Jordan went from less than 1% of its electricity generation coming from renewables to 26%, benefiting from the significantly cheaper costs of installing wind and solar power compared with adding fossil fuel capacity.

But Jordan’s high reliance on fossil fuel revenues created an incentive for policymakers to opt for expanding gas projects over renewables, and the country ended up suspending new licences for many solar and wind projects. In 2024, about 40% of government revenues were used to service debt.

“This is not marginal – it is central to the fiscal system. It creates what I would describe as structural fiscal addiction,” said Ali Nasrallah, a policy and research manager at the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. “The state depends on revenues from consumption that is economically, environmentally and socially harmful.”

Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities  

Another report by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, published in March, argues that debt entrapment in Africa also exacerbates gender injustice. Social consequences from fossil fuel extraction and use – such as displacement of communities or health harm from pollution – can have a substantial effect on local women while, at the same time, states face constraints to increasing social spending to support them.

“African women are facing disproportionate impacts of the fossil fuel industry’s long-running legacy of violence and dispossession,” the report says. “But they are also leading the resistance to it,” it adds, with women-led coalitions in places like Uganda or the Niger Delta challenging major oil and gas projects.

Policy recommendations

As governments head to Santa Marta – where “gaps in the financial and investment system” are on the agenda – the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative recommends building international coalitions to address debt, reforming multilateral financial institutions and increasing funding commitments from donor nations.

The proposed policies include debt cancellation as a way of creating fiscal space in the Global South, ending all international finance for fossil fuel expansion, establishing a binding mechanism on debt resolution at the UN, and advancing green industrialisation to replace fossil fuel revenues.

“To dismantle carbon lock-in and debt at source, we need to recognise collectively that the escalating debt in the Global South is actually an injustice,” said Sawas of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. “We have to name the problem and be honest with ourselves – and that’s where the recommendation of debt cancellation is so critical.”

Comment: Broken debt system must be fixed to confront future climate shocks

As part of the new climate finance goal adopted at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, governments have already agreed to “remove barriers and address dis-enablers” faced by developing countries, including “limited fiscal space” and “unsustainable debt levels”.

Building on this, any plan for a global roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, such as the initiative proposed at COP30 by more than 80 governments, should address the debt crisis in the Global South, Sawas said. One alternative could be financing the rollout of renewables with more public grants rather than loans, she added.

“We need to start properly funding renewable energy and diversification,” she said. “Currently it’s almost impossible for a lot of countries in the Global South to actually make the energy transition, because there’s no support structure.”

The post To phase out fossil fuels, developing countries need exit route from “debt trap” appeared first on Climate Home News.

Kaveh Zahedi is the Assistant Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Director of FAO’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment. Ko Barrett is the Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Every crop, every animal and every fish has a thermal limit, the point where additional heat stops being normal weather and starts doing damage. In food systems, that threshold arrives sooner than many people realise.

For key agricultural species, the danger zone often sits between 25 and 35°C at the moments that matter most, such as flowering and reproduction. As climate change drives more days into the mid-40s°C in major breadbaskets, those limits are already being crossed. The result is lower yields, weaker livestock, stressed fisheries, higher fire risk and farmworkers – the backbone of the system – forced into unsafe conditions.

A new joint FAO-WMO report, released on April 22, shows that extreme heat is already cutting production and exposing agricultural workers to dangerous conditions. One analysis found that beef cattle mortality reached as high as 24% in some documented heatwaves. Marine heatwaves were linked to an estimated $6.6 billion loss in fisheries production. And the outlook worsens as temperatures rise. For every 1°C of warming, maize and wheat yields are projected to drop 4–10%.

US pressure puts World Bank’s climate plan at risk

Adapting to a hotter world will take long-term investment in science, technology and infrastructure if food supplies are to keep pace with demand. We will need more heat-tolerant varieties and breeds, new farming practices, and we will need to make hard choices about what can still be grown as conditions change. But we also need a plan for next season, not just 2100.

With more severe heat likely in the coming years and another El Niño poised to test unprepared systems, the priority is to move from crisis response to heat readiness. That starts with early warnings and practical measures to help farmers protect harvests, supply chains and their own safety.

Heat warnings farmers can use

Weather forecasts should give farmers time to act before extreme heat turns into loss. That is the strategy behind Early Warnings for All, the UN initiative coordinated by WMO with partners including FAO. But early warning only works when reliable observations, modelling and verification turn weather and climate data into forecasts farmers can actually use.

Cambodia’s Green Climate Fund-funded PEARL project, supported by FAO, upgraded and installed new weather stations to feed a phone-based app that sends forecasts with crop- and region-specific guidance. When forecasts exceed 38°C, alerts recommend maintaining soil moisture with mulch, shading vegetables, delaying sowing rice seeds, and shifting irrigation to cooler hours.

Soda Thai (pictured in a blue T‑shirt) receives training from a Commune Agriculture Officer on how to use the GCF‑funded PEARL Project’s agrometeorological advisory service on her smartphone. (Photo: FAO/Pisey Khun) Soda Thai (pictured in a blue T‑shirt) receives training from a Commune Agriculture Officer on how to use the GCF‑funded PEARL Project’s agrometeorological advisory service on her smartphone. (Photo: FAO/Pisey Khun)

That advice is part of a practical set of heat measures that help farmers reduce losses before extreme heat turns into crisis. In some cases, that means shading crops with cloth or solar panels, increasing water storage, installing low-cost cooling misters, or adjusting planting windows. Cattle generate heat when they eat, so feeding them in cooler hours can help.

Poultry cannot sweat, so shade is essential. Where extreme heat is becoming the norm, farmers may need to move from cattle to more heat-tolerant goats and sheep, or even switch crops. Evidence from Pakistan shows these adjustments can pay off. A FAO-GCF project field-tested the combination of heat- and drought-tolerant cotton and wheat varieties with mulching and adjusted planting windows. Over six seasons, returns reached as high as $8 for every $1 invested.

Extreme heat doesn’t only damage food in the field. It also speeds up spoilage after harvest, turning heat stress into income loss and poorer diets. An estimated 526 million tonnes of food, about 12% of the global total, is lost or wasted because of insufficient refrigeration. In Jamaica, a GCF-funded, FAO-supported programme treats cold storage as climate adaptation, using solar-powered cold storage to help smallholders keep produce market-ready when heat hits.

Protecting workers

Cold chains and toolkits matter, but they don’t protect the people doing the work. Extreme heat is one of the biggest threats to farmers’ health, driving dehydration, kidney injury and chronic disease, and taxing public health systems in the process. More than a third of the global workforce, around 1.2 billion people, face workplace heat risk each year, with agriculture among the hardest-hit sectors.

• Mar 19, 2026 Comment Middle East war is another wake-up call for fossil fuel-reliant food systems Much of the world’s food production depends on fossil fuels for fertiliser and transportation, and the crisis in the Gulf will push up prices – and, in turn, hunger Read more
• Mar 10, 2026 Comment We must invest in early-warning systems to tackle crises like Kenya’s drought With more than 3 million Kenyans facing acute hunger, better mechanisms are needed to help communities reduce devastation from future drought cycles Read more

We already know what basic protection looks like, and it is already being put into practice in Cambodia, where the extreme heat advisories are paired with advice for farmers to shift heavy work to cooler hours and ensure access to water, shade and rest breaks.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and WMO are calling for the same approach at a wider scale: adjusted work–rest schedules, access to shade and safe drinking water, training to recognize heat illness, and integrating weather and climate information into workplace risk management.

Why preparation pays

The tools to prepare for extreme heat already exist. The problem is that funding still falls far short of the scale of the risk, and rural communities are too often overlooked by the assumption that extreme heat is mainly an urban problem.

In 2023, agrifood systems received just 4% of total climate-related development finance. Without more investment, early warnings won’t reach the people who need them most, extension services will remain under-resourced, and basic protections for crops, livestock and workers will stay out of reach.

Preparing in advance is cheaper than absorbing the same losses year after year. It can stabilise production and prices now, while buying time for the bigger scientific and structural shifts agriculture will need in a hotter world.

We don’t need a new playbook. We need to use the one we already have. The FAO-WMO report lays out the risks of extreme heat. Now is the time to use that evidence to protect food systems and the people who sustain them.

The post Extreme heat is rewriting food security. The best fixes are already within reach appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ilka Vega is the executive for economic and environmental justice at United Women in Faith, the largest denominational faith organisation for women in the United States.

For climate justice advocates around the globe, many of the United States’ environmental policies have felt dangerous. In this moment, Earth Day might feel sobering as we acknowledge the gravity of these dangers. However, we cannot allow bad actors at the national level to shake our spirit. Instead, we can harness the energy of Earth Day and mobilize our communities for change.

Of course, while local action is powerful, it is against a backdrop of rollbacks to environmental protections. In 2026, the current US administration has continued on its track of undermining climate action, taking us back decades on efforts to mitigate and adapt to the escalating climate crisis.

In January, the US withdrew from several international climate organizations and treaties, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. In February, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which will make it more difficult to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants.

More destructive weather extremes

Climate change is not a future threat – it is affecting people right now. And it is not an abstract concept. We have seen its impact in tangible ways.

In 2025, the mainland United States experienced the fourth hottest year on record. In February of this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported an average surface temperature 2.12° F higher than the 20th-century average.

Tornadoes, tropical cyclones, floods and other natural disasters devastated communities around the world, and have been growing more frequent and destructive due to climate change. Frontline communities disproportionately suffer these effects. Women and children are most likely to be displaced and are more likely to suffer gender-based violence when natural disasters and weather emergencies occur.

• Apr 14, 2026 Politics Türkiye sets COP31 dates and appoints Australian cattle farmer as youth champion In an open letter, Murat Kurum gives details of the October Pacific pre-COP and the November COP31 leaders’ summit in the Turkish city of Antalya Read more
• Apr 15, 2026 Comment Fossil Free Zones can be on-ramps to the clean energy transition Oil and gas blocks overlap with a fifth of forests in the Amazon, Congo Basin and SE Asia – policies are needed to transition away from fossil fuels and halt deforestation together Read more

As climate change devastates communities, it is important that we take practical steps to prevent future harm. We can work with each other to encourage new practices, even without the support of powerful people. Our force can have an impact on communities beyond our imaginations. I have seen this in action, from my own neighborhood to organizations across the US and around the world.

Communities resisting the old and building the new

For example, last year in Texas, people from all walks of life came together to protest the toxicity of fossil fuels in front of oil and gas CEOs. In Oak Flat Arizona, an Apache stronghold is still resisting a destructive copper mine project despite setbacks that threaten to shatter their sacred lands.

One woman in La Mesa, California led efforts to engage nearby school districts in discussions about joining the EPA’s Clean School Bus program. In the wake of hurricanes, First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans used their solar panels to offer relief through charging and cooling for neighbors experiencing power outages.

Q&A: Look beyond Trump for the full story on US climate action, says university dean

In Marange, Zimbabwe, Environmental Buddies Zimbabwe installed energy-efficient stoves in their community. A project with similar goals, Eco-Green Gold in Bolgatanga, Ghana trained 40 women to produce charcoal from grass as an eco-friendly alternative to wood-based charcoal. They both are creating opportunities for their neighbors while reducing deforestation and promoting renewable energy.

Shared responsibility for a cleaner, safer planet

These communities have shown that we all have a responsibility to fight for a cleaner, healthier and safer Earth. That responsibility does not end when the government is not doing enough; rather, it becomes imperative that we boost our efforts.

Although there is only so much we can do about the actions of a powerful government and wealthy corporations, we can influence what happens in our own communities – and that influence matters.

Individual actions build powerful movements; change must always begin at the local level. When we see people around the world organizing and taking direct action, we realize the true scale of what is possible. Every effort, no matter how small, becomes part of a larger movement that cannot be ignored.

We hold onto the unwavering belief that we can still turn the tide on climate change – and it is that hope that drives every step of our work toward a better, sustainable future.

The post Earth Day is an opportunity for communities to show the way on climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.

The fossil fuel crisis triggered by the Iran war should push nations to speed up their shift towards clean energy and break their dependence on volatile sources, energy and climate ministers said on Tuesday.

Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s climate minister and COP31 president, said the crisis was yet another demonstration that fossil fuels cannot guarantee energy security, making it crucial for countries to diversify by investing in renewable energy.

“We know that relying solely on fossil fuels means walking towards volatility, insecurity and climate collapse,” he told fellow ministers at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, an annual gathering in Berlin that traditionally opens the global climate diplomacy calendar.

Ministers from more than 30 countries, along with United Nations representatives, are meeting until Wednesday to lay the groundwork for a deal to accelerate climate action at COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye.

They will debate how to ramp up efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, mobilise climate finance amid shrinking international aid budgets, and leverage a strained multilateral system to deliver results.

Fossil fuels not the answer

The gathering is taking place in the shadow of what some energy analysts have described as the largest oil and gas supply disruption in history. The conflict in the Middle East has sent oil and gas prices soaring, with growing ripple effects on food production and industrial manufacturing.

Australia’s escalating fuel crisis meant the country’s energy minister Chris Bowen, who will also be in charge of COP31 negotiations, cancelled his trip to the Berlin summit. Joining by videolink, he said the crisis is a “unique opportunity” to underline the message that “energy reliability, energy sovereignty and energy security are entirely in keeping with strong decarbonisation”.

• Apr 21, 2026 News Solar surge kept fossil electricity flat in 2025 as China and India made ‘historic’ shift Energy think tank Ember said fossil fuel electricity fell slightly in both countries simultaneously for the first time, tipping the global balance Read more
• Apr 16, 2026 News US pressure puts World Bank’s climate plan at risk Closed-door talks over the World Bank’s climate agenda have stalled, as the US pushes to scrap green targets and expand support for fossil fuels Read more

“Doubling down on fossil fuels is not the answer to this crisis,” he added. “Wind cannot be subject to a sanction, the sun cannot be interrupted by a blockade. These are all reliable forms of energy, which must be supported by storage”.

Electrification is a “megatrend”

Echoing Bowen’s remarks, Germany’s climate minister Carsten Schneider said the current crisis will be “an accelerator [of the energy transition] because it will help many people understand and realise how dependent we are on fossil fuels”.

He added that “electrification is turning into a global megatrend” but called for more discussion on how to ensure that industry and transport become less reliant on oil and gas across the world.

At last year’s climate talks, countries failed to agree to start a process to draft a global plan to shift away from oil, coal and gas. But the Brazilian COP30 presidency is taking it upon itself to deliver this roadmap before the summit in Antalya.

Discussions are expected to kick into higher gear at the first-ever conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels due to start at the end of this week in Colombia. COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago has said the roadmap should be published in September.

Clear plans needed

Addressing the Petersberg summit, the head of the United Nations António Guterres said that transition roadmaps can help countries manage urgent choices during the ongoing fuel crisis while advancing a just transition to a clean and secure energy future.

“We must respond to the energy crisis without deepening the climate crisis,” he added. “Short-term measures must not lock in long-term fossil fuel dependence and expansion”.

The ministers argued that, despite the US withdrawal from international climate diplomacy under President Trump, other countries remained committed to working together to tackle the climate crisis.

But Türkiye’s Kurum scolded the more than 40 governments that have not yet published their national climate plans, more than a year after the official UN deadline. These are mostly smaller nations, but the group of laggards also includes Vietnam, Argentina and Egypt.

“We will ensure that countries fulfil the fundamental requirements of the COP,” he said, adding that his team is working intensely with the UN to ensure these plans – known as nationally determined contributions – are submitted.

“Without diagnosis, you can’t treat”, he said.

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Rachel Rose Jackson is a climate researcher and international policy expert whose work involves monitoring polluter interference at the UNFCCC and advancing pathways to protect against it.

Next week, dozens of governments will gather in the Colombian city of Santa Marta for a conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

The conference is a first of its kind, in name and in practice. It’s a welcome change to see a platform for global climate action actually acknowledge the primary cause of the climate crisis – fossil fuels. This sends a clear message about what needs to be done to avoid tumbling off the climate cliff edge we are precariously balancing on.

The agenda set for governments to hash out goes further than any other multilateral space has managed to date. Over the week, participants will discuss how to overcome the economic dependence on fossil fuels, transform supply and demand, and advance international cooperation to transition away from fossil fuels. 

Alongside the conference, academics, civil society, movements and others are convening to put forward their visions of a just and forever fossil fuel phase out. The conference can help shape pathways and tools governments can use to achieve a fossil-fuel-free future, particularly if the dialogue begins with an honest assessment of “fair shares.” 

• Apr 6, 2026 Events Santa Marta: fossil fuel transition in an unstable world Transitioning away from fossil fuels in an unstable world: how can Santa Marta deliver? Read more
• Mar 31, 2026 News Major oil producers among 46 nations joining fossil fuel phase-out summit Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway are set to attend the Santa Marta summit, but the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers are missing from the list Read more
• Mar 25, 2026 News Iran war could boost fossil fuel phase-out push, says Colombian minister Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres said she hopes that a new fossil fuel phase out summit in Santa Marta can cement a coalition of countries Read more

This means assessing who is most responsible for emissions and exploring truer means of international collaboration that can unlock the technology, resources and finances necessary for a just transition.  

Fossil fuel-driven violence is spiraling in places like Palestine, Iran, and Venezuela. Climate disasters are causing billions and billions of dollars in damage annually with no climate reparations in sight. All of this remains recklessly unaddressed on account of corporate-funded fascism. 

We know the world’s addiction to fossil fuels must end. Is it surprising that a global governmental convening chooses now to try to tackle fossil fuels? It shouldn’t be, but it is.

COP failures

By contrast, meetings of governments signed up to the longest-standing multilateral forum for climate action—the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – took nearly three decades before it officially responded to the power built by movements and acknowledged the need to address fossil fuel use at COP28 in 2023. 

Even then, this recognition came riddled with loopholes. It may seem illogical that a forum established by governments in 1992 to coordinate a response to climate change should take decades to acknowledge the root of the problem. Yet there are clear reasons why arenas like the UNFCCC have consistently failed to curb fossil fuels decade after decade. 

What would the outcome be when a fossil fuel executive literally oversaw COP28 and when Coca-Cola was one of the sponsors for COP27?

How can strong action take hold when, year after year, the UNFCCC’s COPs are inundated with thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists? 

And how can justice be achieved when there are zero safeguards in place to protect against the conflicts of interest these polluters have? 

Colombia pledges to exit investment protection system after fossil fuel lawsuits

Justly transitioning off fossil fuels cannot be charted when the very actors that have knowingly caused the climate crisis are at the helm—the same actors that consistently spend billions to spread denial and delay. 

Unless platforms like the UNFCCC take concerted action to protect climate policymaking from the profit-at-all-costs agenda of polluters, the world will not deliver the climate action people and the planet deserve. 

The impacts of climate action failure are now endured on a daily basis in some way by each of us – and especially by frontline communities, Indigenous Peoples, youth, women, and communities in the Global South. We must be closing gaps and unlocking pathways for advancing the strongest, fairest and fastest action possible. 

Learn from mistakes

Yet, as we chase a fossil-fuel-free horizon, it’s essential that we learn from the mistakes of the past. We do not have the luxury or time to repeat them. History shows us we must protect against the polluting interests that want the world addicted to fossil fuels for as long as humanly possible.

We must also reject their schemes that undermine a just transition—dangerous distractions like carbon markets and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) that are highly risky and spur vast harm, all while allowing for polluters to continue polluting. 

Fossil Free Zones can be on-ramps to the clean energy transition

We get to a fossil-fuel-free future by following the leadership of the movements, communities and independent experts who hold the knowledge and lived experience to guide us there. 

We succeed by protecting against those who have a track record of prioritising greed over the sacredness of life. 

And we arrive at a world liberated from fossil fuels by doing all of these things from day one, before the toxicity of the fossil fuel industry’s poison takes hold. 

If this gathering in Santa Marta can do this, then it can help set a new precedent for what people-centered and planet-saving climate action looks like. When everything hangs in the balance, there can be no if’s, and’s, or but’s. There’s only here and now, what history shows us must be done, and what we know is lost if we do not. 

The post To avoid COP mistakes, Santa Marta conference must be shielded from fossil fuel influence appeared first on Climate Home News.

A record surge in clean power met all global electricity demand growth in 2025, preventing any increase in fossil fuel generation, according to energy think tank Ember.

Solar led the expansion, recording its fastest growth rate in eight years and meeting around 75% of new electricity demand alone.

Together with wind, hydropower and other low-carbon sources, the solar surge drove clean generation to rise by 887 TWh, slightly exceeding demand growth of 849 TWh and pushing fossil generation down by 0.2%, Ember said in a report published on Tuesday.

Much of this shift was driven by China and India, where rapid clean energy expansion outpaced electricity demand growth, leading to declines in fossil generation in both countries for the first time this century.

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“We have firmly entered the era of clean growth,” said Aditya Lolla, Ember’s managing director. 

“Clean energy is now scaling fast enough to absorb rising global electricity demand, keeping fossil generation flat before its inevitable decline,” Lolla added. 

China and India lead the way

A key driver of the global shift was a “historic” reversal in China and India, the largest contributors to fossil power growth over the past two decades, Ember said.

For the first time this century, electricity generation from fossil fuels fell in both countries in the same year, tipping the global balance.

In China, fossil generation dropped by 0.9%, its first decline since 2015, as rapid additions of solar and wind outpaced rising demand. In India, fossil generation fell by 3.3%, driven by record increases in solar and wind, strong hydro production and relatively slower demand growth.

This shift helped push renewables to around 34% of global electricity generation in 2025, overtaking coal for the first time in the modern era.

Vivek Mundkur with portable solar pumping system in Pune in 2014 (Photo: Vivek M/Greenpeace)

“China’s rapid expansion of solar and wind is meeting rising electricity demand at home while influencing the global electricity transition,”  said Xunpeng Shi, president of the International Society for Energy Transition Studies.

“As the world’s largest builder of clean power, China’s progress is showing how growing demand can increasingly be met with clean electricity rather than fossil fuels,” Shi added. 

Solar leading global energy supply growth

Reinforcing Ember’s findings, new analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed on Monday that solar has become the single largest driver of global energy supply growth, beyond the electricity sector.

In its latest Global Energy Review, the IEA found that solar PV accounted for more than a quarter of the increase in global energy demand in 2025, making it the first time any modern renewable source has taken the top spot.

The agency also reported that solar recorded the largest annual increase ever seen for any electricity generation technology.

Q&A: Will subsidy cuts for Chinese clean-tech exports hurt Africa’s solar boom?

Ember’s Lolla said clean energy is “redefining the foundation of energy security in a volatile world,” adding that “it is already helping countries reduce exposure to fossil fuel imports and costs while meeting rising electricity demand”. 

‘Antidote to fossil fuel cost chaos‘

As the war in the Middle East disrupts global oil and gas supplies, the head of UN Climate Change, Simon Stiell, said the current crisis underscores the risks of fossil fuel dependence and the need for more secure, domestic energy sources. 

“Wars don’t disrupt the supply of sunlight for solar power, and wind power does not depend on vulnerable shipping straits,” Stiell said. 

Speaking at the opening of the Green Transformation Week conference in South Korea, Stiell encouraged countries to accelerate the transition to clean energy to regain control of their economies and national security.

Nigerians bet on solar as global oil shock hits wallets and power supplies

“War has once again revealed the soaring costs of fossil fuel dependency,” he said, warning that volatile energy markets are “holding economies around the world in a chokehold.”

“Clean energy is the antidote to fossil fuel cost chaos, because it is cheaper, safer and faster-to-market,” he added.

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