G1. Progressive Green

GFC members and allies are helping to build a new gender-just map of community-led solutions for forests, people and the planet.

What does a real solution to the climate and biodiversity crises look like?

It might be an agroecological farming system rooted in traditional knowledge. It might be a community defending its territory from extractive industries. It might be women organising to protect forests, strengthen food sovereignty or build more equitable forms of community governance.

And it is not just about what communities are doing. It is also about what makes these solutions possible, and just as importantly, what stands in their way.

These questions are at the heart of a new Gender-Just Real Solutions Map for Forests and Communities being developed by the Global Forest Coalition (GFC), with support from Bread for the World (Brot für die Welt) and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (RLF). Over three online sessions held in July and August, GFC members and allies from across the Global South have been working together to shape the ideas, criteria and methodology that will underpin the map.

The process began in July with a discussion about what a false solution is, and what makes a solution real. Participants shared examples from their own territories and explored how community-led alternatives differ from false solutions that can reproduce environmental destruction, inequality and corporate control. Importantly, the group agreed that the map should focus on concrete, localised practices rooted in particular territories, rather than treating “solutions” as generic or easily scalable commodities.

The second session put gender justice at the centre. Rather than treating gender as simply a question of whether women are represented or participate, participants explored who does the work, including unpaid care and domestic work; who makes decisions; who controls land, resources and income; and what would make an initiative genuinely gender-just. The discussion also considered how the map itself can challenge the underlying colonial and patriarchal systems that shape relationships between people, territories and nature.

Members of a community forest user group are managing their community forest in Nawalparasi district. Nawalparsi FECOFUN

As Jaqueline Santos of FASE, a GFC member group in Brazil, explained, women in Pará play a leading role in agriculture and in protecting their territories. She also highlighted the importance of women’s groups and support networks in rural communities, where women facing violence can struggle to access formal systems of support.

“Their perspective, their understanding of what constitutes a territory, and their knowledge of what must be preserved and protected are given much greater prominence and attention by women,” said Santos. “In Brazil, we have a situation where it’s very difficult to report violence in the city. In rural areas, it’s very difficult to file a report (…) There’s an entire system that doesn’t support women who have been victims of violence. The state is designed for men. We work intensively on the issue of violence with support groups. There must be women’s groups in these communities, because there’s no space for women in groups where men participate,” she said. 

The third session then turned to a question that is crucial for understanding how real solutions can flourish: what conditions do they require?

Participants discussed ecological, social, economic, political and cultural conditions, including community organising, legal frameworks, self-determination, autonomous governance, community-led financing and gender-responsive practices. They also identified barriers ranging from extractive projects and land grabbing to patriarchal policies, colonial legal frameworks, bureaucracy, lack of funding and the criminalisation of environmental defenders.

Ariella Kabunga of the Integrated Program for the Development of the Pygmy People in Kivu (PIDP) stressed that gender justice requires more than gender-just laws on paper. Women must be able to participate meaningfully in decision-making, influence decisions and take on positions of responsibility.

“We need political and legal frameworks to ensure equal rights for women. But it is not enough to have gender-just laws and policies. It is also necessary to ensure the dissemination, application, and monitoring implementation at the national, local, and community levels. Community organizations and structures must integrate gender into their policies, programs, budgets and decision-making mechanisms,” Kabunga said. “Another fundamental condition is the effective participation of women in decision-making processes. It is not enough to invite women to a meeting. They must have the opportunity to express themselves, influence decisions, and hold positions of responsibility.”

These discussions are now helping to build the map itself. The first set of inclusion and exclusion criteria is being shared with participants for validation and further input, while GFC and the Critical Geography Collective (CGC) are also working with participants to develop a protocol for protecting information and safeguarding data.

The emerging methodology will ensure that the map is not simply a collection of points on a screen. Each entry will tell a story: What is the initiative? Why is it a real solution? Who is involved? Where and when is it happening? And how has it been made possible? Users will be able to explore different kinds of initiatives, from agroecology and forest protection to traditional knowledge, sustainable livelihoods and territories free from extractivism, as well as the conditions that have enabled them to flourish.

The map will therefore be a space to see and learn from each other’s experiences, forms of resistance and social action, rather than imposing a single model of what a solution should look like. As the project’s methodology notes, real solutions are diverse, territorial and shaped by the communities themselves. The map is intended to grow from that diversity and remain open to continued revision and learning.

Ultimately, the goal is to make visible what too often remains invisible: the people, practices, rights and conditions that already offer pathways towards protecting forests, biodiversity and communities, without relying on markets to put a price on nature.

The Gender-Just Real Solutions Map for Forests and Communities is expected to launch in November 2026, with the database continuing to grow beyond the initial launch.

Stay tuned — the map is taking shape.

A map built collectively

The Gender-Just Real Solutions Map is being developed collaboratively with the Critical Geography Collective (CGC) and GFC members and allies working with communities and movements across the Global South. Organisations participating in the design of the map, its criteria and its initial entries include:

• Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) — Bangladesh
• Federation of Social and Educational Assistance Organisations (FASE) — Brazil
• Fundación de Expresión Intercultural, Educativa y Ambiental (FUNDAEXPRESIÓN) — Colombia
• Colectivo VientoSur — Chile
• Programme Intégré pour le Développement du Peuple Pygmée au Kivu (PIDP) — Democratic Republic of Congo
• Instituto para el Futuro Común Amerindio (IFCA) — Honduras
• Federation of Community Forestry Users Nepal (FECOFUN) — Nepal
• National Forum for Advocacy Nepal (NAFAN) — Nepal
• Centro de Desarrollo Ambiental y Humano (CENDAH) — Panama
• Zambia Social Forum (ZAMSOF) — Zambia
• Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA) — global network
• Latin American and Caribbean Platform for Climate Justice (PLACJC) — regional network

Have a real solution to share? 

We are also inviting organisations and community groups to suggest initiatives or projects that they think meet the map’s criteria. If you know of a community-led initiative that could belong on the map, please contact Valentina Figuera Martínez, GFC’s Gender Justice and Forests Campaign Coordinator, who is leading the project, at valentinafmartinez@globalforestcoalition.org.

The version of record of this op-ed was published in The Hill Times on September 2, 2026. 

By Peter Massie (Director, Geothermal Energy Office, Cascade Institute) and Jax Jacobsen (Communication Lead, Geothermal Energy Office, Cascade Institute)

Whitehorse sits atop a promising geothermal resource—maybe one of Canada’s best, and developing geothermal energy would strengthen this country’s national security by strengthening relations with Arctic allies.

Northern territories and cities desperately need affordable energy. At the same time, Canada’s armed forces require a steady and inexpensive source of power to patrol and protect the North.

Continue reading.

The post Canada has an energy conundrum in the north: geothermal energy is the answer appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Most fast food chains have concerning chemicals on the menu Iris Myers September 3, 2026

When you’re trying to decide what to get at your favorite fast food spot, it can be hard to know exactly what you’re eating – including whether it’s made with potentially harmful ingredients. 

That’s because restaurants aren’t required to make their ingredients public. And due to a decades-long legal loophole called “generally recognized as safe,” or GRAS, many of the chemicals used in our food haven’t actually been reviewed for health or safety. Food companies, not the Food and Drug Administration, are deciding what’s safe to put in what you eat.

We took a closer look at menus from 12 of the top fast food chains in the U.S. to find out which were still using food chemicals with potential health and safety risks:

• Arby’s
• Burger King
• Chick-fil-A
• Chipotle
• Domino’s
• KFC
• McDonald’s
• Panera
• Pizza Hut
• Subway
• Taco Bell
• Wendy’s

Beyond the ingredient lists, our findings reveal a bigger picture: U.S. food policies are falling short of helping people eat healthy.

Food chemicals appear on most fast food menus

We looked at how many popular chains used chemicals from EWG’s Dirty Dozen™ Guide to Food Chemicals. This guide spotlights some of the top food chemicals that experts recommend avoiding because of their potential health harms.

Because fast food chains don’t have to make ingredient lists public, EWG’s review of menu items was limited to the most recent information available online. It isn’t a comprehensive look at all fast food, but it does reveal some clues about how chemicals of concern are used in the places we eat.

At least one Dirty Dozen chemical appeared on almost every menu we reviewed, with the exception of Chipotle. 

Subway and Panera also appeared to use fewer chemicals of concern in their food, while McDonald’s used most of EWG’s top chemicals of concern somewhere on its menu.

Artificial dyes and other common additives

The most common additive on fast food menus was artificial dyes, which appeared on all menus except for Chipotle’s and Subway’s. Dyes were mostly used in artificially flavored beverages like sodas, lemonade and milkshakes, though not every chain posted drink ingredients.

Sodium nitrite, a meat preservative linked to cancer, appeared on more than half of the menus reviewed. Used in processed meats like sausage, ham and pepperoni, sodium nitrite was frequently found in foods from Pizza Hut, Subway, Domino's, McDonald’s and Wendy’s. 

Titanium dioxide, an additive European regulators say is no longer safe in food, was listed in about half of the menus – mostly in dressings. It also appeared in Taco Bell’s vanilla creamer, which is used in  some of its dirty sodas, Refrescas and coffee drinks.

Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose showed up often in “zero sugar” beverages.

TBHQ, a preservative with potential toxicity, was used at pizza chains like Domino’s and Pizza Hut. Most Pizza Hut crusts were made with TBHQ, as were its chicken wings and breadsticks.

What should families in a fast food world eat?

It’s not practical to expect people to become experts on every food chemical. That’s why EWG advocates for policies that make healthy eating easier for everyone.

The FDA recently proposed to narrow the GRAS loophole, but far more is needed to make sure the food supply is safe.

In the meantime, you can scan nutrition facts and ingredient lists when they’re available, and try to avoid long lists of ingredients you wouldn’t find in your home kitchen.

If you’re grocery shopping, check EWG's Food Scores, which rates more than 150,000 products on nutrition, ingredients and processing and flags ultra-processed foods for you. Shoppers on the go can also use EWG’s Healthy Living app.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Food Chemicals Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN Guest Authors Adam Levin, EWG communications intern September 3, 2026

Adding folic acid to food can save newborn babies. A misleading food 'safety' bill could block that Anthony Lacey September 2, 2026

• The “FRESH” Act would block states from regulating chemicals in food or requiring folic acid fortification, proven to reduce birth defects
• The food industry group Americans for Ingredient Transparency is pushing the bill that could gut states’ food safety authority
• Congress should reject the FRESH Act. EWG is rallying against it in Washington, D.C., on September 15 with partners and supporters.

Food companies are pushing a bill in Congress, the FRESH Act, as a food safety measure. It isn’t.

The bill, if enacted, would block state laws regulating chemicals in food, known as preemption. And its preemption provisions are so broad it could harm public health far beyond the chemicals the measure would allow in food, according to a new Harvard Law School analysis. 

The FRESH Act would make the Food and Drug Administration the sole regulator of food additives, stripping states of the authority to pass or enforce their own food chemical laws. 

In practice, Harvard’s analysis finds the bill’s preemption language covers almost anything that could become a “component” of food. That means the FRESH Act’s threats to the food supply are twofold: It would erase state bans on harmful food chemicals – and might roll back a range of other public health protections with it.

One consequence of the bill would be blocking state laws that require folic acid to be added to certain foods – a practice the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called one of the greatest public health achievements in recent decades.

Benefits of folic acid fortification

The addition of folic acid to food – also known as folic acid fortification – is a public health measure designed to prevent neural tube defects in infants. Conditions like spina bifida can develop in the first weeks of pregnancy, often before someone even knows they’re pregnant.

The U.S. has required folic acid fortification in enriched grain products like bread and cereal since 1998. This policy may have helped to reduce the rate of neural tube defects by between 25% and 50%.

Many Latino communities benefit less from the federal fortification mandate, because they eat more tortillas and tamales – foods not captured in national fortification requirements. So some states, including Alabama and California, have extended that mandate to include corn masa flour. Florida introduced a similar bill to address health disparities, though it failed in committee.

The FRESH Act would wipe away those existing state laws and prevent any other state from pursuing future similar measures. 

Harvard’s analysis warns that the FRESH Act’s preemption language is broad enough to block new folic acid fortification laws from ever taking effect, and to erase the ones already on the books in Alabama and California.

Despite its industry backers calling the bill a way to ensure consistent food safety nationwide, it could also frustrate other public health measures. For example, it would likely block state allergen labeling requirements and lead and arsenic limits in baby food.

Stopping state food chemical laws

A group called Americans for Ingredient Transparency, which is backed by major multinational food corporations, is pushing the bill.

Their goal is simple: make the FDA the only regulator that matters when it comes to food additives, effectively shutting state efforts down.

But the FDA’s system for evaluating food chemical safety is effectively broken.

Under current law, food companies can add chemicals to food through a provision called GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe.” It is a regulatory loophole that has allowed thousands of chemicals into our food supply – some of which the chemical companies never even notified the FDA about. 

And a recent GRAS “reform” proposal from the FDA fails to fix the broken system. Although it would require companies to tell the FDA about new chemicals, it sets no deadlines for notification, allows companies to use new chemicals before the FDA has reviewed them, and fails to guarantee those chemicals are safe. 

It also permits existing GRAS chemicals to stay on the market without submitting any safety data to the FDA. 

The absence of federal leadership on food safety prompted many states to step up. In many cases, states are the sole line of defense against food chemicals that may harm our health. In 2025 alone, more than 30 states introduced nearly 120 bills addressing food chemical safety.

What needs to change – and what you can do now

Congress should reject the FRESH Act – and in the meantime, states should continue passing and defending their own food safety laws.

Join EWG in Washington, D.C., on September 15 for our Toxics Off the Table! rally to fight the FRESH Act and protect state food safety laws. Visit our website for more information.

Until there are enough policies in place to protect public health, EWG’s tools can help you navigate the food supply.

EWG’s Dirty Dozen™ Guide to Food Chemicals breaks down the most concerning additives currently allowed in our food. 

And our Food Scores database lets you search for more than 150,000 products rated on nutrition, ingredient and processing concerns. Use EWG’s Healthy Living™ App on the go.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Family Health Women's Health Children’s Health Food Chemicals Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN September 2, 2026

EWG letter objecting to the EPA's chlormequat tolerances Anthony Lacey September 2, 2026

Attached are EWG’s objections to the Environmental Protection Agency’s final rule setting chlormequat tolerances. EWG urges the agency to retain the tenfold children’s safety factor required by law.

File Download Document ewg-objections_to_chlormequat_tolerances_epa-ha-opp-2021-0290.pdf Areas of Focus Pesticides Authors David Andrews, Ph.D. August 31, 2026

EWG comments on EPA's proposed sixth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule Anthony Lacey September 2, 2026

Attached are EWG’s comments to the Environmental Protection Agency on its proposed sixth Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule.

File Download Document ewg_ucmr6comments.pdf Areas of Focus Water Toxic Chemicals PFAS Chemicals Authors Varun Subramaniam, M.S. Tasha Stoiber, Ph.D. David Andrews, Ph.D. August 31, 2026

On August 26, 2026, a catastrophic flash flood swept down from the Bhote Koshi River near the Nepal-Tibet border, tearing through Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading districts in Nepal and destroying entire villages within minutes, leaving thousands missing and hundreds dead. This account is by Dikshya Subedi, a local in Kathmandu who has spent the past seven years working in climate advocacy across the Himalayan region. She is the country lead at SHE Changes Climate and founder of the youth-led organization Youth Action For Sustainable and Eco Nepal (YASEN), and writes here as someone whose own family was directly affected by the disaster.

That Wednesday morning started like any other. At around 9:30 AM, I saw the first news of a massive flood in Rasuwa, the beautiful mountainous district on the Tibet border. Lined with brightly coloured houses and where the Bhote Koshi River enters Nepal, Rasuwa is located a few hours from Kathmandu. Feeling confused and unsettled, I scrolled on, the way we sometimes do when something feels too big to look at directly. A few minutes later, my eyes landed on Facebook again, and this time the news was impossible to scroll past. The flash flood had hit  Devighat, Nuwakot, a quiet riverside town further downstream where my husband was born and grew up in, the place that held his entire childhood.

I called my aunt, who lives in Nuwakot. Her voice on the phone was shaking, terrified. “Nothing is left,” she told me. “Everything is destroyed.” Somehow, my uncle, aunt, and brother Manzil Rimal managed to evacuate from that flooded area just before the massive flood.  But that phone call broke something in me. The place where we used to visit my husband’s hometown for festivals, where we gathered as a family, where his memories live, turned into mud in ten minutes.

An aerial view shows houses covered in mud after flash floods at Devighat, Nepal’s Nuwakot district. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

I’ve worked in climate advocacy for several years. I’ve explained flood risks to government officials, helped authorities understand the danger maps for glacial lakes, and used the phrase “climate crisis” more times than I can count. But watching the impacts of the climate crisis arrive at your own doorstep, was beyond anything I could have imagined. I have spent years telling other people this could happen to them. I never imagined I would be the one making the phone call, listening to my aunt’s voice break on the other end.

There is a saying in Nepal: disaster won’t come by making noise. On that Wednesday, the people of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading learned exactly how true that is. And so did I, not as an advocate this time, but as a daughter-in-law of that soil.

What happened

A sudden, catastrophic flash flood surged in from the Bhote Koshi River near the Nepal-China border on the morning of August 26. It tore downstream through Timure, Syaphrubeshi, and Betrawati in Rasuwa district, sweeping away entire villages within an hour. The floodwaters continued down the Trishuli River corridor, devastating communities further downstream in the districts of Nuwakot and Dhading. Devighat, my husband’s village, was severely affected.

Floodwaters caused severe devastation in Devighat. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

While the exact cause is still being investigated, scientists have traced the flood back to an over 2,000-foot-wide (approx. 600 meters) chunk of glacier that sheared off high in the Himalayas and plunged 7,000 feet (over 2 kms) into the Lhende Khola a tributary of the Bhote Koshi River, sending a flood wave downstream at speeds of up to 193 km/h. This is exactly the kind of event climate change triggers. Warming shrinks glaciers and makes them more likely to break apart. 

The death toll from the devastating Bhote Koshi flood in Rasuwa has reached 939, while 3,925 people remain out of contact, according to the latest update from National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA). The highest number of bodies, 279, was recovered in Chitwan, followed by 216 in Nawalparasi Purba, 169 in Nawalparasi Paschim, 95 in Nuwakot, 65 in Gorkha, 55 in Dhading, 38 in Tanahun, and 23 in Rasuwa. Search and rescue teams, along with relief and medical response units, are still working around the clock. The government has set up dedicated teams for rescue, relief, health, communications, and infrastructure restoration, but the scale of destruction will take a long time to fully understand, let alone recover from.

The floodwaters along with mud and debris completely destroy homes, reaching levels above the rooftops. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

This is personal

For me, this is not something I am following from a distance through headlines. My husband’s home is in Devighat, Nuwakot, one of the places hit hardest. My uncle, aunt, and brother were there and saw the destruction with their own eyes: houses swept away, communities losing almost everything in a matter of minutes. Thankfully, my close relatives are safe. We have not lost anyone in our own family. But we have lost our house and factory, which is the main source of income that my parents and Uncle Aunt took many years to built on is swept away in  seconds. The place where we held countless family gatherings, where all of my husband’s childhood memories live, no longer exists.

Caption: Dikshya’s husband’s family home, buried under mud and debris from the flood. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

The reports coming out of Devighat now are hard to read. A village once known for its bustling market and Jalpa Devi temple one of the very popular temple is buried under mud so complete that only the upper floors of houses still break the surface – uprooted trees flung onto rooftops, electric pylons snapped like twigs. Search teams there are still pulling bodies from collapsed homes, working through mud so thick that sometimes all that’s visible of a victim is a foot. Survivors who’ve come back describe standing in the wreckage of houses they spent their whole lives building, with nothing left to salvage but the clothes on their backs, unsure whether the land is even safe to rebuild on. Watching what has happened to our neighbors, to the village that shaped my husband’s childhood, is heartbreaking in a way I don’t fully have words for.

The destruction left in Devighat in the aftermath of the flood. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

This is the part that people rarely talk about when they discuss climate advocacy: the work is never as abstract as it looks from the outside. I have spent years building the language – resilience, adaptation, loss and damage – that is supposed to help policymakers understand disasters like this one. Advocacy taught me the facts. This flood taught me what the facts actually cost.

Houses in Devighat left destroyed as mud and debris reach rooftops. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

It’s not climate change anymore; it’s a climate emergency

This disaster is a brutal reminder that climate change is not something we can keep filing away as a threat for later. We are already living its consequences here in the Himalayas. 

Global heating is melting the permafrost, the “glue” that holds our mountains together, and that’s raising the risk of glacier collapse more and more likely. A survey published within a day of this flood has now mapped over 3,600 glacial lakes across our river basins, 47 of them classified as potentially dangerous, and this one wasn’t even on the list, because the lake that burst didn’t exist the morning before. That’s how fast this hazard is moving.

Climate change makes flashfloods like the one above in Nuwakot more likely due to glacier collapse triggered by global heating. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

What makes this especially unjust is the imbalanced cruelty of who pays: Nepal is responsible for roughly 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it ranks among the 10 countries most affected by climate change on the Global Climate Risk Index. Nepal’s finance minister, Swarnim Wagle, has put the initial rebuilding cost at US$4–5 billion, nearly a tenth of the country’s entire economy. But that estimate assumes this is a one-time cost. It isn’t. With the region’s glaciers and permafrost continuing to destabilize, a disaster like this one is not a low-probability outlier, it is the shape of what is coming again.

There is still room for hope

In the middle of all this grief, something has genuinely moved me: the response of young people.Within a day, young volunteers across Nepal had organized themselves into the Rasuwa Relief Group, tracking who was missing, making sure support reached those who needed it, even volunteering for risky ground operations. 

Locals and volunteers provide support and rescue in Devighat after the flood. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

I’ve sat in plenty of meetings where “youth engagement” was just a line on someone’s agenda, a box to check before the real decisions happened elsewhere. Watching this unfold in real time, I don’t need convincing anymore. No one assigned these young people this responsibility: they simply took it on, faster than any ministry could move, because these were their families too.

It doesn’t erase my grief. But it has given me hope.It’s proof that the years I spent showing up to advocate for the climate as it affects young people,did build something – a generation that doesn’t wait to be asked.

Things need to change now

The flood that took my husband’s hometown moved at 193 kilometers an hour. We need to move faster. And for that, we need three things:

1. Disaster preparedness and management: Climate response and preparedness cannot be the thing we get to eventually. It has to come first, before the next village disappears. We need early-warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, and locally led preparedness for the mountain communities already living with this risk.
2. Locally led adaptation: Youth and affected communities must be given real, resourced roles in local adaptation and early-warning planning, not token invitations after the mourning has begun. 
3. Real climate finance: Wealthy nations, most responsible for the climate crisis, need to stop treating funding as a favor delivered on their own timeline. Nepal needs that money now, not at the next summit. It needs to come as genuine compensation, not charity, and paid out as grants rather than loans that burden our country. It must reach impacted families directly and fast.

This isn’t a wish list; it’s the difference between a village saved in time and one that isn’t. My husband’s hometown is already gone. What we do next decides how many more we can save.

Dikshya in Devighat. Photo: Dikshya Subedi

 

“Yesterday, this was a climate and disaster story in the news; today, it is a story happening at my family’s doorstep. But the people of Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and Dhading are still here, still fighting, still helping each other. Let’s unite to rebuild together. 

The post Climate change suddenly became real when the flood buried my husband’s village in minutes appeared first on 350.

Agriculture’s climate emissions are rising but fully funding conservation can slow them Anthony Lacey September 2, 2026 Anne Schechinger, M.S. September 2, 2026 Overview

• Agriculture produces around 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the sector’s emissions are rising.
• Under current policies, that 10% could jump to between 18% and 41% by 2050.
• The next farm bill should prioritize and fully fund regenerative agriculture practices to stop the sector from becoming the largest source of emissions.

Agriculture could become the nation’s leading producer of greenhouse gases by 2050.

Most other sectors of the economy, especially transportation and electricity, are expected to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions dramatically in the coming decades. That decline is mostly due to voluntary industry efforts and changing technology.

Agriculture’s climate pollution is driven overwhelmingly by nitrous oxide and methane. Nitrous oxide accounts for 52% of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, while methane accounts for another 46%. And the sector’s emissions keep rising – they’re projected to go up a quarter of a percent every year through mid-century.

That should be a wake-up call for Congress. 

Agricultural conservation practices – like riparian forest buffers, tree establishment, diversified crop rotations and nutrient management – can help reduce climate emissions or store carbon, so agriculture doesn’t become the biggest source of emissions. 

These practices also have other benefits, such as reducing air pollution and protecting waterways. 

But the billions of dollars both the House and Senate farm bills propose to cut from federal conservation programs would make it harder for farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Congress, through the farm bill, should maintain conservation program funding, and prioritize the money for regenerative practices, instead of continuing to send so much money to structural practices that bring little, if any, climate emissions reductions. 

Agriculture’s growing share of emissions

Agriculture is responsible for at least 10% of annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. When combined with emissions from fertilizer production, the sector’s share is even higher.

Climate models show that if the sector’s emissions increase slightly while emissions from other sectors fall, as projected, agriculture’s share of U.S. emissions will grow.

Agriculture ranks fourth among U.S. economic sectors for greenhouse gas emissions, behind transportation, industry and electricity and ahead of buildings and “other” sources.

But that ranking is unlikely to last.

Under policies in place today, agriculture’s share of emissions is expected to almost double by 2050, from 10% to 18%. Agriculture would move up to being the third largest greenhouse-gas-producing sector, after industry and transportation.

But the U.S. has previously made international climate commitments, including through the Paris Agreement, that have led to federal rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gases from most other sectors, including industry and transportation. 

Even though the Trump administration – in both the first and second terms – withdrew from the Paris climate pact, the industry and transportation sectors are still rapidly reducing their emissions.

There are no broad federal greenhouse gas rules in place to force cuts in agriculture’s emissions. As industry, transportation and other sectors lower their overall emissions, agriculture’s share rises – unless the sector also acts to cut emissions. 

Under the scenario in which the U.S. reduces total emissions to levels agreed on in the Paris Agreement, the agriculture sector would make up 41% of total U.S. emissions in 2050. In this scenario, agriculture would be the economic sector producing the most greenhouse gas emissions, because the other sectors would severely cut their emissions. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. U.S. emissions by economic sector in 2026, and predicted emissions in 2050 under two scenarios

Image

Source: EWG, using data from Energy Innovation’s Energy Policy Simulator.

Agriculture must reduce its emissions to avoid becoming the No. 1 source of U.S. climate emissions. (See Figure 2.) Scientists warn that if emissions from agriculture don’t go down, the worst impacts of the climate crisis will be inescapable.

Figure 2. If the U.S. follows its international commitments in other sectors, agriculture could top 40% of emissions by 2050

Image

Source: EWG, using data from Energy Innovation’s Energy Policy Simulator.

Nitrous oxide and methane are agriculture’s main climate emissions

Agricultural soil management is the main driver of the sector’s nitrous oxide emissions, particularly the widespread use of fertilizer on crops like corn. Microbes in soil turn nitrogen from fertilizer and manure into nitrous oxide.

Even though nitrous oxide makes up a small share of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, it is a potent greenhouse gas. Nitrous oxide stays in the atmosphere for over 100 years and has a global warming potential 273 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Global nitrous oxide emissions grew by 40% between 1980 and 2020, and they are expected to increase another 30% between 2020 and 2050. Corn production makes up over half of all nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture.

Nitrous oxide does not just contribute to climate change; it also depletes the ozone layer. And ammonia nitrous oxides can form with other compounds to create particulate matter, with exposure leading to premature deaths. 

Methane makes up the second largest share of greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. agriculture. Most agricultural methane emissions come from livestock. Enteric fermentation from beef and dairy cattle – their natural digestion process – accounts for about 25% of total U.S. methane emissions. 

Manure management also contributes to both methane and nitrous oxide emissions, making up 9% of total U.S. methane emissions and 4% of total nitrous oxide emissions. 

Methane does not stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide, but it has a global warming potential 28 times that of carbon dioxide over 100 years. 

Regenerative agriculture practices can reduce emissions

Conservation practices implemented on farm fields can help to lower agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.

A 2022 report from the Boston Consulting Group and the Walton Family Foundation found that practice changes could slash greenhouse gas emissions from farming by almost 22%. 

The report showed emissions could go down as a result of changes in fertilizer applications, tillage practices, grazing management, the use of cover crops, livestock feed additives, soil amendments and the targeted use of trees, among other practices. 

EWG found in a 2025 analysis that many conservation practices can reduce farming’s greenhouse gas emissions. Even if they are adopted on only a small number of acres, they can have a big climate impact. 

The conservation practices applied to Midwest corn acres that would most lower climate emissions are riparian forest buffers, tree or shrub establishment, hedgerow planting and windbreak establishment.

Other practices, including no-tillage, cover crops, and diversifying crops so there is a conservation crop rotation, would also reduce climate emissions. 

But federal conservation program funding needs to be prioritized for practices that help farmers reduce climate emissions and adapt to extreme weather conditions tied to intensifying climate change. 

EWG has identified a list of regenerative agriculture practices that decrease a farm’s greenhouse gas emissions and increase climate resilience. 

Farmers can receive funding to implement these regenerative practices from the Agriculture Department’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, one of the largest federal conservation programs. 

But EQIP spending must be reformed. In 2025, only $660.9 million from EQIP, or 39% of all payments from the program, went to farmers for practices on EWG’s regenerative practice list. Only four of the top 10 paid practices were regenerative: cover crops, brush management, forest stand improvement, and pasture and hay planting. 

Prioritizing funding

Six of the 10 most funded practices that were not regenerative were structural, building or equipment practices, which together received $427.1 million. These are practices like irrigation pipelines and animal waste storage facilities, which rarely benefit the climate.

Farmers collected hardly any money for some of the conservation practices that are the best at reducing emissions. Two practices that would generate substantial emissions reductions on Midwest corn acres – riparian forest buffer and hedgerow planting – received only $423,000 and $735,000 from EQIP nationally in 2025, respectively. 

More conservation funding must be prioritized for regenerative practices that have climate benefits. Adoption of more of these practices could slow the growth of agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions so the sector does not produce the largest share of U.S. emissions by 2050.

The versions of the farm bill proposed by the House and Senate cut conservation spending by billions of dollars, including reducing funding for EQIP. 

If these cuts were to go into effect, they would hurt farmers and the climate. 

Join us for a free two-part training on September 30th and October 6th to learn from two experts on people's assemblies: Dr. Camila Vergara, an academic and organizer who was deeply involved in numerous assemblies held in Chile between 2020 and 2022 as part of the effort to enact a transformative new constitutional structure, and Denzel Caldwell, an organizer with the Black Nashville Assembly working to build black political power in Tennessee. 

The post 2-PART TRAINING: People’s Assemblies and The Revolutionary Potential of Grassroots Power appeared first on CELDF - Community Rights Pioneers - Protecting Nature and Communities.

The Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice stands in solidarity with the people of Nepal and Tibet as they confront one of the most devastating disasters to hit the Himalayan region in recent years. We mourn those who have been killed and stand in grief with the communities that have lost their family and loved ones, their homes, their lives and livelihood and we stand with the workers engaged in the treacherous relief and rescue efforts as they confront the unimaginable scale of the disaster. Nearly 1000 people have been reported killed so far and thousands remain missing after an enormous collapse of ice and rock in high Himalayas triggered a cascading event in the Lhende Khola, sending a sudden surge of water, rock and sediment into the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli river system causing devastative floods in the border region. The formation of new lakes behind the ice and rock debris continue to pose a risk of more destructive floods while rescue operations still continue in the region.

The scale of this tragedy demands more than our sympathy, mourning or condolences. It demands that governments confront the conditions that are making communities across the Himalayas, and on the frontlines of climate impacts everywhere, increasingly unsafe. While the people of Nepal and Tibet grapple with this devastation, the broader climate context and global failure to address it form a clear path that has led to this disaster. Rising temperatures are rapidly transforming the Himalayan cryosphere, accelerating glacier loss and destabilising high-mountain environments. 

The Hindu Kush Himalaya contains more than 63,000 glaciers and feeds ten major river systems on which huge populations across South Asia depend. These mountain’s glaciers had disappeared 65% faster between 2011 and 2020 than in the previous decade. As glaciers retreat and permafrost thaws, slopes become less stable, glacial lakes expand and communities face growing risks from floods, landslides, avalanches, and cascading disasters. This is also not an isolated Himalayan emergency. Communities across the region have repeatedly faced catastrophic floods, landslides and glacial lake outburst floods, from Sikkim in India in 2023, Thame in Nepal in 2024, to the Tibet-Nepal border in 2025.

What is striking is that Nepal has contributed almost nothing to the crisis that is transforming its mountains. It is responsible for only 0.1% global greenhouse gas emissions yet finds itself on the frontlines of climate impacts. It is forced to self-finance the monitoring of glaciers and unstable slopes while building early-warning systems, but also the protection of settlements and infrastructure, responses to disasters, and rebuilding of what is destroyed by disasters that are increasingly becoming hard to predict. The World Bank has warned that unchecked climate impacts could make Nepal’s economy at least 7% smaller by 2050. Meanwhile a Green Climate Fund project intended to reduce the risks of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods in Nepal took 7 years to be approved. 

The fundamental injustice is that countries with very little responsibility for the climate crisis are being forced to spend their limited resources surviving it while the global climate finance policies continue to fail them. This is precisely why adaptation finance is a matter of survival, not a secondary component of climate policy. Developing countries will need nearly US$400 billion every year for adaptation by 2035 while the international public adaptation finance was only US$26 billion in 2023. That gap means countries such as Nepal are being told to become more resilient without being given adequate resources and support required to do it. On the other hand, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage has seen pittance in financial commitments so far. Developed countries must significantly increase public, grant-based finance, rather than loans, with direct and rapid access for affected countries and communities under their existing obligations. Where mitigation and adaptation have failed to prevent harm, loss and damage must be paid for at a scale that reflects actual needs of trillions. This is a historical debt and reparations owed to the Global South and not voluntary contributions disguised as aid or charity and must reach the communities at the frontline of the crisis instead of creating new markets for private investors or new debts for governments.

At the same time countries most responsible for this crisis must move first in stopping the expansion of the fossil-fuel economy. But in contrast the United States, already the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, is on track for another record year of natural gas production in 2026 while the US crude production and export reached a record early this year. Similarly in Western Europe, Norway, the largest petroleum producer and the largest supplier of gas to Europe, expanded the exploration area for oil and gas exploration in 2026. These are not economic decisions but political choices. Rich countries cannot describe disasters in Nepal as an unfortunate consequence of a changing climate while continuing to explicitly expand the industries driving that change.

Nepal cannot reduce the world’s emissions on behalf of the polluters. It cannot protect the Himalayas through adaptation alone while the world continues to burn more fossil fuels. And it should not have to take on more debt to protect its people from a crisis overwhelmingly created elsewhere. The immediate priority in Nepal and Tibet must be rescue, relief and recovery led by the needs of affected communities. But international solidarity cannot end with emergency assistance after people have died. We demand:

• Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage must immediately respond and deliver on Nepal’s request for urgent and direct funds to support its immediate response capacity 
• The Global North countries and other big polluters must cut their emissions far faster without false solutions and end continued fossil fuel expansion
• Global North must urgently provide much higher public and grant-based finance so Global South countries can adapt before disasters happen
• Global North countries must fund the Loss and Damage Fund at the scale of the losses communities are already experiencing without pushing loans and private finance as substitutes for their public finance obligations

We stand with the people of Nepal and Tibet in grief and solidarity and also with their right to justice. What happens next must not be another cycle of disaster, condolences and forgotten promises. There must be greater protection for communities now, far deeper emissions cuts by those most responsible, adequate finance for adaptation and loss and damage, and accountability for the governments and corporations that continue to fuel this crisis.

——

The post DCJ solidarity statement on recent Nepal-Tibet Floods appeared first on Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

In a column published Aug. 30 in the Victoria Times Colonist, public health expert Trevor Hancock reported on the Cascade Institute’s latest polycrisis findings, presented by Thomas Homer-Dixon in the opening plenary of this year’s Victoria Forum.

The forum, hosted jointly by the Senate of Canada, the University of Victoria and Royal Roads University, paired Homer-Dixon with Dr. Courtney Howard of the Global Climate and Health Alliance. Hancock frames the polycrisis through Rittel and Webber’s classic definition of a “wicked problem” — one that defies complete definition and for which no final solution exists — and argues that wicked problems call for what he calls virtuous solutions, rooted in a commitment to the public good.

Hancock reports the Polycrisis Core Model’s central result: of the stable global scenarios the model identifies for 2040, eight are as bad as or worse than today, with deterioration the most likely outcome and collapse the second most likely. Of the better futures, one is a high-tech autocracy and the remaining one is the Hope Attractor — which, as Homer-Dixon told the forum, is “not simply a speculative or aspirational future,” but “a scientifically grounded basis for honest hope.”

Review the presentation deck, “Pathways to the Hope Attractor.”

Read the full article in the Times Colonist.

The post Thomas Homer-Dixon delivers Victoria Forum plenary on polycrisis and hope appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Lynas, Rare Earths and the War Machine Inside the recent militarised extrtactivism webinar co-hosted by YLNM and AidWatch

Photo: Protest against Lynas-United States deal for military supplies of rare earths on July 6. Credit: Malaysian Protest 4 Palestine

Lynas Rare Earths likes to present itself as a green technology company, as a clean supplier of the minerals the world needs for the energy transition. Sit with the evidence for an hour, as everyone who joined our recent webinar did, and that story falls apart.

What emerges instead is a company kept alive for close to two decades by Japanese state money, subsidised by the Pentagon and the Australian Government, dumping radioactive waste on a Malaysian coastal community, and now sitting inside the supply chain that arms Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The Lynas Rare Earths: Militarised Extractivism in Action webinar was co-hosted by AidWatch and Yes to Life No to Mining (YLNM). It’s the first in a webinar series which builds on a YLNM position paper published at the end of last year, Militarism is Extraction: From Mines to Missiles which builds on.

AidWatch Chair, Liz Downes opened the webinar and set out why Lynas matters and how deep the Pentagon money runs, before handing over to Shigeru Tanaka, Executive Director, Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC, Japan), Farwina Faroque, Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS), Malaysia, and AidWatch’s Lee Tan, who has been organising against Lynas since 2011.

Here’s what they told us.

What Lynas actually is

Liz Downes, AidWatch Chair, opened by laying out exactly what Lynas is: an Australian-owned company that mines rare earths at Mount Weld in Western Australia and, since 2012–13, processes them at the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Kuantan, Malaysia. A long-promised processing plant at Kalgoorlie remains unreliable at best due to its limited water supply. Lynas moved the hazardous separation stage of production offshore quite deliberately: Australia’s environmental standards were expensive and inconvenient, Malaysia’s were not.

The company took advantage of lower costs and more permissive waste rules to do in Kuantan what it did not want to do at home. The result is millions of tonnes of hazardous waste, including a radioactive stream from the water-leach purification process.

Lynas has spent years pushing Malaysia to accept a permanent radioactive waste dump on flood and fire-prone coastal peatland, a proposal that falls well below international standards for managing low-level radioactive waste. And it matters well beyond Malaysia’s borders, because LAMP is currently the only commercial-scale producer of separated rare earth oxides outside China.

The Pentagon pipeline

Liz then walked us through how a single fact – that Lynas is currently the only ‘game’ outside China, is exactly why the US Department of War (formerly Defense) has poured so much money into the company under both the Biden and Trump administrations. Funding for a heavy rare earth separation plant in Texas has gone nowhere, but the money hasn’t disappeared: it has flowed instead into extracting heavy and light rare earths through the Malaysian plant, backed by a four-year supply agreement guaranteeing the Pentagon a framework for rare earth oxides. In March this year alone, Lynas picked up another US$96 million.

The US still imports more than 70% of its rare earths from China, but it is racing to change that as it prepares for confrontation with China rather than cooperation. Lynas is now the world’s biggest rare earth miner and the only commercial-scale processor outside China, which makes its output “critical” to Washington’s plans. This is not for green technology, but for the expanding military capabilities, producing more deadly weapons for profit, and furnishing war and genocide around the world.

Until 2025, Lynas mostly produced light rare earths like neodymium and praseodymium – elements it could plausibly describe as feeding green technology. Pentagon money is now pushing it to separate dysprosium, terbium and samarium too — elements essential for the durable magnets in high-precision weapons, with yet more to come for production of high-powered lasers, night vision, fighter jet engines, missile guidance, nuclear reactor control systems, radiation shielding and nuclear submarines.

Australia has also funded Lynas through trade agreements – part of its bid to be Washington’s key ally in militarising the Pacific – and Japan’s investment runs deeper still.

Liz traced the same supply chain forward to its disastrous end point: local environmental damage in Kuantan, regional militarisation of the Pacific through military exercises like RIMPAC and a wave of “defence critical minerals” projects, and the involuntary enlistment of countries like Malaysia, in a supply chain feeding the military-industrial complex – including, as Liz laid out with sobering figures, the weapons pipeline into Gaza.

Two decades of Japanese rescue

Shigeru Tanaka, Executive Director with the Pacific Asia Resource Center in Japan, walked us through a history that reframes Lynas as far more than an Australian company operating in Malaysia.

Lynas announced its plan in 2007 and nearly went bankrupt within a year, as the global financial crisis dried up capital and interest rates climbed. By 2009 the company had around $7 million in the bank against monthly overheads in the millions, Lynas was genuinely on the edge of collapse. A Chinese state-owned company offered to buy a 51.6% stake for $252 million plus a further $252 million loan, effectively $500 million in total. The Australian government blocked the deal outright, unwilling to see a Chinese-controlled monopoly on rare earths.

Japan stepped in instead, but not out of goodwill. In September 2010, a collision between a Chinese fishing vessel and Japanese coast guard boats near the tiny island of Senkaku, a contested territory escalated into a diplomatic crisis, and China responded by halting rare earth exports to Japan. With China holding a monopoly on these elements, the shock sent Japan into overdrive to secure an alternative. The state-owned Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC, since renamed the Japan Organization for Metal Security) and trading house Sojitz co-invested $250 million for 30% of LAMP’s output. This is half of what China had originally offered, but enough to keep Lynas alive.

Japan came back again in 2013–14, when the rare earth price bubble collapsed as a result of the WTO ruling which stopped China from placing a quota and restricts its rare earth export. WhenLynas’s stock and investment base started falling away, a ten-year extension on loan repayments and reduced interest rates were quickly granted. It came back a third time in 2018–19, blocking a hostile takeover that would actually have suited Japanese lenders financially, apparently preferring to keep Lynas under its thumb rather than cash out. And in 2023, as Lynas moved into heavy rare earth elements, JOGMEC and Sojitz added a further $200 million.

Three rescues, one pattern. As Shigeru put it, Japan isn’t only importing the materials — it is exporting the harm, and allowing Malaysia to absorb it, all under the rhetoric of “mineral security” and anti-China positioning.

 

From Kuantan to Gaza

Farwina Faroque, secretary general of BDS Malaysia, drew the line from the soils of Kuantan to the rubble of Gaza.

BDS was founded in July 2005 by 170 Palestinian civil society organisations, calling for an end to military occupation and colonisation, full equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the right of return under UN Resolution 194.

Boycotts work. Intel halted construction of a US$25 billion plant in Israel in 2024 under sustained pressure, and Puma finally dropped its sponsorship of the Israeli Football Association. In Malaysia, direct action has blocked shipments too, including a container belonging to Israeli shipping giant ZIM at the Thai border in 2024, and just this past month, a Maersk container linked to weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.

Lynas sits inside this picture as a critical part of the US war machine. The Pentagon’s funding – including the Texas contracts, the 2022 US$120 million agreement, and the US$96 million framework locked in this March – exists to guarantee rare earth oxides for weapons production.

Following Lynas’s mineral supply chain to the end, means following it toward Gaza: the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute puts US military aid to Israel and regional operations at US$22.7 billion in the year after October 2023 alone, including more than 50,000 tonnes of weapons shipped, and half a billion dollars annually for missile defence and F-35 jets,(aircraft that depend heavily on rare earth magnets). US officials have received more than 500 internal reports documenting these weapons being used to commit atrocities in Gaza, and taken no action to stop the flow. Journalists and human rights organisations, including Al Jazeera, have repeatedly found serial numbers and manufacturing stamps from US-made munitions in the rubble of schools, hospitals and designated safe zones in Gaza.

BDS Malaysia has built an unprecedented coalition around this, joining with Malaysian Protest for Palestine, Greenpeace Malaysia and Sahabat Alam Malaysia to bring petitions and street protest directly to parliament, to name and shame the politicians and corporate enablers who put foreign defence contracts ahead of human lives.

It has worked: the campaign forced a parliamentary select committee review, and rattled Lynas into issuing a sanitised statement claiming the US$96 million contract was merely “research and development” for permanent magnet production. Farwina wasn’t buying it. Everyone knows where those magnets end up: fighter jets and guided missiles. The contradiction cuts deep in a country whose government publicly champions Palestinian rights while its rare earths flow to the Pentagon.

The ground truth in Kuantan

Lee Tan has been part of the Stop Lynas campaign for more than 20 years, and her section of the webinar made the human and ecological cost impossible to look away from.

Rare earths are the “spices and vitamins” of modern industry: only tiny amounts are needed in almost every piece of electronics we touch, from smartphone touchscreens to laptops. Lynas has marketed itself in Malaysia as exactly that: a green raw-materials supplier. But separating these elements requires highly concentrated acids at temperatures around 600 degrees, and it generates enormous volumes of radioactive and hazardous wastes. This is precisely why almost all rare earth processing happens in the Global South, where regulation is weakest and resistance hardest, rather than in wealthy countries that can actually afford to manage the waste safely. Lynas, for its trouble, enjoyed twelve years of tax-free status in Malaysia as a “pioneer” in green technology.

The Kuantan site was once a pristine tropical peat and mangrove forest before Lynas cleared it in 2011. Waste retention ponds now sit where a peat forest used to be, and the company’s proposed “permanent” radioactive waste facility sits on a flood-prone peat swamp next to it. This is an engineering and hydrogeological absurdity, given that the thorium and uranium in Lynas’s waste stream have half-lives of roughly 14 billion and 4 billion years respectively. This waste is, in any meaningful sense, permanently hazardous.

Malaysia’s 2018 change of government briefly opened a path to end this. A review found that Lynas’s original operating licence required it to remove its radioactive waste from Malaysia unless a genuinely safe storage site could be found. A wet, low-lying peat swamp plainly isn’t one. Enforcing that clause could have shut Lynas down. Instead, incoming Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a long-time ally of Japan, and the same figure behind an earlier radioactive contamination case involving Mitsubishi’s Asian Rare Earth plant, travelled to Japan and personally overturned his own environment minister’s ruling. Under Japanese pressure, the plant kept running.

The double standard doesn’t stop there.

In Western Australia, community objection and a state regulatory requirement (secured partly through AidWatch submissions backed by expert Professor Gavin Mudd and Lee Tan) forced Lynas to remove radioactive waste from its Kalgoorlie site within 24 months, taking it back to Mount Weld mine under stricter Australian radioactive waste management requirements.

Malaysia has no equivalent requirement, and its safety threshold is dramatically weaker: the International Atomic Energy Agency’s benchmark for thorium and uranium is 1 becquerel per gram, but Malaysia has adopted a threshold 100 times more permissive, meaning Lynas’s radioactive waste often isn’t even classified as radioactive under Malaysian law.

Photographs shown during the webinar documented waste stored under nothing more than garbage-bag-grade plastic, repeatedly flooded, while posters and glossy picture books were distributed trying to convince local residents that it was safe to keep swimming downstream at the estuary. Soil sampling by Professor Yoshihiko Wada, a Japanese researcher found dramatic increases in toxic elements and heavy metals in sediment samples nearby including a two fold increase in thorium at the estuary. Local fishermen in this traditionally significant fishing and shellfish area strongly object, Lee said, but face real political pressure to stay quiet.

What comes next

The Q&A drew the threads together. 

Malaysia’s parliamentary select committee inquiry which was reopened this year with new evidence about the Pentagon deal, largely thanks to work led by Greenpeace Malaysia, Sahabat Alam Malaysia and Malaysian Protest for Palestine, has yet to report back, a month after a special hearing. There’s real legal and political leverage here: Malaysia’s foreign policy is explicitly pro-Palestinian, and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has publicly positioned himself as a defender of Palestinian rights while his country’s rare earths help supply the Pentagon.

Shigeru pointed to the Rarotonga and Bangkok Treaties, which establish nuclear-free zones across the Pacific and Southeast Asia and to which both Australia and Malaysia are signatories. These are  treaties that a properly classified nuclear waste dump would plainly violate, if only the waste were honestly called what it is.

He also flagged a structural obstacle that campaigners can’t ignore: Malaysia, Australia and Japan are all parties to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose investor-state dispute mechanisms (SDS) could let Lynas sue Malaysia for lost profits even if the government moved to shut the plant down. Stopping Lynas, in other words, means confronting these investment treaties too.

Speakers closed by underlining the value of exactly the kind of cross-border organising this webinar represents:

• • BDS Malaysia’s own networks, for instance, learned about Israeli navy participation in RIMPAC exercises and about vessels to target for blockade through contacts as far away as Hawaii. 
  • Lee is now working on a briefing paper to help connect the Stop Lynas campaign with peace movements, Palestinian rights groups and organisations like Friends of the Earth Australia. 
  • Liz closed the session by placing Lynas inside AidWatch’s wider work: joining the dots between Australia’s critical minerals policy, the money pouring into mining expansion across Aboriginal lands, Australia’s deepening role in Pacific militarisation through AUKUS and a growing web of regional defence agreements, and the way aid dollars increasingly underwrite infrastructure that feeds the same military-industrial complex. Liz also flagged an upcoming look at the minerals race behind AI and defence technology.

Rare earths aren’t rare, and this story isn’t over. If it feels like a lot to take in, that’s because it is, but as one of our speakers put it, you don’t need to be a scientist or a lawyer to do something.

Get informed, share what you’ve learned, and get active in whatever way is open to you, including:

– Follow website and social media updates from the various organisations that speakers are connected with (links in email above);

– Join up to AidWatch’s mailing list for updates or join as a member (see links below);

– Sign up to receive Yes to Life No to Mining’s newsletter that shares stories of how people around the world are resisting mining and forging alternative futures!

Watch this space for the recording, the position paper behind this series, and further webinars in our militarised extractivism series.

The post Lynas, Rare Earths and the War Machine appeared first on Yes to Life No to Mining.

Thomas Homer-Dixon and Toby Shannan

The version of record of this op-ed appeared in The Globe and Mail.

Full Environics Research polling data, summary and highlights, and methodological details are available here.

After the breakdown of trade negotiations between Canada and the United States, Canadians across the political spectrum are rallying round the Maple Leaf. But we’re still in the confrontation’s early stage, where outrage feels good and comes easily. The true costs will come later.

Current polls of our attitudes may mislead. Dopamine flows in pulses. Foreboding and second thoughts may well follow our current high, as prices for tariffed products climb, national and provincial debts soar, and tens of thousands of good jobs vanish.

To really gauge Canadians’ commitment to resistance, regardless of our potential foe, we need data that capture our deeper, more enduring sentiments. New evidence suggests we may indeed be ready to sustain the costs of our newfound defiance.

Continue reading. 

 

The post How stiff is Canada’s spine? A poll suggests we may be ready to sustain the costs of our newfound defiance appeared first on Cascade Institute.

Just days after Egyptian nuclear authorities reportedly accused Rosatom of construction defects, poor management and violations of “nuclear safety culture” at the El Dabaa nuclear power plant, Cairo is considering an unusual response: buying two more Russian reactors. 

Egyptian Electricity Minister Mahmoud Esmat met Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev in Russia this week to discuss progress at El Dabaa, a four-reactor nuclear station under construction on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The talks also covered a second phase that could add two more VVER-1200 reactors. 

That would expand the plant from 4.8 to 7.2 gigawatts and deepen a nuclear relationship with Moscow that would likely to last decades. 

The timing is curious. Earlier this month, POLITICO reported that a confidential June 4 letter from Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority to Rosatom detailed a series of construction and management problems at El Dabaa. 

According to the report, Egyptian officials cited defects in foundation slabs at reactor Units 1, 2 and 3, voids behind metal cladding at Unit 4 and problems with the cylindrical wall of its reactor building. The letter also reportedly accused Rosatom personnel of “deliberate negligence” and violations of nuclear safety culture, including shortcomings in workplace safety and site security. 

Separate internal Rosatom documents obtained by POLITICO pointed to construction-quality and management problems of their own. One assessment reportedly warned that completion of El Dabaa’s first reactor could slip by as much as 18 months, from September 2028 to March 2030. 

Cairo pushes back 

Egyptian authorities have strongly rejected suggestions that the disclosures show El Dabaa is unsafe. 

The Nuclear Power Plants Authority called POLITICO’s report “inaccurate and unbalanced”  saying that construction non-conformities are routinely identified and corrected during a project of El Dabaa’s scale. Egypt’s nuclear regulator likewise said the plant is being built according to internationally recognized nuclear safety and security standards and stressed that construction remains under continuous inspection. 

Egyptian officials have also pointed to an International Atomic Energy Agency review mission in June, which concluded that Egypt has a comprehensive regulatory framework for nuclear and radiation safety, while also recommending further improvements to legislation, licensing and radioactive-waste policy. 

However, it’s important to bear in mind that the El Dabaa site is still under construction. El Dabaa and contains no nuclear fuel. The reported defects thus do not constitute a radiological hazard—nor does the purported existence of construction problems necessarily demonstrate that the finished reactors will be unsafe. 

But the source of the complaints makes them hard to dismiss. If authentic, the June letter reported by POLITICO did not come from an environmental organization or a Russian nuclear critic. It came from within the Egyptian state authority overseeing the project. 

“There is no question that shortcomings and defects arise during construction. Normally, these problems are resolved between the customer and the contractor,” said Alexander Nikitin, a nuclear expert with Bellona. “What is unusual in this case is that complaints about shortcomings and defects have spilled into public discussion. That may indicate that the customer and the contractor were unable to resolve these problems between themselves.” 

Dmitry Gorchakov, another of Bellona’s nuclear experts, said that what’s important about the leaked complaints is that they are addressed.  

“It is difficult to speculate about how or why this correspondence reached journalists. It could have been a deliberate leak intended to achieve certain political goals, or it could simply have been accidental: the project is enormous, and breaches of confidentiality can occur as well,” he said. “Of course, the existence of these problems is cause for concern — although we are not yet talking about radiological risks. But it would be considerably more worrying if the problems were not corrected, or if their existence were simply denied altogether.” 

Rosatom offers more than reactors 

Whatever tensions exist behind the scenes, they do not appear to be weakening Egypt’s commitment to Russian nuclear technology. Likhachev said this week that talks are underway on El Dabaa Units 5 and 6, including how the additional reactors might be financed. 

Cairo is also discussing possible cooperation with Rosatom on small modular reactors for industrial facilities, remote regions and other applications. 

That apparent contradiction points to one of Rosatom’s greatest advantages abroad: it sells much more than just the nuclear reactors. 

Under the existing El Dabaa agreements, Russia is financing much of the project while Rosatom companies are building the plant, supplying nuclear fuel for its operating lifetime, helping train Egyptian personnel, assisting with operation and maintenance during its first decade and providing equipment for storing spent nuclear fuel. 

That creates a relationship that can continue long after construction crews leave the site, and those long relationships are exactly the point, Bellona’s experts explained. 

“When you sign contracts covering everything on the list, you become deeply dependent on the supplier—and getting out of that relationship is extremely expensive,” as countries like Ukraine and Finland have found, Nikitin said. 

Gorchakov explained that this model is attractive for customers that are new to nuclear power, or that aren’t in a position to finance the entire project themselves—and who don’t particularly care about the political consequences of cozying up to Rosatom.  

“The trade-off is political and technological dependence,“ he said. “Good relations with Russia and attractive financing terms may simply outweigh considerations of independence.” 

For Moscow, those ties have only become more valuable since the invasion of Ukraine. While sanctions have pushed Russia out of many Western markets, Rosatom continues to build reactors abroad and preserve technological, commercial and political relationships that can stretch across generations. 

The controversy at El Dabaa has thus attracted attention far beyond Egypt. Ukraine cited the reported problems in a renewed call for European Union sanctions against Rosatom, with Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha arguing that the allegations provided further evidence that the Russian nuclear corporation was not a reliable international partner. 

The allegations also resonate inside the EU. Rosatom is building two VVER-1200 reactors at Hungary’s Paks II nuclear plant—the same reactor model under construction at El Dabaa. 

“The concerns are understandable,” said Gorchakov. “At the same time, in Hungary— especially following the change of government—the customer and its regulators are far more experienced, rigorous and demanding than their counterparts in Egypt, as are the EU institutions overseeing the project. That is evident from the lengthy delays and the difficulties involved in securing the necessary approvals. In Egypt, things have been much quieter, and this leak is essentially the first major ‘scandal’ associated with the project.” 

The post Egypt complained about Rosatom’s nuclear work. Now it wants two more reactors  appeared first on Bellona.org.

A Lane County, Oregon initiative, part of a rising global movement, fundamentally reimagines humanity’s relationship with nature.

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A fifth of the world’s oil passes through a strait just 55km wide. Right now, that strait is closed, and it’s not the only one. For most of us, the Strait of Hormuz, the Panama Canal and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait are names we half-remembered from a geography lesson. But right now, all three of these critical shipping lanes, plus the Suez Canal and the South China Sea straits, are under simultaneous strain. And the causes aren’t separate stories. War, the climate crisis and a strong El Niño are compounding each other, squeezing the narrow waterways that carry the fuel, food and goods the world runs on.

That’s the warning at the heart of a report from the climate think tank E3G, Beyond Securing Supply. It makes a case that should worry anyone who cares about a just, liveable future: the world’s energy system isn’t just fragile because of any one crisis. It’s fragile because a small number of choke points now have to absorb war, sabotage, congestion and climate breakdown, often at the same time and there’s no cushion left when several hit at once.

Three narrow waterways, one overstretched system

The Strait of Hormuz. Just 55km wide at its narrowest point, this single passage between Iran and Oman normally carries roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and a fifth of its LNG. Since the outbreak of the 2026 war between Iran, the US and Israel, the strait has been effectively shut to commercial shipping. Attacks on tankers pushed war-risk insurance premiums up as much as fourfold, and freight rates on the key Gulf-to-Asia route jumped over 300% almost overnight. Oil and gas prices spiked globally within days, even hitting countries with no direct trade link to the region at all. 

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

Bab el-Mandeb, at the mouth of the Red Sea, is a vital 18-mile-wide sea lane, a primary global chokepoint where roughly 10% to 12% of international trade and millions of barrels of oil pass dailyOngoing Houthi attacks since late 2023 have made it too dangerous, pushing most Western-linked shipping to go all the way around Africa, via the Cape of Good Hope. That’s not a return to normal , it’s a new, permanently more expensive normal: longer voyages, higher freight and insurance costs, and less spare tanker capacity to absorb the next shock. Egypt runs the  Suez Canal revenues and depends on its tolls, a critical piece of its economy, that have now reportedly fallen by roughly half.

The Bab al-Mandeb Strait from space, between the Horn of Africa (left) and the Arabian Peninsula (right). Photo: by Gallo Images, Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2021/Getty Images

 

The Panama Canal. This is a channel where 5-6% of all global trade goes through, including critical food and gas supplies. Unlike the other two, this chokepoint isn’t shut by conflict , it’s impacted by drought. A strong El Niño, layered on top of long-term climate change, has driven Gatún Lake (the freshwater reservoir the canal’s locks depend on) to record lows for a second time in three years. Daily transits have been cut from the normal ~36–38 ships down toward the low 20s. Ships without a booked slot now face costly reservation auctions , where the average winning bid has reportedly jumped from around $135,000 to as much as $4 million. Scientists studying the 2023 Panama drought concluded it would have been “unlikely” without El Niño, and that climate change is making these swings between El Niño and La Niña more extreme and more frequent.

The Panama Canal is located directly between the Atlantic Ocean (via the Caribbean Sea) and the Pacific Ocean Photo: GeogGlobeTales, TikTok

 

Why these aren’t separate problems 

It would be easy to file all this under “geopolitics” and move on but climate change isn’t a bystander here  it’s a structural multiplier of chokepoint risk.

Three things are happening at once:

1. Physical disruption: War, attacks and accidents slow-down or block the routes directly..
2. “Paper chokepoints”: , Insurance companies, sanctions and shipping contracts make it hard to reroute,  even when another path technically exists. 
3. Climate change: drought, heat and extreme weather are steadily eroding the capacity and reliability of the routes that would normally offer a way around a crisis.

Crucially, these layers stack. When Hormuz  closed ships couldn’t simply detour through the Red Sea route as an escape valve from the Hormuz crisis , because that route was already too dangerous.. When shipping gets rerouted around Africa to avoid the Red Sea, that adds pressure on tanker capacity everywhere else. And when the Panama Canal , one of the few large alternative corridors for Asia-bound US cargoes , is running at reduced capacity because of drought, there’s less slack left in the whole system to absorb the next shock, wherever it comes from.

In other words: the more the climate crisis narrows our margin for error, the harder every other kind of shock , war, sabotage, an accident, a blockage , hits.

Who pays the price

The costs of this don’t land evenly, and that’s the injustice at the centre of it.

While governments of oil-exporting countries may actually see revenues rise when prices spike; Ordinary households, especially in import-dependent countries, see the opposite: higher fuel and shipping costs pushed straight through to food and energy bills. A 10% rise in fuel prices is estimated to raise food distribution costs by 3–5% in import-dependent economies , a burden that falls hardest on the poorest households, where food can already absorb 50–70% of income.

• South Asian economies like Pakistan and Bangladesh are the most structurally exposed of all major importers, heavily dependent on Gulf LNG routed through Hormuz, with little spare capacity to cushion a shock.
• There’s also a slower-moving hit still coming: the Gulf supplies close to half the world’s sulphur and urea (both critical fertiliser inputs) and roughly 40% of global helium. E3G’s analysis (echoed elsewhere) suggests fertilizer shortages triggered by the Hormuz disruption could take 6–9 months to show up, meaning the full effect on food prices and harvests across South Asia and East Africa may still be ahead of us. 

More fossil fuels won’t fix this

The instinctive response to a supply shock is to look for more fossil fuel supply, from new suppliers, new pipelines, new terminals but more supply does not remove the exposure. Oil is priced on integrated global markets, so a shock anywhere raises prices everywhere, regardless of where your own cargo comes from. Diversifying suppliers can smooth short-term bumps, but it doesn’t touch the structural vulnerability of depending on a small number of narrow physical corridors in the first place.

The one thing that does reduce exposure, durably, is needing less oil and gas to move through these chokepoints at all. Once a wind turbine or solar panel is installed, it generates power locally for 25–30 years, immune to a closed strait or a dried-up lake, in a way that no amount of LNG diversification can match. Electrification, efficiency, grid build-out and clean power aren’t just climate policies anymore , they’re energy security policy, and arguably the only kind that actually holds up under simultaneous shocks.

That’s the throughline connecting Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb and Panama: three very different crises, one shared root cause , a global energy system built on continuous shipments through a handful of chokepoints, now colliding with a warming, more volatile world. The war in the Gulf will end at some point. The next El Niño will not be the last, and it won’t be gentler. Building resilience means shrinking our dependence on the fossil fuel system that keeps putting all of us at the mercy of these narrow stretches of water.

Sources:

• E3G, Beyond Securing Supply: Chokepoint Risk for Oil and Gas Importers, March 2026.
• Additional information from World Weather Attribution, Carbon Brief, and reports on the August 2026 Panama Canal restrictions.

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California bill to require full disclosure of diaper chemicals heads to Gov. Newsom for signature Monica Amarelo August 26, 2026

SACRAMENTO – California’s Legislature today passed a bill that would, if enacted, require manufacturers of children’s diapers sold, distributed or manufactured in the state to fully disclose their ingredients on the product’s packaging and online. 

Assembly Bill 1901, by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature. The Environmental Working Group, Consumer Reports, Children Now and the Center for Environmental Health are co-sponsoring the bill.

“As a new dad, I have a new appreciation for how important it is for parents to make informed decisions when it comes to the health and wellness of their children,” said Berman.

“We all want the best for our children, but the lack of transparency around diaper ingredients prevents us from knowing what ‘the best’ is when buying the one thing that is touching our baby’s skin every minute of their lives for years,” he said. 

“I’m proud to author AB 1901 to give parents greater transparency about the chemicals in their children’s diapers so that they can make the right choice for their family,” Berman added.

Newborns and toddlers especially vulnerable

Babies spend much of their first two to three years of life in diapers. Yet the federal government does not require disposable diapers to carry ingredient labels of any kind. 

Manufacturers are not required to inform regulators about the chemicals used to make them. Instead, they can hide dozens of chemicals behind umbrella terms like “fragrance” or “colors” – potentially toxic mystery cocktails. This situation leaves parents with no way of knowing what chemicals sit against their baby’s skin day after day.

“A newborn’s skin is thinner, more permeable and still developing, which means it absorbs chemicals more readily than an adult’s does, and diapers are in constant contact with that skin, around the clock, for years,” said Sydney Swanson, a senior science analyst at EWG.

“Right now, parents have no way of knowing what their baby is being exposed to. Every hour of every day, an infant’s skin is absorbing whatever industry decided not to tell us about. Parents can read a nutrition label or a shampoo label but not this,” she added. 

“AB 1901 isn’t asking for anything radical. It’s asking for diapers to contain ingredient labels that are similar to labels required of other baby products,” Swanson said.

Chemicals found in diapers

Recent tests have found diapers may contain volatile organic compounds and phthalates, linked to hormone disruption and reproductive and developmental harm.

Tests have also found diapers containing quaternary ammonium compounds, or quats, used in wetness indicators and linked to reproductive effects, skin irritation and asthma, as well as dyes and bleaching agents that can cause allergic reactions or skin and respiratory irritation. 

Because babies’ skin is thinner, more permeable and still developing, they are especially vulnerable to potential harms from these chemical exposures. 

Many children with special needs rely on diapers for years, prolonging the exposure risk. When manufacturers hide their ingredients, caregivers may feel fearful and sidelined. 

“Transparency isn’t about causing fear but about replacing uncertainty with the facts parents need to protect their children,” said Susan Little, California legislative director. 

“And because an infant’s thin skin absorbs chemicals more easily, hidden ingredients like phthalates can trigger a lifetime of health challenges.” 

“California parents shouldn’t need a chemistry degree to buy a diaper. They deserve to know exactly what is touching their child’s skin. Caregivers want this information,” said Little.

Making baby products safer

California has already shown that more transparency about what’s in baby products can help spur changes that reduce hazardous ingredients and their health threats. After the state required public disclosure of results of heavy metal tests of baby food, in January 2025, manufacturers responded by reducing heavy metal contamination levels in many product categories. 

AB 1901 applies that same principle to diapers while giving parents and caregivers more informed choices. If enacted, it would be a first-in-the-nation law requiring such full diaper ingredient transparency. The bill would require online disclosure to begin on January 1, 2029, and disclosure on the package to begin July 1, 2029. 

“Stronger regulation and full disclosure are needed, and that’s why this bill is so important to protect children's health,” said Little. 

And AB 1901 is something manufacturers can comply with – a 2023 New York law that requires on-label disclosure of diaper ingredients shows that greater transparency is achievable.

EWG has created a Guide to Safer Diapers to help parents navigate the market in the meantime, and diapers earning the EWG Verified® mark meet our strict standards for ingredient transparency and health.

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The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Founded in 1936, Consumer Reports has a mission to create a fair and just marketplace for all. Widely known for our rigorous research and testing of products and services, we also survey millions of consumers each year, report extensively on marketplace issues, and advocate for consumer rights and protections around safety as well as digital rights, financial fairness, and sustainability. CR is independent and nonprofit.

The Center for Environmental Health believes everything people consume, from the water they drink to the toys their children handle, should put health first. We insist on laws and policies that protect the public from harm, work to make communities more aware of risks, and push to transform corporate behavior. CEH advances environmental health and justice for the greater good, from the courtroom to the boardroom.

Children Now harnesses collective power to achieve transformational and systemic results for California’s kids as one of the country’s most impactful kids’ nonprofits. Led by experienced policy and government relations teams spanning health, education, early childhood, child welfare, and a range of other areas, Children Now learns from kids and families where they need support and lift up solutions to policymakers with the power to act. 

Areas of Focus Household & Consumer Products Children’s Health Toxic Chemicals Chemical Policy California Press Contact Monica Amarelo monica@ewg.org (202) 939-9140 August 27, 2026

Landmark California bill that would track and disclose PFAS pesticide use heads to Newsom’s desk Monica Amarelo August 26, 2026

SACRAMENTO – Groundbreaking legislation that would address the widespread use of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” pesticides on California produce today passed the state Legislature. 

It now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature.

If enacted, Assembly Bill 1603, by Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank), would require the state to monitor and disclose PFAS pesticide use. State agencies were not tracking the concerning use of toxic PFAS on crops until the Environmental Working Group raised concerns.

More than 2.5 million pounds of PFAS pesticides are applied to Golden State crops each year, contaminating produce sold in the state and throughout the U.S., in addition to soil and water. 

EWG research found PFAS pesticides on nine in 10 California-grown samples of non-organic peaches, nectarines and plums tested by the state, as well as in local waterways.

“As a father, I don’t want my kids eating strawberries contaminated with chemicals that will stay in their bodies for decades,” said Schultz. 

“AB 1603 is a vital step toward ensuring California’s agricultural legacy is defined by health and innovation, not by the accumulation of toxic PFAS in our soil and water,” he added. 

“We need to help our farmers transition away from these persistent chemicals so California can be a global leader in food safety,” Schultz said.

“The state cannot act on this newly revealed PFAS problem if it ignores the issue and pretends it doesn’t exist,” said Susan Little, EWG California legislative director. 

“Right now, the state has no comprehensive picture of where these chemicals are being sprayed or in what quantities,” she added.

The bill would also establish a class-based definition of PFAS pesticides, consistent with other California laws and regulations already addressing these chemicals. That definition matters: It ensures tracking and disclosure requirements can’t be sidestepped with chemical-by-chemical loopholes. 

The definition would also lay the groundwork for action that avoids “regrettable substitutions” – PFAS replacements that can also have health concerns.

Though thousands of PFAS are used today, comprehensive toxicity data is available about very few. But what is known is alarming: The health harms linked to the most well-studied PFAS, including cancer, suppression of the immune system and reproductive and developmental harm, show up at doses far lower than regulators once considered safe.

Other AB 1603 sponsors include Californians for Pesticide Reform, the Center for Environmental Health and the Pesticide Action and Agroecology Network.

Why tracking and monitoring matter

If enacted, AB 1603 will require the Department of Pesticide Regulation to begin systematically tracking and publicly disclosing PFAS pesticide use across the state, marking the first time California has required this level of visibility about where the chemicals are applied.

“Because of their chemical structures, all PFAS share the core characteristics of extreme environmental persistence and potential harm to immune and reproductive systems,” said Varun Subramaniam, EWG science analyst. “That raises serious concerns about the long-term health risks of using PFAS pesticides on food crops.”

“We need to stop spraying our produce with toxic ‘forever chemicals.’ With this bill, we are telling it like it is, so farmers and the public alike can be aware of the extent of this hidden PFAS use,” said Subramaniam. 

Collecting reliable, ongoing tracking data will end the long-running gap in data about PFAS pesticide use in the state. Access to this data will help build a foundation for action that could include use restrictions, farmer transition support, water monitoring and more.

“The United States depends on California for its fruits and vegetables, but right now that produce is  being seasoned with chemicals that never break down,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, EWG’s senior vice president for California.

“We cannot claim to lead the world in public health while allowing millions of pounds of toxic PFAS to be deliberately sprayed on our most iconic crops,” she said.

States leading on regulation

The federal Environmental Protection Agency regulates and approves pesticides for national use, but states aren’t required to follow suit. 

California operates its own approval system: Its Department of Pesticide Regulation must independently evaluate and authorize each chemical before farmers can use it. That gives the state the authority to protect its residents – power it has largely chosen not to use when it comes to PFAS pesticides.

That authority matters more than ever because of what is happening at the federal level. The EPA has continued to approve new PFAS pesticides at an accelerating pace, greenlighting three more in July. 

With the EPA fast-tracking approvals, California taking the lead in informing the public and local officials about the pesticides that do contain PFAS, while monitoring the pesticides’ use, is necessary.

Banning PFAS pesticides

While California remains one of the world’s largest users of PFAS pesticides, other jurisdictions have moved to restrict or ban them. In 2023, Maine enacted the nation’s first ban on PFAS pesticides, starting in 2030. In the same year, Minnesota banned nonessential PFAS uses, including pesticides, phasing them out by 2032.

Other countries are also acting. The European Union has prohibited 23 of the PFAS pesticides heavily used in California, including bifenthrin, trifluralin and flufenacet.

AB 1603, if enacted, will put California in line with these other states and jurisdictions, laying the groundwork for the nation’s salad bowl to once again be a public health leader. 

“California has been a public health bellwether for decades, from car emissions to chemical safety,” said Del Chiaro. “But we’ve been silent on PFAS pesticides, even though we are one of the biggest users.

“AB 1603 can begin to change that. This is the least we can do for families and communities struggling to contain widespread PFAS contamination in our soil, air, water and food,” she added.

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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) is a diverse, statewide coalition of 200+ member groups working to strengthen pesticide policies in California to protect public health and the environment. Member groups include public and children’s health advocates, clean air and water groups, health practitioners, environmental justice groups, labor, education, farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates from across the state.

The Center for Environmental Health believes everything people consume, from the water they drink to the toys their children handle, should put health first. We insist on laws and policies that protect the public from harm, work to make communities more aware of risks, and push to transform corporate behavior. CEH advances environmental health and justice for the greater good, from the courtroom to the boardroom.

Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network (PAN) North America, is the North America Regional Center for the international PAN network. We work with those on the frontlines to tackle the pesticide problem and reclaim the future of food and farming from the pesticide and biotech corporations that have, for far too long, dictated how we grow food, placing the health and economic burdens of pesticide use on farmers, farmworkers and rural communities.

Areas of Focus Farming & Agriculture Toxic Chemicals Pesticides PFAS Chemicals California Transparency legislation would reveal ‘forever chemicals’ sprayed on the state’s produce Press Contact Monica Amarelo monica@ewg.org (202) 939-9140 August 26, 2026

California lawmakers pass bill to create landmark ‘non-ultra-processed’ food label Iris Myers August 26, 2026

SACRAMENTO – Today the California Legislature took a major step toward protecting public health by passing a first-of-its-kind bill to create a certified “non-ultra-processed” food label intended to make it easier for consumers to choose less-processed foods in the grocery store.

Assembly Bill 2244, authored by Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino), would develop a state certification program for products that are not ultra-processed, or UPF. If enacted, it would create a new standardized and government-backed seal for non-UPF foods.

It would also require some of the largest grocery stores to highlight these products in store so they’re easier for shoppers to identify. 

The Environmental Working Group is cosponsoring the bill, which now heads to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature.

“Parents shouldn’t need a Ph.D. in chemistry to understand what they’re feeding their kids,” said Gabriel. 

“AB 2244 will empower consumers with clear, trustworthy information and make it easier for them to locate healthier foods that are free from harmful additives. This new seal doesn’t limit consumer choice, it just makes informed choice possible,” he added.

A new standard for healthier food

Under AB 2244, the state would create a standardized label bearing the phrase “Non-Ultraprocessed Certified.” Products would not be permitted to carry the new label if they are classified as UPF under state law. 

Some types of food, such as substances or additives used to manipulate taste and quality, would not qualify for the new label. These food chemicals, such as dyes, flavor enhancers, non-sugar sweeteners and processing aids, are used to make food hyperpalatable and irresistible. 

AB 2244 builds on a precedent-setting earlier law by Gabriel. AB 1264 set the first U.S. legal definition of UPF and banned the worst UPF from K-12 public schools. 

If Newson signs AB 2244, the California Department of Public Health would oversee approved agents’ independent certification of products that meet the state’s non-UPF standard and qualify to use the label. 

AB 2244 would direct the department to accredit these third-party agents no later than June 1, 2029. It would also require product recertification at least every three years.

“This is about setting a higher bar for what we consider healthy food and helping consumers make wise choices,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, EWG senior vice president for California. 

“Consumers deserve labels they can trust. And families deserve a simple way to tell which foods are closer to what comes from a kitchen rather than a factory.”

“If enacted, the bill would establish a state-verified seal for foods free from the additives, emulsifiers, food dyes and flavors that have come to define the modern American diet,” she added.

Transparency and accountability

The bill includes these strong oversight and transparency measures:

• Certification agents must register with the state and disclose all certified products
• The state can audit certification records at any time
• The state would maintain a public, online list of certified products 
• Misuse of the label would be illegal and subject to enforcement

These provisions are designed to ensure the label’s credibility.

Making healthier choices easier

In addition to creating the label, the bill would require large food retailers to display certified products carrying the label in a way that’s easy for consumers to identify, such as through special signage or physical separation within the store.

This requirement would apply to any grocery store that sells more than 25 individual non-UPF-certified product types and brings in more than $10 million in annual sales. 

Addressing the rise of UPF

UPF are industrially manufactured, chemically modified products often made with harmful additives to enhance taste, texture, appearance and shelf life. 

In the U.S., these foods make up more than two-thirds of children’s diets and more than half the typical adult diet.

Experts say ultra-processed food and drinks, particularly soda, are engineered to trick people into consuming more than they want.

Scientific research has linked diets high in UPF to serious health harms, including cancer, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, metabolic disorders such as Crohn’s disease and fatty liver disease, and mental health issues.

Obesity is chief among the health problems linked to UPF. Rates of obesity in the U.S. and globally have skyrocketed in tandem with the rising UPF consumption.

Help for consumers

Despite these concerns, consumers have no clear, standard labeling system to help them identify UPF.

With federal regulators slow to update oversight of food additives and processing, states are increasingly taking action to protect public health.

AB 2244 builds on California’s leadership in addressing harmful food chemicals and improving transparency for consumers. 

“Because companies are not required to disclose an ingredient’s purpose, it can be really difficult even for experts, even for people like me who have a doctoral degree in nutrition, to look at a food package and determine whether a food is ultra-processed or not,” said Alyssa Moran, ScD, MPH. 

Moran is deputy director of the Center for Food and Nutrition Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

“And from a behavioral science perspective, we also know people seldom use information on the back of food packages to make food decisions. So that is exactly why clear, science-backed labels on the front of food packages can be so influential in helping people to make better choices,” Moran said.

“If we want to meaningfully curb disease, we need a suite of complementary policies that limit the availability of ultra-processed foods, while promoting non-ultra-processed alternatives. I firmly believe this is the only way we’ll make progress,” she added.

Consumers can consult EWG’s Food Scores database to find products that are less processed. Food Scores also flags unhealthy ultra-processed food and drinks and can help identify alternatives.

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The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that empowers people to live healthier lives in a healthier environment. Through research, advocacy and unique education tools, EWG drives consumer choice and civic action.

Areas of Focus Food Ultra-Processed Foods Food Chemicals California UPF labeling legislation now heads to Gov. Newsom’s desk Press Contact Iris Myers iris@ewg.org (202) 939-9126 August 28, 2026

This was an international webinar for the People's Climate Summit held in Antalya, Turkey, parallel to COP31 in November, featuring Max Wilbert (CELDF's Co-coordinator of the Community Resistance & Resilience Program and author of Biocentric) as the main speaker.

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