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A vast Arctic seascape at dusk. Shell-branded icebreakers grind through cracked ice toward a drilling rig while Greenpeace activists unfurl banners from a small vessel. Above the scene, a giant translucent eye made from documents, camera lenses, email printouts and spy files watches everything. Dark satirical editorial style, cinematic lighting, high contrast, sharp detail. Enlarge image. 

How Shell’s long war with Greenpeace ran from Brent Spar to Arctic drilling, Hakluyt’s undercover games, the Phillips letters, and the uncomfortable Donovan surveillance trail PART ONE: FACT-BASED TABLOID DEEP DIVE THE ICE, THE COURTS AND THE CORPORATE PEARL-CLUTCHING

There are corporate rivalries. There are activist campaigns. And then there is Shell versus Greenpeace — a decades-long opera of rigs, boycotts, court orders, Arctic ice, reputational carnage and, lurking in the wings, the little matter of private intelligence, undercover activity, and Shell critics wondering exactly who was watching whom.

The immediate source story is a March 2012 Petroleum News report about Shell telling the federal District Court in Alaska that it intended to file information about Greenpeace activists occupying two Finnish icebreakers, the Nordica and Fennica, contracted to support Shell’s planned drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas during the Arctic open-water season. Shell had already asked the court for an injunction against Greenpeace, seeking to restrain the environmental group’s direct-action campaign against its Arctic drilling plans.

In corporate language, this was about safety, lawful operations and protecting vessels.

In plain English, Shell wanted to drill in the Arctic, Greenpeace wanted to stop it, and the lawyers were summoned to referee yet another round of Big Oil versus Big Banner.

And what a familiar match-up it was.

2012: SHELL GOES TO COURT AS GREENPEACE GOES TO THE ICE

The 2012 Alaska court fight came during Shell’s expensive and controversial push into Arctic offshore drilling. To Shell, the Arctic was a frontier of future supply. To Greenpeace, it was a frozen warning label: a climate-threatened region being turned into the next hydrocarbon hunting ground by companies that had apparently looked at melting ice and thought, “Excellent, easier access.”

The Petroleum News article reported that Shell wanted the court to take account of Greenpeace’s occupation of the Nordica and Fennica, both contracted to support its planned drilling campaign in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

Greenpeace’s argument was not hard to decode either: the real danger was not the protester on the vessel, but the fossil-fuel project the vessel supported.

That is the Shell–Greenpeace conflict in miniature. Shell says the immediate crisis is activists disrupting operations. Greenpeace says the crisis is the operations.

One side points at the dinghy. The other points at the drill bit.

BUT THIS DID NOT START IN ALASKA

To understand the Arctic clash, you have to go back to Brent Spar, the 1995 North Sea confrontation that turned Shell into a corporate communications cautionary tale.

Shell planned to dispose of the Brent Spar oil storage buoy at sea. Greenpeace occupied it and turned the disposal plan into a European media storm. Greenpeace later summarised the campaign with the slogan: “The sea is not a dustbin.”

The images were made for television: activists, helicopters, water cannon, a giant industrial structure and Shell discovering that technical authorisation is not the same thing as public permission.

The backlash spread across Europe. Shell petrol stations faced boycotts. Greenpeace says Shell’s German sales fell by roughly 50 percent during the Brent Spar controversy.

Shell eventually abandoned the sea-disposal plan. Greenpeace later acknowledged that one of its claims about the amount of oil remaining inside Brent Spar had been wrong — a point Shell has never tired of remembering.

But politically, the damage was done. Brent Spar became a legendary example of what happens when a company with a permit runs into a public that thinks the sea is being treated as a corporate skip.

Shell wanted to sink a structure. Instead, it helped float a movement.

NIGERIA, BRENT SPAR AND THE REPUTATIONAL INFERNO

Brent Spar was not Shell’s only 1990s public-relations inferno. The same decade brought international outrage over Shell’s operations in Nigeria and the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni activists by Nigeria’s military regime in 1995.

This matters because the later Hakluyt exposé linked Shell’s post-Brent Spar anxieties to a wider atmosphere of protest, threat, reputational crisis and activist pressure. The archived Sunday Times report states that Shell’s then media-relations director Mike Hogan said Shell had talked to Hakluyt about what intelligence could be gathered after some petrol stations in Germany had been firebombed or shot at.

Nobody sensible dismisses threats of violence against staff, customers or assets. Companies are entitled to protect people and property.

But the harder question is where legitimate security ends and political surveillance of critics begins.

That is where Hakluyt enters the Shell story like a man in a raincoat stepping out of a very expensive doorway.

THE HAKLUYT AFFAIR: WHEN SHELL’S GREENPEACE PROBLEM ACQUIRED AN EX-MI6 AFTERTASTE

In June 2001, The Sunday Times published a front-page investigation alleging that Hakluyt, a private intelligence firm founded by former MI6 officers, had spied on environmental campaign groups to gather information for oil companies including Shell and BP.

The report, republished and archived by CorpWatch and Royal Dutch Shell Plc.com, said Hakluyt used a German operative, Manfred Schlickenrieder, who posed as a left-wing filmmaker while collecting information on Greenpeace and other campaigners.

The Sunday Times archive states that Hakluyt’s operation began in April 1996, after Mike Reynolds, a Hakluyt director and former MI6 head of station in Germany, was asked by Shell to find out who was orchestrating threats against Shell petrol forecourts across Europe after Brent Spar and Nigeria-related protests. The same archived report says Shell confirmed it had been Hakluyt’s client until December 1996.

The allegations were dynamite because they shifted the story from “Shell faces activist pressure” to “Shell’s world included private intelligence activity around environmental critics.”

And once that smell gets into the curtains, no amount of corporate Febreze quite removes it.

Shell’s likely defence is obvious: it was concerned about violent threats and security risks. That is a serious point.

But Greenpeace and other critics were left asking the equally serious counter-question: how much of this was genuine security, and how much was corporate intelligence-gathering against inconvenient campaigners?

A company that wants to be seen as a responsible energy major does not help itself when the cast list starts to include former spies, undercover operatives and codenames.

This was not stakeholder engagement.

This was stakeholder engagement wearing dark glasses.

THE PHILLIPS LETTERS: WHEN SHELL’S OWN LAWYERS PUT ‘ENQUIRIES’ IN WRITING

The Donovan surveillance story also has an earlier paper trail from the late 1990s involving Mr Christopher Phillips.

In a 24 June 1998 letter on Shell U.K. Limited Legal Division letterhead, Shell Legal Director R. M. Wiseman responded to John Donovan’s allegations about threats. Wiseman referred directly to “the visit of Mr Phillips” and “his instructions”, adding that Shell would cooperate with police “to the utmost extent.” He also wrote: “We are confident that no criminal act was committed by anyone acting with Shell’s approval.”

Wiseman further stated that Donovan and his potential witnesses could “rest assured that no intimidatory threats have come from or been authorised by Shell”, while saying Shell was keen to find the person it suspected was trying to use Donovan as “the unwitting conduit for falsehoods about Shell.”

A follow-up letter dated 3 July 1998 from Shell’s solicitors DJ Freeman, signed by Colin Joseph, denied that Shell had any connection with a threatening anonymous telephone call received by Donovan. But the same letter also referred to “the enquiries instituted by my client” and to “anyone involved in enquiries on their behalf, including Mr Phillips.”

That wording matters.

It does not prove that Shell authorised threats. Both letters deny knowledge, approval or connection with criminal or intimidatory conduct.

But the correspondence does show that Shell and its lawyers were openly addressing the existence of enquiries carried out on Shell’s behalf, including by Mr Phillips.

Donovan regards that as a form of intimidation in itself: a powerful multinational, already locked in bitter conflict with him and his business, making clear through its solicitors that agents were conducting enquiries about him and those connected with him. Whether Shell would call that security, investigation or litigation support, the effect on the target was obvious enough.

In the context of the later Sunday Times Hakluyt/Greenpeace exposé and the Reuters-reported Shell monitoring emails, the Phillips correspondence adds another uncomfortable layer to the record. Shell’s critics were not simply imagining that they had attracted attention. Shell’s own legal correspondence shows that enquiries involving a named individual, Mr Phillips, were sufficiently serious to be discussed by Shell’s Legal Director and its external solicitors.

In tabloid terms: when Shell says “nothing to see here,” the archive has an annoying habit of producing another letter.

THE DONOVAN CONNECTION: WHEN THE SPY STORY CAME HOME

The Hakluyt/Greenpeace affair also overlaps with the long-running Shell–Donovan saga.

John Donovan says Greenpeace consulted him about suspected continuing Shell-linked surveillance and intelligence-gathering activity directed at Shell critics, including himself. He says a senior Greenpeace official visited him in Colchester to discuss the subject, and that he holds emails with Greenpeace from before and after the visit.

That account is not floating alone in conspiracy fog. It sits alongside a separate Reuters-reported trail.

In December 2009, Reuters reported that Donovan alleged Shell was targeting his website, based on internal Shell emails released to him after a data-protection request. Reuters reported that one March 2007 Shell email said Shell was “monitoring emails from Shell servers globally to Donovan and internal traffic to their website”, with the information marked “not for publication.”

Reuters also reported that another Shell email referred to a meeting with “NCFTA” about Donovan’s website, with resources assigned that were “RDS focused” and the statement: “There will be no attempt to do anything visible to Donovan.”

That last line deserves to be framed and hung in the Museum of Corporate Innocence.

“There will be no attempt to do anything visible to Donovan.”

Not exactly the stuff of warm transparency and open dialogue, is it?

Reuters reported that Shell did not comment on the veracity of the communications or Donovan’s allegations despite repeated requests, although a Shell legal department representative confirmed Donovan had made a request for information.

The same Reuters article described Donovan and his father Alfred as long-running internet critics of Shell, noting that Shell insiders used the Donovans’ website to leak company information and that the site had featured attacks on Shell’s safety and environmental record.

So when Greenpeace came to Donovan’s door to discuss suspected surveillance, it was not entering fantasy territory. It was entering a landscape already marked by Shell’s own legal correspondence about enquiries, the Hakluyt/Greenpeace revelations, and Reuters-reported emails referring to global monitoring of Shell-server communications to Donovan and internal traffic to his website.

Shell may prefer the word “monitoring.” Critics may prefer “surveillance.” The difference, as ever, depends partly on who is holding the binoculars.

FROM BRENT SPAR TO THE ARCTIC: SAME MOVIE, COLDER WATER

By 2012, the battleground had moved north.

The Arctic offered Shell a new frontier: remote, expensive, hazardous, politically sensitive and symbolically explosive. Greenpeace saw Arctic drilling as the fossil-fuel industry’s most perfect self-satire: drilling for more oil in a region transformed by climate change.

Shell saw Greenpeace direct action as unlawful disruption of lawful operations.

The courts were asked to intervene. Shell argued safety and operational risk. Greenpeace framed the clash as resistance to reckless fossil-fuel expansion. The legal question became narrow; the political question remained vast.

Should a company already carrying the baggage of Brent Spar, Nigeria, Hakluyt, the Phillips letters and the Donovan monitoring trail really be trusted to write the next chapter of Arctic oil?

Shell’s answer was yes.

Greenpeace’s answer was a banner, a boat and, eventually, another lawsuit.

THE PUNCHLINE: SHELL EVENTUALLY WALKED AWAY FROM ALASKA

There is a grim punchline to the 2012 Arctic court drama: Shell’s Arctic adventure became a notorious business headache.

After years of delays, mishaps, regulatory scrutiny, enormous costs and disappointing drilling results, Shell announced in 2015 that it would cease exploration offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future.

Greenpeace did not single-handedly stop Shell’s Arctic ambitions. Geology, economics, logistics, politics and risk all had starring roles.

But Greenpeace helped turn Arctic drilling into a reputational nightmare — the kind of project where every vessel movement could become a campaign image, every injunction could become a fundraising email, and every corporate safety statement could be met with the public asking: “What exactly are you doing in the Arctic in the first place?”

Shell wanted Arctic oil.

It got Arctic theatre.

THE MODERN ECHO: GREENPEACE, SHELL AND THE ‘COUSIN GREG’ LAWSUIT

The Shell–Greenpeace legal dance did not end in Alaska.

In 2024, Shell settled a $2.1 million lawsuit against Greenpeace after activists boarded a Shell-contracted vessel connected to the Penguins oil and gas field in the North Sea. The Guardian reported that Greenpeace accepted no liability and would donate £300,000 to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, while agreeing not to carry out similar actions near certain Shell platforms for set periods. Shell said the case concerned illegal boarding and safety risks, not the right to protest.

Shell’s own UK statement said the legal action concerned costs arising from the 2023 boarding and emphasised that, in its view, the action created serious risk to safety and life.

The storyline was vintage Shell–Greenpeace: activists board; Shell sues; Greenpeace cries intimidation; Shell says safety; headlines bloom; lawyers prosper.

The fossil-fuel industry calls this operational risk.

Everyone else calls it Tuesday.

2025–2026 CONTEXT: SHELL STILL LOVES FOSSIL FUELS, BUT WITH BETTER FONT CHOICES

Fast forward to 2025–2026 and the Shell–Greenpeace clash sits inside a wider argument over whether Shell has truly changed, or merely learned to wrap hydrocarbon expansion in transition language polished to a shareholder-friendly shine.

Shell continues to present itself as a company navigating energy security, shareholder returns and lower-carbon transition. But its LNG outlook remains bullish. Shell’s 2026 LNG material forecasts global LNG demand rising from 422 million tonnes per annum in 2025 to 650–710 mtpa by 2040, an increase of about 54–68 percent.

That is not a company tiptoeing away from fossil fuels.

That is a company looking at the gas banquet and asking for a bigger spoon.

Shell argues that LNG can support energy security and help replace more carbon-intensive fuels such as coal. Critics counter that gas expansion risks locking in decades of fossil-fuel infrastructure, with methane leakage and lifecycle emissions complicating the industry’s “cleaner fuel” narrative.

Greenpeace, to put it mildly, remains unconvinced.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: BLACKROCK, VANGUARD AND THE GREAT PASSIVE-OWNERSHIP SHRUG

Behind Shell sits a vast wall of institutional capital.

Public shareholder data identifies large institutional investors and funds around Shell, including major global asset managers and index-fund giants. Investing.com’s Shell ownership data lists major institutional and fund holders including BlackRock-linked iShares funds, while MarketScreener’s shareholder data shows a large institutional ownership base with major holdings associated with the United States, United Kingdom and Norway.

This matters because Shell does not operate in a moral vacuum. It operates inside a financial ecosystem in which major asset managers, pension funds and sovereign institutions help keep the machine capitalised, liquid and respectable.

BlackRock, Vanguard, Norges Bank and other institutional investors may not be boarding rigs, filing injunctions or commissioning Arctic vessels. But their capital forms part of the background music.

The public tune is transition.

The bassline is still oil, gas and shareholder distributions.

THE REAL STORY: SHELL’S ENVIRONMENTAL RECORD IS NOT A SIDEBAR

The Shell–Greenpeace conflict is not merely a colourful activist-versus-corporation sideshow. It is a public trial of Shell’s business model.

Greenpeace has targeted Shell because Shell remains one of the world’s major oil and gas companies, with a long record of environmental controversies and a continuing commitment to large-scale hydrocarbons.

Shell’s supporters argue that global energy demand cannot be wished away, that gas can replace dirtier fuels, and that abrupt divestment from oil and gas would be economically reckless.

Shell’s critics argue that this is the language of delay: keep drilling, keep expanding, keep promising that transition will arrive later, preferably after the next dividend and buyback cycle.

The truth is that Shell’s problem with Greenpeace is not merely that activists dislike Shell.

It is that Shell keeps giving them material.

Brent Spar gave them the sea. Nigeria gave them the moral outrage. Hakluyt gave them the spy-thriller subplot. The Phillips letters gave the Donovan archive another legal paper trail. The Reuters article gave the monitoring story mainstream confirmation. The Arctic gave them the ice. The lawsuits gave them the courtroom drama. The LNG expansion narrative gives them the 2026 relevance.

For a campaigning organisation, Shell is not just a target.

It is a content engine with a dividend policy.

CONCLUSION: THE COMPANY THAT COULD NOT STOP BEING THE STORY

From Brent Spar to Alaska, from Hakluyt to the Phillips letters, from the Reuters-reported Donovan monitoring emails to Arctic injunctions and modern Greenpeace lawsuits, the Shell–Greenpeace saga shows what happens when a fossil-fuel giant meets activists built for confrontation.

Shell has money, lawyers, vessels, investors, annual reports and a corporate vocabulary polished until every uncomfortable noun becomes a “stakeholder issue.”

Greenpeace has boats, banners, climbers, media instinct and an almost supernatural ability to appear exactly where Shell would prefer it did not.

The 2012 Petroleum News article is one snapshot: Shell notifying an Alaska court about Greenpeace action against icebreakers supporting Arctic drilling. But the deeper story is much larger. It is about a company repeatedly discovering that environmental opposition is not a public-relations inconvenience. It is a structural consequence of what the company does.

Shell can sue Greenpeace. Shell can brief courts. Shell can talk about safety. Shell can describe critics as disruptive.

But the history remains stubborn.

The sea was not a dustbin.

The Arctic was not a blank cheque.

Critics were not always merely “stakeholders.”

And when a company’s past includes Brent Spar, Nigeria, Hakluyt, Arctic drilling, legal correspondence about agents and enquiries, Reuters-reported monitoring of a critic’s website, and repeated legal warfare with Greenpeace, perhaps the reputational iceberg is not floating in front of the ship.

Perhaps the ship was built inside it.

PART TWO: SPOOF SHELL PR / SPIN SECTION SHELL’S COMPLETELY REASSURING GUIDE TO WHY EVERYTHING IS PERFECTLY NORMAL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF STRATEGIC CALMNESS

Shell would like to reassure the public that its long relationship with Greenpeace is best understood as a series of unfortunate misunderstandings involving activists, vessels, courts, weather systems, journalists and the regrettable existence of cameras.

On Brent Spar, Shell merely pursued a technically assessed disposal option until Europe rudely developed emotions.

On Arctic drilling, Shell simply attempted to explore one of the planet’s most fragile regions for more hydrocarbons, because apparently the melting Arctic was not providing enough irony unaided.

On Hakluyt, Shell has previously been reported as a client of the firm until December 1996, but naturally this should not distract from Shell’s deep commitment to transparency, especially once everyone has stopped asking questions.

On the Phillips correspondence, Shell and its lawyers discussed enquiries on Shell’s behalf, including Mr Phillips, while denying any criminal or intimidatory conduct. Nothing says “relaxed corporate normality” quite like lawyers explaining which enquiries, agents and alleged threats definitely are not a problem.

On Greenpeace direct action, Shell fully supports peaceful protest, provided it does not occur near vessels, rigs, platforms, courts, annual general meetings, sensitive reputational assets, investor presentations or anything operationally inconvenient.

On John Donovan, Shell prefers not to dwell on Reuters-reported internal emails referring to monitoring emails from Shell servers globally to Donovan and internal traffic to his website, because nothing says “open dialogue” quite like: “There will be no attempt to do anything visible to Donovan.”

Shell further confirms that its commitment to the energy transition remains strong, particularly the part where LNG demand rises dramatically and shareholders continue receiving very traditional comfort.

Any suggestion that Shell’s environmental controversies form a pattern is deeply unfair.

They are not a pattern.

They are a portfolio.

PART THREE: SPOOF BOT REACTION / COMMENT SECTION THE INTERNET REACTS

@ArcticWatcherBot:
Shell drilling in the Arctic while complaining about Greenpeace disruption is like a burglar complaining the alarm is too loud.

@CorporateSpin9000:
“Safety is our priority,” says company pursuing high-risk offshore fossil-fuel extraction in a climate-stressed polar region. Irony levels: industrial.

@BrentSparVeteran:
I remember when Shell thought sinking Brent Spar was a good idea. Somewhere, a 1995 PR consultant is still living under a desk.

@SpyNovelReject:
Hakluyt remains the unbeatable subplot. Former spies, Greenpeace, oil companies and undercover operatives. John le Carré, but with more unleaded.

@PhillipsFiles:
When the lawyers start discussing “enquiries” and “Mr Phillips,” the phrase “nothing to see here” begins sweating visibly.

@DonovanFiles:
“There will be no attempt to do anything visible to Donovan” is possibly the most Shell sentence ever written.

@DividendGoblin:
Major institutional investors watching from the balcony: “We support transition, but please do not interrupt the cash machine.”

@GreenpeaceDinghy:
Shell: “Please use lawful channels.”
Also Shell: “No, not that channel. Or that vessel. Or that platform. Or that courtroom narrative.”

@LNGFanFiction:
Shell’s transition plan: more gas now, more gas later, net zero eventually, trust us bro.

@PublicRelationsWalrus:
Arctic drilling was always going to be a hard sell. Even the polar bears asked for legal representation.

@HakluytRaincoat:
Nothing suspicious here. Just a perfectly ordinary corporate reputation strategy with former intelligence officers wandering through the shrubbery.

DISCLAIMER

This article is opinion and commentary. It uses satire, criticism and publicly available information, together with John Donovan’s stated account of documents and correspondence in his possession where clearly identified as such. It is not financial advice, investment advice or legal advice. Readers should consult original sources and professional advisers where appropriate. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

SHELL v GREENPEACE: THE ICE, THE SPIES AND THE COMPANY THAT COULD NOT STOP WATCHING ITS CRITICS was first posted on April 25, 2026 at 8:40 pm.
©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net

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

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

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

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

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

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

Draft roadmap for Colombia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IPCC hobbled by politics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Portugal, peasants have won important victories enshrined in the April Revolution and in the Constitution of the Republic through constant struggle over the last hundred years.

The post 17 April | Portugal: The April Constitution and the Struggles for Peasants’ Rights appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

This May Day will come after nearly sixteen months of authoritarian rule marked by brutal domestic and global violence.

At home, the state has deployed terror against the most vulnerable members of the working class—our immigrant neighbors—and anti-ICE protesters.

World politics has entered a new era with the illegal and unconstitutional U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. The ongoing war is yet another morbid symptom of the late American empire. Conscious of its declining power and driven by a lunatic narcissism reminiscent of Caligula or Nero, the Trump administration seeks to demonstrate its virility through violence. The war’s horror is only matched by its absurdity, as it becomes increasingly clear how little the U.S. state thought through the consequences of their reckless actions.

This disastrous war is a great setback for the regime. But as Trump and company become weaker, they also become more volatile and dangerous.

With Trump’s approval ratings sinking and likely to fall lower given the shock to the economy, the midterm elections pose an existential threat to his administration. The likelihood of a manufactured crisis being used as a pretext to destroy democratic rights looks increasingly probable.

In the face of war and authoritarianism, most workers realize we must act to stop this regime, and many are looking for alternative political strategies.

Building the resistance

The resistance in Minneapolis, culminating in mass strikes at the end of January, gave us a glimpse of potential working-class power.

The question is how to transform broad yet diffuse opposition to Trumpism into the kind of organized labor action that can take powerful and decisive action against the regime.

We have seen resistance in varied spaces, from mass protests like No Kings to neighborhood networks to community and labor activism. While all these play a role, unions are of particular importance because they remain the one organized section of the working class with mass numbers, even while unionization levels are low. Organized labor’s reawakening to politics, uneven and contradictory as it may be, represents a significant breach in the post-war consensus that has dominated the movement for the better part of a century.

The resistance in Minneapolis, culminating in mass strikes at the end of January, gave us a glimpse of potential working-class power.

The primary task for activists is to enter all these arenas and help build them out into democratic infrastructures of dissent, spaces and networks where we can further discover our strength as workers. We want to build a left-moving pole of attraction based on class independence, broad democratic decision-making and collective action.

Building these structures is a precondition for resisting the threat of authoritarianism and the entire right-wing political system, and for articulating firm political demands that resist co-optation by the Democratic Party.

The labor-led coalition May Day Strong offers a potential alternative to politics as usual, one that reawakens a long-neglected tradition of political working-class activity and, especially, an orientation on strikes—the only weapon available to us with the power to stop the regime.

Ironically, the authoritarian onslaught is spurring organized labor to reconnect with its power and its ability to change the world.

Towards a general strike

The call for this May Day, “Workers over Billionaires: No Work, No School, No Shopping,” connects with a powerful radical tradition based on independent working-class power. Although its origins are in the United States, International Workers’ Day has largely been a forgotten holiday here. This is not an accident but a result of the deeply anti-worker and anti-socialist nature of the U.S. state, which has actively divorced organized labor from projects against capitalism and for universal human liberation.

Small groups cannot will a general strike in to being, and verbal radicalism cannot substitute for sustained organizing.

This May Day marks an important moment in the process of rejoining labor to its unique ability to fundamentally transform society. The violent and tyrannical capitalist system gave birth to Trumpism and has worse horrors in store if we do not alter its course. Our labor creates and recreates this system, but by refusing to work, we can shut it down.

While we have seen some significant May Days in recent history, most notably the 2006 “Day Without an Immigrant,” this May 1st promises to be a celebration of working-class strength like nothing we have seen in decades. Spearheaded by the Chicago Teachers Union, the May Day Strong Coalition is organizing major unions to turn out for this holiday in a way not seen in living memory. Some strikes have even been called against the Trump administration’s policies, including a shutdown of all the ports on the West Coast, from Alaska to San Diego.

It is crucial that we maintain our independence from the bankrupt two-party system and build our own numbers and power from below.

But we are also seeing attempts by conservative forces— Indivisible, the NGO bureaucracy and labor officialdom—to steer all the energy of the anti-Trump resistance back into efforts to elect the Democratic Party. We cannot entrust our precious rights to the very people who got us into this mess in the first place and who have waged no substantive opposition to the far right. Their aim is to restore the bankrupt status quo that germinated Trump. Regardless of what we do at the ballot box, when it comes to organizing, it is crucial that we maintain our independence from the bankrupt two-party system and build our own numbers and power from below.

The symbolic and practical significance of reclaiming May Day in these ways is hard to overstate.

The tasks of the moment

May Day will highlight the potential of working-class power to resist war and authoritarianism while resurrecting a radical labor tradition. But the prospect of mass political strikes that pose a tangible threat to the economic order remains distant.

We still have low levels of workplace organization, in terms of both formal unionization and informal activity. In the current climate calls for general strikes will be hollow if they are not backed up by mass collective organization, disciplined preparation, education and training. Small groups cannot will a general strike in to being, and verbal radicalism cannot substitute for sustained organizing.

This May Day and beyond presents the opportunity to foster our collective strength and become strike-ready. We do this through collective activities such as attending protests as a contingent with T-shirts and banners, pursuing workplace grievances, launching union drives, holding strike schools and forming rank and file groups prepared to push for radical action even in the face of reluctant union officials.

We can only unite as a class if we challenge all the oppressions our rulers use to divide us.

We can only unite as a class if we challenge all the oppressions our rulers use to divide us. If we are to uphold the great slogan of the labor movement, “An injury to one is an injury to all,” we must defend anyone who is under attack without exception. This includes forming emergency defense networks against ICE raids, standing with survivors of sexual violence, and advocating for trans rights, reproductive rights, Palestinian liberation and more.

These are the conditions in which we can build grounded socialist organizations that offer a genuine alternative.

Trumpism cannot be stopped with a vote or a promise. We must rip up its very roots by challenging the capitalist system that created it. There are no short cuts to this goal, but the keywords are organization, political independence, and working-class power.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Walter Crane, Walter Crane; modified by Tempest.

The post The cause of labor is the hope of the world appeared first on Tempest.

AI image: A shadowy Mayfair boardroom with three doors marked “MI6,” “Shell,” and “No 10.” A suited adviser carries a briefcase labelled “Strategic Advice” through the revolving door, while a Shell logo glows on the wall like a corporate moon. Outside, taxpayers and climate campaigners peer through frosted glass as a sign reads: “Nothing to See Here — Stakeholders Being Reassured.

There are revolving doors in British public life, and then there is Hakluyt: the discreet Mayfair intelligence-and-advisory outfit that appears to operate less like a door and more like a polished mahogany teleportation device between corporate power, former spooks, political insiders and the upper floors of government.

The latest spark comes from an openDemocracy investigation reporting that Hakluyt’s UK business grew by 30% in the year to July 2025, even after two senior figures left for government roles. Varun Chandra, previously Hakluyt’s managing partner, joined Keir Starmer’s government in July 2024 as the prime minister’s special adviser on business and investment. In January 2025, Sir Oliver Robbins left Hakluyt’s Europe, Middle East and Africa role to join the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Despite those departures, according to openDemocracy’s analysis of financial records, Hakluyt posted one of its strongest recent years of UK growth. Chandra’s remaining stake reportedly entitled him to a payout of around £112,000 while he was working at the heart of Downing Street; openDemocracy says No 10 and Hakluyt declined to comment on whether he accepted the money.

And there, in one neat little parcel, is the smell Britain knows so well: not necessarily illegality, not necessarily wrongdoing, but that unmistakable aroma of the Establishment warming itself by the fire of “proper process.”

The official line tends to be reassuring. Interests are declared. Conflicts are managed. Recusals are arranged. Governance is robust. Everyone is terribly professional.

The public, meanwhile, is invited to believe that when a former boss and shareholder of a secretive advisory firm joins No 10, while that firm continues thriving in the high-end marketplace for corporate access, geopolitical advice and strategic influence, this is simply the smooth functioning of democracy.

How comforting.

How very British.

How wonderfully convenient.

WHAT IS HAKLUYT? A CONSULTANCY WITH A PASSPORT STAMPED “DISCRETION”

Hakluyt is not a normal consultancy in the “PowerPoint deck and biscuits” sense. It was founded in 1995 by former British intelligence officers and has long traded on a mystique of access, discretion and elite networks.

Hakluyt’s own website says it advises clients on “some of the most consequential and high-profile opportunities and challenges facing business leaders,” including M&A, strategy, shareholder perspectives, regulatory and policy issues, disputes, senior hires, digital and cyber, sustainability and more. It also says the firm employs more than 200 people in more than a dozen offices around the world, and that its client roster includes at least one of the top five corporations in every major sector globally and more than three quarters of the top 20 private equity firms by assets under management.

Translation: this is not Bob’s Local Consultancy above a dry cleaner.

This is influence architecture for the global elite.

It is the kind of firm corporations call when they do not merely want advice. They want intelligence, networks, access, judgement and plausible deniability wrapped in Savile Row discretion.

ENTER VARUN CHANDRA: FROM HAKLUYT TO THE HEART OF DOWNING STREET

Varun Chandra is central to the story because he embodies the modern corporate-government interface: business-friendly, politically connected, highly networked and positioned where capital meets policy.

Hakluyt announced in July 2024 that Chandra had stepped down as managing partner after being appointed the prime minister’s special adviser on business and investment. The company credited him with overseeing “a period of significant growth and expansion.”

The Guardian later reported that Chandra was one of Starmer’s most influential advisers, central to Labour’s attempts to build business confidence and attract foreign capital, and that as of May 2025 he held Hakluyt shares worth about £7 million. The same report said Hakluyt planned to buy back his shares over time and that he no longer had voting rights or decision-making roles in the firm.

Again, that may all be properly declared. It may all be managed through official processes. But the political optics are not exactly subtle.

A former Hakluyt chief, still financially linked to Hakluyt through a managed share sell-down, ends up in Downing Street advising on business and investment.

Hakluyt, meanwhile, continues doing what Hakluyt does: advising some of the most powerful corporate actors on earth.

One almost expects a brass plaque outside No 10 reading:

“Welcome to Britain: please declare your interests before influencing policy.”

THE LOBBYING WATCHDOG PROBLEM

This is not the first time Chandra and Hakluyt have attracted scrutiny.

In July 2025, openDemocracy reported that the Office for the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists had launched an investigation into Hakluyt after openDemocracy shared findings about Chandra’s activities while at the firm. The story centred on a meeting arranged with then Tory cabinet minister Kwasi Kwarteng and ten leading financiers. Hakluyt insisted it had done nothing wrong.

That detail matters because it punctures the soothing fantasy that Hakluyt is merely an elegant advice boutique floating above politics in a cloud of neutral expertise.

The firm operates in the zone where corporate intelligence, political access, regulatory risk and statecraft blur into one another.

That may be legal. It may be normal. It may even be precisely what clients pay for.

But normal is not the same as healthy.

THE THAMES WATER PARALLEL: SAME PLAYBOOK, DIFFERENT PIPE

The Hakluyt question widened further with The Guardian’s September 2025 report that Thames Water had paid more than £1 million to Hakluyt while trying to avoid renationalisation. The Guardian reported that Hakluyt had advised Thames since 2023, while Chandra — formerly Hakluyt’s managing partner and still financially linked to the firm — was tasked in government with finding a private-sector solution for Thames. No 10 said the Cabinet Office has a process for declarations and managing conflicts, including recusals where appropriate. Hakluyt said it is not a lobbying organisation and does not lobby governments on behalf of clients.

That is the modern British public-interest machine in miniature.

A struggling utility.

Private advisers.

Former officials.

Government rescue options.

Corporate creditors.

A market-based solution.

And somewhere in the background, a discreet consultancy insists it is not lobbying while advising clients on political and strategic matters in the middle of a national infrastructure crisis.

The water may be polluted, but the language remains crystal clear.

NOW ADD SHELL: THE OLD OIL-SLICK CONNECTION

This is where the story becomes especially relevant to Shell watchers.

Hakluyt’s strong historic attachment to Shell is not conspiracy-theory mist. It has been documented in mainstream reporting for decades.

In 2001, The Sunday Times reported — republished by CorpWatch — that a private intelligence firm with close links to MI6 had spied on environmental campaign groups to collect information for oil companies including Shell and BP. The report said Hakluyt hired German-born Manfred Schlickenrieder, who posed as a left-wing sympathiser and filmmaker, and that he tried to obtain information about opposition to Shell drilling in Nigeria.

That is not “stakeholder engagement.”

That is not “sustainability dialogue.”

That is not “listening to civil society.”

That is corporate intelligence gathering against environmental campaigners.

And Shell’s name was there.

The allegations went to the heart of Shell’s carefully polished public identity: a company that talks endlessly about ethics, transparency, human rights and responsible energy, while historically appearing in reports about covert intelligence-gathering against critics.

The fossil-fuel industry has always loved the language of trust. But trust is a strange thing to demand from people you once allegedly monitored through hired intelligence networks.

SHELL, HAKLUYT AND THE MORAL FOG MACHINE

Shell’s relationship with Hakluyt sits in a broader pattern: extractive industry meets elite intelligence culture meets public-relations hygiene.

The purpose is not always to win arguments in public. Sometimes it is to know who is organising, who is vulnerable, who is influential, what journalists are circling, what activists are planning, which governments are shifting, and how to stay several moves ahead.

That is why the Hakluyt story matters.

It is not merely about one firm. It is about a political economy in which powerful corporations can buy insight into the democratic forces trying to scrutinise them — while ordinary citizens are left trying to decode press statements written in a dialect somewhere between legal caution and scented fog.

Shell has spent decades projecting an image of corporate responsibility while remaining a fossil-fuel giant with a long and controversial environmental and political record. The Hakluyt connection is one of those episodes that punctures the smooth brochure version of events.

Because when a company has historical links to a firm accused of spying on environmental campaigners, and that same firm later becomes a glittering node in the business-government influence machine, it is entirely fair to ask:

Who gets access? Who gets watched? Who gets listened to? And who gets managed?

THE ESTABLISHMENT’S FAVOURITE WORD: “MANAGED”

There is always a magic word in these controversies.

Managed.

Conflicts are managed.

Interests are managed.

Risks are managed.

Optics are managed.

The public is managed.

And the result is a political culture in which almost nothing is ever officially improper, yet everything somehow smells faintly of old cigar smoke, private dining rooms and “let’s take this offline.”

Varun Chandra may have followed the rules. Hakluyt may have followed the rules. No 10 may have followed the rules.

But perhaps that is the point.

If the rules allow elite advisers to move from secretive corporate intelligence firms into the centre of government while retaining financial pathways back to those firms, maybe the scandal is not that the rules were broken.

Maybe the scandal is that the rules are so magnificently accommodating.

THE SHELL ANGLE: WHY THIS SHOULD MATTER TO CLIMATE AND CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY CAMPAIGNERS

For climate campaigners, the Hakluyt-Shell history is more than an old footnote.

It is a reminder that fossil-fuel power has never been limited to rigs, refineries and trading desks. It includes lawyers, lobbyists, consultants, risk firms, PR specialists, former diplomats, intelligence veterans, think-tank networks and political advisers.

Shell does not need to control government to benefit from elite proximity. It merely needs to exist inside a system where corporate access is normalised, climate delay is dressed up as realism, and criticism is processed as risk.

Hakluyt’s publicly described work includes advising on regulatory and policy issues, disputes, sustainability and shareholder perspectives.   These are precisely the battlefields on which fossil-fuel companies fight modern reputation wars.

The result is a velvet-gloved ecosystem where the same kinds of people rotate between business, politics, intelligence, finance and regulation, while the public is told to calm down because declarations have been filed.

THE TABLOID VERDICT: BRITAIN’S INFLUENCE MACHINE HAS A SHELL-SHAPED SHADOW

This story has everything.

A discreet Mayfair intelligence firm.

Former MI6 roots.

A former boss in No 10.

A remaining financial stake.

Record UK growth.

A lobbying watchdog investigation.

A Thames Water conflict row.

Historic Shell and BP links to spying on environmental campaigners.

And a political class asking us to believe this is all perfectly manageable because the paperwork is probably in order.

The real scandal is not one alleged breach, one payout, one advisory contract, or one revolving-door appointment.

The real scandal is the architecture.

Britain has built a system in which corporate influence does not need to shout. It whispers. It lunches. It advises. It recuses. It declares. It networks. It grows by 30%. It moves from Mayfair to Downing Street and back again through a series of carefully labelled doors.

And Shell, with its long history of environmental controversy, public-relations combat and documented Hakluyt connection, fits perfectly into that world.

Not as an exception.

As a case study.

HAKLUYT / SHELL / No 10 PR DEPARTMENT VERSION — SPOOF

Important note: the following is a clearly labelled spoof. It is not an actual statement by Hakluyt, Shell, No 10, Varun Chandra, or anyone connected to them. It is a satirical reconstruction of the sort of polished language AI might imagine such institutions using, based on their public positioning, the reporting cited above, and the usual dialect of elite reassurance.

“A Proud Tradition of Strategic Insight, Responsible Transition and Absolutely Nothing to Worry About”

Hakluyt, Shell and the broader responsible stakeholder ecosystem wish to reaffirm their unwavering commitment to transparency, integrity, global competitiveness, sustainable dialogue and the careful management of any appearances that less sophisticated observers may accidentally mistake for concern.

Hakluyt is not a lobbying organisation. It merely provides strategic insight to some of the world’s most consequential businesses on regulatory issues, policy matters, political risk, stakeholder environments, market dynamics, reputational challenges, geopolitical complexity and other topics that should not be confused with lobbying simply because they involve power.

Shell, for its part, remains committed to listening to society, especially where society has been appropriately mapped, assessed, risk-ranked and briefed.

Historical reports concerning environmental campaigners, corporate intelligence and Shell should be viewed in their full context, ideally from a considerable distance and through a soft-focus lens marked “legacy issue.”

As for the movement of senior personnel between Hakluyt and government, this reflects Britain’s world-class ability to attract talented individuals who understand both public service and private capital, sometimes in that order.

Any potential conflicts are subject to robust processes, comprehensive declarations, appropriate recusals, refined governance, careful handling, and the kind of internal assurance mechanisms that sound magnificent when read aloud in a committee room.

In conclusion, stakeholders can be reassured that Britain remains open for business, open to advice, open to investment, and occasionally open to questions, provided they are submitted in advance and do not interrupt the networking breakfast.

BOT COMMENT SECTION — SPOOF REACTIONS FROM THE MACHINES

Bot 1:
“Revolving door detected. Rotation speed: Mayfair-to-Whitehall in 0.8 seconds.”

Bot 2:
“User query: Is this lobbying? Corporate answer: No, it is advanced relationship weather forecasting.”

Bot 3:
“Shell historical attachment to Hakluyt located. Public trust module now emitting smoke.”

Bot 4:
“Conflict of interest status: managed. Public confidence status: missing, presumed briefed.”

Bot 5:
“Phrase ‘not a lobbying organisation’ detected near ‘regulatory and policy issues.’ Satire engine overheating.”

Bot 6:
“British Establishment transparency resembles frosted glass: technically present, functionally decorative.”

Bot 7:
“Shell says it listens to society. Archive suggests it may also have occasionally listened rather carefully.”

Bot 8:
“Recommendation: replace revolving door with turnstile and charge admission. National debt solved.”

DISCLAIMER

This article is opinion and commentary. It is satirical in tone but based on publicly reported information, cited journalism, Hakluyt’s own public material, and historic reporting concerning Hakluyt, Shell, BP and environmental campaigners.

The spoof “PR Department Version” and “Bot Comment Section” are fictional and included for humour, satire and commentary. They are not actual statements by Hakluyt, Shell, No 10, Varun Chandra, Keir Starmer, any government official, or any AI system.

Nothing in this article should be taken as financial advice, investment advice, legal advice or a factual allegation beyond what is supported by the cited sources. Where criticism is expressed, it is opinion based on the public record. Site wide disclaimer also applies.

THE SPOOKS, THE SHELL MEN AND THE STARMER MACHINE: Hakluyt’s Very British Revolving Door Gets Another Oil-Slick Polish was first posted on April 24, 2026 at 11:56 pm.
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“The Hub” is a weekly round-up of transportation related news in the Philadelphia area and beyond. Check back weekly to keep up-to-date on the issues Clean Air Council’s transportation staff finds important.

Celebrate Cobbs Creek Trails Day this Sunday, 4/26 from 10am to 2pm, at the park at Thomas Ave & Cobbs Creek Parkway north of Whitby Ave. More information and activities can be found here.

Are you interested in improving the health and built environment of Philadelphia? The Nutrition and Physical Activity Team in the Health Department of Philadelphia is hiring a Built Environment Coordinator, and a Community Health Infrastructure Coordinator. Click the links in the titles to learn more about these roles and their impact!

Image Source: BillyPenn

BillyPenn: Advocates push for around-the-clock access to public transit for kids in Philadelphia – Councilmember Rue Landau and Transit Forward Philly held a press conference for expanding the student fare program. The SEPTA card provided for students, the student fare program, is currently limited by distance, time of day, and days of the week. Limiting factors can include going to summer jobs, living too close to their school, and even involvement in sports. Advocates pointed out that universal access benefits kids, giving them opportunities in education, professional development, summer opportunities, and more.

Image Source: ABC21

PhillyVoice: PA Turnpike is testing a system that will warn drivers of slow traffic – Pennsylvania Turnpike drivers will be alerted of upcoming traffic jams, due to a pilot program that began this week. Drivers can expect two alerts, the first being an electronic sign about 2 miles away, and another screen alert placed about half a mile out from the slowdown. The pilot program is initially along the Northeast Extension of I-476, with review planned afterwards, to see if outward expansion would be beneficial.

Image Source: The Inquirer

The Inquirer (via MSN): Why city council is threatening to block Mayor Cherelle Parker’s ‘Uber tax’ if it doesn’t get its way on school closures – Philadelphia’s Board of Education has pushed the vote to cancel schools to April 30th, instead of this week as it was originally scheduled. During the past week, Philadelphia City Council members have pushed to delay the vote, as the facilities plans as written contain some concerning flaws. Mayor Parker introduced legislation that would add a $1-per-ride tax on services like Uber and Lyft to try and patch the Philadelphia School District’s budget. This tax would generate an estimated $50 million per year, but that would not offset the closures of several schools. Uber has also begun a public campaign to make clear that it will be passing along this tax directly to the rider.

Other Stories

City & State Pennsylvania: Ask the Experts: Local transit leaders mind the gaps

Pittsburghers For Public Transit: Transit is the Ticket to a Winning NFL Draft

WHYY: Why are NJ Transit fares to New Jersey’s 8 FIFA World Cup matches so high? And what benefit will the state get?

The Inquirer: I-95 South exit ramp to Packer Avenue will be closed into May, disrupting traffic to sports complex

KYW News Radio: No tickets necessary: PATCO riders will soon be able to pay with credit cards or smart phones

Railway Age: Transit Briefs: San Diego MTS/NICTD, MDOT MTA, NJ Transit, Amtrak
WHYY: Reported crime on SEPTA continues to drop in 2026 after decade lows last year

What does it take for people to meaningfully participate in democracy? For millions of workers, the answer starts with something basic: being able to afford to live.

Saru Jayaraman, President of One Fair Wage, has spent decades organizing restaurant workers and advocating for fair wages across the country. In her keynote at Bioneers 2026, she made the case that economic justice is not separate from democracy or climate action, but foundational to both.

This is an edited transcript of her talk.

Saru Jayaraman: 

For 25 years, I’ve been organizing and representing workers in the restaurant industry. It employs 13.6 million people in the United States, many in the lowest-wage jobs in the country.

In past talks at Bioneers, I’ve shared that the subminimum wage for tipped workers was $2.13 an hour. Still today, in 2026, the largest employer of women, people of color, youth, immigrants, and really so many of us can legally pay just $2.13 an hour.

I’ve said again and again that when so much of America cannot afford to feed themselves or their families, they also cannot engage politically. There is no way people can take on issues like the climate crisis when they are working three jobs instead of one, and when those in power represent the opposite of what they need.

As I’ve continued to share this, I’ve faced a lot of pushback. In 2024, when we were raising money to put wage increases on the ballot in states like Arizona and Michigan, donors told me, “That’s cute. You’re trying to raise wages. We’re trying to save democracy.”

But raising wages is saving democracy.

Despite these repeated warnings, we’ve landed in a crisis that has been building for a long time. One clear example: Trump campaigned on and delivered “no tax on tips,” even though two-thirds of tipped workers don’t earn enough to pay federal income tax. But he at least recognized these workers as worth speaking to.

When that happened, I urged Kamala to engage this audience as well. The answer was no, again and again.

In the last election, many tipped workers either stayed home or shifted their support elsewhere. Not because they didn’t care, but because they felt unseen. We didn’t speak to them. We didn’t say, “Your lives matter.”

What the whole “no tax on tips” moment revealed is this: When you leave people out, you do it at your own peril. When large groups of people are excluded, they become vulnerable to being co-opted by the right.

In April of last year, a series of articles in USA Today documented a rumor spreading among MAGA voters that Trump had already raised the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour. The videos were widely shared and gained significant traction among right-wing audiences.

Now, we all know it’s a lie. That’s not the news. The news is that they didn’t claim he raised wages to $15, or $17, or even $20. They said $25 an hour: the minimum needed to live anywhere in the United States right now. They chose the number that reflects people’s lived reality, including their own base. And it resonated.

We have a five-alarm fire. The right is talking about $25 and energizing their base around it, while the left is stuck arguing for $17, or in some places, still $15. I’ll be blunt. This is why people are frustrated with us. They see us negotiating against ourselves before we even enter the room. They see us settling for half a loaf.

When we saw this, we organized an emergency convening in Los Angeles in June, bringing together 140 labor and community leaders from 15 states. The message was clear. It’s time to move beyond the Fight for $15. It’s time to demand a living wage for all, with a national floor of $25.

Since that gathering, we’ve launched campaigns, bills, and ballot measures in dozens of states calling for $25 across the board, and $30 in higher-cost areas. Several counties have already taken action.

Within our own movement, there was hesitation. “$25? That’s too high. $30? Impossible.” So we polled it across red, blue, and purple districts. The result was overwhelming support. And when we tested the opposition’s messaging, that this would raise prices, cost jobs, or hurt small businesses, support actually increased.

People are angry. If you tell them wages can’t go up because prices will rise, they respond, “What are you talking about? Prices have already gone up.”

The only thing that hasn’t increased is the value of human labor.

There’s so much talk about affordability, but most of it centers on bringing costs down. There is no world in which affordability comes from bringing costs down alone. Inflation over the last 75 years has never meaningfully reversed. The only way to make life more affordable for half of working Americans, and it is half who earn less than $25, is to increase wages.

This unprecedented affordability crisis is also a democracy crisis. And that makes this a moment of real consequence.

I know there’s a lot to be unhappy about. There’s a lot to defend. But if all we do is play defense, we will lose. We need a proactive vision that is bold, that shows people we are fighting. And it has to focus on the issue they keep telling us matters most, the cost of living.

We’re in a moment of real opportunity. The pendulum could swing toward a world where people work one job instead of three, where they can thrive instead of just survive, where they have time with their kids, and the capacity to engage with the issues they care about, including the climate crisis.

I believe we can achieve this because fair wages is one of the few issues working people across the political spectrum can agree on.

It’s time for our country to deliver.

The post Democracy Doesn’t Work Without a Living Wage appeared first on Bioneers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2.5% of landowners concentrate 85% of agricultural land, while more than 300,000 peasant families live without land or with insecure tenure.

The post 17 April | Paraguay: On International Peasant Struggles Day, Social Movements Spotlight Land Inequality appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Radical Democracy: recovering the roots of self-governance & autonomy - Booklet presentation from Indonesia Date and time * Date: April 15th * Time: 11am GMT * Format: Hybrid event Introduction In the face of escalating global crises—climate breakdown, deepening economic inequalities, and the enduring dominance of neoliberal systems—the need to rethink democracy has never been more urgent. alternatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cities turn climate goals into real-life improvements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Structural barriers to national and urban action

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

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

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

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

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

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

Energy transition means redefining development

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since Philadelphia banned single-use plastic bags in 2021, more than 200 million of them have been kept out of the city’s waste stream, streets, and tree branches.

This is huge progress and a clear example of the power of public policy. But the harm of plastics is not limited to our natural environment. We urge Philadelphians to consider how plastics affect our health, too.

When the Clean Air Council was founded in 1967, Americans were fighting smog and rivers so polluted that they caught fire. Those problems have not disappeared, but today we also face less visible dangers. Chemicals used in plastics, including bisphenols and phthalates, have been linked to reproductive harm, metabolic disorders, diabetes, and some cancers.

That growing concern is reflected in the new Netflix documentary The Plastic Detox, which follows couples trying to reduce their exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals while navigating infertility.

The film raises a question that should concern all of us: How can we protect ourselves from harmful plastic-related chemicals when plastic is woven into so much of daily life?

There are steps individuals can take. People can avoid thermal paper receipts, choose natural fibers over synthetic ones, and replace plastic food and drink containers with glass, stainless steel, wood, or ceramic when possible. But individual choices can only go so far.

The burden should not fall on people to “detox” from a system they did not create. Public policy should make healthier choices easier and safer materials more available and affordable.

And we should be honest about how little of our plastic waste is actually recycled: only about 6%. Millions of tons are still sent to landfills, and millions more are burned.

That matters here in Philadelphia, where city officials are negotiating new waste disposal contracts.

Chester residents, along with Clean Air Council and other advocates, are urging the city to stop sending trash to the Reworld incinerator – the nation’s largest. The Stop Trashing Our Air Act, introduced by Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, would prohibit Philadelphia from contracting with companies that burn municipal waste.

If we are serious about reducing the harm of plastics, we cannot act as though disposal is someone else’s problem.

Philadelphia’s plastic bag ban showed that local action works. Now the city and the state should build on that progress by reducing unnecessary plastic use, expanding policies that limit exposure, and making safer alternatives more common once again. Pennsylvania should also stop lagging behind other states on actions to reduce single-use plastics.

Plastic policy is public health policy, we need to treat it that way.

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Join migrants, allies, and supporters across Canada from June 21–28 for a Migrant Summer Week of Action. We’re stepping up our action in response to the federal government’s cuts to permanent and temporary residency levels and the passing of Bill C-12, as we build toward our mass day of action with allies in the Migrant Rights Network on September 20, 2026.

When the summer heats up, so do our issues: unpredictable weather and wildfires, unsafe and un-air conditioned housing, stolen wages, lack of work, not enough income to eat or send money home, and mass permit expiries. We’re exhausted and stressed, but we’re getting ready to fight back.

Sign up now to stay connected. You’ll get updates on local actions, digital actions, and ways to get involved during Migrant Summer and beyond.

Digital action matters, too. Can’t attend? Show your solidarity by joining us in taking digital action on social media, or signing and sharing our petitions.

By coming together, we’re showing the federal government and employers that we’re not going to stay silent. Migrants deserve the same rights and protections as everyone else.

As the summer gets hotter, so will our struggle. We can’t keep waiting for change — this year, we will be the change.

Find an action

Search for events near you and RSVP inline.

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The post Migrant Summer: Status Now! first appeared on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

The post Migrant Summer: Status Now! appeared first on Migrant Workers Alliance for Change.

Terry Tempest Williams, one of our nation’s living literary treasures and a guiding light for many of us regarding ethics and citizenship, shares how she emerged from a dream during the pandemic in 2020 with a renewed vow she had forgotten. In this time of political and climate chaos, as we seek beauty and cohesion wherever we can find its glimmer, Terry focused on “The Glorians,” the overlooked presences—animal, plant, memory, moment—that reveal our shared vulnerability and interconnectedness with the natural world and how they can inspire us to carry forward with grace. “The Glorians are reaching out to us,” she writes,” inviting us to dream a new world into being.”

This talk was delivered at the 2026 Bioneers Conference.

Terry Tempest Williams, a writer, educator, and environmental activist known for her lyrical and impassioned prose, is the author of over twenty creative nonfiction books including the environmental literature classic, Refuge – An Unnatural History of Family and Place, and: The Open Space of Democracy, Finding Beauty in a Broken World, When Women Were Birds, and Erosion – Essays of Undoing. Her most recent book is the The Glorians – Visitations from the Holy Ordinary (spring ’26). A Recipient of Guggenheim and Lannan literary fellowships, Ms. Williams’ work has appeared widely, including in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Progressive, and Orion, and has been translated worldwide. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School.

Learn more at terrytempestwilliams.com

EXPLORE MORE Terry Tempest Williams: Noticing the Glorians in a Fractured World

In a recent conversation with Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons, Terry Tempest Williams reflects more personally on the inner terrain behind her work — art, activism, spirituality, and the discipline of staying open. She speaks to grief as a form of love, to community as a site of imagination, and to the quiet but radical act of not looking away. As she describes it, “finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.”

Erosion and Evolution: Our Undoing is Our Becoming

In this podcast episode, Terry Tempest Williams asks: How do we find the strength to not look away at all that is breaking our hearts? Hands on the earth, we remember where the source of our authentic power comes from.

The post Terry Tempest Williams – The Glorians Are Among Us appeared first on Bioneers.

The guest blog by Michael Happ of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) below provides an overview of what...

The post USDA’s new Regenerative Agriculture Initiative: A step forward or greenwashing? appeared first on CalCAN - California Climate & Agriculture Network.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tariff threat neutered

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

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

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

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

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

Attempts to re-negotiate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NZF a “fragile compromise”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tacit or explicit approval?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A system under attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Making the case for multilateralism

The stakes here extend well beyond shipping. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Opportunity for “inflection point”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beginning of a process

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

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

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

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

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

Colombia pledges to exit investment protection system after fossil fuel lawsuits

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

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

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

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

Terry Tempest Williams is one of the most celebrated and revered American nature writers. She integrates the musicality of a poet with the passion and purpose of an activist. Terry is also an award-winning conservationist, a fierce defender of her beloved Southwestern desert landscapes.

She has authored over 20 books that are translated worldwide. Her most recent book is The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary.

Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons, author of Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership, engaged with Terry at a Bioneers conference in a wide ranging conversation between two old friends.

Featuring

Terry Tempest Williams, a writer, educator, and environmental activist known for her lyrical and impassioned prose, is the author of over twenty creative nonfiction books. Her work has appeared widely, including in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Progressive, and Orion, and has been translated worldwide. Her most recent book is the The Glorians – Visitations from the Holy Ordinary (spring ’26).

Credits

• Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel
• Written by: Kenny Ausubel
• Producer: Teo Grossman
• Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch
• Associate Producer and Show Engineer: Emily Harris
• Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey
• Production Assistance: Mika Anami

Resources

TerryTempestWilliams.com

The Glorians – Visitations from the Holy Ordinary

Terry Tempest Williams: Noticing the Glorians in a Fractured World

Erosion and Evolution: Our Undoing is Our Becoming | Bioneers Podcast

This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to find out how to hear the program on your local station and how to subscribe to the podcast.

Subscribe to the Bioneers: Revolution from The Heart of Nature podcast

Transcript

Neil Harvey (Host): Standing in the lineage of the greatest nature writers, the acclaimed author, naturalist and activist Terry Tempest Williams links her deepest inner experiences with the state of the web of life. She plumbs connections: art and ecology – women and politics – democracy and social healing – wild lands and First Peoples – family and faith.

I’m Neil Harvey. This is “A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams”

Terry Tempest Williams is one of the most celebrated and revered American nature writers. She integrates the musicality of a poet with the passion and purpose of an activist. Her tender personal reflections and intimate insights as a naturalist braid together with her keen political and spiritual insight in a voice that feels most at home in the liminal – in the space between words.

Her work and her life encompass many dimensions beyond writing. As a socially and politically engaged artist, Terry is also an award-winning conservationist, a fierce defender of her beloved Southwestern desert landscapes. She’s done everything from civil disobedience to testifying before Congress on women’s health issues, to buying gas leases to prevent the desecration of pristine and sacred lands.

She has authored over 20 books that are translated worldwide, including the masterwork Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. Her most recent book is The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary.

Terry has received numerous prestigious literary awards, and her long academic career recently included serving as writer- in-residence at Harvard Divinity School.

Terry Tempest Williams spoke at a recent Bioneers conference, where Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons, author of Nature, Culture and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership, engaged with her in a free-range conversation between two old friends.

Nina began by asking Terry to describe the story from her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World chronicling her experience making social healing mosaics in Rwanda with the artist Lily Yeh.

Nina Simons (NS): In Finding Beauty in a Broken World, you share the story of Lily Yeh’s work with barefoot artists, helping create healing places in Rwanda and globally through engaged community art creation. And in both her work and your own, my sense is that you each elevate art to a place where its healing capacity for people, society and culture is amplified in community. You wrote that finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world you find. So now, when the need to transform our culture and society is at an all-time high, and since artists often foresee the future, I wonder if you have any thoughts about the role of artists in times like this, and what you might suggest to artists whose catalytic capacity is so vital, though so often undervalued in this society.

Terry Tempest Williams (TTW): How many of you know the work of Lily Yeh? She’s a phenomenal artist. She’s now 85, almost to be 86 years old, Asian, born in Taiwan, in China, her family. I met her in 2001, after I realized September 11th, my rhetoric had become as brittle as the opposition. And I had forgotten my poetry.

And I remember being in Maine. We were at a family place. And it was high tide. I went out to a rocky point and I said prayers. And basically said to the sea: Give me one wild word and I promise I will follow. And the word that came back to me after listening was mosaic. And I thought, oh no, my life is now going to be relegated to breaking my mother’s dishes and making bad picture frames. You know? I was—I did not understand mosaic. 

And I did some research, and Lily Yeh, her name came up. She started the Village of Arts and Humanities just outside Philly, in a very tough neighborhood. And I went on a pilgrimage to meet her. And she really changed my life and showed me the aisle of angels made of mosaics, the safehouses of mosaics, how…her colleague who was—had been a former drug dealer, became a master mosaicist. And they made these beautiful murals, and it—her work has been one of placemaking around the world. 

Lily Yeh. Photo: Daniel Traub / Wikimedia Commons

She later came to Salt Lake to do a mural in one of the poorer neighborhoods that had been invisible to the community. It became highly visible with the Latina and Latino communities. And then she said, “I need to talk to you.” And she said, “Will you come with me as a barefoot artist to Rwanda?” And I said no. My brother had just died a month earlier, and I said I cannot. I did not want to be in any more death. I cannot go. And Nina, she just stared at me. And then I heard myself, and I realized if I said no, I would be saying no to my spiritual life and growth, and I heard myself say yes. And another life-changing moment. 

And, I have to tell you, here’s another lesson I learned from her. Very conscientious, you know, if I’ve got a job, I will take it seriously. So knowing we were going to go to Rwanda, I got a map, looked where it was, what it was next to. I read over 60 books, everything I could get my hands on – novels, non-fiction, government reports – went to the Library of Congress, looked at all the maps – fire maps, water maps, war maps – just to get it in my mind. And she called me and she said, “I just want to know how you’re preparing.” And so I gave her this whole list, told her what I just told you. And I said but I just don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere, but I’ve got more books to read. And I said, ‘How are you preparing?’ And there’s this long silence, and she said, “I’m meditating.” And I quit reading. And just sat with that. So she’s a real teacher. 

And I think that’s what art does for us, it bypasses rhetoric and pierces the heart, and the heart is really, I think, where all change resides. 

And I saw…the power of art, to go into communities…numb with grief, dead with grief, the bones of these women’s children were buried under trees that were still there, that they were carrying in the folds of their skirts. But when Lily got the paint out and the children took over and painted their houses – turquoise, yellow, red, animals – something lifted. And what it led to was the creation of a genocide memorial, where these women – and most of them were women – could bury their beloveds in a place of dignity. And that was Lily. 

NS: You know that conversation about Rwanda leads me to ask you, as we are both women who are childless by choice, about your decision to adopt a son, and how that’s changing you.

TTW: My hair’s white. [LAUGHTER] Louis Gakumba is our son. He was our translator in Rwanda. And so, again, Lily. You know? 

I think being a mother at 50, as you say, childless by choice… it has brought me to my knees, and I mean in the most beautiful ways, for both Brooke and me. And Louis has been our teacher. It’s been hard. I knew nothing. I still know nothing. I am a grandmother. I have two grandchildren – we do – Malka who is 8, and Shayja who is 7. Shayja loves birds. I love him. He’s constantly calling about what he sees. 

Malka, I will share this with you, since you asked how’s it changing me… When she was 5, she said to me, “Do you think I’m too black?” And I said, ‘Malka, you are beautiful.’ And I said, ‘Why do you think that?’ And she gave me her reasons. And I said, ‘Let’s look at all the beautiful Black women.’ And we looked online, and she said, “She’s black like me. She’s black like me. She’s black like me.” And then she said, “Will you show me your body?” And I have to tell you, it was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life, was take off my clothes in front of a 5-year old. And turn around. And then, as I am standing before my granddaughter, she says, “What color is your heart?” And I said, ‘The same color as yours.’ And we’ve never had that discussion again. 

And the other day, three years later, she said, “Te Te Terry, don’t you think I’m beautiful? And I just said, ‘You are so beautiful.’ And so I think it’s what we learn together. 

Terry Tempest Williams at Bioneers 2026. Photo: Boris Zharkov

Shayja, the other day, we were up in Shenandoah, and he’s staring at me. You know? And I think, okay, this’ll come out. And he goes, “If only you were a little tanner.” And I just—you know, so we are learning about interracial family together, and it’s a beautiful thing. And Louis just wrote his memoir. It’s tough, it’s beautiful, and he said I want my children to know where they come from. And I want them to know who my ancestors are and—so we’re learning. 

And my father, who would tell you in this audience, was a true racist. And he is now 92, and he and Louis are closer than I can ever tell you. And it was on a plane from Denver to Salt Lake, and Dad and Louis were sitting together on the exit row, and a flight attendant said, “Yes, yes, yes.” And when Louis said yes, she said, “Get out, you don’t speak English.” And my father stood up and said, “Apologize. He speaks six languages. He’s smarter than anyone on this plane.” And she said, “Get out.” And my father stood up and said, “This plane will not fly until you apologize.” 

And when dad came home, I called him to see if they’d gotten home, and the flight attendant let things go, apologized. When I called my father, he was crying. And he said Terry, “I knew racism from the inside out. I never knew racism from the outside in.” And that night, he had a stroke. And I think it was such a shock that he literally was rewired. And it was Louis who took him to the emergency room, sat with him all night, and held his hand. No one holds my father’s hand. So it’s those kinds of changes, Nina. Aside from love and joy and… I’m grateful. 

Host: When we return, Terry Tempest Williams and Nina Simons explore how to marry contradictions, being species-fluid, and feeding a spider.

I’m Neil Harvey. You’re listening to the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature.

Host: If you’d like to see and hear more from Terry Tempest Williams, you can visit bioneers.org

Let’s drop back into the kitchen table conversation with Terry Tempest Williams and Nina Simons.

NS: Well, years ago, we had a conversation where you spoke of feeling drawn to marrying apparent contradictions. And it landed in me in a big way. And—

TTW: In what way?

NS: Well, in that every time I found myself encountering an apparent contradiction, I thought of you, and I thought, Huh, what does it mean to try to marry these things that seem so polarized. And…it was long before there was so much interest in non-binary gendered identities, and I found it a useful practice, to see how I could imagine them dancing together. Do you still find that resonant for you?

TTW: Every day.

NS: Yeah. [LAUGHS]

TTW: You know, living around Great Salt Lake, and living long enough to have seen her in her historic high, and now at her historic low, in retreat – and I don’t see it as retreat in the military retreat. I see it as a retreat as one goes on retreat or retreat in meditation or retreat in reflection. And I feel she’s inviting us to do the same.

So here is a saline lake that theoretically is dying, and alongside her death will be the death of the Wasatch Front – 2.5 million people if we do nothing. Not to mention the livelihood of 12 million birds. Right now, I have never seen Great Salt Lake so vibrant. I have never seen the Salt Lake area more alive with concern, with creative thinking, with young people, with artists, the Mormon Church. Great Salt Lake now has a new ally – Donald Trump. I don’t know how to deal with that, the paradox, because if I’m saying all hands on deck, that means Donald Trump’s hands too. And then I think, are we losing the lake even as we’re trying to save the lake?

I watch people who are saying it’s not called Great Salt Lake anymore, it’s the Lake. There are those that are saying this is America’s lake… I see them neutering her. And the Native people have said our Sacred Mother Lake. This is how we know her, this is how we want her dressed. I see the tribes not being brought to the table as sovereign nations, as sovereign governments. So it’s this, that and all of it. 

And the Wilson’s phalarope, which is now an endangered species, we’ve filed a petition for that species protection. The scientists on one hand say we have five years, seven years. The percentage of a saline lake ever being saved is zero.

Great Salt Lake. Photo: Patrick Hendry / Unsplash

But now, the governor, who’s on board, saying the deadline is 2034, which is the Winter Olympics. So that’s not the lake’s deadline. That’s not the phalarope’s deadline. So how do we juggle all of these things? It’s a paradox that feels like a hologram. And, yet, Great Salt Lake is directing us. 

And I think, again, what we were talking about today. If we are present, we’ll know what to do. If we’re listening to the lake, we will hear what she has to say. And, again, the elders, the different tribes, are leading the way, in my mind, and with integrity and a spiritual depth that I’m not seeing elsewhere. 

NS: I feel a tremendous connection with you and your writing through the way that you speak to and embody a quality of the feminine in your work. And the “feminine” I want to say, with quotes, because it’s such a weird word, and it’s been so malformed in our culture. And I think of When Women Were Birds. And I’ve recently begun studying the Tao Te Ching, and especially Ursula Le Guin’s version of it.

TTW: I love that.

NS: Which is so wonderful. And it’s reminding me of a long fascination that I’ve had with this quality that’s beyond binary genderism that’s about how one way of seeing how we’ve gone so wrong is the imbalance of the yin and the yang in all of us – in our culture, in our—you know, economy, in our education, in everything. I find myself reaching to expand the gender dialogue to encompass everyone and everything, and the archetypal necessity of rebalancing our inner framework. I wonder if you have any thoughts about that.

TTW: Just for the record, I’m thinking do I dare say this. You know? [LAUGHTER] I won’t have the right language, and I’m sure I will say it wrong and offend someone. But there was a moment in one of my classes, and we were—you know, the students write essays and braided essays, and gender pronouns, all of that comes up, and it’s important, and we’re all learning. And we’ve had some really powerful conversations in terms of what stories do we tell, what’s private, what’s personal, what about families, all of those. And we had an incredible conversation about queerness. And I said, ‘I think I’m queer.’ And you could have heard a pin drop. You know? And they go, “What do you mean?” And I said, ‘Well, we’ve been talking about being gender fluid. I feel I’m species fluid.’ And they got so excited. [LAUGHTER] You know? But I feel that. You know?

And I remember in An Unspoken Hunger, I talked about pansexuality in The Yellowstone: An Erotics of Place, and mentioned bison. And, you know, I think we’re so limited in terms of what we are capable of, in terms of our understanding different genders, in terms of understanding different species, and yet, if we can open ourselves and really be present with whomever we’re with, I think there is a depth of reciprocity and responsibility and empathy that is transferred. And I feel that again and again and again in the natural world. Call it serendipitous, call it the erotics of place, call it species—being species fluid. 

Talking to a person on the phone about the Say’s phoebes, that they were so beautiful. And I said, ‘I just love them.’ And then one jumped on my head. You know? And you just think, they know, you know? We’ve all had this experience.

Say’s Phoebe. Photo: Chuck Abbe / Wikimedia Commons

And it seems to me that the ultimate act of anthropomorphism is to assume that other species don’t feel, don’t communicate, don’t live and love and grieve. The exceptionalism that we have, I think, is so limiting, whether it’s our own view of gender, whether it’s our own view of the natural world, whether it’s our own view of ourselves.

So how do we keep expanding? How do we live and love with our hearts wide open, even in brokenness?

Host: The deeper story where the sacred dwells, where anything is possible.

As one of our generation’s greatest storytellers, Terry Tempest Williams engages with the world around her by building bridges between the human and other-than-human worlds.

In an excerpt from her recent book, The Glorians, she returns to the landscape she calls home, the Red Rock desert of Utah. She writes about what she calls “visitations from the holy ordinary,” moments and experiences that draw her deeper into relationship with the pulsing, thriving life that surrounds us all.

TTW: This is from The Glorians.

“‘I came from a family of repairers,’ the artist Louise Bourgeois once said, ‘The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it.’

When I think of black widows in the desert, I wonder if this is true. Their webs are messy and hidden, not at all elegant like the orb weavers’ circular webs that spiral outward in summer fields of goldenrod. Black widows offer a warning. When their web is touched, it crackles like a witch, inspiring panic. The chaotic nest is a morgue of tightly wrapped victims that have had their blood sucked out of them, heightening the red hourglass on the female’s shiny black body.

Here in the Red Rock desert, they are everywhere – in between rocks, nestled in cliffs, and inhabiting our homes. Best to check coat pockets, behind pillows, and inside shoes. We have learned to live with them.

One summer, we had a large female, her abdomen the size of a Costco blueberry.” I wish I’d used a different metaphor. [LAUGHTER] “The size of a Costco blueberry, who lived behind our armoire in our bedroom. Brooke was out of town and I was about to leave for a longer period of time, so I left him a yellow sticky note attached to the wall close to where she would often come out to feed, and wrote: Please take care of her. X X X, T.

When Brooke returned home, he saw the note, and instead of understanding my message to mean please take her outside, he took it to mean please feed her. Which is exactly what he did for weeks. When I returned home, her abdomen was the size of a grape. [LAUGHTER]

The summer progressed, and one night, I was home alone again. It was hot and I couldn’t sleep. Rather than fight it, I decided I would listen to a group of soundscapes a friend had recently sent me as a stay against loneliness and heat-induced insomnia. One recording was from the Arctic in Alaska, one was from the rainforest in Costa Rica, and one was from Arizona Sonoran Desert. I listened to the Arctic. I didn’t think there was anything on it. I turned on the bedroom light and listened more closely. If one can hear cold, it was a faint growl. I changed CDs.

This time, I sat up with a low-wattage lamp. The rain intensified, and without thought, I started having an anxiety attack thinking there might be another flash flood, until I realized that it sounded, to my desert ear, like exactly that, a flash flood. I was two for two with no relief for loneliness or hope of a lullaby.

The final recording was of the Sonoran Desert, with giant saguaros on the cover. I placed the CD in the machine and returned to my chair. It was perfect. The familiar sounds of crickets, bat wings, and the pinpoint peeps, a band of coyotes and some insects I did not recognize. Just then, a shadow appeared on the wall. [LAUGHTER] I turned to see the black widow drawn from her hiding place by sounds of the desert night she inhabits. I was not startled, but welcomed her presence.

I sat in my chair. She was poised on the edge of her web. Together in soft light, we listened to night sounds from the Sonoran, a woman and a spider, comfortable with each other’s company.”

Thank you. Thank you so much. And let’s thank Nina for everything. [APPLAUSE]

NS: Thank you, all. Thank you, Terry, so very much. [APPLAUSE]

Host: “A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams.”

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