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Two months ago, everyone was still wondering whether the First Conference for Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels would carry the relevance it promised in Brazil. Would governments around the world care enough to show up after the excitement of COP30 had faded? In a world that seemed to be sinking into new wars with global consequences?

Paradoxically, the escalating aggressions by the United States and Israel in Southwest Asia (Middle East) have shown the world exactly why we need to leave behind our dependence on fossil fuels. Entire communities have been destroyed, families buried under rubble, children killed, livelihoods erased, all in a region whose political fate has been shaped for over a century by the control of oil and gas. People in Palestine, Lebanon, and across the region are paying with their own lives for the world’s thirst for fossil fuels.

These are not abstract arguments. They are the bombs that fall, the blockades that starve, the occupations that endure, all because fossil fuel wealth concentrates power in the hands of those willing to use violence to protect it. Not only do fossil fuels poison our planet, they fuel instability, deepen inequality, and tie our futures to volatile and unjust energy systems. Moving beyond fossil fuels is no longer a distant goal. It is a shared necessity.

The response? Fifty-seven countries representing roughly a third of the global economy came together, signaling that the transition is not only possible but already underway.

But what truly defined this conference was not just who showed up at the governmental level. It was who was finally let in.

Indigenous peoples from around the world, trade unions, youth groups, academics, Afro-descendant communities, peasant associations, women and diverse identities, activists and NGOs, among others, engaged for the first time in a participation mechanism that actually listens to their voices and puts their demands on the table.

And beyond the high-level spaces, communities were building, not just speaking. During both days of the Peoples Summit, 350.org with 32 organizations across Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and the Caribbean Islands a Fair of Alternatives, showing that futures beyond fossil fuels are already here. Community leaders hosted a panel within the Peoples Summit space, and their voices fed into the final declaration.

Frontline communities from all around the world had a voice on the Santa Marta conference

It was no small thing to see Indigenous women leaders from Putumayo and Bolivia connecting over their shared concern about an energy transition being carried out without consultation in their territories, one that threatens to bring extractive models for copper and lithium that would gravely affect their environments and communities. But ready, too, to share models of community energy generation through biodigesters they have built themselves. Because communities around the world have not sat around waiting for their governments to act. They have thought of solutions and carried them out.

That same spirit drove the Popular Assemblies we co-organized in three territories in Colombia and Ecuador, where affected communities named the crisis in their own terms. Two of the communities that led these Assemblies — Cesar sin Fracking and Alianza Libre de Fracking — attended the high-level Conference, including Yuvelis Morales Blanco, now a winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize. 350.org also held an organizing space toward a common Latin American campaign against fracking and LNG with leaders from Colombia, Argentina and Mexico.

These connections between communities were perhaps the most powerful thread running through the conference. Activists from across the world linked militarization and the climate crisis in a country with more than 60 years of armed conflict, where multinationals like Glencore and Drummond have used armed groups to displace and kill local communities, seize their lands and waters, and leave surrounding populations in misery and fear. The Climate Justice Flotilla traveled across Caribbean islands still under Dutch colonial rule to bring their voices to this space — possibly the first time Aruba and Curacao had representation at a conference like this, even as the Netherlands, their colonial power, co-hosted while opposing a fossil fuel transition treaty.

During the Santa Marta conference, activists and local communities blocked the entrance of one of the main coal ports in Latin America.

It was also no small thing to see these same activists blockade one of the largest coal ports in Latin America with solar panels — Drummond’s port in Ciénaga. The action put the demands of affected communities front and centre: making polluters pay for the loss of land, biodiversity and life, and the need for a just transition. For local communities, doing something like this would mean enormous security risks — just weeks earlier, armed groups had kidnapped 25 fishermen from the community most affected by Drummond. But these young people from around the world used their foreign origins as a kind of shield, standing in solidarity with the communities of Ciénaga, Santa Marta, and all of Colombia affected by this multinational. Those same solar panels used in this action will now go to the communities most harmed by that coal port.

Let’s be clear: they could have been far more ambitious. The world is on fire, sometimes literally, and the political outcomes of this conference reflect cautious, small steps that do not match the urgency communities are living every day.

Governments from 57 countries meet at the First Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels Conference, in Colombia

That said, the fact that this conference happened at all, that it finally named fossil fuels as the root cause of climate chaos and created a dedicated space to address them outside of the pressures of formal COP negotiations, is itself a significant victory. Five concrete outcomes came out of the high-level segment:

1. Continuity. A second conference has been announced for 2027, co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland, with the main event taking place in Tuvalu. And who better than our brothers and sisters from the Pacific nations, on the frontlines of climate chaos, to carry forward what started in Santa Marta and remind the world of the urgency?
2. A coordination group has been established to ensure continuity between conferences, bringing together countries leading different alliances and initiatives on the fossil fuel transition, including the co-hosts of the first and second conferences.
3. The outcomes will be handed over to the COP30 Presidency, shared ahead of the intersessional meetings in Bonn this June and formally presented at London Climate Action Week, with plans to bring them to the UN Secretary-General during New York Climate Week. The intention is to feed these results into the second Global Stocktake, making sure this process does not live in isolation from the UNFCCC.
4. Three workstreams have been launched to identify concrete opportunities for cooperation: one focused on national roadmaps guided by the Science Panel, another on economic dependencies and financial architecture, and a third on aligning fossil fuel producers and consumers toward trade systems free of fossil fuels. These workstreams will remain open for countries to join or lead.
5. A Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition will anchor the entire process in evidence rather than politics. Academics and scientists from around the world joined forces to ensure that science guides the process of leaving fossil fuels behind, and to help countries develop roadmaps aligned with the 1.5°C trajectory and to dismantle the legal, financial, and political barriers standing in the way.

Are these outcomes enough? No. Are they the kind of bold, binding commitments that the scale of the crisis demands? Not even close. But in a world where the largest historical emitter has abandoned climate action entirely, where wars rage over the very resources we need to leave behind, the fact that 57 countries sat down, opened the doors to movements and communities, and committed to a sustained process is not nothing. It is the floor, not the ceiling, and it is up to all of us to push it higher.

Communities everywhere will keep building the solutions their governments have been too slow to deliver. And the rest of us? We stay loud, stay connected, and keep showing up, because the transition has already begun, and it was never going to be led from the top.

Because if this conference showed anything, it is that the transition is not only about energy systems. It is about power. The power of who gets to decide. Who benefits. Who is heard. And for perhaps the first time at this scale, the answer is beginning to shift.

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This is a guest blog by Nicole Pita, Programme Manager at IPES-Food, the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems, a global think tank and expert group guiding action for sustainable food systems around the world.

If you’ve been feeling like your grocery bills keep climbing, you’re not alone. In the United States, families are paying nearly 25% more for food than they did in 2020. In Germany, food costs 43% more than five years ago, while in Mexico and Brazil prices have jumped 42% and 50%. Now experts are warning of a looming food price crisis as a result of the global energy price spikes triggered by the US and Israeli war on Iran. 

Why is this happening? Ultimately, it’s because our food systems run on fossil fuels, and every time there’s a crisis – a pandemic, a war, a drought – we all pay the price. At the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) we have outlined this in our report, Fuel to Fork. 

Food systems consume 15% of global fossil fuels. Source: Global Alliance for the Future of Food. (2023). Power shift: Why we need to wean industrial food systems off fossil fuel.

Food systems consume 15% of all fossil fuels globally. From chemical fertilizers and diesel tractors to long-distance transport and cooking gas, fossil fuels power every step of producing, processing, and consuming food. When oil and gas prices spike, food prices follow. 

Food, fertilizer and fossil energy prices are deeply interlinked.
Source: Levi, IMF Primary Commodity Price Index.

This fossil fuel dependence creates a triple threat. First, it makes food vulnerable to oil price spikes. Second, it drives climate breakdown, causing droughts and floods that destroy harvests. Third, a handful of corporations control the system and profit enormously every time there’s a crisis. 

This isn’t a new problem, but it’s getting worse. During the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions pushed food prices up. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, energy, fertilizer, and wheat prices soared, driving grocery bills higher. Each time, pushing millions of people into hunger, especially in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable regions.

Now, as war erupts in the Persian Gulf, it’s happening again. Global oil and fertilizer prices have increased by 50% since the war began. Food prices haven’t spiked yet – but they will. One-third of crude oil and one-third of fertilizers all normally pass through shipping routes now blocked by the conflict. Even if the war ended tomorrow, it would take months for supply chains to recover. 

The shocks of COVID and the Ukraine war accounted for nearly half of all grocery price increases in the US and 35% of price increases in the EU over the past five years. During 2021-2022 alone, 45 million more people went hungry because they couldn’t afford food.

There’s another reason food keeps getting more expensive: the fossil-fueled climate crisis. Droughts in the US Midwest and Canada destroyed harvests in 2022. Floods in India and South Asia pushed up rice prices in 2023 and 2025. The climate crisis is affecting crop production itself, making food harder to grow. The irony is that food systems produce one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, making them both a victim and a driver of the crisis.

Fossil fuel dependence in food systems didn’t happen by accident. Governments and funding institutions pushed farmers toward growing commodity crops for export using chemical fertilizers made from fossil fuels. Today, governments spend close to $800 billion per year supporting this chemical-intensive agriculture, while sustainable farming gets only a fraction of that support. 

And corporate lobbyists are spending hundreds of millions to keep it that way. In Europe alone they spend at least €343 million per year on lobbying – with fossil fuel and agribusiness firms increasing their spending since 2020. Companies like Shell and Bayer follow the same playbook: delay action, weaken regulations, protect profits. 

This fossil fuel-dependent system ends up being incredibly profitable for a few corporations. Just a handful of corporations control how food is produced, transported, and sold. They set the prices and we have no choice but to pay them. And when crises hit, they exploit the chaos.

During COVID and the Ukraine war, the largest fertilizer companies hiked prices far beyond their actual costs. Grain traders, food manufacturers, and retailers did the same. In the US, corporate profiteering accounted for 54% of food price increases between 2020 and 2021. During a food price crisis, while families struggled to afford food, these corporations posted record earnings.

These three problems feed each other. Fossil fuel dependence creates vulnerability to shocks. Climate chaos makes food scarce. And corporate concentration lets companies exploit both for profit. Breaking this cycle means completely reconfiguring the way we grow, process, and consume food.

Another food system is possible – one that’s resilient to shocks, protects the climate, and works for people instead of corporate profits. Across the world – from Cuba to India to France – millions of farmers have already transitioned to agroecology, sustainable farming that doesn’t depend on fossil fuels or chemical inputs. These farmers build fertility naturally by planting beans that enrich soil, rotating crops, and composting waste instead of buying chemicals. Studies show these farms match or exceed conventional yields, can be profitable for farmers, and feed communities better. 

The transition takes time and farmers need support, but it makes farming systems more resilient rather than vulnerable to price shocks. It’s also clearly needed as part of the fight to tackle the climate crisis. 

The solutions exist, what’s missing is the political will. Governments have the tools to make food affordable right now while building a better food system for the future. Here’s what must happen:

• Tax the corporations that profit from crises. Windfall taxes on fossil fuel and agribusiness firms could immediately bring down costs for consumers and farmers.
• End the subsidies that keep us locked into dependence. Stop giving billions to fossil fuel corporations and chemical-intensive agriculture. Redirect that money to renewable energy and sustainable farming.
• Invest in local and regional food systems that don’t depend on long, fragile supply chains vulnerable to shocks, as outlined in our IPES-Food report Food from Somewhere. 

If we want to stabilize food prices, we have to break food’s dependence on fossil fuels. Otherwise, every new crisis will keep showing up at the checkout.

Ending fossil fuel addiction isn’t just about climate – it’s about making food affordable.

Governments won’t change course unless we demand it. Tell your leaders: End fossil fuel subsidies and tax polluters. Invest in renewable energy and sustainable, chemical-free farming. 

The post Out of Pocket: the real cost of fossil fuels on our groceries appeared first on 350.

The wars being waged right now in Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and Ukraine are not abstract. They are children pulled from collapsed buildings. They are families who fled their homes carrying nothing. They are entire neighborhoods reduced to dust by weapons manufactured far away, financed by governments that call themselves defenders of democracy. 

Ceasefires come and go, are announced and broken. But ceasefires are not peace – they are pauses in the same ongoing violence. What we are demanding is something far more urgent, far more real: a complete and permanent end to these wars.

As someone born and raised in Puerto Rico, an island that knows what it means to live under the shadow of militarization, colonial extraction, and disaster without accountability, I feel a deep, bone-level solidarity with the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and Ukraine. We may be separated by oceans and languages, but we share the same wound: the wound of being considered expendable by empires that never asked for our consent.

The people of Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Ukraine and other war zones are not symbols or numbers. They are neighbors, parents, scientists, teachers, humans with lives and dreams. Their suffering demands that governments act, that arms supplies stop, and that the international community treat civilian life as non-negotiable – wherever those lives are lived.

Here in Puerto Rico, I learned that when the hurricane comes, whether it is María or military occupation or economic austerity, it is always the women, the children, and the poor who suffer most. The same is true in all of Palestine, in southern Lebanon, in Iranian cities and Ukrainian villages. And when the fighting drives up food prices and energy costs worldwide, it is working people, families already in debt, communities already stretched thin, who absorb that blow. 

This is the deal we were never asked about. That’s enough. Governments must stop hiding behind strategic interests and geopolitical calculations and start protecting the people whose lives hang in the balance. A permanent end to these wars is not a radical demand. It is the bare minimum of human decency.

Solidarity is not sympathy from a distance. It is the recognition that our struggles are connected, that no one is free while others are bombed into hunger and displacement. From Bayamón to Beirut, from San Juan to Kyiv, we stand together in demanding what should never have been in question: peace, dignity, and the right to a future.

Join the global call at https://350.org/they-profit-we-pay-fix-it-now/

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As world leaders gather in Washington this week (April 13–18) for the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings to discuss debt and economies, a global coalition of 130+ organisations has a clear message for them: the system is failing ordinary people and it needs to change now.

While people in Iran, Lebanon, and across the region are being killed, while families struggle to heat their homes and put food on the table, fossil fuel companies and arms corporations are posting record profits. This is a system working exactly as designed. For them, not for us.

From Bangladesh to Brazil, Zimbabwe to Japan, we are all watching the same thing unfold and but we’re also letting our representatives know through an open letter: enough is enough.

In just one month of war, over $100 billion was extracted from ordinary people through soaring energy prices. That same money could have powered 150 million homes with renewable energy. Instead, it padded the wallets of fossil fuel executives and weapons manufacturers.

The letter calls for four urgent actions:

• a complete and permanent end to the war
• windfall taxes on the corporations cashing in on the crisis
• investment in food security and homegrown renewable energy
• and cancellation of the crushing debt that leaves Global South countries with nothing left to protect their own people.

Ceasefires are not enough. Temporary pauses don’t rebuild homes, bring back the dead, or lower energy bills. The war must end and those who profited from it must be made to pay. Learn more here.

This represents a genuinely global movement. From trade unions to climate groups, from faith organizations to youth activists — the breadth of voices shows this is not a fringe position. It is the growing consensus of people worldwide who are tired of paying the price for a crisis they didn’t cause.

The connection between war, fossil fuels, debt, and inequality is not abstract. It shows up in your energy bill. In the price of bread. In the public services disappearing around you.

Simple: share this letter.

Post it on Facebook. Send it on WhatsApp. Put it on Bluesky. The more people who see these demands, the harder they become for governments to ignore. Every share builds the pressure.

This war is their business. Our pain. Our movement.

Share now and help make these demands impossible to ignore.

Share on Facebook
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Share on Bluesky

The post They Profit, We Pay. It’s Time to Fix It. appeared first on 350.

This is a guest blog by Lucia Simmons, Marketing & Communications Lead at the Carbon Literacy Project. The Carbon Literacy Project is an UN-recognised global initiative, delivered by UK charity The Carbon Literacy Trust, providing a day’s worth of accredited climate action training and certification. Over 155,000 people and 14,000 organisations across 47 nations are certified Carbon Literate. Find out more at www.carbonliteracy.com. 

Imagine waking up to find no water running from your taps. No water to drink. To flush the toilet. Wash your clothes. Your body. Your plates. That was the reality for Zofia, and thousands of other local home and business owners in the South of England in January this year, with no warning from the water company over supply failures. 

Water is part of our daily lives. We drink it, cook with it, clean with it, and grow food with it. We expect it to be there when we need it with a twist of a tap. Unfortunately, that won’t be our reality forever if we continue as we are. For many, it already isn’t. 

A UN report released at the start of this year declared that we’re now living in an era of ‘global water bankruptcy’. What does this mean?

Around the world, reservoirs and lakes are shrinking, floods and droughts are intensifying, and water supply is becoming less reliable. This isn’t random. Our burning of fossil fuels is heating the planet and disrupting the systems that keep water flowing. We are already paying the price.

Water systems depend on a naturally balanced cycle of evaporation, rainfall, and replenishment, and global heating driven by burning fossil fuels is breaking that delicate balance. 

Burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn increase global temperatures. Hotter air pulls more moisture from land and water. This speeds up evaporation and dries out rivers, lakes, and reservoirs. 

Rainfall also becomes less predictable as the planet heats. Some places face longer droughts. Others see heavier downpours that overwhelm drains and flood homes, roads and green spaces. The same community can face both within a year. Nearly 1 in 4 people experienced drought conditions between 2022 and 2023 alone. The number of people exposed to floods around the world has risen by 25% from 1970 to 2020.  

Low water levels in Woodhead Reservoir, Derbyshire, England, in June 2025, following the driest spring in England since 1893. Image credit: Alastair Johnstone-Hack / Climate Visuals

Rising global temperatures are melting glaciers and increasing flood risks in the short term. Around 2 billion people rely on water from mountains and glaciers for drinking water, farming, and energy generation. As glaciers shrink and disappear, so does their water supply. Communities from the Himalayas in Asia to the Andes in South America are already living with severe water shortages.

Fossil fuel extraction also directly harms the local water. Mining and drilling pollute rivers and groundwater, leaving local communities without safe water and forcing costly treatment or replacement. 

When water supply becomes less reliable, everyday costs rise for all of us. Here are just a few ways how: 

1. Household bills creep up: Water companies have to do more, already energy-intensive work to treat and supply water, as climate change disrupts water sources. But, to preserve profits, they pass on those costs to consumers, showing up in our household bills. In New Orleans, US, water bills now average $115 a month, more than twice that of comparable Southern cities. This is partly because ageing infrastructure must treat drinking water from the Mississippi River for pollutants and saltwater intrusion linked to sea level rise.
2. Food gets more expensive: When drought reduces crop yields, food prices increase. Intense drought in Southern Europe from 2022 to 2023 severely reduced olive production, causing a 50% price increase in olive oil across the EU from January 2023 to January 2024. Agriculture uses around 70% of global water, so any disruption hits food systems quickly. 
3. Energy becomes less stable — and pricier: Water is needed to cool power plants and data servers. Power plant cooling is responsible for 43% of total freshwater withdrawals in Europe and nearly 50% in the USA. When water levels fall, energy supply becomes less stable and more expensive. Heatwaves in 2022 forced French Energy supplier EDF to reduce power output as high water temperatures and low river levels threatened cooling systems. The projected water and electricity demand from the many new AI data centres being built by big tech firms worldwide will make this even worse.
4. Flooding caused by unpredictable rainfall patterns, as well as sea level rise, sends costs spiralling: Homes are damaged. Insurance premiums rise or become unavailable. Taxes are spent on repairs. We are paying for all of this through bills, taxes, and lost income. Initial costs of the devastating floods in Valencia in 2024 were estimated at €31.4 billion.

Extensive flooding submerges agricultural land in Somerset, England. Image credit: Alastair Johnstone-Hack / Climate Visuals

The good news though? People are already aware and taking action.

Across the world, Carbon Literacy training is helping people to understand these connections and take action to reduce these costs.

An international cruise operator has reviewed water use across its fleet and identified ways to reduce consumption by 12% each year, with associated cost savings. At a beach resort in Kenya, staff are working to cut water use per guest by up to 15%. This reduces pressure on local water supplies and lowers operating costs. 

In Britain, a ballet company is installing water butts to collect rainwater for green spaces. This reduces reliance on mains water and cuts bills. Meanwhile, a racecourse grounds team is learning how to harvest and store rainwater. This helps manage dry periods and reduces both water costs and emissions linked to mains supply.

Not everyone experiences this crisis in the same way. In wealthier areas, people can adapt more easily. The cost of higher bills might not be crippling; installation costs for new water-saving systems can be fronted.

Lower-income communities don’t have the same options. Around four billion people experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year. When supplies become unreliable, the impacts are immediate. Crops fail. Jobs are lost. Health risks increase.

Communities in the Global South, which have contributed least to climate change, are facing the highest costs. Many depend directly on natural water systems for farming and daily life. When those systems change, there is little to buffer the impacts.

Water contamination also hits hardest where regulation is weaker. Communities living near extraction sites often face polluted water without the resources to fix it. For example, decades of oil spills and illegal oil leaks by fossil fuel giant Shell have contaminated the primary drinking water sources for the Agore and Bele communities in Nigeria, leading to poison levels 90 times higher than elsewhere in the country. This has rendered water unsafe for consumption and washing, forcing residents to buy water they cannot afford.

Governments continue to support fossil fuels through subsidies and incentives. At the same time, water infrastructure is often underfunded and unprepared for a changing climate. So fossil fuel conglomerates and private water companies keep the profits while communities pay the price. 

But we’re not powerless. We can all use our unique roles to drive change. In Wales, after completing Carbon Literacy training, one specialist advisor is requiring water companies to report on expected emissions linked to infrastructure proposals. This helps shift responsibility back to those driving the problem. 

Meanwhile, one Carbon Literate project manager is working to clean up water pollution from historic mining sites and bring low-carbon design and carbon management into all construction projects. This not only improves water quality in the short term but also reduces long-term costs for communities. 

With more awareness, we can hold those responsible to account, and share knowledge and best practice, so the burden does not fall solely on individual households or businesses. 

Across sectors, through Carbon Literacy training action plans, people are building solutions that make water systems more resilient.

Throughout Britain, local authorities that have embedded Carbon Literacy are working to improve drainage and reduce flood risk. Many projects focus on sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) that slow water flow and reduce pressure on infrastructure.

The Grey to Green Development in Sheffield, England, is the UK’s largest retrofit sustainable urban draining scheme (SuDs). Planting beds take rain and surface water back into Sheffield’s rivers. Image credit: Alastair Johnstone / Climate Visuals

One Carbon Literate engineer at a local council is designing developments with features like overland flow routes and water recycling systems. These reduce flood risk and make better use of available water.

One county council planning team is mandating that new planning applications include drainage systems that support biodiversity and community wellbeing alongside flood protection.

One district council enterprise team is creating short videos to show how local businesses are reducing operational costs through water-saving strategies, creating models that other businesses can adopt. 

Such actions are some practical solutions that protect homes and local businesses, reduce damage costs, and strengthen communities. Born from Carbon Literate people gaining the understanding, motivation and confidence to apply specialist skills they already have. 

But more permanent solutions to protect our water already exist. What is needed is speed, scale and support for those bearing the brunt of the costs. 

• The most obvious one is switching to clean, renewable energy that reduces the emissions that are putting water under threat. More stable temperatures mean more predictable water systems. That means lower costs for households, businesses, and governments.
• Ending fossil fuel subsidies would free up resources to invest in water systems that can cope with a changing climate.
• Holding polluters accountable would reduce the financial burden on the public.

We are all paying for fossil fuels through higher bills, damaged homes, and growing uncertainty. But we all have agency and a voice to demand more action from our governments and big corporations. Together, we are harder to ignore than any of us alone.

The post Out of Pocket: the real cost of fossil fuels on our water appeared first on 350.

Your salary doesn’t stretch like it used to. The air in your city is getting worse. Politicians promise change, and then nothing changes.  At some point, most of us have the same thought: what’s the point? The status quo will never change because the forces behind it are too entrenched, too powerful, too far gone.

But history tells a different story. Every unjust system has looked permanent and untouchable until ordinary people challenged it. All major shifts in society start the same way: someone refuses to accept things as they are. They organize. Others join them. And they don’t stop.

Again and again, local citizens have come together through peaceful, nonviolent organizing — strikes, marches, sit-ins, boycotts, blockades — and changed the course of history. Here are seven moments that show that people power can change the rules: 

In 1950s America, segregation was the social custom and the law.  Black Americans were barred from attending the same schools, eating in the same restaurants, or even using the same restrooms as white Americans. Simple acts like even sitting in the “wrong” bus seat, could lead to arrest, violence, or worse. 

American civil rights activist Rosa Parks on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. © Bettmann Archive / Getty Images

On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks, a seamstress and activist,  refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested. Within days, 42,000 Black residents boycotted the city’s buses for 381 days. They walked miles to work. Racial segregation on public transportation was abolished soon after, in 1956. The Civil Rights Act followed in 1964 making discrimination illegal once and for all. 

Until 1974, women in the US couldn’t get a credit card in their own name. In the UK, a married woman needed her husband’s signature for a bank loan until 1975. In France, women couldn’t open a bank account or get a passport without their husband’s permission until 1965. These weren’t just “rules”, they controlled women’s everyday lives, locking millions out of economic independence, healthcare, and political power.

Women’s Strike for Peace-And Equality, Women’s Strike for Equality, Fifth Avenue, New York, New York, August 26, 1970. Photo: Eugene Gordon/The New York Historical Society/Getty Images

Until women themselves organized for change. In 1968, women machinists at Ford walked out over unequal pay, halting car production across the UK and forcing the government to pass the Equal Pay Act two years later. In 1970, tens of thousands of women marched in New York for the Women’s Strike for Equality demanding equal pay, free childcare, and abortion rights. And in 1971, Swiss women won the right to vote after decades of campaigning, one of the last countries in Europe to grant it. In 1975, 90% of Icelandic women refused to work, in offices, at home, everywhere, for a single day. The country stopped working. In 1979, the UN adopted CEDAW — the first international treaty to define discrimination against women and oblige governments to end it, now ratified by 187 countries. Women demanded these rights loudly, collectively, and across generations.

Apartheid was one of the most brutal systems of racial control ever built. Introduced in 1948, it dictated where Black South Africans could live, work, travel, and whom they could marry. The government enforced it with arrests, bans, torture, and killings.

Fed up with the system, ordinary workers went on strike. Then, in 1976, Soweto’s students marched against being forced to learn in Afrikaans and were met with live ammunition. Nelson Mandela,  the leader of the African National Congress, the liberation movement that had been fighting apartheid since 1912, was locked away for 27 years to silence the movement. But it didn’t work. In 1994, after years of internal resistance, international pressure, and hard-won negotiations, South Africa held its first democratic elections with Mandela becoming president. For the first time in decades, Black South Africans could vote, run for office, and access public services without restrictions. Segregation laws were dismantled, neighborhoods and schools were legally integrated, and the country began rebuilding a more equitable society. 

Young men protest in front of police photographers in Soweto in June 1976. Photo: Doing Violence to Memory: The Soweto Uprising

The Dakota Access Pipeline was first planned to cross near Bismarck, North Dakota — a predominantly white city. Residents raised environmental concerns, and the route moved. This time, that meant crossing half a mile upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation’s only water supply, meaning any leak or rupture would contaminate the drinking water of thousands of people with oil, with no alternative source to fall back on. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe set up camp and refused to move. The protests became the largest gathering of Indigenous nations in over 150 years, with 300+ tribal nations standing together leading to the Obama administration halted construction in December 2016. The pipeline ultimately went ahead under Trump but Standing Rock changed what the world understands about whose land and water fossil fuels actually cost. The legal fight continues.

Women and children plant willow trees and corn along the pipeline route. Photo: Indigenous Environmental Network

When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 after 156 years of colonial rule, the deal came with a promise: the city would keep its own laws, courts, and civil liberties for 50 years under the principle of “one country, two systems.”

By 2019, many people in Hong Kong felt that promise slipping away. A proposed extradition law would allow residents to be sent to mainland China to face trial in a legal system with no independent judiciary and conviction rates close to 100%. For many, it felt like the beginning of the end for the city’s freedoms.

In June 2019, over two million people took to the streets, in a city of just 7.5 million. They kept marching for months, despite arrests, tear gas, and escalating repression. Beijing eventually imposed sweeping national security laws. While the movement didn’t win all its demands, it galvanized a generation, forced international attention on Hong Kong’s freedoms, and inspired ongoing efforts to protect civil liberties.

Millions gather on the streets of Hong Kong. Photo: By Studio Incendo – Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protest, CC BY 2.0

Nearly 60% of India’s population depends on agriculture. The government’s  2020 farm laws, framed as market liberalisation, proposed to dismantle a guaranteed minimum price system protecting small farmers from destitution. In a country where farmer suicides are already a public health crisis, the stakes were existential. Farmers responded with one of the largest protests in modern history. They set up camps outside Delhi and blocked highways for more than a year, in the cold, the heat, the rain and through COVID. Women were on the frontlines and around 700 farmers died during the protest. In November 2021, the government repealed all three proposed laws. Organised, patient, collective power worked against a government that looked immovable.

Indian farmers protesting in the national capital. Photo: Randeep Maddoke

Scientists had been warning about climate change since the 1980s. By the 2000s, the evidence was overwhelming: burning coal, oil, and gas was heating the planet and pushing ecosystems toward collapse. But governments were still stalling, and fossil fuel companies were still expanding. So ordinary people organized. In 2009, ahead of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, people in 181 countries took to the streets. In 2014, 400,000 people marched in New York — the largest climate march in history at the time. The following year, that pressure helped deliver the Paris Agreement, the first deal to unite nearly every country on earth around a shared commitment to limit warming to 1.5°C, the threshold beyond which climate scientists warn the consequences will become catastrophic and irreversible. Addressing the climate crisis and switching to renewable energy is now a priority on the global political agenda, because millions of people refused to stay silent.

But the fight is far from over. Today, climate disasters might still feel distant. Something happening somewhere else. But they’re getting closer. To our cities. Our homes. Our lives. And just like every movement before us, we have a choice: Watch them happen or change what happens next. See what we can do: 

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War impacts us in many more ways than we realise. When conflicts erupt, people suffer immediately. Civilians lose their lives, families flee their homes, and communities are torn apart. But wars also send shockwaves far beyond the front lines: through our energy systems, our economies, and the climate.

Right now, we’re watching this unfold in real time. A few weeks ago, on 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched military strikes on Iran, triggering a rapid escalation across the Southwest Asia (the Middle East)*. Iran struck back at US bases, Gulf states, and oil infrastructure across the region — and declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to shipping. This region sits on more than half the world’s oil reserves. What happens there doesn’t stay there. Within days, the price of oil and gas across the world was in chaos, and everyone everywhere started footing the bill.

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow strip of sea between Iran and Oman. It connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and rest of the world’s oceans. It is only about 33 km wide at its narrowest point: roughly the sort of distance you could cycle in an hour.

But its size is deceptive. The strait carries one-fifth of all the oil consumed globally every day, as well as large quantities of gas. Oil and gas from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and the UAE must pass through it before reaching the rest of the world. Any disruption like conflict, attacks, or blockades can instantly shake energy supply worldwide.

The Gulf of Oman connects the Arabian Sea with the Strait of Hormuz. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/NASA/The Visible Earth

Following the strikes on 28 February, Iran shut down the strait, not by a formal blockade but through military actions and threats which have made the strait too dangerous for most commercial vessels and caused major disruption to global oil shipping in March 2026.  Around 1000 vessels, including over 400 oil tankers, are currently backed up or waiting near the Strait of Hormuz. Oil traffic has dropped by approximately 70%. Roughly $20 million barrels of oil per day are now off the market, which around 20% of energy the world consumes. Iran also struck a major refinery in Saudi Arabia and a gas facility in Qatar, taking about 20% of the world’s natural gas supply offline.  

Analysts warn that if the strait stays closed, oil could spike to $150 a barrel. Every time that number goes up, your bills go up too. 

In the first week after the conflict began, Europe effectively paid around €1.4 billion extra for gas, according to new analysis by 350.org. Gas prices jumped from around €30 per megawatt hour to nearly €50 — a spike driven purely by market fear about supply disruptions. For households and businesses already struggling with high living costs, these spikes translate quickly into higher bills and deeper economic pressure.

Oil prices also spiked around 8% in a single day. By the end of that week, oil had surged 36% to over $90 a barrel. Diesel prices in Europe doubled. Jet fuel prices in Asia rose by nearly 200%.

Europe is not alone. Around 84% of the oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz goes to Asia, meaning more import-dependent countries are now all facing supply disruptions. In India, restaurants are warning of shutdowns as governments ration gas. Thailand has suspended civil servant travel. The Philippines and Vietnam have introduced workplace measures to cut energy use. 

While the conflict continues and fuel prices spike, the deeper crisis keeps accelerating. Fossil fuel-induced global warming has nearly doubled in pace since 2015 — rising from about 0.2°C per decade to roughly 0.35°C per decade. At this rate, the world could breach 1.5°C of warming within just a few years. New research also suggests sea levels may be significantly higher than previously estimated. All these changes will (and already) have significant impacts on our lives and livelihoods.

The fossil fuelled system driving geopolitical instability is the same one pushing us toward climate breakdown.

The Strait of Hormuz shows us something we already knew but perhaps keep forgetting: fossil fuels are not just dirty. They are dangerous. They tie the price of heating or cooling your home to wars you have no say in. And they give enormous power to whoever controls the pipelines, the tankers, and the chokepoints.

Oil tankers pass through the Strait of Hormuz, prior to the conflict. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Renewable energy offers a fundamentally different way of powering our world. Locally-led solar and wind systems cannot be blockaded at sea. They do not spill into oceans. They do not tie your energy bills to conflicts happening thousands of kilometres away. And once built, renewables provide energy for decades while fossil fuels must be burned and re-supplied every day. They are a long term solution for stability and lower prices. 

Every step away from fossil fuels is a step away from the instability and wars that come with them.

*The conflict is first and foremost a human tragedy. As violence escalates in the region, we mourn the lives lost and stand with the communities whose homes and futures are being shattered.

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This is a guest article written by Mariel Vilella, Director Global Climate Program at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, which supports local environmental justice efforts around the world to end waste pollution and implement regenerative zero waste solutions.

Around the world, momentum is growing to tackle the waste crisis in ways that also confront climate change, protect health, and strengthen local economies. This shift reflects a simple truth: the future of waste is not burning, it is prevention, reuse, recycling, and composting.

Recent reporting by the BBC described waste incineration as the dirtiest form of energy generation in the United Kingdom, reinforcing long-standing scientific and community concerns. Far from being a clean solution, waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration accelerates climate pollution, destroys valuable resources, and locks cities into outdated systems just when a circular, low-carbon transition is most urgent.

Incinerators convert nearly all carbon in discarded materials directly into CO₂, releasing it immediately into the atmosphere. Plastics, derived from fossil fuels, are especially harmful: burning one metric ton of plastic waste produces about 1.43 metric tons of CO₂-equivalent, even when energy is recovered.

Rather than reducing emissions, WTE reinforces the same linear model responsible for environmental breakdown, resource extraction, overproduction, and overconsumption. It delays the systemic change required to meet global climate goals.

The WTE incineration industry often portrays criticism of their facilities as emotional or ideological rather than science-based. This is an old-fashioned tactic to undermine the real concerns people have and the growing body of scientific evidence showing just how problematic burning waste is.

Incineration plant converts the waste into ash, flue gas and heat. Source: Trish Walker/Flickr

Large incinerators require enormous and continuous waste streams, often 100,000 tonnes or more every year for decades, to remain financially viable. The United Nations Environment Programme warns that such investments can create long-term lock-in, discouraging waste prevention, reuse, and recycling while even pushing municipalities to import waste to keep facilities running.

Several high-income regions that heavily invested in incineration, across Europe and parts of Asia—now face overcapacity, stranded assets, and slowed progress toward resource efficiency, often so-called circularity. These experiences show that burning waste is not a bridge to sustainability, but a barrier.

Incineration does not eliminate waste, it transforms it into toxic air pollution and hazardous ash. Between 25% and 30% of burned material remains as contaminated residues that must be landfilled under strict controls. Monitoring near incinerators has revealed dangerous dioxin contamination in soil, vegetation, and food sources, with public health authorities in parts of France warning residents not to consume locally produced eggs due to toxic exposure.

These burdens fall disproportionately on marginalized communities, raising profound environmental justice concerns. For example, in the UK, waste incinerators are three times as likely to be located in the most deprived and ethnically diverse areas, raising fears about air quality and the health of vulnerable people. This pattern is not unique to the UK; around the world, wealthier neighborhoods rarely have incinerators at their doorstep, while poorer communities bear the brunt of the pollution and risks.

Despite being framed as energy infrastructure, WTE is inefficient and costly:

• Electricity generation efficiency typically reaches only 20–30%, meaning it produces power at less than half the efficiency of coal-fired and modern natural gas power plants.
• Incinerators contribute around 1% of Europe’s total energy demand.
• Valuable materials, and the energy embedded in producing them, are permanently destroyed.

In many lower-income countries (e.g. Ethiopia), high organic moisture content makes incineration technically unreliable, leading to failed or underperforming projects. Far cheaper and more effective climate solutions already exist.

A truly sustainable waste and climate strategy must also deliver a just transition. In contrast to that, waste-to-energy incineration displaces the livelihoods of waste pickers and recycling workers, especially across the Global South, where millions depend on materials recovery for income, but also in the Global North, where reuse, repair, and recycling create far more employment than disposal.

By destroying recyclable materials and centralizing waste management, incineration replaces many community-based jobs with fewer capital-intensive roles. Zero waste systems do the opposite, expanding dignified work in collection, sorting, composting, reuse, and recycling while strengthening local economies and delivering rapid climate benefits.

This is why movements led by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and Zero Waste Europe are calling for:

• An end to new incineration projects
• Accountability for the toxic impacts of existing facilities
• Public investment in prevention, reuse, and recycling
• Policies that prioritize zero waste solutions and just transition for workers’ rights

Our campaigns and research make clear that burning waste undermines climate action, public health, and economic justice, while zero waste delivers benefits across all three.

Free plough on landfill site image, public domain CC0 photo. Photo: rawpixel.com

Governments, cities, and communities are increasingly moving beyond incineration toward circular, low-carbon waste systems. Financial frameworks in Europe are withdrawing sustainability recognition from waste burning, while zero waste cities worldwide are demonstrating faster emissions cuts, more jobs, and healthier neighborhoods without destroying resources.

Waste-to-energy incineration belongs to the past. Zero waste belongs to the future.

Choosing zero waste means:

• Cutting climate pollution quickly
• Protecting communities from toxic exposure
• Creating far more jobs and fairer livelihoods
• Breaking the cycle of extraction and waste

Most importantly, it ensures the transition to a low-carbon world is just, inclusive, and truly sustainable.

The solution is already in our hands.

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Last week, TotalEnergies announced a donation of food and hygiene kits to communities affected by devastating floods in Mozambique. Framed as an act of corporate responsibility, the company presented this support as proof of its commitment to people facing climate-driven disasters.

But let’s be clear: this is not climate justice. It is climate impunity, disguised as generosity.

The company’s contribution, worth around $500,000, amounts to less than one dollar per person for the more than 700,000 people affected by flooding. Families who have lost their homes, farmland, livestock, and livelihoods are being offered symbolic relief from a corporation whose core business model is driving the very crisis destroying their lives.

TotalEnergies is leading a $20 billion liquefied natural gas project in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique. This project has already displaced communities, intensified insecurity, and locked the country into decades of fossil fuel dependence. Over its lifetime, the project is expected to produce 3.3 to 4.5 billion tonnes of carbon pollution  more than the yearly emissions of every EU country added together.It was suspended after violent attacks in 2021 and has now been restarted, despite serious human rights and environmental concerns.

At the same time, Mozambique is on the frontlines of the climate emergency. Floods, cyclones, droughts, and extreme heat are becoming more frequent and more deadly. Over 450,000 hectares of farmland have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of animals have died. Communities are being pushed deeper into poverty.

The aerial view of the flooded village in Mozambique after a cyclone. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

$500,000 in humanitarian aid cannot outweigh the harm these projects cause. Limited investments in renewables or selective humanitarian gestures are often presented as evidence of transition, while overall fossil fuel expansion continues. This pattern, sometimes described as transition-washing, allows companies to preserve social licence while delaying the structural changes that climate science requires. And Mozambique is just one among many examples.  And yet despite overwhelming harm, the companies like Total, who are most responsible for fuelling this crisis continue to extract massive profits. This is the pattern we see everywhere: profits are privatised and protected, while the damage is socialised and borne by ordinary people

Climate disasters are not unexpected side effects of fossil fuel extraction. They are foreseeable, scientifically documented consequences of continued oil and gas expansion.

For decades, companies like TotalEnergies have known that their products destabilise the climate. They have funded misinformation, lobbied against regulation, and delayed action while expanding production. When a fossil fuel company offers emergency aid after a climate disaster, it is responding to harms that are built into its own business model.

What Mozambique needs, and what communities across the Global South are demanding are not occasional donations, dependent on corporate goodwill. They need guaranteed, predictable, and adequate funding for loss, damage, and adaptation.

That is why 350.org and our partners are calling for binding climate levy and damage contribution mechanisms. These would require major polluters to pay, in proportion to their emissions and profits, into global funds that support communities before and after disasters. In other words: the costs must be upstreamed.

Instead of communities paying with their lives, land, and futures, polluters must pay as part of doing business.

This is the principle behind “Make Polluters Pay.” And it is the only fair response to a crisis they helped create. Today (19th of February) sees the opening of France’s first major climate trial against an oil and gas multinational, as proceedings begin at the Paris Court of Justice.

Since 2020, a coalition of advocacy organisations, Notre Affaire à Tous, Sherpa, France Nature Environnement  alongside the City of Paris, has asked French courts to require TotalEnergies to drastically cut its greenhouse gas emissions and reduce hydrocarbon production. 

As one of the world’s largest historical emitters and among the top global oil and gas companies, TotalEnergies continues to plan production growth of around 3% per year, while maintaining the majority of its investments in fossil fuels until at least 2030. The company is linked to dozens of major new fossil fuel projects worldwide, despite clear scientific consensus that no new expansion is compatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C.A ruling in this case could mark a turning point, helping shift climate litigation from a focus on governments alone to cases capable of reshaping the business models of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies. What the Paris court decides may influence similar cases far beyond France.

A genuine phase-out is not a distant net-zero pledge. It is a planned and enforceable decline in fossil fuel production, starting immediately and continuing year after year.

According to the joint analysis by 350.org and Observatoire des multinationales in “This is what a total phase-out looks like,” ending fossil fuel expansion requires more than voluntary commitments. It requires governments to reclaim control over companies whose business models depend on continued extraction.

That means binding regulation aligned with climate science, strict limits on new approvals, and mandatory production decline pathways. It means removing shareholder primacy from decisions that determine the fate of communities. And where companies refuse to comply, governments must be prepared to use public-interest tools — including stronger regulatory intervention or public control — to redirect corporate capacity toward renewable energy and climate repair.

Phase-out also means accountability for past harm. Transparency through independent climate and human rights audits, and enforceable contributions toward loss and damage, are essential. Stopping future extraction does not erase decades of damage already inflicted.

Responsibility means:

• • Ending new oil and gas projects
  • A binding production decline plan with annual reduction targets
  • Full transparency on climate & environmental impacts
  • Ending fossil fuel lobbying and political interference
  • Redirecting capital expenditure from fossil expansion to renewable energy at scale
  • Mandatory contributions into global loss and damage mechanisms proportional to emissions and profits
  • Respecting community land and consent rights
  • Supporting a just transition to renewable energy
  • Being held legally and financially accountable for climate harm

Locals stand outside TotalEnergies in Kenya to demand an end to fossil fuel projects. Photo: 350.org

Thats why 350.org has launched our petition, momentum is building to finally move beyond coal, oil, and gas. The shift now underway internationally recognises that voluntary corporate pledges are insufficient. Governments are increasingly acknowledging that fossil fuel phase-out must be coordinated, binding, and enforceable, not left to corporate discretion. More than 80 countries are now working together on concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels and accelerate clean energy. This is exactly the kind of leadership that communities on the frontlines have been demanding for decades.

A critical international meeting in Colombia this April could help turn these commitments into binding action. If governments step up, it could mark the beginning of the end for fossil fuels, while speeding up the affordable renewable solutions that cut energy bills, create jobs, and protect our shared future.

Some major emitters, including Canada, Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, and Türkiye, have yet to join this effort. They must do so.  The choice before us is stark. We can allow companies like TotalEnergies to continue profiting from destruction while offering token gestures in return. Or we can seize this moment to build a system where polluters pay, communities are protected, and clean energy serves the public good.

The post Greenwashing in plain sight appeared first on 350.

Crossposted from the Daily Observer
Written by Amanullah Porag, 350 Bangladesh Coordinator and Youth for NDCs Founder/Executive Director 

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) victory in the country’s first democratic elections in 17 years was built on promises to restore democracy, stabilize the economy, and reform governance. But the new government has another urgent mandate: to protect people from a climate crisis that has driven at least 10 million Bangladeshis from their homes. For us, climate protection is a matter of national survival. With a staggering two-thirds of the country less than 15 feet above sea level, it is estimated that by 2050, one in seven people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change. For many years, I’ve worked with farmers who have lost their lands and homes because of encroaching sea waters. Most of them are forced to eke out a living in the sweltering streets of Dhaka, or else migrate abroad. We went to the polls hoping to correct past injustices-not just political corruption, but also systemic injustices that determine who suffers when floods destroy homes, when heatwaves turn factories into boiling rooms, when rising seas swallow farmland.

The BNP’s campaign manifesto included surprisingly clear environmental commitments: a “National Green Mission” that includes 25 million trees over five years, green jobs for youth, and a concrete target of 20% renewable electricity by 2030. Especially for a youth electorate starved of change, those green commitments matter. The question now is whether these promises will survive the BNP’s contact with power. A 20% renewable energy target by 2030 is not insignificant. If achieved, it can begin to transform an energy sector too long dominated by mega fossil fuel projects that have left people stranded with costly, unreliable electricity they can’t afford, and the country with debt it can’t pay. Unfortunately, the BNP also emphasized oil and gas exploration and refinery expansion as part of Bangladesh’s energy security measures. If the new government continues to lean into fossil fuels, it will fall prey to the same corrupt forces that doomed the nation. It should instead reform procurement, modernize grid infrastructure, and dismantle distortions that locked Bangladesh into expensive power deals.

Sure, planting trees is a good policy. But climate justice requires more. It means protecting coastal communities without displacing them for infrastructure projects. It means ensuring river erosion victims receive rehabilitation, not just temporary relief. It means designing urban heat action plans that protect workers and low-income communities. It means ending environmentally destructive projects that undermine long-term resilience. Bangladesh does not fall short on climate rhetoric, but on implementation failures. If the BNP wants to redefine governance, climate policy is where that promise will be tested most visibly. In its first 100 days, the new government must demonstrate its seriousness in addressing the energy and climate crisis that is eroding our capacity for progress.

First, it must audit all existing power purchase agreements and move to lower electricity prices. Second, it must revise the energy master plan, aligning it with climate science, economic rationality, and a just transition framework. Third, it must operationalize the national climate plan-moving beyond targets to delivery strategies, budget alignment, and accountability mechanisms. The greatest risk now is complacency. Governments often begin with reformist language but gradually slide into short-term stabilization politics, negotiated deals, and environmentally risky mega-projects justified in the name of development. We cannot allow that to happen again.

This is not yet a moment for antagonism. Youth activists, climate researchers, policy practitioners, and civil society are not adversaries of the newly elected government. Many of us have worked on climate governance and adaptation planning long before this election. If the BNP is serious about its green commitments, climate advocates stand ready to support with research, monitoring, implementation, and community engagement. But support does not mean silence. It means measurable progress, transparency, and accountability. It means speaking up when commitments drift.

The BNP’s victory reshaped the political landscape. Now it must decide whether it will reshape Bangladesh’s climate trajectory. This government has inherited more than power. It has inherited responsibility in one of the most climate-exposed countries on Earth. The elections are over-but Bangladesh’s climate test has just begun.

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The cyclone-induced flood that destroyed rice farms across Sumatra, Indonesia in late-November last year, doesn’t show up in any economic model. Neither do the weeks families spent in emergency shelters, or the infections from contaminated water, or the lost harvests farmers will spend years repaying. 

People wade through the floodwater in the aftermath of flash floods at Tukka village, Central Tapanuli, North Sumatra province, on December 2, 2025.  Photo: YT HARIONO / AFP via Getty Images

What does show up is Indonesia’s 5.11% GDP growth in 2025, a number widely deemed as proof the country was thriving. Ironically, the 51.8 trillion rupiah ($3.2 billion) the government is spending to rebuild what the floods destroyed is not really registered as a loss, in the language of economics. Recovery from massive destruction now counts as progress, as long as money changes hands.

This is a core flaw at the heart of how we measure progress in our current global economic and political systems. And now a new study involving 68 climate scientists from 12 countries, reveals we’ve been drastically underestimating the economic toll of climate change.

We hear about progress and economic growth constantly. From headlines to election promises and budget announcements. It’s presented as proof a country is doing well, and if the country is doing well, our lives must be improving too.

In practice, growth actually measures almost entirely one number: GDP, or gross domestic product. It adds up the total value of goods and services produced in a country over a given period. When GDP rises, businesses are assumed to be producing more, hiring more workers, paying more wages. When it falls in hard times, like during the 2009 global financial recession and COVID-19., companies cut back, jobs vanish, incomes shrink.

This pattern has made GDP become the dominant yardstick of success. Governments pursue it, economists track it, politicians campaign on it. What began as a technical economic measure has become shorthand for whether a society is moving forward or falling behind.

Which means key government decisions including budgets, rest on economic models built around the GDP. These models shape how much governments spend on healthcare, housing, schools, transport, climate action and other public services to make life better for ordinary citizens. 

Despite their widespread use, economists have long acknowledged that GDP doesn’t measure wellbeing, health, inequality, or quality of life, the actual, vital indicators that show whether people are doing well.

Now, a study led by the University of Exeter has revealed that these models have an additional, critical blind spot: they fail to account for the cascading shocks of climate change which are the extreme events and tipping points that can rapidly unravel livelihoods, infrastructure, and entire economies.

Most economic models treat climate damage as slow, gradual, manageable. They focus on global average temperatures, which are projected to rise steadily from around 1.2°C of heating today toward 2°C in coming decades, and estimate damages based on those smooth trends.

But that’s not how climate impacts unfold in the real world.

Climate change doesn’t raise your local temperature by 1.5°C and wait politely for you to adapt. It floods your city on a Tuesday in March. It burns your forest in a week. It kills your crop in a single heatwave while economists debate smooth curves and average temperatures.

The study shows that we and the systems we rely on suffer most from such sudden shocks and local and regional disasters, not from small, gradual shifts in global average temperaturs. A sudden flood destroys crops, leading to food prices spiking. Power stations go offline so factories shut down. Heatwaves overwhelm hospitals and workers fall ill. Roads and ports close, breaking supply chains. One shock triggers another in what the researchers call “cascading failures.”

Going a step further, the study also argues that GDP-based metrics give a fundamentally warped picture of progress because they miss what matters most to people: lives, health, ecosystems, social stability. In fact, after disasters, GDP can even rise because rebuilding and emergency spending count as ‘economic activity’. Destruction can register as success, and this is dangerous. 

For instance, in the US, climate-related costs – including disaster recovery, repairs, and surging insurance premiums- are responsible for $7.7 trillion, or 36%, of the country’s GDP since 2000, meaning a significant chunk of what we call “growth” is actually disaster recovery spending.

LAKE LURE, NORTH CAROLINA – SEPTEMBER 28: The Rocky Broad River flows into Lake Lure and overflows the town with debris from Chimney Rock, North Carolina after heavy rains from Hurricane Helene on September 28, 2024, in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Approximately six feet of debris piled on the bridge from Lake Lure to Chimney Rock, blocking access. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

By missing the cascading failures and compounding shocks that define climate risk, today’s economic models create a false sense of safety. Precise-looking numbers incentivise governments and investors into delaying action — playing down impacts, skipping hard choices, and chasing short-term wins like political successes over long-term protection for citizens. Meaning we skip early planning and investment. We leave people unprotected. Governments underfund prevention while spending vastly more on disaster response after it’s too late.. For example, Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico in 2017 and caused $90 billion in damage. The island had received minimal pre-disaster mitigation funding because models suggested the risk was manageable. Pakistan’s 2022 floods displaced 33 million people and caused $30 billion in damage; early warning infrastructure that could have saved lives had gone unfunded for years.

Destroyed homes and vehicles sit in floodwaters after Hurricane Maria in this aerial photograph taken above Hamacao, Puerto Rico, on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. Photo: Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg

By the time governments react, lives are already lost, damage costs have skyrocketed, and recovery drags on for years while displaced families wait for aid that’s never sufficient. Prevention looks expensive until disaster strikes, but when it does then recovery costs six times than what prevention would have required. And this is crucial extra public money that could have been spent on schools, hospitals, housing, and the basic services communities need to thrive.

The consequences of this miscalculation are staggering. The study’s findings reveal that missing catastrophic shocks and cascading failures could lead to GDP losses as high as 50% between 2070 and 2090–losses that don’t appear in the models guiding policy decisions today.

If growth is supposed to mean progress, then our metrics must reflect the conditions that make life better — safety, health, stability, and jobs. And there are ways to measure these conditions directly: is housing affordable? Do people have access to clean air and water? Are we prepared for climate disasters?

The pieces for such a different approach are already in place. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the world’s accounting systems fail to place real value on the environment, and that the global economy must stop rewarding pollution and waste disguised as production and growth.

Around the world, governments, economists, governments and researchers are testing and developing alternative measures of progress that incorporate long and healthy life indicators including environment and social factors like the Human Development Index and Genuine Progress Indicator, inclusive wealth measures that track natural and human capital alongside economic production, and emerging climate-risk-adjusted indicators like Climate Risk Index designed to reflect the he human and economic toll of extreme weather that existing models ignore.

What’s needed now is for decision-makers to abandon the incomplete and dangerous models currently shaping vital societal decisions that don’t serve the world we live in now, and move toward more realistic and inclusive measures that also account for the reality of the climate crisis. Investors, too, should recognize that every dollar flowing into fossil fuel infrastructure today accelerates the very shocks that will destroy portfolio value tomorrow.

Indonesia’s GDP may be rising, but families are still repaying loans for harvests that have drowned. India is losing more people to pollution each year while economists celebrate a ‘booming’ economy. These oppositions may have found a place in our current accounting systems, but they mustn’t in our real lives.

Sources:

1. The public is losing patience with promises of economic growth – Public Finance, July 2025. https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2025/07/public-losing-patience-promises-economic-growth
2. GDP Over Breath: How Systemic Failure Chokes India’s $5 Trillion Dream – ESG News, January 16, 2026. https://www.esgnews.earth/latest-news/gdp-over-breath-how-systemic-failure-chokes-indias-5-trillion-dream/16263.html

1. Indonesia Expects $3 Billion Rebuild After Deadly Floods – Insurance Journal, December 8, 2025. https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2025/12/08/850172.htm
2. Mortality in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria – The New England Journal of Medicine. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972

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The climate crisis doesn’t always arrive as a sudden headline-grabbing disaster. Sometimes, it creeps up quietly: in shrinking rivers, failing wells, and communities being forced to “use less” of what they barely have. But make no mistake: what looks like scarcity is actually theft. Theft of a stable climate. Theft of reliable rainfall. Theft of the water systems that have sustained life for millennia.

A new report from the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) “Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era”  warns that the world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy.” It means we are using and damaging freshwater systems faster than nature can replenish them and in many places, the damage is irreversible.

This is what the climate crisis looks like when it hits the systems that sustain life. And it’s being driven by the same forces destroying our climate: fossil fuel extraction, industrial agriculture, and an economic system that treats nature as an infinite resource to exploit for profit.

For decades, policymakers and researchers have described global water challenges as a “water crisis” or “water scarcity.” But scholars have long warned that this crisis framing fails to capture the reality of long-term, structural decline. The word “crisis” sounds temporary. Bankruptcy means something more permanent and more concerning. It describes a system that’s been used up so badly that it can no longer simply bounce back.

The UNU report documents a scale of loss that makes this distinction unavoidable:

• Roughly 70% of the world’s major aquifers (underground layers of rock and soil that store water) are in long-term decline. 
• Rivers that once flowed to the sea now run dry for months each year. 
• Over half of the world’s large lakes have lost water since the early 1990s. 
• The world has lost an estimated 410 million hectares of natural wetlands over the past five decades, nearly the size of the entire European Union. These were ecosystems that once stored water, buffered droughts, and regulated local climates.

Perhaps most alarming, the world has lost more than 30% of its glacier mass since 1970. These “frozen water towers” once released meltwater during dry seasons, sustaining billions of people. Their disappearance is the liquidation of nature’s water savings account — with no mechanism for repayment.

Almost all the world’s glaciers are shrinking and fast. Credit: Copyright 2011 Michael C Smith

Bankruptcy essentially means you can’t restore what’s been permanently lost. Compacted (squeezed out) aquifers can never store water again. Extinct species don’t return. Glaciers that took millennia to form won’t regrow in our lifetimes.

Water bankruptcy is being locked in by climate breakdown, which in turn is driven overwhelmingly by the burning of fossil fuels i.e. coal, oil, and gas. Here’s how climate change is destroying our water systems:

• Rising temperatures intensify the water bankruptcy spiral: Every fraction of a degree of global warming increases evaporation from soils, rivers, and reservoirs. Hotter air sucks moisture from the land, turning what would have been manageable dry spells into devastating droughts. The report documents how drought is increasingly “anthropogenic”, meaning it’s not just about lack of rainfall, but about human-caused warming, land degradation, and over-extraction combining to create permanent water deficits.

An Indian man takes bath under the tap of a water tanker on a hot day in Ahmadabad, India. Heat wave conditions prevailed as temperature rises in many parts of India. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

• Extreme rainfall creates the cruel paradox – floods without recharge: At the same time, climate change is intensifying rainfall. Storms arrive in violent bursts that flood cities and wash water away before it can infiltrate soils. More than half of global agricultural land is now moderately or severely degraded, meaning it cannot absorb and store water. Communities experience the cruel paradox of flooding and water shortage in the same year or sometimes in the same month.

• Melting glaciers: short-term surge, long-term catastrophe: Glacier melt illustrates the danger of mistaking short-term increases for security. As glaciers melt faster, rivers may briefly swell. But once glaciers shrink past critical thresholds, dry-season flows collapse permanently. For the 1.5 to 2 billion people who depend on glacier-fed river systems such as the Indus, Ganges-Brahmaputra, and Andean rivers, this means water supplies that sustained entire civilizations are disappearing.

• Industrial agriculture and extractive industries devour and pollute water: Around 70% of global freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture, much of it for water-intensive monocultures in regions that cannot sustain them. Meanwhile, mining, fossil fuel operations, and industrial pollution render vast volumes of remaining water unusable. Water may still exist on paper, but functionally it is gone, too contaminated for drinking, farming, or healthy ecosystems.

The scale of water bankruptcy is quite extensive and ever- growing: 

• Nearly 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity at least one month per year
• 2.2 billion people still lack safely managed drinking water
• 3.5 billion lack safely managed sanitation
• Over 1.8 billion people were living under drought conditions in 2022-2023
• Drought-related damages cost over $307 billion per year worldwide — more than the annual GDP of three-quarters of UN member states.

But statistics only tell part of the story. Water bankruptcy shows up in daily realities no one should have to face. Farmers watch wells fail after generations of reliability and go into debt drilling deeper into aquifers that will soon collapse. Girls walk farther for water instead of attending school. Informal settlement residents pay more for less reliable water from tanker trucks while wealthy neighbourhoods maintain green lawns. Entire communities are forced to move as water sources disappear. Rising food prices as irrigation fails and harvests decline, pushing the poorest households into deeper poverty and hunger. 

Young women and girls carry water in Nigeria. Credit: Flickr

And here’s the brutal irony: the communities facing water bankruptcy today are often those who’ve contributed least to the climate crisis but are protecting the water systems everyone depends on like Indigenous water guardians stewarding watersheds, small-scale farmers practicing sustainable agriculture and communities resisting extractive industries and defending rivers from pollution.

Their knowledge and their resistance are being ignored while their water is being stolen by the same systems driving climate chaos.

Every year governments delay ending coal, oil, and gas, ordinary people pay the price, not in abstract climate targets, but in higher food prices, worsening health, lost livelihoods, and growing insecurity. Water bankruptcy is another consequence that makes those costs impossible to ignore.

The solution is not complicated. End fossil fuel expansion. Phase out coal, oil, and gas. Invest in clean energy and resilient, public, community-led water systems. Set binding limits on industrial water extraction. Align climate policy with the reality that there is no livable future without functioning water systems.

What happens next depends on whether leaders continue protecting polluters or finally choose people, justice, and a livable planet.

Sources

• Global Water Bankruptcy Report – UNU-INWEH (2026)
• Fossil Fuels Did This: How the Industry Drives Drought – 350.org
• The Planetary Boundaries Framework – Stockholm Resilience Centre
• Water Conflict Chronology – Pacific Institute
• UN 2023 Water Conference Outcomes

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This is a guest article written by Jean McLean, Director of Engagement at the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), a global movement for green and fair economies.

Results from the Green Economy Coalition’s latest Global Green Attitudes Survey reveal a loud and consistent demand: People around the world, want more radical and transformative government action – not just on the environment, but on the economic systems driving the climate and nature breakdown.

And they don’t just want small “green tweaks” either, they want economies reshaped to serve the people and the planet, not pollution and profit.

Despite today’s shaky politics, the survey, which polled over 10,000 people across 10 countries, is clear: support for climate action is strong across countries and income levels. What’s missing now isn’t public backing, its political courage.

Compared to the same survey in 2024, the political and economic context has become even more challenging. Since our first wave of research, the cost-of-living crisis has continued to bite. Trump’s re-election has emboldened right-wing populists and their pro–fossil fuel agenda, while “green hushing” has crept into government, corporate, and even civil society spaces, with sustainability quietly reframed, deprioritised, or hidden.

Yet even in this climate of economic anxiety and political retrenchment, our survey found that the public has not turned away from environmental action. Instead, people increasingly recognise that today’s economic model is failing them as well as the planet — driving inequality, locking in pollution, and leaving households exposed to rising costs and environmental risk.

And crucially, the survey shows just how deep that support runs: 84% of people globally would choose stronger environmental protection even at the cost of slowed economic growth.

The polling reveals a powerful and consistent message: people want governments to lead a systemic economic transformation, not rely on voluntary action or individual sacrifice.

• 88% of people globally say governments should be doing more to combat climate change.
• 82% support prioritising public investment in clean energy, even when this requires significant government spending.

These are not abstract environmental preferences. They reflect a growing understanding that public investment, regulation, and economic planning are essential to building resilient, fair economies: ones that deliver decent jobs, affordable energy, and healthy environments.

And yet, only 42% of people believe their government is taking more action now than last year to protect the environment. The result is a widening credibility gap between what people know is needed and what governments are prepared to do.

Crucially, the survey shows that people do not see the green transition as something households can, or should, carry alone. The biggest barrier to more sustainable choices is not apathy or unwillingness, but lack of government support, cited by 52% of respondents globally.

This is especially pronounced in lower-income countries, where citizens are often most exposed to environmental harm while having the least influence over global economic rules. In countries such as Nigeria, Turkey, and South Africa, over 60% identify government inaction as the main obstacle.

When asked what would help, people pointed to:

• Better laws and stronger regulation
• Increased funding for environmental programmes
• Support for green jobs and environmentally responsible businesses

In other words, people are asking governments to reclaim their role in shaping the economy, rather than outsourcing responsibility to individuals and markets that reward pollution and short-term profit.

Trust in political leadership remains worryingly low. Just 39% of people globally trust political leaders to make the right decisions for a sustainable future. But this collapse in trust has not dampened ambition.

Instead, people are calling for bold reforms that challenge business-as-usual: stricter regulation of pollution, stronger accountability for corporations, and public investment to steer economies towards long-term wellbeing, even if this means economic trade-offs in the short term.

This reflects a growing public understanding that an economy designed around endless growth, extraction, and inequality is neither sustainable nor desirable. People are ready for a new direction — one that measures success by health, resilience, and shared prosperity, not just GDP.

Taken together, the findings leave no room for doubt. Governments already have a clear public mandate to act on climate, on nature, and on the economy itself.

Reclaiming our economies means: 

• • putting people and the planet back at the centre of decision-making.
  • using public policy to reward care, restoration, and long-term value  and to hold polluters to account. 
  • moving beyond rhetoric, towards real investment, regulation, and reform.

People are already doing their part. They are ready for change. The question is whether political leaders are willing to listen, and to finally use the tools they have to build economies that work for everyone.

What do we want? Economies that serve people and the planet. When do we want them? Now.

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The world can feel like it’s moving in two directions at once. One day, leaders talk about climate action and the next, we see fresh drilling pushes and new fossil deals, from the Arctic to Asia and South America. But the bigger truth is this: the ground is shifting beneath the polluter industry, because the world is leaving fossil fuels behind and already rapidly moving onto clean, renewable energy. 

That’s why January 26, the International Day of Clean Energy, is fitting a moment to celebrate progress, and to double down on a just energy transition that works for everyone. Here are eight reasons we should feel hopeful today:

Clean energy isn’t “emerging” anymore, it’s already outcompeting fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency projects around $2.2 trillion in clean energy investment in 2025, compared to roughly $1.1 trillion going into oil, gas, and coal. That’s the transition happening in real time. And it’s not slowing down: clean investment has outpaced fossil investment for years, and the gap keeps widening as technology improves and costs fall.

Despite weak consensus outcomes at the annual UN talks, COP30, in Brazil this past November, the diplomatic track is shifting. During the Summit, more than 80 countries from the Global South and Global North jointly called for a roadmap to phase out coal, oil, and gas. That matters because it shows unanimous agreement isn’t a necessary condition for political momentum for climate action. Countries are increasingly treating fossil fuel phaseout as a shared destination, and building the political alignment to get there. For instance, A growing “coalition of the willing” is building real phaseout architecture. Hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands’, the world’s first conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels this year in April aims to design “legal, economic, and social pathways” for a just transition beyond coal, oil, and gas. The goal isn’t a theoretical one-size-fits-all exit, it’s a practical, achievable roadmap tied to jobs, protection, and real opportunity.

Investor behavior too, is shifting in a clear direction. Not because “green” is fashionable, but because fossil-heavy assets look increasingly risky in a changing world. In a Morgan Stanley survey of 950+ major investors, most said they plan to increase sustainable investing over the next two years. The logic is straightforward: future-ready assets look safer and more profitable over time, while fossil dependence creates volatility, stranded assets, and reputational risk. 

Big investors are no longer willing to bankroll fossil companies that can’t prove they have a credible plan for the transition. That shift is already visible: in December 2025, Swedish pension fund AP7 cut off investments in companies it judged incompatible with climate goals. This is how the phaseout accelerates in practice, not just through speeches, but through capital discipline. “Business as usual” is becoming a financial liability, not a safe bet.

The legal “reasonableness standard” is moving upward, closer to what climate science actually requires. On July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion strengthening what states owe on climate action, including on fossil fuel production and subsidies. It’s not binding, but it’s directional: the legal centre just shifted. That means more pressure, more scrutiny, and more risk for governments and corporations that keep expanding fossil fuels.

Clean energy is not only about cutting carbon. It’s about making daily life safer and more affordable: lower bills, cleaner air, and resilience in the face of energy and price shocks. When communities can generate and control power locally, through distributed solar, storage, and public renewables, they’re less exposed to global fuel price spikes and corporate profiteering. The transition becomes real when people can feel it: stability, dignity, and control over essential services like energy.

Campaigners and climate activists aren’t the only ones saying “stop drilling.” Even the International Energy Agency, one of the world’s most mainstream energy institutions, has made the case in its Net Zero pathway: a future where no new oil and gas fields should be approved for development beyond those already committed. That’s not radical politics. It’s basic risk management in a world that can’t afford more fossil lock-in. The safest investment now is building the clean energy system faster.

A fast energy transition is now the cheapest option on the table. A University of Oxford study found shifting to renewables by 2050 could save the global economy at least $12 trillion in energy system costs, even before counting avoided climate disasters. That’s because renewables are technologies, not commodities: costs fall as we scale. Over the last decade, solar fell ~90%, wind ~70%, and battery storage ~85% — while the sun and wind stay free. 

As we celebrate real progress toward a 100% renewable future, we can’t forget this: climate disaster is already here, and stopping fossil fuel expansion is the bare minimum for survival.

Clean energy is rising. But so are floods, fires, heatwaves, bill shocks, and fossil disasters. So the path forward has to do two things at once: end the harm, and build the alternative.

Governments and regulators must stop approving new oil, gas, and coal projects — and end fossil subsidies. When floods, fires, heatwaves, or bill shocks hit, alongside the media, we must connect the dots fast: this damage is driven by political choices that protect polluters. Courts must enforce climate and liability laws, hold governments and companies accountable for harm, and unlock compensation through litigation. Insurers must price climate risk honestly, withdraw cover from new fossil projects, and stop shielding polluters from the real costs of their damage.

Fossil fuel companies shouldn’t profit while communities pay the price. Governments must enforce real accountability through liability, levies, and an end to fossil impunity — so recovery and resilience are funded by those who caused the damage.

Governments, regulators, utilities, and cities must deliver affordable, resilient clean power people can feel. That means investing in distributed renewables, storage, and grids — plus tools like lifeline tariffs and free basic electricity where possible. 

Investors, banks, and insurers must stop financing expansion and shift capital toward clean energy solutions that are credible, community-backed, and built to last.

We make the shift away from fossil fuels real by organizing locally and forcing decision-makers to act. When a crisis hits, we show up, naming who’s responsible and demanding protection and justice. 

This is how we win: make fossil expansion harder, and make real alternatives easier.

The post 8 reasons to celebrate on this International Day of Clean Energy appeared first on 350.

A new report from Oxfam Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power shows billionaire wealth reached $18.3 trillion in 2025, the highest level in human history. That’s more than the GDP of China, the world’s second largest economy. In fact, since 2020, billionaire wealth has increased by 81%.

All of this happens while one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat, and nearly half the world lives in poverty. Families face rising costs for basics like food, rent, and electricity. Public services are stretched thin. Climate disasters hit harder and more often.

But what is worrying is that this small group holding extreme wealth, isn’t just buying luxury. They are buying control. Political outcomes. And of course, more fossil fuels. Billionaire power is building a dystopian, unliveable world with many government allies helping lock it in. Here is how: 

Oxfam’s report is clear: extreme wealth doesn’t sit quietly in bank accounts. It gets turned into political control. Alongside getting richer, billionaires are tightening their grip on the institutions meant to serve the public.

The research finds that billionaires are now 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people. That imbalance shapes real decisions, deciding what gets funded, what gets blocked, and whose voices are ignored.

And when billionaire political interests dominate, the consequences are brutal and predictable:

• climate action slows, fossil fuel expansion is protected, regulation is weakened, and public money gets funnelled into corporate profit instead of community needs.
• People demanding justice face crackdowns, shrinking civic space, and rising repression.

Oxfam points to the US Trump administration as a warning sign: a pro-billionaire government agenda that slashes taxes for the super-rich, undermines global cooperation to tax corporations, rolls back action on monopoly power, and boosts billionaire portfolios. But this isn’t confined to one country. Oligarchy is going global, and it’s undermining societies everywhere.

And it doesn’t stop at economic policy. Oxfam warns that civil liberties and political rights are being rolled back globally. 2024 marked the nineteenth successive year of decline, with a quarter of countries curtailing freedom of expression. When people protest, governments increasingly respond with violence.

In 2025, billionaire wealth surged by $2.5 trillion which is what is held by the bottom half of humanity (4.1 billion people). Oxfam estimates this money would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.

At the same time, people are told there’s “no money” for clean energy, resilient infrastructure, or strong public services. Communities are pushed to accept austerity and “tough choices,” while extreme wealth concentrates at record speed.

Oxfam links these choices to real harm: governments slash aid budgets, directly hitting people living in poverty and potentially contributing to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030.

The result is a world where life feels more unaffordable and more unstable, and where climate action gets treated like an optional extra, instead of a survival plan.

Billionaire lifestyles are high-emitting, and that matters. But the deeper problem runs through the economic model itself: billionaire wealth is built on extraction and climate plunder.

Many billionaires profit directly from industries tied to pollution and destruction: fossil fuels, mining, deforestation, and corporate land grabs. Their money shapes the political decisions that keep these industries protected, subsidized, and expanding.

And the fallout hits everyone else: higher bills, weaker public systems, polluted air and water, and escalating climate risks. Communities in the Global South and frontline regions pay first and worst while the people most responsible stay insulated from the damage.

Billionaire power doesn’t stop at politics. It reaches into the media and the information systems we rely on every day.

The Oxfam report shows how billionaire power doesn’t stop at politics — it spreads into the media and information systems we rely on every day. Billionaires now own more than half of the world’s largest media companies, and they also control all the main social media platforms, giving a tiny group of ultra-rich people enormous influence over what information gets amplified, what gets buried, and how public debate is shaped.

Oxfam points to examples like:

• Jeff Bezos’ purchase of The Washington Post, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X, and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s ownership of the Los Angeles Times.
• In France, the report highlights how far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré took control of CNews and reshaped it into a French version of Fox News.
• And in the UK, Oxfam notes that three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by just four super-rich families.

This concentration of media power matters because it doesn’t just influence what people read, it shapes what people believe is possible, normal, or worth fighting for. Oxfam warns that when billionaires dominate media and social platforms, minority voices and dissenting perspectives get pushed out, while scapegoating and disinformation spread more easily. The report points to structural exclusion too: only 27% of top editors globally are women, and just 23% belong to racialized groups, reinforcing whose stories get centered, and whose get ignored.

This also fuels polarization, making it harder to build the public pressure needed for real climate action, and easier for fossil fuel interests to keep operating in plain sight. And while we’re distracted, the fossil fuel machine keeps running.

Oxfam also shows how governments enable this captured information ecosystem. Governments allow billionaire control of platforms to deepen, and in some cases even use these platforms to track, punish, and silence critics. Oxfam points to Kenya, where authorities use X to track, punish, and even abduct and torture government critics. And after Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter/X, one study found hate speech increased by around 50%, showing how billionaire control over platforms can rapidly reshape what’s normal, visible, and tolerated online.

When billionaires control the narrative, they don’t just defend their wealth, they protect the system that keeps them on top.

The climate crisis demands more than good targets and speeches. It demands a shift in who holds power. Governments need to stop pandering to the ultra-rich and start delivering for people and the planet. That means:

• taxing extreme wealth to reduce its political dominance
• investing in renewable energy, clean transport, social housing, and strong public services
• protecting civic space and the right to organize and protest
• building real firewalls between wealth and politics

People are already pushing for this shift. Across countries, communities are organizing, demanding accountability, and refusing to accept a world run by billionaires and fossil fuel corporations.

Billionaire power is real. But people power is bigger. And when we move together, the future changes.

The post Billionaire Wealth Just Hit $18.3 Trillion. Why that’s bad news for the rest of us. appeared first on 350.

This is a guest article written by Jean McLean, Director of Engagement at the Green Economy Coalition (GEC), a global movement for green and fair economies.

With the cost of living spiralling out of control, affordability is now the key factor determining whether climate action gains public support or faces opposition.

Zohran Mamdani’s recent successful mayoral campaign in New York was based on concrete affordability pledges to make life more affordable to New Yorkers: rent freezes, fare free buses, city owned grocery stores, raising the minimum wage, baby baskets for newborns and no-cost childcare. The UK and Australian governments have taken note of this success and have prioritised addressing the cost of living and affordability as key to electoral success. Climate leaders need to take note. 

This success can be replicated! We know that the money exists to prioritise affordability for the general public, what we need is political will. Leaders must urgently switch to cleaner energy alternatives as they are proven to be cheaper than fossil fuels, bringing down energy costs for everyone. Taxing big polluters, the ultra-rich and using those funds towards public investment is a popular and necessary action.

For years, climate misinformation has tried to convince people that a green transition is a luxury not an inevitability. Despite the millions spent on disinformation, public opinion tells a very different story. Across countries and political contexts, people increasingly understand that clean energy is not the cause of rising costs — it is one of the most powerful solutions to them.

Our latest Global Green Attitudes polling shows a remarkably strong global public consensus: 

• 82%  per cent of respondents believe investment in clean energy should be a top government priority, even if it requires significant public spending. 
• An even larger share — 88%— agree that stronger laws are needed to support renewable energy like solar and wind.

Notably, this support has held steady despite inflation and increasing economic anxiety.  

As cost-of-living pressures deepen, people are judging energy choices on a simple test — will this lower my bills? As routine household bills become the main source of financial stress, renewable energy offers both an economic solution and a political opportunity for governments prepared to act.

Crucially, public perceptions are already shifting in clean energy’s favour. Many people already see clean energy as cost‑competitive or cheaper than fossil fuels. In the United States, a majority now believe clean energy costs the same or less than oil and gas. Globally, renewable electricity is routinely 30–50 per cent cheaper than new fossil fuel generation. 

In this context, this year’s polling data reveals an interesting dynamic between public support for environmental action and the perception of government performance: 

• People want lower bills and place responsibility for this squarely on governments. 
• The public wants transformative government action, such as public investment, fair rules, and accountability for polluters while also holding low trust in political leaders to deliver this. 
• Many are feeling  deeply frustrated  at political inaction as inflation and economic anxiety increase.

What is missing from climate action is not public backing then, but policy creativity. Clean energy can deliver affordability, good jobs, and energy security — if leaders choose to act. 

From free or discounted solar power programs to large‑scale investment in grids, storage, and clean industries, the solutions exist. Renewables already save countries trillions in avoided fuel imports and shield households from price shocks.

The choice facing leaders is stark. Continue delaying in service of fossil fuels  or unlock a future where clean energy is understood for what it truly is: clean, common‑sense, and cheap. The public is ready. The question is whether governments are willing to listen.

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A climate deadline has arrived absurdly early this year. New research from Oxfam shows that by 10 January 2026, the world’s richest 1% had already used up their entire annual carbon budget. The budget is the amount of pollution they could generate over the whole year so that global heating stays below 1.5°C, the limit to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. 

The richest 0.1% blew past their limit even earlier, on 3 January. Oxfam calls this moment Pollutocrat Day. It puts a timestamp on a reality that’s impossible to ignore: a small, wealthy minority is driving the climate crisis, while everyone else pays the price.

To stay within the 1.5°C. limit, each person’s annual carbon allowance works out to about 2.1 tonnes of CO₂.

For the richest 1%, that fair share is exhausted almost immediately. Oxfam finds they emit 75.1 tonnes per person per year, or 0.206 tonnes per day, meaning it takes just 10.2 days for someone in the richest 1% to burn through an entire year’s carbon budget. In fact, this 75 tonnes of CO₂ per person each year is over 35 times the level compatible with 1.5°C.

The inequality becomes even more glaring at the very top. More data from Oxfam shows that a person in the richest 0.1% produces more carbon pollution in a single day than the poorest 50% emit in an entire year. If everyone polluted at the rate of the richest 0.1%, the global carbon budget would be used up in less than three weeks.

The consequences of this unchecked pollution are deadly. Emissions from this group in a single year are expected to cause 1.3 million heat-related deaths by the end of the century. Over time, this excess pollution is projected to cause $44 trillion in economic damage in low- and lower-middle-income countries.

To stay within 1.5°C, the richest 1% would need to cut their emissions by 97% by 2030. Meanwhile, those who have contributed least to the crisis — including communities in climate-vulnerable countries, Indigenous Peoples, and women and girls — are already facing the harshest impacts, from deadly heat to food insecurity, floods, and displacement.

Beyond their own lifestyle emissions from private jets and super-yachts, the super-rich are also bankrolling climate breakdown through their investments. Oxfam finds that the average billionaire’s portfolio is tied to companies producing 1.9 million tonnes of CO₂ every year, locking the world into fossil fuel expansion.

That economic power is reinforced by political influence. The wealthiest individuals and corporations are able to shape rules in their favour, ensuring polluting industries remain protected. At the most recent UN climate talks, COP30, in Brazil, for example, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered every national delegation except the host country, with around 1,600 lobbyists in attendance. This level of access makes it far easier to delay action and weaken climate commitments.

Extreme wealth does not just mean higher emissions, it sustains a system built around fossil fuels and profit. This moment calls for more than outrage. It raises a deeper question: whose interests are governments choosing to protect? 

As the year unfolds and climate impacts like heatwaves and wildfires continue to intensify around the world, governments must be willing to challenge systems that reward pollution and individuals that hoard extreme wealth. 

Instead of doubling down on and expanding fossil fuels, and competing for control over oil, gas, and other critical resources, there is another, clearly better option. Oxfam points the way forward for our governments to:

• Make the richest polluters pay through higher taxes on extreme wealth and income
• Impose excess-profit taxes on fossil fuel corporations
• Ban or heavily tax carbon-intensive luxury items such as private jets and super-yachts
• Shift investment toward renewable energy and people-centred solutions

Pollutocrat Day is a warning. The climate crisis will not be solved by asking everyone to do the same while a small elite continues to pollute without limits. Real action means ending fossil fuel expansion, confronting extreme wealth, and putting people and the planet before profit.

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