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UK MPs push for extra aid and visas as Jamaica reels from Hurricane Melissa

Dawn Butler leads calls for humanitarian visas and fee waivers for vulnerable relatives of UK nationals affected by stormBritish MPs have joined campaigners calling for more aid and humanitarian visas for Jamaicans to enter the UK after Hurricane Melissa demolished parts of the country, plunging hundreds of thousands of people into a humanitarian crisis.The UK has pledged £7.5m emergency funds to Jamaica and other islands affected by the hurricane, but many argue that the country has a moral obligation to do more for former Caribbean colonies. Continue reading...

British MPs have joined campaigners calling for more aid and humanitarian visas for Jamaicans to enter the UK after Hurricane Melissa demolished parts of the country, plunging hundreds of thousands of people into a humanitarian crisis.The UK has pledged £7.5m emergency funds to Jamaica and other islands affected by the hurricane, but many argue that the country has a moral obligation to do more for former Caribbean colonies.Dawn Butler, the Labour MP for Brent East and chair of the UK’s all-party parliamentary group on Jamaica, posted on X a letter she had written to the home secretary requesting temporary humanitarian visas and fee waivers for vulnerable relatives of UK nationals affected by the storm.Butler said that at an emergency meeting in her constituency, which has one of the UK’s largest Jamaican populations, there were calls to ease visa restrictions for children and elderly people affected by the hurricane who could stay with relatives in the UK.“The UK has a long and enduring relationship with Jamaica and I am confident that, with compassion and collaboration, we can play a vital role in supporting those most in need during the difficult period,” the letter says.Diane Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, supported Butler’s calls and said Jamaica needed long-term assistance.Dawn Butler has called for greater support for Jamaicans affected by Hurricane Melissa. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA“I think when the hurricane first hit, the immediate anxiety over here was to bring back the tourists. And once the tourists had come back, it kind of fell away from the public eye. And there was a sense as well that it was essentially a short-term project.“People need to understand the gravity of the situation. And that it’s going to take a long time and a lot of resources to [rebuild] Black River and [other affected] districts,” she said.The Windrush activist Euen Herbert-Small said the UK should offer humanitarian protection similar to that given to Ukrainians affected by war, which allowed Ukraine nationals and their immediate family members to come to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine sponsorship scheme.“Jamaica is a Commonwealth country. The king is head of state. Ukraine doesn’t have those same historical and present links. And so there is a greater responsibility to support Jamaica, which has strong historical ties with this country and has made this country wealthy over the years. We did it for Ukraine. We can definitely do it for Jamaica,” said Herbert-Small, who has launched a petition calling for humanitarian visas for Jamaicans affected by Melissa.Before-and-after views show Hurricane Melissa damage to Jamaican town – videoRosalea Hamilton, the chief executive of the nonprofit Lasco Chin foundation, which has been assisting hurricane-hit communities in Jamaica, echoed Herbert-Small’s sentiments, as she described the staggering need for support on the ground.“The king is our head of state and there is an expectation on the part of ordinary Jamaicans that … it ought to mean that in a time of crisis, there is at least some kind of a special consideration or something that would flow from the fact that he’s still head of state,” she said.She added that the comparatively small contribution from the UK “further erodes the idea that we need and should still hold on to” King Charles as head of state.According to recent reports, nearly 1 million of Jamaica’s roughly 2.8 million people were affected by the hurricane, and about 150,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. The prime minister, Andrew Holness, has estimated losses at about US$8bn (£6bn).skip past newsletter promotionNesrine Malik and Jason Okundaye deliver your weekly dose of Black life and culture from around the worldPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionPearnel Charles, Jamaica’s minister of labour and social security, said the government had been trying to get aid to the hundreds of thousands of people in need. It was also assessing the damage to homes as well as longer-term needs, including psychological support.“Our social workers are consistently on the ground, and we continue to open up our hotlines to ensure that if we get that information we attend to it as quickly as possible,” he said.About 150,000 homes in Jamaica were damaged or destroyed by the hurricane. Photograph: Matias Delacroix/APThe country is also battling a deadly outbreak of leptospirosis, with 91 suspected cases and 11 confirmed deaths. Jamaica’s health minister, Dr Christopher Tufton, said: “We had to declare an outbreak because of the spike in the number of cases when compared to usual times.” He added that hospitals were equipped to detect and treat the disease.In Britain, the Green party also called for more support for Jamaica, linking climate justice to the legacy of enslavement. The party’s foreign affairs spokesperson said the UK had a “huge historical responsibility in relation to the legacy of slavery”.Ellie Chowns said: “We, as a country, have got to go further and faster to meet our obligations under our international climate targets, but also recognising that wider moral responsibility for the effects of hundreds of years of burning fossil fuels and the warming that that has led to now.“That, coupled with the legacy of slavery, simply can’t be ignored as part of the context of Hurricane Melissa and similar disasters affecting the Caribbean.”The Global Afro-Descendant Climate Justice Collaborative has argued that Melissa’s devastation in Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica is a stark example of how African-descended people are disproportionately affected by centuries of environmental degradation.It said: “Global warming began with the Industrial Revolutions that were made possible by the resources provided by imperialism, colonialism and enslavement.”

Crisis
Activism
Culture

New Study Reveals We Are Clueless About Our Food’s Carbon Footprint

People misjudge the environmental footprint of many foods. Better labeling could guide more sustainable consumer decisions. A recent study provides new insight into how people understand the environmental impact of the foods they eat, revealing that many individuals misjudge these impacts. The findings point to a clear need for environmental impact labeling. Researchers in the [...]

People misjudge the environmental footprint of many foods. Better labeling could guide more sustainable consumer decisions. A recent study provides new insight into how people understand the environmental impact of the foods they eat, revealing that many individuals misjudge these impacts. The findings point to a clear need for environmental impact labeling. Researchers in the [...]

Food
Sustainable

More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate

Workers say the firm’s ‘warp-speed’ approach fuels pressure, layoffs and rising emissionsMore than 1,000 Amazon employees have signed an open letter expressing “serious concerns” about AI development, saying that the company’s “all-costs justified, warp speed” approach to the powerful technology will cause damage to “democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth.”The letter, published on Wednesday, was signed by the Amazon workers anonymously, and comes a month after Amazon announced mass layoff plans as it increases adoption of AI in its operations. Continue reading...

More than 1,000 Amazon employees have signed an open letter expressing “serious concerns” about AI development, saying that the company’s “all-costs justified, warp speed” approach to the powerful technology will cause damage to “democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth.”The letter, published on Wednesday, was signed by the Amazon workers anonymously, and comes a month after Amazon announced mass layoff plans as it increases adoption of AI in its operations.Among the signatories are staffers in a range of positions, including engineers, product managers and warehouse associates.Reflecting broader AI concerns across the industry, the letter was also supported by more than 2,400 workers from companies including Meta, Google, Apple and Microsoft.The letter contains a range of demands for Amazon, concerning its impact on the workplace and the environment. Staffers are calling on the company to power all its data centers with clean energy, make sure its AI-powered products and services do not enable “violence, surveillance and mass deportation”, and form a working group comprised of non-managers “that will have significant ownership over org-level goals and how or if AI should be used in their orgs, how or if AI-related layoffs or headcount freezes are implemented, and how to mitigate or minimize the collateral effects of AI use, such as environmental impact”.The letter was organized by employees affiliated with the advocacy group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. One worker who was involved in drafting the letter explained that workers were compelled to speak out because of negative experiences with using AI tools in the workplace, as well as broader environmental concerns about the AI boom. The staffers, the employee said, wanted to advocate for a better way to develop, deploy and use the technology.“I signed the letter because of leadership’s increasing emphasis on arbitrary productivity metrics and quotas, using AI as justification to push myself and my colleagues to work longer hours and push out more projects on tighter deadlines,” said a senior software engineer, who has been with the company for over a decade, and requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal.Climate goalsThe letter accuses Amazon of “casting aside its climate goals to build AI”.Like other companies in the generative AI race, Amazon has invested heavily in building new data centers to power new tools – which are more resource intensive and demand high amounts of electricity to operate. The company plans to spend $150bn on data centers in the next 15 years, and just recently said it will invest $15bn to build data centers in northern Indiana and at least $3bn for data centers in Mississippi.The letter claims that Amazon’s annual emissions have “grown roughly 35% since 2019”, despite the company’s promise in 2019 to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040. It warns many of Amazon’s investments in AI infrastructure will be in “locations where their energy demands will force utility companies to keep coal plans online or build new gas plants”.“‘AI’ is being used as a magic word that is code for less worker power, hoarding of more resources, and making an uninformed gamble on high energy demand computer chips magically saving us from climate change,” said an Amazon customer researcher, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation for speaking out. “If we can build a climate saving AI – that’s awesome! But that’s not what Amazon is spending billions of dollars to develop. They are investing fossil fuel energy draining data centers for AI that is intended to surveil, exploit, and squeeze every extra cent out of customers, communities, and government agencies.”In a statement to the Guardian, Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser pushed back on employees’ claims and pointed toward the company’s climate goals. “Not only are we the leading data center operator in efficiency, we’re the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for five consecutive years with over 600 projects globally,” said Glasser. “We’ve also invested significantly in nuclear energy through existing plants and new SMR technology–these aren’t distractions, they’re concrete actions demonstrating real progress toward our Climate Pledge commitment to reach net-zero carbon across our global operations by 2040.”AI for productivityThe letter also includes strict demands around the role of AI in the Amazon workplace, demands that, staffers say, arose out of challenges employees are experiencing.Three Amazon employees who spoke to the Guardian claimed that the company is pressuring them to use AI tools for productivity, in an effort to increase output. “I’m getting messaging from my direct manager and [from] of all the way up the chain, about how I should be using AI for coding, for writing, for basically all of my day-to-day tasks, and that those will make me more efficient, and also that if I don’t get on board and use them, that I’m going to fall behind, that it’s sort of sink or swim,” said a software engineer who has been with Amazon for over two years, requesting anonymity due to fear of reprisal.The worker added that just weeks ago she was told by her manager that they were “expected to do twice as much work because of AI tools”, and expressed concern that the output expected demanded with fewer people is unsustainable, and “the tools are just not making up that gap.”The customer researcher echoed similar concerns. “I have both personally felt the pressure to use AI in my role, and hear from so many of my colleagues they are under the same pressure …”.“All the while, there’s no discussion about the immediate effects on us as workers – from unprecedented layoffs to unrealistic expectations for output.”The senior software engineer said that the adoption of AI has had imperfect outcomes. He said that most commonly, workers are pressured to adopt agentic code generation tools: “Recently I worked on a project that was just cleaning up after a high-level engineer tried to use AI to generate code to complete a complex project,” said this worker. “But none of it worked and he didn’t understand why – starting from scratch would have actually been easier.”Amazon did not respond to questions about the staffers’ workplace critiques about AI use.Workers emphasized they are not against AI outright, rather they want it to be developed sustainably and with input from the people building and using it. “I see Amazon using AI to justify a power grab over community resources like water and energy, but also over its own workers, who are increasingly subject to surveillance, work speedups, and implicit threats of layoffs,” said the senior software engineer. “There is a culture of fear around openly discussing the drawbacks of AI at work, and one thing the letter is setting out to accomplish is to show our colleagues that many of us feel this way and that another path is possible.”

Climate
Technology
Energy

Eel Populations Are Falling, and New Protections Were Defeated. Japan and the US Opposed Them

Valuable eels are in decline all over the world, leading to a new push for restrictions on trade to try to help stave off extinction

SCARBOROUGH, Maine (AP) — Eels are the stuff of nightmares — slimy, snakelike creatures that lay millions of eggs before dying so their offspring can return home to rivers and streams. They've existed since the time of the dinosaurs, and some species are more poorly understood than those ancient animals.Yet they're also valuable seafood fish that are declining all over the world, leading to a new push for restrictions on trade to help stave off extinction.Freshwater eels are critically important for the worldwide sushi industry, and some species have declined by more than 90% since the 1980s. The eels have succumbed to a combination of river dams, hydroelectric turbines, pollution, habitat loss, climate change, illegal poaching and overfishing, according to scientists. Some environmental organizations have called for consumers to boycott eel at sushi restaurants.The loss of eels motivated the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, to consider new restrictions to protect the wriggling fish. The members of CITES, an international treaty, met in Uzbekistan this week to determine if the new rules on trade are needed. Member nations voted against the new protections on Thursday.Conservation groups said the protections were long overdue, but not everyone was on board. Some fishing groups, seafood industry members and regulatory agencies in the U.S., China and Japan — all countries where eel is economically important — have spoken out against restricting the trade.The push for more restrictions is the work of “an international body dominated by volunteer scientists and unelected bureaucrats," said Mitchell Feigenbaum, one of North America's largest eel dealers and an advocate for the industry. But several conservation groups countered that the protections were needed.“This measure is vital to strengthen trade monitoring, aid fisheries management, and ensure the species’ long-term survival," said Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy for Wildlife Conservation Society. Why are eels so valuable? The eels in question are the eels of the anguilla genus, which spend their lives in freshwater but migrate to the ocean to spawn. They are distinct from the familiar, grinning moray eels, which are popular in aquariums and are mostly marine fish, and the electric eels, which live in South America.Anguilla eels, especially baby eels called elvers, are valuable because they are used as seed stock by Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity for use as food. Freshwater eel is known as unagi in Japan, and it's a key ingredient in numerous sushi dishes. Eel is also culturally significant in Japan, where people have eaten the fish for thousands of years.The elvers have become more valuable in the U.S. over the last 15 years because of the steep decline of eels elsewhere in the world. While the population of American eels has fallen, the drop has not been as severe as Japanese and European eels. Attempts to list American eels under the Endangered Species Act in the U.S. have failed. Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for the elvers, and it is heavily regulated. Maine's baby eels were worth more than $1,200 per pound at the docks in 2024, and they were worth more than $2,000 per pound the year before that. New protections were on the table CITES, which is one of the world's largest multinational wildlife agreements, extended protections to European eels in 2009. The organization considered adding more than a dozen more eel species, including the American and Japanese eels, to its list of protected species.Adding the eels to the list would mean exporters would need a permit to ship them. Before the permit could be granted, a scientific authority in the home country would have to determine that the export would not be detrimental to the species' survival and that the eels weren’t taken illegally under national wildlife laws. That is significant because poaching of eels is a major threat, and rare species are often illegally passed off as more common ones, CITES documents state.Tightening trade rules “will encourage species-specific trade monitoring and controls and close loopholes that allow illegal trade to persist,” the documents state. US, Japan pushed back at protections Fishing groups are not the only organizations to resist expanding protections for eels, as regulatory groups in some countries have argued that national and regional laws are a better way to conserve eels.Japan and China have both told CITES that they don't support listing the eels. And in the U.S., the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the American eel fishery, submitted testimony to CITES opposing the listing.The U.S.'s own management of eels is sufficient to protect the species, said Toni Kerns, fisheries policy director with the commission.“We don't feel that the proposal provides enough information on how the black market would be curbed,” Kerns said. “We are very concerned about how it would potentially restrict trade in the United States."A coalition of industry groups in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan also submitted a request that the protection be rejected, saying CITES' assertion that international trade is causing eel populations to decline is “not supported by sufficient evidence.” Conservationists say the time to act is now The strong demand for eels is a reason to protect the trade with new rules, said Nastya Timoshyna, office director for Europe with TRAFFIC, a U.K.-based nonprofit that fights wildlife trafficking.Illegal shipping is not the only reason the eels are in decline, but working with industry to cut down illegal trade will give the fish a better chance at survival, Timoshyna said.Eels might not be universally beloved, but they're important in part because they're an indicator species that helps scientists understand the health of the ecosystem around them, Timoshyna said.“It's not about banning it or stopping fishing practices,” Timoshyna said. “It's about industry being responsible, and there is massive power in industry.”Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

Extinction
Animals
Conservation

Trump order to keep Michigan power plant open costs taxpayers $113m

Critics say JH Campbell coal-fired plant in western Michigan is expensive and emits high levels of toxic pollutionTrump administration orders to keep an ageing, unneeded Michigan coal-fired power plant online has cost ratepayers from across the US midwest about $113m so far, according to estimates from the plant’s operator and regulators.Still, the US energy department last week ordered the plant to remain open for another 90 days. Continue reading...

Trump administration orders to keep an ageing, unneeded Michigan coal-fired power plant online has cost ratepayers from across the US midwest about $113m so far, according to estimates from the plant’s operator and regulators.Still, the US energy department last week ordered the plant to remain open for another 90 days.The Trump administration in May ordered utility giant Consumers Energy to keep the 63-year-old JH Campbell coal plant in western Michigan, about 100 miles north-east of Chicago, online just as it was being retired.The order has drawn outrage from consumer advocates and environmental groups who say the plant is expensive and emits high levels of toxic air pollution and greenhouse gas.The costs will be spread among households across the northern and central regional Miso grid, which stretches from eastern Montana to Michigan, and includes nine other states“The costs of unnecessarily running this jalopy coal plant just continue to mount,” said Michael Lenoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is suing over the order.Gary Rochow, Consumers Energy’s CEO, told investors in a 30 October earnings call that the Trump administration in its order stated that ratepayers should shoulder the costs, and detailed how the company should pass on the costs.“That order from the energy department has laid out a clear path to cost recovery,” Rochow said.The utility has said in regulatory filings that the order is costing customers about $615,000 per day. The order has been in place for around six months.Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel filed a motion for a stay in federal court, alleging the administration’s latest order is “arbitrary and illegal”.The coal plant is one of two in Michigan that the Trump administration has moved to keep open under the president’s controversial national energy emergency executive order, which is being challenged in court by multiple lawsuits.The other plant is not scheduled to close for two years. The two factories emit about 45% of the state’s greenhouse gas pollution.Trump has also used his emergency energy order to keep gas plants near Baltimore and Philadelphia online.Consumers Energy said it did not ask for Campbell to remain open. The Trump administration did not consult local regulators, a spokesperson for the Michigan public service commission (MPSC), which regulates utilities and manages the state’s grid, told the Guardian in May.“The unnecessary recent order … will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses in Michigan and across the midwest,” the chair of the MPSC, Dan Scripps, said in a statement at the time.The latest figures proved Scripps correct.In May, an energy department spokesperson insisted in a statement that retiring the coal plants “would jeopardize the reliability of our grid systems”.But regulatory data from Miso and the MPSC over the last six months shows that statement was wrong.The Miso grid had excess power far above what Campbell provided during peak demand this summer. And the plant often was not operating at full capacity, likely because its power was not needed, advocates say. But the plant still costs ratepayers even when not operating at capacity.The energy department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the data showing it was not necessary to keep the plant open.Campbell and Michigan’s other coal plant that the Trump administration is aiming to keep online release high levels of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter into the air. Meanwhile, their coal ash ponds leach arsenic, lead, lithium, radium and sulfate into local drinking water and the Great Lakes.Consumers Energy had since 2021 been planning for the Campbell’s closure as required by the state’s energy plan. The company said the plant’s closure would save ratepayers in the state about $600m by 2040.

Energy
Pollution
CO2

Where others saw litter, he saw a bird: Galveston artist crafts reddish egret from washed-up debris

The artwork, which will be displayed at Moody Gardens and other locations on the island, was created to increase awareness about plastic pollution in the ocean.

Julianna Washburn/HPMGalveston artist Evan McClimans shows the eye of his sculpture made out of marine debris on Nov. 25, 2025.When artist Evan McClimans saw broken garbage bins, a discarded kayak and blue bottle caps that littered Galveston’s beaches, he didn't see it as trash. He saw a vision. McClimans transformed the waste bins into what now looks like bird feathers, the kayak came to resemble sand and the bottle caps were made into what looks like ocean water. Sign up for the Hello, Houston! daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox. After four months of creating, McClimans finished his work of art. He'd pieced together thousands of pieces of marine debris from Galveston to create a 7-foot sculpture of a reddish egret, the official bird of Galveston and a threatened species nicknamed "Gerde of the Gulf." "It’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears on this thing and I’m just so grateful that I got to do it," McClimans said. The project was part of a partnership between the Galveston Park Board and Washed Ashore, an Oregon-based organization that works to encourage recycling and educate the public about plastic pollution in the ocean. Sculptures are made out of washed-up debris and represent marine life affected by plastic pollution. "When you’re looking at these different artworks, you’re understanding that these are things ending up in the ocean that we use every single day," said Elizabeth Walla, environmental programs manager at the Galveston Park Board. Walla said the Galveston Park Board, which is responsible for maintaining all 32 miles of beach front on the island south of Houston, has a crew of 36 members who clean the beaches by hand every day, picking up trash and emptying trash barrels. "It is hard to imagine, but we are picking up at least 2 million pounds of trash from our beach front every year," Walla said. Walla said marine debris in Galveston isn't just from people leaving trash on the beach, however, as a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that marine debris accumulation rates were 10 times higher in Texas than the other states along the Gulf, because of where Texas sits in relation to wind directions and currents. "When that was released, it made sense to me because a lot of the trash that we see, especially the bigger stuff, has barnacles on it. It has algae on it. You can tell it’s been in the water for quite a while," Walla said. To help create “Gerte,” Walla said in addition to the crew that typically cleans the beaches, volunteers from around the community came together to help pick up marine debris. Items such as lighters, beach toys and sand buckets now help make up the sculpture. Julianna Washburn, HPM“Gerte of the Gulf,” a sculpture made out of marine debris, sits inside artist Evan McClimans’ shop on Nov. 25, 2025.Julianna Washburn/HPMGalveston artist Evan McClimans shows a children’s toy that sits on his sculpture made out of marine debris on Nov. 25, 2025. "My favorite is the Texas volleyball," McClimans said about one of the items on the sculpture. "I have a whole bin full of beach balls that they found out in random places, but that one had Texas on it and since this [sculpture] is staying in Galveston, I thought it’d be appropriate to put that one on there." While each piece of marine debris turned into its own artform, McClimans, who once focused his energy entirely on welding, said creating Gerte changed him, too. "I’ve definitely taken a bigger interest in making sure that I do my part and preach to others to do theirs," McClimans said. "When I go to the beach, I make sure [to] pick up 10 pieces when you’re there, pick up 10 pieces when you leave," McClimans said. At a Galveston City Council meeting in November, "Gerde of the Gulf" was given the 2025 Galveston Planning & Design Award in the environmental category. Gerte will be displayed at Moody Gardens starting Monday, then the sculpture will continue to move to different locations around the island.

Pollution
Energy
Water

Canada's Prime Minister and Alberta's Premier Sign Pipeline Deal That Could Reverse Oil Tanker Ban

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premier of Canada’s oil rich province of Alberta have agreed to work toward building a pipeline to the Pacific Coast to diversify the country’s oil exports beyond the United States, in a move that has caused turmoil in Carney’s inner circle

TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premier of Canada’s oil rich province of Alberta agreed Thursday to work toward building a pipeline to the Pacific Coast to diversify the country’s oil exports beyond the United States, in a move that has caused turmoil in Carney's inner circle.The memorandum of understanding includes an adjustment of an oil tanker ban off parts of the British Columbia coast if a pipeline comes to fruition. Carney’s support for it led to the resignation Thursday of one of his cabinet ministers, Steven Guilbeault, a former environment minister and career environmentalist who has been serving as the minister of culture.Guilbeault said in a statement he strongly opposes the agreement with Alberta, noting the pipeline could cross the Great Bear Rainforest and that it would increase the risk of a tanker spill on the coast. But he said he understands why Canada needs to remain united and said he will stay on as a Liberal Member of Parliament. Carney said he was glad Guilbeault is staying as a Liberal lawmaker. Carney has set a goal for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade, saying American tariffs are causing a chill in investment.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the agreement will lead to more than 1 million barrels per day for mainly Asian markets so “our province and our country are no longer dependent on just one customer to buy our most valuable resource.”Carney reiterated that as the U.S. transforms all of its trading relationships, many of Canada's strengths – based on those close ties to America – have become its vulnerabilities.“Over 95% of all our energy exports went to the States. This tight interdependence – once a strength – is now a weakness,” Carney said. Carney said a pipeline can reduce the price discount on current oil sales to U.S. markets. He called the framework agreement the start of a process. “We have created some of the necessary conditions for this to happen but there is a lot more work to do,” he said.Carney said if there is not a private sector proponent there won’t be a pipeline.The agreement calls on Ottawa and Alberta to engage with British Columbia, where there is fierce opposition to oil tankers off the coast, to advance that province's economic interests. Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approved one controversial pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the British Columbia coast in 2016 but the federal government had to build and finish construction of it as it faced opposition from environmental and aboriginal groups.Trudeau at the same time rejected the Northern Gateway project to northwest British Columbia which would have passed through the Great Bear Rainforest. Northern Gateway would have transported 525,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific to deliver oil to Asia, mainly energy-hungry China.The northern Alberta region has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, with about 164 billion barrels of proven reserves.Carney’s announcement comes after British Columbia Premier David Eby said lifting the tanker ban would threaten projects already in development in the region and consensus among coastal First Nations.Eby said he knows the federal government could impose this pipeline if they wished. “What this is about is the fact that this project has no company that's advancing it. It's got no money. It's got no coastal First Nations support," he said.Eby said the agreement is a “distraction” to real projects. “We have zero interest in co-ownership or economic benefits of a project that has the potential to destroy our way of life and everything we have built on the coast,” Coastal First Nations President Marilyn Slett said. The agreement pairs the pipeline project a proposed carbon capture project and government officials say the two projects must be built in tandem.The agreement says Ottawa and Alberta will with work with companies to identify by April 1 new emissions-reduction projects to be rolled out starting in 2027.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

Culture
Energy
Forests

Australia finally acknowledges environment underpins all else. That’s no small thing | Ken Henry

In what are dangerous times for democracies around the world, parliament’s overhaul of nature laws in the EPBC Act shows ambitious reform remains possibleSign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe passage of long overdue reforms to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act demonstrates powerfully that democratic governance is alive and well in Australia.The Australian parliament has done its job and passed 21st-century reforms that support a modern economy, enable the creation of new and sustainable jobs while promising not to destroy, but in fact improve, the health of the natural world. Continue reading...

The passage of long overdue reforms to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act demonstrates powerfully that democratic governance is alive and well in Australia.The Australian parliament has done its job and passed 21st-century reforms that support a modern economy, enable the creation of new and sustainable jobs while promising not to destroy, but in fact improve, the health of the natural world. This is no small thing. In what are clearly dangerous times for democracies around the world, the Australian parliament has demonstrated emphatically that ambitious economic reform remains possible. And yes, I do mean “economic” reform.As in the past, courageous leadership has been rewarded with agreement. As in the past, the parliament has engaged constructively, in the national interest, rising above the debilitating personality politics and culture wars of recent years.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe winners stand to be future generations of Australians. In this instance, our elected representatives have demonstrated they understand that this is where their most weighty obligation is owed. But meeting that obligation is hard. Democracies often appear carefully designed to reward short-termism. Yet the success of a parliament can only be assessed according to what it does for the future. In the final sitting week of 2025, the Australian parliament appears to have delivered.The package of reforms to the EPBC Act fixes an ugly policy mess. The mess had been called out in several reviews, including Graeme Samuel’s review delivered more than five years ago.As I observed in an address to the National Press Club mid-year, report after report tells the same story of failure. The environment is simply not being protected. Biodiversity is not being conserved. Nature is in systemic decline. The environmental impact assessment systems embedded in the laws are simply not fit for purpose. Of particular concern, they are incapable of supporting an economy in transition to net zero.The mess of poorly constructed environmental laws has been undermining productivity. I noted that we simply cannot afford slow, opaque, duplicative and contested environmental planning decisions based on poor information, mired in administrative complexity.This week’s reforms promise to fix the mess.The reformed act will deliver a set of standards that aim to protect matters of national environmental significance. It will provide certainty for all stakeholders about impacts that must be regarded as “unacceptable” and therefore avoided.It builds integrity into the administration of the laws through the establishment of an independent, national EPA. It promises to end the absurd carveout for native forests, the landscapes that remain most richly endowed with biodiversity and healthy ecosystem functioning. And it lays the foundations for the development of regional plans that provide an opportunity for the three levels of government to work with local communities, including First Nations custodians, to design sustainable futures.Significantly, long-overdue protection will be provided for our forests. The lungs of the Earth, a lifeboat against climate change, a filter against sentiment destroying the Great Barrier Reef and a haven for wildlife will be provided real protection, while incentives will be provided to support a modern forestry industry based on plantations.And there is another thing that should be called out at this time. This may be the most important thing.For centuries, humans have believed that economic and social progress necessarily comes at the expense of the environment. We have believed that the destruction of the natural world is a price that must be paid for everything else that matters to us; as we accumulate physical and financial capital, we must run down the stock of natural capital.We have acted as if we can choose, indefinitely, to trade-off environmental integrity for material gains. Our choices have created deserts, waterways incapable of supporting life, soils leached of fertility, climate change driving weather events of such severity and frequency that whole towns, suburbs and agricultural landscapes are fast becoming uninsurable.This week’s amendments acknowledge that the state of the natural world is foundational. That without its rebuilding, future economic and social progress cannot be secured.We should think of economic and social progress as exercises in constrained optimisation. This framing is familiar to those immersed in economic policy. And yet, as I noted in the National Press Club address, economics has for the most part ignored the most important constraints on human choices. These are embedded in the immutable laws of nature. Our failure to recognise that is now undermining productivity growth and having a discernible impact on economic performance. It threatens livelihoods, even lives.Writing into law an acknowledgment that environmental protection and biodiversity conservation necessarily underpin everything else, and that they must therefore have primacy, is a profound achievement. An unprecedented bequest to future generations.

Climate
Conservation
Health

Mark Carney reaches deal with Alberta for oil pipeline opposed by First Nations

Prime minister says deal ‘sets the state for an industrial transformation’, but project is likely to face wide oppositionMark Carney has agreed an energy deal with Alberta centred on plans for a new heavy oil pipeline reaching from the province’s oil sands to the Pacific coast, a politically volatile project that is expected to face stiff opposition.“It’s a great day for Alberta and a great day for Canada,” the prime minister said on Thursday as he met the Alberta premier, Danielle Smith. He said the agreement “sets the state for an industrial transformation” and involved not just a pipeline, but nuclear power and datacentres. “This is Canada working,” he said. Continue reading...

Mark Carney has agreed an energy deal with Alberta centred on plans for a new heavy oil pipeline reaching from the province’s oil sands to the Pacific coast – a politically volatile project that is expected to face stiff opposition.“It’s a great day for Alberta and a great day for Canada,” the prime minister said on Thursday as he met the beaming Alberta premier, Danielle Smith. He said the agreement “sets the state for an industrial transformation” and involved not just a pipeline, but also nuclear power and datacentres. “This is Canada working,” he said.The agreement was praised by Smith for its potential to “unleash” investment in Alberta.Carney and Smith made the announcement after weeks of negotiations, which mark a dramatic shift in relations between the federal government and Alberta.. The two have sparred in recent years amid accusations from Alberta that Ottawa is harming its economic potential by restricting carbon emissions.The premise of the agreement is to increase oil and gas exports while attempting to meet the federal government’s climate targets. Carney’s government will exempt a possible pipeline project from the existing coastal oil tanker moratorium and emissions cap. In exchange, Alberta must raise its industrial carbon pricing and investing in a multi-billion-dollar carbon capture project.Critically, however, no company has expressed an interest in backing the project, which would probably face stiff opposition from the province of British Columbia and among First Nations communities on the Pacific coast.The move also reflects a political shift by Carney, who, before entering politics, developed credentials as an economist guiding capital markets towards a net zero future. Now, he must sell a plan that appears at odds with those values.The agreement has already prompted grumbles from lawmakers within Carney’s Liberal party. The cabinet minister Gregor Robertson, for example, argued against the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion when he was mayor of Vancouver, calling the project environmentally irresponsible. Carney must also convince the former environment minister Steven Guilbeault, a longtime environmental activist who now serves as minister of Canadian identity and culture.Talks between Alberta and the federal government notably excluded neighbouring British Columbia, whose leader has voiced strong opposition to a new pipeline passing through his province. The BC premier, David Eby, has said he opposes a pipeline and also the prospect of allowing tanker traffic through the narrow, tempestuous waters of the north coast. Instead, his government offered to expand the capacity of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline.But Alberta’s government is adamant it wants a new pipeline, not just expanded capacity, and has repeatedly pledged to submit a proposal by spring.Before passing a bill in June that gave his government the power to override environmental regulations and fast-track projects in the national interest, Carney said any new pipeline would have to have the support of First Nations whose territory is unceded to provincial or federal governments.Even before Carney and Smith made their announcement, however, First Nations said any new pipeline was effectively dead on arrival.“We are here to remind the Alberta government, the federal government, and any potential private proponent that we will never allow oil tankers on our coast, and that this pipeline project will never happen,” said Marilyn Slett, president of the Coastal First Nations (CFN), a group that represents eight First Nations along the coast.Slett, the elected chief of the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, has previously warned about the risks of an oil spill in a sparsely populated region with little rapid-response infrastructure. She saw the effects first-hand in 2016, when 100,000 litres of diesel spilled near her community. Slett warned that no deal could “override our inherent and constitutional Rights and Title, or deter our deep interconnection of mutual respect for the ocean”.

Energy
Activism
Culture

Food is medicine, and that’s a fact. Why we all need Native American foodways

Ecologically sound farming and land stewardship can change individual, collective and planetary healthWithin Indigenous communities across North America and beyond, we have long known that food is medicine. This isn’t just theory; it’s fact. We understand that seasonal, regionally specific and culturally relevant foods are vital for nurturing, nourishing and healing both our people and our planet. And it’s high time we all embrace the Native American concept of food as medicine.Our ancestral wisdom has ensured our survival for millennia, even in the face of unthinkable circumstances like colonialism, genocide and ongoing oppression. This ever-relevant knowledge will ensure our collective survival amid today’s unthinkable circumstances here in the United States, such as political instability, climate change and rising health issues. Continue reading...

Within Indigenous communities across North America and beyond, we have long known that food is medicine. This isn’t just theory; it’s fact. We understand that seasonal, regionally specific and culturally relevant foods are vital for nurturing, nourishing and healing both our people and our planet. And it’s high time we all embrace the Native American concept of food as medicine.Our ancestral wisdom has ensured our survival for millennia, even in the face of unthinkable circumstances like colonialism, genocide and ongoing oppression. This ever-relevant knowledge will ensure our collective survival amid today’s unthinkable circumstances here in the United States, such as political instability, climate change and rising health issues.So much of these lessons exist within our foodways, which in a Native worldview we recognize as inherently intertwined with our culture, land and history. Long before European arrival, Native groups across North America established robust, thriving societies undergirded by ecologically sound foodways. In stark contrast with today’s extractive, exploitative food system, these place-based traditions emphasized sustainable, climate-savvy principles – and they’re still being practiced today.I delved deep into that knowledge during my years-long research alongside renowned Oglala Lakota chef Sean Sherman while co-writing the new book Turtle Island: Foods and Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of North America. He is perhaps best known for his Minneapolis restaurant, Owamni, which serves “decolonized” food made without European-introduced ingredients, such as beef, chicken, pork, dairy, wheat flour and sugar cane. With this book, Sean and I are shining a spotlight on the countless elders, cooks, producers and culture bearers who have helped safeguard centuries-old wisdom that’s been passed from generation to generation.Sean’s bigger-picture mission to revitalize Indigenous foodways is a reintroduction to the ways our communities sustained ourselves for centuries. Before European arrival, we didn’t experience the many colonialism-driven health issues that still plague Native communities – and affect non-Native communities, too – including disproportionate rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. As Sherman often says, if we can control our food, we can control our destiny.That’s not hyperbole. It’s an acknowledgment that, especially within Indigenous communities, food sovereignty is synonymous with food security. To better understand that, we need to rewind a bit.Within Native cultures, we have long hunted, fished and foraged without over-harvesting in order to leave enough bounty for others and to ensure the survival of key animal and plant species. Our ancestors developed sophisticated agricultural techniques that allowed us to cultivate nutrient-rich crops in harmony with the regional climate and circumstance. Prime examples of this include waffle gardens – a pattern of sunken squares of land that collect water developed by the Zuni people in the south-west desert land. There are also chinampas – floating gardens atop small humanmade islands in shallow lakes and swamps, first employed in ancient Mesoamerica by the Aztecs. We stewarded the land using time-honored permaculture traditions, such as controlled burns, that helped us live in harmony with the natural world around us.Navajo churro sheep at the Rio Grande Botanic Garden Heritage Farm, on 14 March 2018. Photograph: Zuma Press Inc/AlamyAs American colonialism swept across this land, our thriving, independent tribal nations proved challenging for the land-hungry nascent United States. To address the so-called “Indian problem”, the budding US government very deliberately targeted our food sources and systems to devastating effect. Those efforts took shape as the “scorched-earth” campaigns that destroyed everything in their path across the south-west, the systematic slaughtering of bison herds in the Great Plains to near eradication and other similarly aggressive tactics designed to starve us into submission. The underlying theory was this: if you can control the peoples’ food, you can control the peoples – a terrible twist on Sean’s aforementioned sentiment.As our Native communities were systematically displaced from our homes and disconnected from our cultures, we adapted. Ours is a story of ever-evolving resilience. Amid forced relocation, our tribal communities identified plants and animals endemic to those new areas and shifted crop-cultivation techniques for new climates. A prime example of this adaptation is the development of the Navajo churro sheep. Descended from the Iberian breeds brought to North America in the 1500s, this animal is now an integral element of Diné lifeways from both a cultural and a culinary standpoint. Generations of families have long tended to their churro herds, weaving their wool into rugs and clothing and incorporating their mutton and milk into both everyday and ceremonial meals.At the same time, as our tribes were relegated to small reservations often situated on land deemed unwanted and unproductive, the introduction of government commodity foods introduced those marked health disparities we still experience. These highly processed, nutrient-devoid foods – think canned beef with juices, blocks of neon-orange cheese and powdered egg mix – bear striking similarities to the foods that make up the modern standard american diet (it’s not a coincidence that that acronym is Sad).But this isn’t just a history lesson. It’s crucial that we reconcile what took place in the past to better understand how we got to the present and where we go from here toward a better future for all. That’s the beauty of Indigenous wisdom; in our worldview, knowledge is not for hoarding. It’s for sharing.In recent years, we’ve seen a long-overdue embracing of traditional ecological knowledge. This Indigenous science, if you will, has long been dismissed in favor of western science, with an emphasis on qualitative data over quantitative data. Native thought leaders like Potawatomi botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer and Binnizá/Zapotec/Maya Ch’orti’ environmental scientist Jessica Hernandez are leading the charge to reshape our understanding of science. Many people are now realizing that the way Indigenous communities have long lived is better for our species and our planet.We’ve also witnessed small yet meaningful land back gains, in which privately and/or publicly owned lands have been returned to once again be stewarded by Native hands. Much like the Native food movement, the land back movement is cause for collective celebration, as it benefits everyone. After all, even though Indigenous peoples make up just 5% of the world’s population, we protect an estimated 80% of our planet’s remaining biodiversity.In a world where food has been weaponized against us time and again – not just Native Americans, but non-Native Americans, too – Indigenous cultures offer a blueprint for a decolonized future – a future where nutritious, sustainably harvested and produced food is recognized as a basic right. Food is medicine, and it is medicine for all.

Food
Climate
Indigenous

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