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Peak cofounder and CEO Landon Mossburg told Utility Dive the technology is “purpose-built” for AI data centers and grid-scale applications.

Independence Day is a cause for remembrance and celebration. Unfortunately, celebratory fireworks can literally frighten birds to death. Although beachside fireworks shows are entertaining to...

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.

Does solar energy need subsidies to compete with fossil fuels?

Unsubsidized utility-scale solar is now generally cheaper than building fossil fuel power plants.

Costs are often compared using “levelized cost of energy,” the average lifetime cost to build and run a power plant divided by the electricity it produces. A 2025 analysis estimates the mean LCOE of utility-scale solar at about $58 per megawatt-hour without subsidies, compared to $79 for new natural gas plants and $128 for new coal. The International Energy Agency reports solar energy is the cheapest source of new electricity generation in most parts of the world.

Solar costs have fallen sharply over the past decade as panel prices have dropped and the industry has grown. Subsidies can further lower costs, but solar is not dependent on them to compete with fossil fuels.

Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact

This fact brief is responsive to quotes such as this one.

Sources

International Energy Agency World Energy Outlook 2020

Lazard Lazard Releases 2025 Levelized Cost of Energy+ Report

Reuters Around 90% of renewables cheaper than fossil fuels worldwide, IRENA says

Scientific American Wind and Solar Energy Are Cheaper Than Electricity from Fossil-Fuel Plants

Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles

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About fact briefs published on Gigafact

Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer "yes/no" answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.

As wildfire risk grows, there are increasing calls to “bury the lines.” Undergrounding has its place, but it's not the only answer, writes Cameron Brooks, executive director of Think Microgrid.

More power, cooling and IT equipment is moving outside data halls in a shift that could help “future-proof” computing facilities, a company executive told Facilities Dive.

The lawyer who successfully led a landmark challenge on onshore oil and gas at the Supreme Court was appointed an OBE in the King’s birthday honours.

Estelle Dehon KC (third from left) with campaigner Sarah Finch (third from right) and the Weald Action Group legal team outside the Supreme Court after the landmark judgement on climate emissions, 20 June 2024. Photo: DrillOrDrop

Estelle Dehon KC received the honour for services to environmental law.

She is one of the UK’s leading environmental and climate law barristers.

She was named planning and environment silk of the year in the Chambers UK Bar Awards 2024. She has been on every ENDS Report power list of environmental professionals since 2022 and received a climate law and governance global leadership award at the COP27 climate conference. She was also named environmental/sustainability bar champion of the year at the Legal 500 UK ESG Awards 2024, and barrister of the year at The Lawyer Awards 2025.

Ms Dehon, of Cornerstone Barristers, said yesterday:

“I am absolutely bursting with pride and happiness to receive an OBE. And for services to environmental law! I never even dreamed that such a thing could happen. I am both thrilled and profoundly moved that it has and am also deeply grateful to those who nominated me, who clearly dream bigger than I do.”

Ms Dehon secured what became known as the Finch Ruling at the Supreme Court almost two years ago. The result required decision-makers to take into account carbon emissions from burning onshore oil and gas production.

The decision immediately quashed planning permission at the Horse Hill oil site in Surrey. It led to withdrawal of consent for oil production at Biscathorpe in the Lincolnshire Wolds and expansion of the Wressle oil site in North Lincolnshire.

The ruling also influenced decisions on the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in the North Sea, permission for a new UK deep coalmine, infrastructure developments and industrial-scale agriculture.

Ms Dehon said:

“With greenhouse gas emissions still rising; adaptation still so slow and the degradation of nature continuing apace while being normalised in political speech, it is easy to be demotivated.

“But the legal community has so much ability to effect positive change. Our voices are heard in places of power across society. Now is the time we must use them.”

Last year, Ms Dehon argued in a legal opinion that proposals by Europa Oil & Gas at Burniston qualified as fracking under North Yorkshire’s planning policy. In 2016, she represented Friends of the Earth at the planning inquiry on Cuadrilla’s fracking plans at Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood in Lancashire.

Ms Dehon has been a trustee of the UK Environmental Law Association since 2019 and for three years was a trustee of the Women’s Environmental Network.

Since 2022, she has been co-chair of the Bar Council’s climate crisis working group. In 2023, Ms Dehon founded Cornerstone Climate, a cross-disciplinary centre for climate litigation and advice. She recently led production of The Cornerstone Climate Guide: Key Concepts and Definitions. The guide aimed to promote greater understanding of climate-conscious language and remove barriers to understanding key concepts, legislation and policy.

The federal government is preparing to spend billions training 100,000 skilled workers under its Team Canada Strong agenda, without a clear plan for the economy those workers are meant to serve.Instead, Canada should align workforce planning, funding...

The project is expected to come online in 2029 and store enough energy to power around 4,275 homes for 10 hours, Salt River Project said.

A barbed wire fence surrounds the forced labor camp in Pahokee, FL, where two workers escaped hidden in the trunk of a car, their escape ultimately leading to the recent forced labor prosecution, US v Moreno. After escaping, the workers reported their experience to the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. The CIW took the case to federal authorities and assisted in the investigation of the successful prosecution. Kroger was found to be linked to the forced labor ring as a buyer of watermelons harvested by workers entrapped by the criminal conspiracy. US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida: “The victims in this case were deceived by conspirators and subjected to deplorable conditions while being exploited for greed and profit.” Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office: “Villatoro Moreno and his co-conspirators lured victims from Mexico with false promises of fair wages and good working conditions. It was all a lie… In addition to harsh and extreme working conditions, the workers were subjected to poor living conditions, charged excessive expenses, and endured humiliating treatment and threats.” US Department of Justice Press Release: “The Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, which includes the FBI, HSI, and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigated the case. The Task Force received assistance from the Department of Labor Office of the Inspector General, the Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division, the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, (and) the Coalition of Immokalee Workers…”

Since its inception in 2010, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Fair Food Program has brought life-saving human rights guarantees to hundreds of thousands of farmworkers and helped transform the practice of farm labor management on farms from Florida to California. Indeed, the FFP has ushered in nothing short of a human rights revolution in the fields for nearly two decades now, eliminating longstanding abuses in our country’s trillion-dollar food industry ranging from systemic wage theft and deadly working conditions to sexual assault modern-day slavery. 

Along the way, many of the world’s largest retail food brands have joined the Fair Food Program — including household names like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Whole Foods — recognizing the program’s unique power not just to remedy abuses after they have happened, but actually to prevent human rights violations altogether, and so to prevent the full-blown public relations crises that can occur when egregious abuses are connected to popular consumer brands through their supply chains. Here at the FFP, we call that invaluable risk mitigation capacity of the program the “Power of Prevention”, and we are proud not only of the FFP’s immense impact on farmworkers’ lives over the past 16 years, but of its impact on our participating buyers’ and participating growers’ business practices and supply chain management, as well. 

It’s really quite simple: Sometimes the best headline is the headline that never happens, especially when that headline is a US Department of Justice press release connecting yet another brutal forced labor prosecution to your company’s supply chain. And yet…

All too many retail food brands — among them many well-known companies like Publix, Kroger, and Wendy’s — still refuse to join the FFP. Instead, they continue to cling to the long-discredited “Corporate Social Responsibility” playbook, claiming — against ample and painful evidence — that their supplier codes of conduct and occasional social audits are effective and sufficient to address any labor abuses in their suppliers’ operations. As a result, there are still far, far more farmworkers who toil beyond the reach of the Fair Food Program’s powerful protections than there are who harvest our food in the FFP’s environment of dignity and respect.

And that’s why the CIW continues to uncover and help prosecute modern-day slavery cases on non-FFP farms, including the recent case US v. Moreno, which came to light after two workers hid in the trunk of a car driven by a Good Samaritan who helped the workers escape the control of their crewleader and call the CIW to report the rampant abuse and threats they had experienced at the camp. That slavery case cast a national spotlight on the growing issue of forced labor in agriculture, and inspired the CIW’s 5-day, 50-mile march from Pahokee, FL to Palm Beach — home of Wendy’s former board chairman Nelson Peltz. When announcing that the defendant in the case had been sentenced to nearly a decade in prison, the US Department of Labor also disclosed that Kroger, a long-time Fair Food Program holdout, had been buying watermelons from the forced labor operation. 

Today, we want to share an update on that case and, in that context, take a moment to reflect on the FFP’s unique “Power of Prevention”. 

Here below is the latest update from the US Department of Justice on US v. Moreno — including the announcement that Alexander Villatoro Moreno, who was a critical player in the forced labor ring, was extradited from Mexico, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and just received a 70-month prison sentence:

Mexican National Pleads Guilty to Racketeering Conspiracy Involving the Forced Labor of Mexican Workers

Alexander Villatoro Moreno, age 53, also known as Quichi, pleaded guilty in federal court in Tampa, Florida, to conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. A federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida had previously returned a six-count indictment against multiple defendants for their roles in the conspiracy, which victimized Mexican H-2A workers who, between 2015 and 2017, had worked in the United States harvesting fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products.

According to court documents, Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants operated and managed Los Villatoros Harvesting (LVH), a farm labor contracting company, that functioned as a criminal enterprise compelling victims to work in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and North Carolina. Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants fraudulently recruited Mexican nationals to come into the United States on short-term, H-2A, agricultural visas and misled the United States to secure visas for the victims. Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants charged workers exorbitant recruitment fees to work for LVH and lied to the victims about how much they would be paid, the hours they would work, the working conditions and the reimbursement they would receive for paying recruitment fees and other expenses. The workers were then compelled to provide long hours of physically demanding agricultural labor, six to seven days a week, for far less pay than they were entitled to under the law.

In addition to the work conditions, Villatoro Moreno and his co-defendants used various coercive means to compel the victims’ labor, including imposing debts on workers; confiscating the workers’ passports; subjecting workers to crowded, unsanitary and degrading living conditions; verbally abusing and humiliating the workers; threatening workers with arrest, jail time and deportation; isolating workers by preventing them from interacting with anyone other than LVH employees; and threatening to physically harm the workers’ family members back in Mexico if the workers failed to comply with their demands.

When officials began investigating, Villatoro Moreno obstructed the federal investigation by helping to prepare false payroll information to conceal underpayments to the workers and distributing fake reimbursement receipts to the victims to make it appear that LVH was complying with the law by reimbursing the workers for their travel-related expenses.

In the course of the investigation, one worker told prosecutors: “All this time, I could not return to Mexico for fear that something would happen to me. That the Villatoros had paid someone to kill me.”   In the press release announcing Villatoro Moreno’s sentencing, representatives from the Department of Justice had this to say:  “The victims in this case were deceived by conspirators and subjected to deplorable conditions while being exploited for greed and profit,” said US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida. “Today’s judgment sends a clear message that we will leverage the resources of our law enforcement partners to uphold our nation’s immigration laws and vigorously prosecute those who engage in human trafficking.”   “Villatoro Moreno and his co-conspirators lured victims from Mexico with false promises of fair wages and good working conditions. It was all a lie,” said Special Agent in Charge Brett Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office. “In addition to harsh and extreme working conditions, the workers were subjected to poor living conditions, charged excessive expenses, and endured humiliating treatment and threats. Not only is this wrong, but it is also against the law. Investigating this case was a team effort. I commend the Palm Beach County Human Trafficking Task Force, the Department of Labor, the Diplomatic Security Service, and numerous workers’ rights groups for their close cooperation.”   “Today’s sentence sends a clear message that those who exploit vulnerable workers and engage in forced labor will face serious consequences,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Jose R. Figueroa of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Miami Field Office. “We are committed to protecting workers, safeguarding the integrity of the H‑2A program, and relentlessly pursuing those who manipulate the immigration system. HSI will continue to leverage partnerships across the government, with private industry, and around the world to combat forced labor and disrupt crimes of victimization…”  Read more of the DOJ press release here    The Power of Prevention

While successful slavery prosecutions of individual farm bosses provide a measure of justice for victims, they are a limited and ultimately insufficient tool if the goal is to end forced labor altogether.

First, prosecutions are inherently backward-looking. By the time a case reaches court, workers have already endured the abuses typical of forced labor operations — physical violence, psychological trauma, sexual abuse, and dangerous or even deadly working conditions. Even when justice is served, it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully repair the harm inflicted on those victims.

A Fair Food Standards Council auditor (left) interviews a worker on an FFP farm

Moreover, the legal framework used in forced labor prosecutions generally targets the employers closest to the workers: crewleaders and farm bosses directly involved in the abuse. Those higher up the supply chain — from farm owners to the retail brands purchasing the produce harvested by exploited workers — almost always emerge unscathed. Though they may have known, or should have known, about the abuse, and though they often benefit indirectly through lower labor costs and lower prices, they rarely face consequences when a crewleader is convicted of forced labor.

Early on in the CIW’s three-decade fight against human trafficking, it became clear that prosecutions alone would never end forced labor. If the movement’s broader goals — ending modern-day slavery in the fields and creating a world without victims — were ever to be achieved, something more was needed. The solution lay in addressing the underlying economics that had made slavery and other widespread farm labor abuses possible for generations.

The incentives were clear. For decades, major food retailers used their enormous purchasing power to push prices lower and lower throughout their supply chains. As farm-gate prices fell, growers struggled to survive on increasingly thin margins, often by suppressing wages and minimizing labor costs. Combined with weak and infrequent enforcement of labor laws, this created a system in which those who violated workers’ rights were effectively rewarded — whether through wage theft, sexual harassment, or forced labor — and rarely punished for their crimes.

As Warren Buffett’s longtime investor partner Charlie Munger famously said, “Show me the incentives, and I’ll show you the outcomes.” That principle applies as much to farm labor management systems as it does to financial markets. When economic pressures encourage abuse and legal protections are weakly enforced, exploitation flourishes. But the reverse is also true. When protecting workers is rewarded, and violations carry meaningful consequences, outcomes change. Abuses decline, accountability increases, and the possibility of a world without victims comes into view.

That is not merely a theory.

Since the launch of the Fair Food Program in 2010, incentives on participating farms have been fundamentally transformed. By leveraging the purchasing power of participating buyers, the FFP rewards growers who comply with its labor standards through continued business and preferential purchasing, while growers who violate workers’ rights risk losing access to major markets.

Just as importantly, the program protects workers who report violations. Retaliation itself is a serious violation that can jeopardize a grower’s relationships with some of the largest food buyers in the world. The result is a powerful system of worker-driven monitoring that ensures abuses are identified quickly and violators face real consequences. As a result, forced labor, sexual violence, and other severe human rights abuses have been effectively eliminated on participating farms for nearly two decades.

That is the “Power of Prevention” in action.

Central to the program’s success are the CIW’s legally binding agreements with participating buyers, who commit to preferentially purchasing from suppliers that comply with the FFP’s labor standards and suspending purchases from those who don’t. These market incentives helped transform Florida’s tomato industry from what federal prosecutors once called “ground zero for modern-day slavery” into what one human rights expert described on the front page of The New York Times as “the best workplace environment in U.S. agriculture.” No comparable system exists elsewhere in American agriculture.

Had the Fair Food Program been operating on the melon farms involved in the U.S. v. Moreno case, its protections and enforcement mechanisms would have dispelled the climate of fear among workers and detected even minor abuses before they escalated into forced labor. Yet buyers of those melons, including Kroger, continue to reject participation in the program. Instead, they rely on a failed model of voluntary standards and social audits that has repeatedly proven incapable of protecting workers or preventing abuse.

That is why nationwide expansion of the Fair Food Program is so urgently needed.

As Fair Food allies, you play an indispensable role in expanding the market power behind the program. By making your voices heard in executive offices and corporate boardrooms, you help pressure companies to take responsibility for labor conditions in their supply chains.  Farmworkers need your continued support to ensure that companies such as Kroger, Publix, and Wendy’s embrace genuine, worker-driven social responsibility and join the Fair Food Program.

Stay tuned for an upcoming digital action where you can help call on more corporate buyers — including Kroger, Publix, and Wendy’s — to join the Fair Food Program.

Researchers are increasingly digitizing plant and fungi specimens and using A.I. to analyze them, work that is transforming conservation science, according to a new report.

Read more on E360 →

The South Carolina Public Service Commission dismissed calls from the Sierra Club to impose a cost cap on the Canadys project or require the utilities to commit to retiring coal-fired units.

Three reports published Monday lay out recommendations for development of an offshore transmission system and highlight the potential for high voltage direct current technology.

Dark clouds are gathering over adaptation finance. The US has all but stopped providing it and European countries are slashing their aid budgets to spend more on their militaries. Much of what is flowing comes in the form of loans and doesn’t reach the most vulnerable, as we’ve reported.

Over the years, one bright spark has been the Adaptation Fund and its grants to developing countries for pioneering work in communities. It has allocated $1.6 billion to 226 projects, benefiting 90 million people, its website says. And, while rich nations are failing to give the fund all the money it needs to finance its growing pipeline, new revenues are supposed to come in from the Paris Agreement’s new carbon market, known as Article 6.4.

Back at COP26 in Glasgow, governments agreed that the Adaptation Fund should get 5% of the proceeds from all Article 6.4 carbon credits – other than those based in small islands and least developed countries.

How much money that will amount to is uncertain. It depends on how many projects there are and the price of their credits. 

The fund got over $200 million from a similar share of proceeds under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), although the price of those credits collapsed. 

While $200 million was a disappointment as ten times that was expected, the Adaptation Fund head Mikko Ollikainen told Climate Home News in Bonn that the sum was “not insignificant”. By comparison, the fund has been seeking $300 million per year from donor governments in recent years.

Hopes are that the CDM’s successor will yield bigger sums for adaptation. But for the fund to get its hands on the share of cash it is expecting from Article 6.4 projects , governments need to agree to transition the fund to “exclusively” serve the Paris Agreement. They are hoping to wrap up those talks in Bonn this week, so that they can rubber-stamp the decision early at COP31.

• Jun 15, 2026 News Bonn Bulletin: Finance dominates discussions in every room Lack of progress on finance issues – including putting a number on the new goal to triple adaptation funding – is causing blockages across negotiating tracks at UN climate talks Read more
• Jun 12, 2026 Sponsored Climate adaptation helps African nations tackle rising conflict over resources The growing overlap between insecurity and climate vulnerability is forcing governments and development agencies to rethink adaptation efforts Read more

It has not been plain-sailing. As small islands’ lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen told a press conference on Tuesday, this transition “is being blocked, frustrating efforts to replenish the fund and ensure that the crucial adaptation finance can flow to those that need it the most”.

This issue, along with other finance complaints, leads small islands “to question whether the implementation of the NCQG [the 2035 finance goal agreed at COP29] is dead on arrival”, she added.

The problem is related to who is considered a developed country at UN climate talks, with the responsibilities for providing climate finance that designation implies.

Traditional donor countries, which have been pushing for years for some wealthier developing countries like Saudi Arabia and China to contribute to climate finance as well, want the Adaptation Fund’s board seats to be split between “developed” and “developing” countries. 

They argue that these are the categories referred to in the Paris Agreement and so are appropriate for a fund that exclusively serves that accord.

Developing countries – which have long opposed any of their members being considered developed – argue that the board seats should continue to be split between “Annex 1” and “non-Annex 1” countries. 

These categories, based on lists of nations drawn up in 1992, are more rigid than “developed” and “developing”. While development status can change over time, you’re either on the Annex 1 list or you’re not.

Ollikainen said a delay in agreement beyond COP31 – a risk if the issue is not resolved here in Bonn – would harm people in the real world where adaptation needs are rising sharply while the money to protect them from worsening climate impacts is not.

“If we don’t address adaptation,” the fund’s head told Climate Home News, “that will lead to loss and damage and that’s going to be even more costlier than adaptation – and the cost will be borne by people who have done least to cause this problem who typically don’t have social safety networks to support them.”

The post Bonn Bulletin: Adaptation Fund stalemate puts people at risk, says head appeared first on Climate Home News.

Headline News:

• “Trump Retreats from Lawsuit Challenging Illegal Wind Ban” • The Trump administration has voluntarily dismissed its own appeal in a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s executive order banning wind project development in the US. The judge had ruled the order was “capricious and arbitrary.” This effectively ends the unlawful windpower ban. [CleanTechnica]

CVOW (BOEM-OPA, CC BY-SA 2.0, cropped)

• “Spain’s Renewables Revolution Is Paying Off” • New analysis shows that Spanish households have each saved €10 per month on their electricity bills since the Hormuz strait was effectively closed in March. In the Spanish’s transition to renewable energy, the influence fossil fuels have on the electricity price has been reduced by 75% since 2019. [Euronews]
• “Cuba Quantifies Impact Of US Oil Blockade On Children’s Health And Daily Life” • The survival rate for Cuban children with cancer has fallen from 85% before the US energy blockade began in January to 65%, according to a report from Cubadebate. The report said 100,000 children younger than seven can’t even get a daily liter of milk from the state. [ABC News]
• “Gas Prices Fall Below $4 A Gallon, GasBuddy Says” • After an agreement between the US and Iran, the national average price of a gallon of gas stands at $3.99, marking a decline of more than 9¢ over the past week, according to a GasBuddy post. Gas prices, however, continue to register well above where they stood before the Iran war. [ABC News]
• “Circularity Cuts Cost Of Making Sustainable Aviation Fuel From Bio-Methane” • In recent six-month trial, Circularity Fuels showed that biogas from a California dairy farm manure digester was successfully converted to a drop-in aviation fuel. It meets the ASTM D7566 Annex A1 specifications in use for the jet engines of commercial aircraft. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

satu alasan utama meningkatnya popularitas Slot QRIS Indonesia adalah kemudahan dalam penggunaannya. Pengguna tidak perlu lagi menghafal nomor rekening atau melakukan proses transfer yang panjang. Cukup dengan memindai kode QR melalui aplikasi perbankan maupun dompet digital, transaksi dapat diselesaikan dalam hitungan detik.

Kemudahan tersebut memberikan pengalaman yang lebih nyaman, terutama bagi generasi muda yang telah terbiasa dengan layanan serba digital. Di tengah mobilitas yang semakin tinggi, metode pembayaran yang cepat menjadi kebutuhan yang sulit dipisahkan dari aktivitas sehari-hari.

Didukung Ekosistem Digital yang Terus Berkembang

Pertumbuhan penggunaan QRIS juga tidak lepas dari dukungan ekosistem digital nasional yang semakin matang. Berbagai bank dan penyedia layanan keuangan telah mengintegrasikan QRIS ke dalam aplikasi mereka, sehingga pengguna memiliki banyak pilihan untuk melakukan transaksi.

Kondisi ini menciptakan lingkungan yang mendukung adopsi teknologi secara luas. Semakin banyak masyarakat yang mengenal dan menggunakan QRIS, semakin tinggi pula tingkat kepercayaan terhadap sistem pembayaran tersebut. Efeknya terlihat pada meningkatnya jumlah transaksi digital yang memanfaatkan metode QR setiap tahunnya.

Keamanan Menjadi Nilai Tambah

Selain praktis, faktor keamanan turut berperan dalam mendorong popularitas Slot QRIS Indonesia. Sistem ini dirancang dengan standar yang telah ditetapkan untuk memastikan proses transaksi berlangsung dengan lebih aman dan terverifikasi.

Pengguna tidak perlu membagikan informasi rekening kepada pihak lain saat melakukan pembayaran. Seluruh proses dilakukan melalui aplikasi resmi yang telah dilengkapi berbagai lapisan keamanan, sehingga risiko kesalahan transaksi dapat diminimalkan.

Menjangkau Berbagai Kalangan Pengguna

Popularitas Slot QRIS Indonesia juga didorong oleh kemampuannya menjangkau berbagai lapisan masyarakat. Tidak hanya pengguna perbankan konvensional, pemilik dompet digital pun dapat memanfaatkan metode pembayaran ini dengan mudah.

Fleksibilitas tersebut membuat QRIS menjadi solusi yang relevan bagi masyarakat urban maupun daerah yang mulai beralih ke layanan keuangan digital. Dengan satu standar pembayaran yang dapat digunakan di berbagai platform, pengalaman transaksi menjadi lebih sederhana dan konsisten.

Perubahan Gaya Hidup Digital Masyarakat

Meningkatnya penggunaan QRIS mencerminkan perubahan gaya hidup masyarakat Indonesia yang semakin mengandalkan teknologi dalam berbagai aktivitas. Mulai dari pembayaran makanan, transportasi, hingga layanan digital, semuanya kini dapat dilakukan melalui satu perangkat yang selalu berada di tangan pengguna, yaitu smartphone.

Perubahan ini menunjukkan bahwa masyarakat semakin menghargai kecepatan, efisiensi, dan kemudahan akses. QRIS hadir sebagai jawaban atas kebutuhan tersebut, sehingga tidak mengherankan jika popularitasnya terus meningkat dari waktu ke waktu.

Prospek yang Masih Terbuka Lebar

Melihat tren yang berkembang saat ini, popularitas Slot QRIS Indonesia diperkirakan masih memiliki ruang pertumbuhan yang besar. Dukungan pemerintah, sektor perbankan, serta meningkatnya literasi digital masyarakat menjadi fondasi kuat bagi perluasan penggunaan QRIS di masa mendatang.

Di tengah percepatan transformasi digital nasional, QRIS telah berkembang menjadi lebih dari sekadar metode pembayaran. Sistem ini menjadi simbol perubahan menuju transaksi yang lebih modern, praktis, dan terintegrasi. Dengan berbagai keunggulan yang ditawarkan, tidak mengherankan jika semakin banyak masyarakat yang memilih QRIS sebagai bagian dari aktivitas digital mereka setiap hari.

Dr. Stacy Jupiter is the Executive Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Marine Program. Melissa Wright is Bloomberg Ocean Initiative Lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies. 

For years, the dominant story on coral reefs has been one of inevitable loss, with news headlines focusing on mass bleaching, ecosystem collapse, and catastrophic tipping points. As ocean temperatures continue to rise, many people have come to see the decline of the world’s reefs as unavoidable. 

The threats are real and urgent, but new evidence points to a more complicated and useful conclusion: some reefs still have a meaningful chance to survive and recover, provided they are protected. 

A major new analysis, published today with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, identifies more than 165,000 square kilometers of coral reefs, across 71 countries and 100 territories and jurisdictions, with the strongest potential to withstand and recover from climate impacts. 

Drawing on more than 45,000 coral surveys, along with decades of climate and ocean data, the research finds that three times more reefs may be capable of surviving the climate crisis than previously understood. That has major implications for reef-dependent communities, food security, coastal protection, fisheries, tourism, and national economies. 

• Jun 5, 2026 Nature Offshore oil and gas expansion threatens key marine ecosystems, report warns Sea life in countries like Kenya is under threat from planned new oil and gas production, analysis by environmental groups has found Read more
• Jun 11, 2026 Comment The Pacific made history in the courts – now we must do it in the negotiations Legal clarity alone will not lead to reduced emissions, more finance or stronger national climate plans – political will is key to meeting states’ obligations Read more

Essential natural infrastructure for communities

The findings make clear that reefs will not all respond to climate impacts in the same way. Some are located in rare underwater cool spots that can help shield them from extreme heat. Some show greater resistance to bleaching and other climate-related stress. Others recover more quickly after severe disturbances. These differences matter because they show where protection can have the greatest long-term impact. 

More than 500 million people depend on reefs for food, livelihoods, and coastal protection. For those communities, climate-resilient reefs are not an abstract conservation priority. They are essential natural infrastructure. They help protect coastlines, sustain fisheries, support local economies, and reduce climate risk. Because ocean currents move coral larvae and marine life between reef systems, some of these reefs may also help regenerate wider reef ecosystems after climate shocks. 

This should change how governments, funders, and conservation partners prioritize action. 

Comment: The ocean, our planet’s forgotten hero, deserves a formal place in UN climate talks

Climate change remains the greatest long-term threat to coral reefs. At the same time, many of the pressures pushing reefs closer to collapse are immediate and local. Sewage pollution, deforestation, agricultural runoff, destructive fishing practices, and poorly managed coastal development continue to damage reefs that are already under stress. Recent research shows that water pollution and fishing pressure are now among the leading local threats affecting nearly two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs. 

These pressures can be reduced. Governments and local partners are already working to improve reef management, cut pollution, strengthen enforcement, and protect critical ecosystems. Those efforts need to move faster, alongside much stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Prioritising climate-resilient reefs

The new maps of climate-resilient reefs give governments, communities, and reef managers a clearer basis for action. They show where reefs have the strongest potential to persist over time, and where protection can deliver the greatest benefits for people, coastlines, and economies. 

Right now, only around 28 percent of the identified climate-resilient reefs fall within protected or conserved areas. If these reefs are among the most capable of surviving climate impacts and helping regenerate broader reef systems, they should be prioritized for protection, management, and investment. 

The case for action is practical as well as ecological. Healthy reefs can reduce wave energy by up to 97 percent, helping protect coastlines from storms, flooding, and erosion. They support fisheries that feed millions of people, sustain tourism jobs and local economies, and help reduce climate risk for vulnerable coastal communities. 

For many families, a healthy reef means food, income, and protection when storms hit. For Indigenous Peoples and coastal communities, reefs are also tied to culture, heritage, identity, and traditional knowledge systems. 

Ocean conservation must catch up

Governments are beginning to recognize the urgency of protecting climate-resilient reefs. At last year’s UN Ocean Conference in Nice, 11 countries signed a declaration committing to stronger protection of these reefs, including action to address destructive fishing, pollution, and unsustainable coastal development.

As leaders meet in Kenya this week to discuss the challenges facing the world’s ocean, more governments should join the declaration and help build a broader coalition committed to safeguarding these critical ecosystems. 

As coral reefs pass tipping point, ocean protection rises up political agenda

Some countries are already showing what this leadership can look like. Brazil has included corals in its national climate plans. The Bahamas is embedding reef protection into national policy and local stewardship systems. The declaration offers a way to build on these efforts and scale them globally. 

But commitments will not be enough. Success will depend on implementation. That means stronger protection and management, reduced local pressures, increased investment, and meaningful support for the Indigenous Peoples and local communities stewarding these ecosystems. 

The science is clear. Many reefs still have the capacity to persist and recover. The question is whether policy and investment will move quickly enough to protect them, so they can continue sustaining communities, economies, and coastlines for generations to come. 

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The oceanic phenomenon known as El Niño, which increases temperatures worldwide, has officially begun, according to U.S. weather forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. 

Meteorologists have warned that this could be the strongest El Niño this century. It is expected to drive extreme weather events around the world, including both severe droughts and heavy rainfall, likely leading to major disruptions in agricultural production and food security. 

El Niño is part of a cyclical, naturally-occurring weather pattern that redistributes warm air, surface water temperatures, and moisture across the tropical Pacific Ocean. During El Niño, trade winds that typically blow east-to-west from the Americas to southeast Asia slow down or sometimes reverse. Normally, these winds push warm water along the Equator — but during El Niño conditions, that warm water shifts back east. Although El Niño does not follow a specific timeline, it typically occurs every two to seven years. 

Beginning in the summer, El Niño typically peaks around December or the following January. (The pattern was named El Niño — Spanish for little boy — by fishermen in South America who noticed warmer waters around Christmas time, and associated it with the birth of Jesus Christ.) That means the most significant impacts of the cyclical weather phenomenon may not be felt until months from now. NOAA’s most recent calculations show a high likelihood of a “very strong” El Niño, meaning average surface temperatures in the Pacific jump by more than 2 degrees Celsius. (Some experts are calling this year’s a “super” El Niño, although some agencies, like the World Meteorological Organization, reject this language.)  

Because it impacts a “diverse set of geographies,” said Weston Anderson, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland, so “there is no one set of impacts.” El Niño can contribute to severe droughts in one part of the world and heavy rainfall in others — both of which can disrupt growing seasons in key breadbaskets of the world. 

But the ways in which this year’s El Niño will interact the effects of global warming — and what that means for food security — is something scientists are still actively observing and untangling. 

The typical impacts of El Niño to the continental U.S. and Canada during Northern Hemisphere winter. NOAA

“That question is still really important open science,” said Jennifer Burney, a professor at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability whose work focuses on climate and food security. 

History can give us some examples. In 1877, one of the strongest El Niños ever recorded was associated with historic droughts across Asia, as well as in parts of Brazil and northern Africa. These droughts, “along with colonial policies contributed to famines in many regions which were really devastating,” said Deepti Singh, an associate professor at Washington State University who co-authored a study on this period of global famine. 

The fatalities associated with these famines, upwards of 50 million people, said Singh, “are humbling to think about.”

The last El Niño occurred in 2023 and 2024. It was one of the five strongest El Niños ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization, or WMO, and is considered to have contributed to the historic temperatures in 2024, making it the hottest year on record. 

That year came with devastating consequences for growers, especially in arid regions where agricultural producers primarily rely on rainfall to irrigate their crops. Droughts driven by El Niño across southern Africa contributed to increased food insecurity and malnutrition in several countries. 

Burney noted that in some vulnerable regions, local governments may have adaptive strategies in place to grow key crops earlier in the growing season or to increase imports during El Niño years, which can help offset food insecurity. But even in those cases, local farmers who depend on growing and selling crops to support themselves and their families may still experience economic setbacks. In other words, certain policies may ensure there’s “enough food,” but “that’s not going to take care of the people whose livelihoods depend on” agriculture, Burney said. 

This year, El Niño conditions are expected to impact a number of growing areas — another setback for agricultural producers who have faced higher input costs stemming from the Iran War. Although the United States and Iran are potentially set to unveil an agreement to reopen the all-important Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil flows, farmers worldwide have already been impacted by fertilizer shortages and price hikes since the passage closed this spring. 

Weather variability fueled by El Niño will add to growers’ woes. India, where the majority of the world’s rice comes from, is projected to have a weaker monsoon season, which could reduce yields. Drier, hotter conditions could lead to diminished maize production in southern Africa. The southern U.S. states, from California all the way to the eastern seaboard, will experience a wetter year than normal, which could lead to flooding and upend crop production. 

But the exact way that this El Niño will unfurl is yet unknown. As El Niño interacts with the additional warming and moisture currently in our atmosphere caused by climate change, “there is likely to be a change in which regions are likely to be affected” by extreme weather, said Singh. Still, she added, we can expect “the severity, extent, and likelihood” of extreme weather events like droughts “to be higher” in today’s warmer climate.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The ‘super El Niño’ is here. What happens next could upend food systems worldwide. on Jun 16, 2026.

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