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It’s not just Coca-Cola: Corporations have co-opted the UN climate talks

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Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Once a year, delegates from almost 200 countries gather for the purpose of finding ways to keep climate change from spiraling out of control. This time around, they’re meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. And the event is brought to you by the largest plastic producer in the world, Coca-Cola. While Coca-Cola is considered a lower-tier sponsor than the conference’s “partners,” which include Microsoft, IBM, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Coca-Cola’s role has garnered an exceptionally large amount of criticism. Nearly 240,000 people have signed a petition for the Egyptian government-led conference to drop the partnership with Coca-Cola, a corporate giant that makes roughly 4,000 plastic bottles from oil every second.  Over the years, climate summits have become a branding opportunity for corporations to attach their names to high-profile efforts to save the world. One report found that the companies sponsoring the 2015 summit in Paris, for example, had paid around $18.8 million, about 10 percent of the total budget. It can be hard for organizers of an expensive-to-run conference to turn down that kind of money. But those sponsorships have become a target of protest as activists seek to show how companies like Coca-Cola have contributed to the climate crisis, the very thing COP27 is supposed to address.  The Coca-Cola debacle inspired a recent political cartoon that contrasts the conference’s lofty goal of limiting climate change with the merch-filled expo that takes place alongside it. “Make sure you grab your COP27 gift bag,” says a comic by Australian cartoonist Andrew Marlton. The panels advertise fictional swag: a shirt that says “My environment minister went to COP27 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt,” an “economy-size bottle of greenwash,” and the new book by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg (“no need to read it, just be seen with it”). Thunberg, for her part, decided to skip the conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, in part because of the corporate-friendly atmosphere. All the logos on display at COP27 hint at what’s going on behind the scenes: Companies have been influencing the global climate negotiations since their inception in Rio de Janeiro 30 years ago, working to make sure that the final agreement would not force them to cut emissions from fossil fuels. Instead, they began volunteering “net-zero” pledges to cancel out their emissions at some later date. They’ve also started to shape the conversation at every summit. When COP27 attendees talk about “net-zero” and the need for ever-better climate data, for example, they are talking about climate change in a language that businesses helped develop, and one that experts say distracts from the true goal: the need to reduce fossil fuel emissions. The Coca-Cola sponsorship “seems outrageous to me,” said Adam Rome, an environmental historian at the University at Buffalo. “But if you’re in a world where pretty much everything is voluntary and everything has to make, ultimately, business sense, then you’re going to get net-zero pledges, and you’re going to get corporate sponsorships of government or civil society.” Demonstrators in Zagreb, Croatia, protest greenwashing as COP27 is held in Egypt, November 8, 2022. Denis Lovrovic / AFP via Getty Images Even though oil companies haven’t been allowed to sponsor the talks, the fossil fuel industry still has a huge presence: By one count, it sent more than 630 lobbyists to Sharm el-Sheikh, a larger delegation than sent by any country except the United Arab Emirates, the host of next year’s climate summit. (It wasn’t until last year that the conference’s final agreement mentioned the phrase “fossil fuels” at all — and even then, the language got watered down.) COP27 has also been criticized for hiring a public relations firm, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, that has represented oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and Saudi Aramco, to manage communications. Climate advocates often justify corporate involvement by saying that companies have a role to play in financing the changes that are needed, said Jennie Stephens, a professor of sustainability science and policy at Northeastern University. But she believes that corporate influence at negotiations is preventing “more transformative action” from resulting. Instead of denying the problem or undermining science, those who oppose reducing emissions are now focused on delaying climate action, Stephens said. “Part of delay is to acknowledge the problem and then present corporate interests as if they’re doing something to mitigate problems, when in fact, they’re not.” Despite talking about fixing climate change more than ever, for instance, all major oil companies are on track to increase oil production by 2026, according to a report earlier this year. “If they are still planning to extract all these fossil fuels in perpetuity,” Stephens said, “there’s no way we’re ever going to meet any of the goals that all the countries have committed to in this whole long, expensive process that so much time and effort has gone into.” So how did corporations become such major players in climate politics? It goes back to an old public relations strategy. In the 1960s and ’70s, environmental activists brought attention to how polluters were setting rivers on fire, spilling oil into the ocean, and spraying pesticides everywhere. Companies were branded as villains and were forced to get in line with new regulations to prevent pollution.  Around that time, a young PR rep named E. Bruce Harrison figured that the key to avoiding future regulations was all about compromise. Calling for “balance” between the “Three Es” — the environment, energy, and the economy — would make the industry’s position look reasonable and responsible, and leave environmentalists looking like they wanted to ruin the economy. By working with environmentalists, companies could appear to be doing the right thing — and get a seat at the table where decisions got made.  That’s exactly what businesses did leading up to a major U.N. climate agreement in 1992. The first order of business of the Global Climate Coalition — a group of utilities, oil drillers, automakers, and other companies assembled by the National Association of Manufacturers a few years earlier — was to influence the international treaty that would be signed in Rio de Janeiro. At negotiating sessions, industry representatives argued for a voluntary approach to reducing emissions, in the hopes of avoiding a binding one. They got what they asked for. A National Association of Manufacturers business activity report in 1992 congratulated itself on a “strong and effective presence” during the Rio negotiations. Former President George H.W. Bush signs an international climate agreement in Rio de Janeiro, June 12, 1992. J. David Ake / AFP via Getty Images After that, the Global Climate Coalition “actively lobbied” ensuing climate conferences to make sure companies wouldn’t be forced to cut emissions, according to a report by Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Brown University. It also lobbied Congress and the White House to make sure that the United States, the biggest emitter in the world in the 1990s, would not ratify any binding climate treaties that managed to pass anyway. In 2001, when President George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, which would have required countries to cut carbon emissions, White House staff met with the Global Climate Coalition to congratulate them. “POTUS rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you,” read the talking points prepared for Paula Dobriansky, the lead negotiator on U.S. climate policy at the time. The coalition disbanded in 2002, with its mission accomplished, but companies never left the scene of climate negotiations. They gradually took on more of a sponsorship role and began setting up official-looking side events. Corporations’ high level of involvement in the negotiations is a natural outcome of people’s lack of faith in government to take action on climate change, and the belief that businesses can help fill in the gap, Rome said — an idea that’s been in force since around 1990. “There’s obviously still a lot of people who are skeptical of what corporations will do,” he said. “But a lot of other people, whether grudgingly or not, have thought, ‘Well, government isn’t going to do anything. Businesses are usually powerful institutions. If anybody can do something, it’s business.’” Companies and governments often pledge to go “net-zero” — meaning that they’ll suck up as much carbon dioxide as they emit — but such plans are often light on the details. The United Nations says it wants to crack down on these wishy-washy climate promises. Last week, it issued a new report offering guidelines to make “net-zero” pledges more meaningful. The report was perceived as taking companies to task — the U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres, said there must be “zero tolerance for net-zero greenwashing.”  But experts told Grist that the bigger issue was that the United Nations was spending so much time talking about “net-zero.” While the concept of zeroing out emissions could work, in theory, critics say it is too ambiguous to be meaningful and easily gets exploited by policymakers and companies. A recent study analyzing public pledges from hundreds of large global companies found that 93 percent of them were on track to miss their emissions goals. For those who see “net-zero” as bogus, talking about it might end up perpetuating the problem. Rome thinks that the U.N. report’s focus on getting companies to follow through on their pledges seemed to be dodging a real solution: requiring companies to cut emissions. The report “only guarantees that we’ll spend a lot more time talking about the details, when the whole idea of it is the problem,” he said.  An attendee of COP27 walks past a mockup of the globe and advertisements from the IT and business consulting firm CGI, November 6, 2022. Mohammed Abed / AFP via Getty Images Squabbling over details has become a feature of U.N. climate conferences as well as discussions around corporate sustainability, said Matthew Archer, a professor of sustainability at the University of York in the United Kingdom. Archer is writing a book arguing that “endless discussions” about metrics and measurements can distract from the real work that needs to be done on climate change. He argues that, while accurate data is needed, the search for ever-more-accurate numbers has become a form of delaying action itself.  “The whole conversation [around net-zero] is turning toward, ‘Oh no, you’re measuring it wrong, you haven’t considered this aspect,” Archer said. The debates “end up just becoming technical squabbles and people fighting over very minor methods and methodological questions,” while ignoring the bigger questions about power in politics — such as whether net-zero is a helpful way to achieve climate goals at all. Rome says that voluntary action from corporations will never be enough to solve the climate crisis. “The whole last 30 years has been this vast experiment in what they are willing to do voluntarily,” he said, with lackluster results. The world doesn’t need more “good” companies to make more net-zero pledges, Rome explained: It needs rules that force all companies to cut their emissions. Coca-Cola may be in the spotlight for greenwashing with its sponsorship of the latest climate summit, but the problem is much bigger than one company. The U.N. has been “trying to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in the corporate world,” Rome said. “That’s important, but it’s not nearly as important as pointing out that at the end of the day, we need something beyond more good guys.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline It’s not just Coca-Cola: Corporations have co-opted the UN climate talks on Nov 15, 2022.

COP27 is covered with logos. But that's just the start of companies' influence.

Once a year, delegates from almost 200 countries gather for the purpose of finding ways to keep climate change from spiraling out of control. This time around, they’re meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. And the event is brought to you by the largest plastic producer in the world, Coca-Cola.

While Coca-Cola is considered a lower-tier sponsor than the conference’s “partners,” which include Microsoft, IBM, and Bloomberg Philanthropies, Coca-Cola’s role has garnered an exceptionally large amount of criticism. Nearly 240,000 people have signed a petition for the Egyptian government-led conference to drop the partnership with Coca-Cola, a corporate giant that makes roughly 4,000 plastic bottles from oil every second

Over the years, climate summits have become a branding opportunity for corporations to attach their names to high-profile efforts to save the world. One report found that the companies sponsoring the 2015 summit in Paris, for example, had paid around $18.8 million, about 10 percent of the total budget. It can be hard for organizers of an expensive-to-run conference to turn down that kind of money. But those sponsorships have become a target of protest as activists seek to show how companies like Coca-Cola have contributed to the climate crisis, the very thing COP27 is supposed to address. 

The Coca-Cola debacle inspired a recent political cartoon that contrasts the conference’s lofty goal of limiting climate change with the merch-filled expo that takes place alongside it. “Make sure you grab your COP27 gift bag,” says a comic by Australian cartoonist Andrew Marlton. The panels advertise fictional swag: a shirt that says “My environment minister went to COP27 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt,” an “economy-size bottle of greenwash,” and the new book by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg (“no need to read it, just be seen with it”). Thunberg, for her part, decided to skip the conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, in part because of the corporate-friendly atmosphere.

All the logos on display at COP27 hint at what’s going on behind the scenes: Companies have been influencing the global climate negotiations since their inception in Rio de Janeiro 30 years ago, working to make sure that the final agreement would not force them to cut emissions from fossil fuels. Instead, they began volunteering “net-zero” pledges to cancel out their emissions at some later date. They’ve also started to shape the conversation at every summit. When COP27 attendees talk about “net-zero” and the need for ever-better climate data, for example, they are talking about climate change in a language that businesses helped develop, and one that experts say distracts from the true goal: the need to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

The Coca-Cola sponsorship “seems outrageous to me,” said Adam Rome, an environmental historian at the University at Buffalo. “But if you’re in a world where pretty much everything is voluntary and everything has to make, ultimately, business sense, then you’re going to get net-zero pledges, and you’re going to get corporate sponsorships of government or civil society.”

Demonstrators in Zagreb, Croatia, protest greenwashing as COP27 is held in Egypt, November 8, 2022. Denis Lovrovic / AFP via Getty Images

Even though oil companies haven’t been allowed to sponsor the talks, the fossil fuel industry still has a huge presence: By one count, it sent more than 630 lobbyists to Sharm el-Sheikh, a larger delegation than sent by any country except the United Arab Emirates, the host of next year’s climate summit. (It wasn’t until last year that the conference’s final agreement mentioned the phrase “fossil fuels” at all — and even then, the language got watered down.) COP27 has also been criticized for hiring a public relations firm, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, that has represented oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and Saudi Aramco, to manage communications.

Climate advocates often justify corporate involvement by saying that companies have a role to play in financing the changes that are needed, said Jennie Stephens, a professor of sustainability science and policy at Northeastern University. But she believes that corporate influence at negotiations is preventing “more transformative action” from resulting. Instead of denying the problem or undermining science, those who oppose reducing emissions are now focused on delaying climate action, Stephens said. “Part of delay is to acknowledge the problem and then present corporate interests as if they’re doing something to mitigate problems, when in fact, they’re not.”

Despite talking about fixing climate change more than ever, for instance, all major oil companies are on track to increase oil production by 2026, according to a report earlier this year. “If they are still planning to extract all these fossil fuels in perpetuity,” Stephens said, “there’s no way we’re ever going to meet any of the goals that all the countries have committed to in this whole long, expensive process that so much time and effort has gone into.”


So how did corporations become such major players in climate politics? It goes back to an old public relations strategy. In the 1960s and ’70s, environmental activists brought attention to how polluters were setting rivers on fire, spilling oil into the ocean, and spraying pesticides everywhere. Companies were branded as villains and were forced to get in line with new regulations to prevent pollution. 

Around that time, a young PR rep named E. Bruce Harrison figured that the key to avoiding future regulations was all about compromise. Calling for “balance” between the “Three Es” — the environment, energy, and the economy — would make the industry’s position look reasonable and responsible, and leave environmentalists looking like they wanted to ruin the economy. By working with environmentalists, companies could appear to be doing the right thing — and get a seat at the table where decisions got made. 

That’s exactly what businesses did leading up to a major U.N. climate agreement in 1992. The first order of business of the Global Climate Coalition — a group of utilities, oil drillers, automakers, and other companies assembled by the National Association of Manufacturers a few years earlier — was to influence the international treaty that would be signed in Rio de Janeiro. At negotiating sessions, industry representatives argued for a voluntary approach to reducing emissions, in the hopes of avoiding a binding one. They got what they asked for. A National Association of Manufacturers business activity report in 1992 congratulated itself on a “strong and effective presence” during the Rio negotiations.

Former President George H.W. Bush signs an international climate agreement in Rio de Janeiro, June 12, 1992. J. David Ake / AFP via Getty Images

After that, the Global Climate Coalition “actively lobbied” ensuing climate conferences to make sure companies wouldn’t be forced to cut emissions, according to a report by Robert Brulle, a sociologist at Brown University. It also lobbied Congress and the White House to make sure that the United States, the biggest emitter in the world in the 1990s, would not ratify any binding climate treaties that managed to pass anyway. In 2001, when President George W. Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, which would have required countries to cut carbon emissions, White House staff met with the Global Climate Coalition to congratulate them. “POTUS rejected Kyoto, in part, based on input from you,” read the talking points prepared for Paula Dobriansky, the lead negotiator on U.S. climate policy at the time.

The coalition disbanded in 2002, with its mission accomplished, but companies never left the scene of climate negotiations. They gradually took on more of a sponsorship role and began setting up official-looking side events.

Corporations’ high level of involvement in the negotiations is a natural outcome of people’s lack of faith in government to take action on climate change, and the belief that businesses can help fill in the gap, Rome said — an idea that’s been in force since around 1990. “There’s obviously still a lot of people who are skeptical of what corporations will do,” he said. “But a lot of other people, whether grudgingly or not, have thought, ‘Well, government isn’t going to do anything. Businesses are usually powerful institutions. If anybody can do something, it’s business.’”


Companies and governments often pledge to go “net-zero” — meaning that they’ll suck up as much carbon dioxide as they emit — but such plans are often light on the details. The United Nations says it wants to crack down on these wishy-washy climate promises. Last week, it issued a new report offering guidelines to make “net-zero” pledges more meaningful. The report was perceived as taking companies to task — the U.N. secretary-general, António Guterres, said there must be “zero tolerance for net-zero greenwashing.” 

But experts told Grist that the bigger issue was that the United Nations was spending so much time talking about “net-zero.” While the concept of zeroing out emissions could work, in theory, critics say it is too ambiguous to be meaningful and easily gets exploited by policymakers and companies. A recent study analyzing public pledges from hundreds of large global companies found that 93 percent of them were on track to miss their emissions goals.

For those who see “net-zero” as bogus, talking about it might end up perpetuating the problem. Rome thinks that the U.N. report’s focus on getting companies to follow through on their pledges seemed to be dodging a real solution: requiring companies to cut emissions. The report “only guarantees that we’ll spend a lot more time talking about the details, when the whole idea of it is the problem,” he said. 

An attendee of COP27 walks past a mockup of the globe and advertisements from the IT and business consulting firm CGI, November 6, 2022. Mohammed Abed / AFP via Getty Images

Squabbling over details has become a feature of U.N. climate conferences as well as discussions around corporate sustainability, said Matthew Archer, a professor of sustainability at the University of York in the United Kingdom. Archer is writing a book arguing that “endless discussions” about metrics and measurements can distract from the real work that needs to be done on climate change. He argues that, while accurate data is needed, the search for ever-more-accurate numbers has become a form of delaying action itself. 

“The whole conversation [around net-zero] is turning toward, ‘Oh no, you’re measuring it wrong, you haven’t considered this aspect,” Archer said. The debates “end up just becoming technical squabbles and people fighting over very minor methods and methodological questions,” while ignoring the bigger questions about power in politics — such as whether net-zero is a helpful way to achieve climate goals at all.

Rome says that voluntary action from corporations will never be enough to solve the climate crisis. “The whole last 30 years has been this vast experiment in what they are willing to do voluntarily,” he said, with lackluster results. The world doesn’t need more “good” companies to make more net-zero pledges, Rome explained: It needs rules that force all companies to cut their emissions.

Coca-Cola may be in the spotlight for greenwashing with its sponsorship of the latest climate summit, but the problem is much bigger than one company. The U.N. has been “trying to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in the corporate world,” Rome said. “That’s important, but it’s not nearly as important as pointing out that at the end of the day, we need something beyond more good guys.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline It’s not just Coca-Cola: Corporations have co-opted the UN climate talks on Nov 15, 2022.

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South Carolina's coastal adaptation debates stir community concerns

In a bid to tackle coastal erosion, South Carolina communities and environmentalists clash over the construction of erosion control structures called groins at Debidue Beach. Daniel Shailer reports for Inside Climate News.In short:Environmental advocates argue that the construction of groins could harm the North Inlet-Winyah Bay reserve by disrupting natural sand movement.Debidue Beach residents advocate for these structures to protect their homes from increasing erosion, highlighting tensions between climate resilience and coastal development.Legal challenges and confusion over state coastal management regulations underscore the difficulties of balancing property protection with environmental conservation.Key quote:"Equity plays a huge part in this. When you look at environmental justice communities throughout the United States, you see an intentional disinvestment in those communities."— Omar Muhammad, executive director of the Lowcountry Alliance for Model CommunitiesWhy this matters:By preserving beaches, groins also support local economies that depend on tourism. On the other hand, groins can have unintended consequences. For instance, while they may accumulate sand on one side, they can also starve areas down drift of sand, leading to increased erosion elsewhere. Disparate state, local, private and federal conservation efforts are failing to protect biodiversity. Connectivity and coordination would help, say agency scientists and conservation leaders.

In a bid to tackle coastal erosion, South Carolina communities and environmentalists clash over the construction of erosion control structures called groins at Debidue Beach. Daniel Shailer reports for Inside Climate News.In short:Environmental advocates argue that the construction of groins could harm the North Inlet-Winyah Bay reserve by disrupting natural sand movement.Debidue Beach residents advocate for these structures to protect their homes from increasing erosion, highlighting tensions between climate resilience and coastal development.Legal challenges and confusion over state coastal management regulations underscore the difficulties of balancing property protection with environmental conservation.Key quote:"Equity plays a huge part in this. When you look at environmental justice communities throughout the United States, you see an intentional disinvestment in those communities."— Omar Muhammad, executive director of the Lowcountry Alliance for Model CommunitiesWhy this matters:By preserving beaches, groins also support local economies that depend on tourism. On the other hand, groins can have unintended consequences. For instance, while they may accumulate sand on one side, they can also starve areas down drift of sand, leading to increased erosion elsewhere. Disparate state, local, private and federal conservation efforts are failing to protect biodiversity. Connectivity and coordination would help, say agency scientists and conservation leaders.

New approach to lithium mining sparks environmental concerns

A lithium mining technique promises environmental benefits but raises concerns over water use and safety in Utah.Wyatt Myskow reports for Inside Climate News.In short:A test well for a new lithium mining process in Green River, Utah, unexpectedly released water and CO2, causing local concerns over water supply impacts.The direct lithium extraction (DLE) method, though potentially less damaging than traditional mining, remains unproven on a large scale in the U.S.Critics question the long-term environmental impact of DLE, especially regarding water consumption in the already arid Southwest.Key quote:"We are not opposed to lithium. We are opposed to unsustainable and dangerous appropriations of water under the false assumptions that this new technology is absolutely harmless."— Kyle Roerink, executive director for the Great Basin Water NetworkWhy this matters:As the global demand for lithium continues to surge with the transition toward greener energy sources, the industry faces the challenge of balancing the need for this critical mineral with the imperative to protect water resources and ensure sustainable practices.In push to mine for minerals, clean energy advocates ask what going green really means.

A lithium mining technique promises environmental benefits but raises concerns over water use and safety in Utah.Wyatt Myskow reports for Inside Climate News.In short:A test well for a new lithium mining process in Green River, Utah, unexpectedly released water and CO2, causing local concerns over water supply impacts.The direct lithium extraction (DLE) method, though potentially less damaging than traditional mining, remains unproven on a large scale in the U.S.Critics question the long-term environmental impact of DLE, especially regarding water consumption in the already arid Southwest.Key quote:"We are not opposed to lithium. We are opposed to unsustainable and dangerous appropriations of water under the false assumptions that this new technology is absolutely harmless."— Kyle Roerink, executive director for the Great Basin Water NetworkWhy this matters:As the global demand for lithium continues to surge with the transition toward greener energy sources, the industry faces the challenge of balancing the need for this critical mineral with the imperative to protect water resources and ensure sustainable practices.In push to mine for minerals, clean energy advocates ask what going green really means.

Stone Age People Survived a Supervolcano Eruption by Adapting to Dry Periods, Archaeologists Suggest

Humans living in northwest Ethiopia around 74,000 years ago switched to eating more fish following the eruption, a behavior that might have enabled migration out of Africa

Indonesia's Lake Toba, formed by a volcanic eruption around 74,000 years ago. In the new study, researchers uncovered fragments of glass from the eruption at an archaeological site in northwest Ethiopia, pointing to the volcano's global impacts. Goh Chai Hin / AFP via Getty Images Around 74,000 years ago, a massive supervolcano called Toba erupted in Indonesia, creating the largest known natural disaster in the last 2.5 million years. Now, an archaeological site in northwest Ethiopia, called Shinfa-Metema 1, may point to how humans adapted to the widespread changes in climate induced by the catastrophic eruption. People at this site shifted to eating more fish during dry periods that seem to be linked to the volcano, according to a study published last week in the journal Nature. “This points to how sophisticated people were in this time period,” John Kappelman, first author of the new study and a paleoanthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin, tells the New York Times’ Carl Zimmer. “This on-the-ground evidence contradicts the popular model that the ‘volcanic winter’ caused by the Toba eruption almost drove humans and our closely related ancestors to extinction,” Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia who did not contribute to the findings, tells the Washington Post’s Carolyn Y. Johnson. “Instead, all evidence from Shinfa-Metema and elsewhere now indicates that human populations were flexible enough in their adaptations to overcome environmental challenges, even those introduced by the Toba volcanic super-eruption of 74,000 years ago,” he adds. Kappelman’s team first came across the Shinfa-Metema 1 site in 2002. Excavations revealed fossil mammoth teeth and ostrich eggshells, as well as bones with cut marks, writes New Scientist’s Michael Le Page. Archaeologists estimate humans populated the site for five to ten years, during a time with seasonal dry periods. The researchers dated the pieces of ostrich eggshell to around 74,000 years ago, the time of the Toba eruption. And the same layers of sediment contained rocks with tiny fragments of volcanic glass, suggesting people lived there both before and after the blast in Indonesia, writes CNN’s Katie Hunt. The site had an unusually high abundance of fish compared to other Stone Age sites, suggesting that people captured more fish as waterholes shrank during the dry season. “People start to increase the percentage of fish in the diet when Toba comes in. They’re capturing and processing almost four times as much fish [as before the eruption],” Kappelman says to CNN. “It is sophisticated behavior… to fish, instead of hunting terrestrial mammals,” Kappelman tells the Washington Post. “That kind of behavioral flexibility is kind of a hallmark of modern humans today.” The researchers also uncovered 16,000 chipped rocks that could be arrowheads, suggesting the site’s inhabitants used bows and arrows to hunt. If confirmed, these artifacts would be the earliest evidence of archery, per the New York Times. Humans’ apparent adaptability at this site might shed light on early migrations, some researchers say. Modern humans spread out from Africa on multiple occasions more than 100,000 years ago, but people without African ancestry are tied genetically to a dispersal that occurred within the last 100,000 years. Previous research had suggested that early humans migrated during humid periods that offered more plants and food sources. Instead, the finding that Stone Age people adjusted to arid conditions suggests humans may have ventured out of Africa during dry periods. They could have followed “blue highways” created by seasonal rivers, moving between small waterholes as they depleted each one, according to a statement from the University of Texas at Austin. Rachel Lupien, a geoscientist at Aarhus University in Denmark who did not contribute to the findings, tells the Washington Post that she isn’t convinced by this theory yet. Comparing the short-term climate at Shinfa-Metema 1 to the climate in other locations, or across thousands of years, overlooks other variables that contribute to climate and rainfall, she says to the publication. “Of course this new work doesn’t mean that humid corridors were not still important conduits for dispersals out of Africa, but this work adds credible additional possibilities during more arid phases,” Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London who was not involved in the research, tells CNN. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Texas energy companies are betting hydrogen can become a cleaner fuel for transportation

Supporters say developing hydrogen as a fuel is critical to slowing climate change. Critics are concerned that producing it with fossil fuels will prop up the oil and gas industry.

This is the first of a three-part series on emerging energy sources and Texas' role in developing them. Part two, on geothermal energy, publishes Tuesday, and part three, on small nuclear reactors, will publish on Wednesday. JEFFERSON COUNTY — A concrete platform with fading blue paint marks the birthplace of the modern oil and gas industry in southeast Texas. Weather-beaten signs describe how drillers tapped the Spindletop oil well in 1901, a discovery that launched petroleum giants Texaco, Mobil and Gulf Oil. Nearby, a red pipeline traces a neat path above flat, gravel-covered earth. French company Air Liquide started building this unassuming facility, with a wellhead and other machinery, on the iconic site in 2014 to store what it believes will be key to an energy revolution: hydrogen. The ground that once released millions of barrels of oil now holds some 4.5 billion cubic feet of highly pressurized hydrogen. The gas is contained in a skyscraper-shaped cavern that reaches about a mile below ground within a subterranean salt dome. Hydrogen promoters see the gas as a crucial part of addressing climate change. If it’s produced in a way that creates few or no greenhouse gas emissions, it could provide an eco-friendly fuel for cars, planes, 18-wheelers and ships, and could power energy-intensive industries such as steel manufacturing. Hydrogen emits only water when used as fuel. If companies can produce clean hydrogen at a price that’s competitive with gasoline or diesel, supporters say it would revolutionize the fuel industry. That’s a big if. Hydrogen is among the most common elements in the universe, but on Earth it’s typically found bonded with something else, such as carbon. Today, hydrogen is often obtained by isolating it from methane, a mix of carbon and hydrogen that is the main component of natural gas. This process leaves behind carbon dioxide, which worsens climate change if released into the air. Engineers say it’s possible to clean up that process by catching the extra carbon dioxide and reusing it — to get more oil out of a well, for example — or injecting it into the earth to store it. Another less polluting method is to split hydrogen from water, which is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, using electricity generated by wind, solar or nuclear power. Texas has emerged as a leader in producing hydrogen the cheaper way using abundant supplies of natural gas without capturing the carbon dioxide. Air Liquide makes hydrogen at facilities along the state’s coast, from Beaumont to Corpus Christi. More than 100 miles of pipelines move that hydrogen to companies that buy it for processes such as removing sulfur from crude oil. Little hydrogen is made from gas with carbon capture or from water in the state — or the rest of the country. Some academics, policy advisers and companies that make hydrogen say Texas and the Gulf Coast should be where hydrogen created with fewer emissions takes off. A majority of the country’s hydrogen pipelines are already here, Texas’ petrochemical workers have skills that easily transfer to hydrogen production — which involves chemical reactions — and the state has the natural gas and renewable energy needed to produce it. “We can be the breadbasket for not only the U.S. but for the world in providing hydrogen,” said Bryan Fisher, a managing director with RMI, a nonprofit that supports the clean energy transition. But producing enough hydrogen cheaply, building the pipelines to move it and the subterranean caverns to store it and finding the customers to buy it requires companies to take some financial risk. That effort is getting a boost from the federal government, which is offering billions of dollars’ worth of tax credits to kick-start production of hydrogen from gas with carbon capture or water. The government also plans to divide as much as $7 billion among seven regional clusters of projects to build hydrogen infrastructure, including up to $1.2 billion for projects in Texas and Louisiana that plan to make hydrogen largely from natural gas. Competing to break into the industry are traditional fossil fuel companies, including Chevron and ExxonMobil. Hydrogen advocates say interest by the oil giants is good because they have the money and expertise to tackle such an ambitious project. But environmental groups doubt that fossil fuel companies can make hydrogen from natural gas as cleanly as they say they can. They worry the federal funding will prop up oil and gas companies, when the emphasis should be on making hydrogen from water or creating clean power another way. “Producing hydrogen from natural gas is not clean, not low-carbon and cannot and should not be considered a solution in our efforts to solve the world’s worsening climate change crisis,” David Schlissel, the co-author of a report from the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis, said in a webinar. Katie Ellet, left, president of hydrogen energy and mobility for Air Liquide, walks past Facility Manager Craig Allen at the company's hydrogen storage facility. Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune First: A worker monitors the hydrogen storage site. Last: Marked pipelines move hydrogen. Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune Sitting in a mobile office at the Spindletop site, Katie Ellet, president of hydrogen energy and mobility for Air Liquide, urged critics not to be so puritanical about hydrogen production. She described hydrogen as part of a centuries-long evolution toward progressively cleaner fuels: coal replaced wood, then oil replaced coal. Ellet believes now is hydrogen’s Spindletop moment. She believes the technology, economics and interest are in place to allow the industry to boom. “We transition through these different energy cycles,” Ellet said. “And we’ve gotten better. We’ve learned, and we’ve gotten better. This is us … evolving into that next generation.” Hydrogen hype grows in Texas One weekday in October, Brian Weeks, senior director of business development at GTI Energy, walked onto a Houston hotel’s conference room stage to discuss hydrogen. GTI Energy used to be known as the Gas Technology Institute and researched natural gas. Now it promotes low-carbon energy. Weeks faced a standing-room-only crowd at the Hydrogen North America event. He remembered when, maybe a decade earlier, only seven people at a conference showed up to hear him speak on the topic. People have predicted hydrogen was about to take off before. Weeks worked on the idea off and on since the late 1990s, when he was at Texaco and the company believed hydrogen could power cars. At the time, they worried energy prices would keep rising. Weeks recalled it as a heady time for hydrogen, with actors from the hit TV series Baywatch starring in promotional videos. But hydrogen didn’t catch. Technology for producing it remained expensive, while oil production instead got a giant boost. Hydraulic fracturing technology allowed the United States to rapidly increase how much oil it produced. Still, Weeks wouldn’t have spent so much of his life on hydrogen if he didn’t believe it had a future, he said. Like Ellet, he said the circumstances feel different now. That’s in large part because of the federal government’s big investment: By 2030, the Biden administration wants America to produce 10 million metric tons per year of hydrogen made from water using renewable energy or from gas using carbon storage — about how much is produced now largely from gas without carbon capture. “It’s been a roller coaster, really, for the last at least 20 years,” Weeks said in an interview. Over the past few years, Weeks has helped a coalition of businesses, researchers and others apply for the federal funding earmarked in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for regional hydrogen projects, called “hydrogen hubs.” Nine projects centered in Houston sought money as a single hub, and on Oct. 13, the Department of Energy announced that they and six other applicants from across the country won. As part of the Houston group, Chevron wants to make low-carbon hydrogen and ammonia, which is used in fertilizer. ExxonMobil wants to build hydrogen pipelines and fueling stations for trucks. The Gulf Coast projects aimed to produce more than 1.8 million metric tons of hydrogen per year, more than any of the other winning hubs. Some 80% would be made from natural gas. Brett Perlman, CEO of the nonprofit Center for Houston’s Future, poses for a portrait at the Houstonian Hotel in Houston on March 24, 2024. Credit: Mark Felix for The Texas Tribune Local and state leaders are cheering on the industry’s growth. Brett Perlman, CEO of the nonprofit Center for Houston’s Future, supported the hydrogen hub effort. Perlman’s job is to consider Houston’s economy and what will happen to it as the world works to address climate change and wean itself off fossil fuels. Perlman wrestles with how to make Houston the low-carbon energy capital of the world. He speaks at conferences, too, to build the case that hydrogen should be part of maintaining the city’s success. “The energy transition is going to happen, and Houston will have a role,” Perlman said at his office. “The real question is can Houston be, continue to be, a leader?” Back at the same conference where Weeks spoke, Texas Public Utility Commissioner Lori Cobos, whose agency regulates the electricity industry, explained that because it has huge natural gas reserves and is a top producer of wind and solar energy, Texas is “uniquely positioned to be a national and global leader in hydrogen.” The easy path to selling hydrogen made in these new ways would be to start by converting places already using hydrogen for purposes such as making fertilizer, refining petroleum and treating metals. But even more environmental benefits would come if it could also be used in new applications, said John Hensley, vice president of markets and policy analysis for the industry advocacy group American Clean Power Association. Hydrogen believers envision the fuel could decarbonize industries that are considered hard to electrify. Hydrogen would power planes and trucks that heavy electric batteries would slow down. It would supply the high heat needed to make cement that electricity could not provide. The new federal tax incentives get hydrogen close, if not all the way, to being able to compete with fossil fuels on price, said Fisher of RMI. The government plans to pay up to $3 per kilogram of what it defines as clean hydrogen, such as that made from water, or up to $85 per metric ton of stored carbon dioxide that’s captured after making hydrogen from natural gas. With the subsidies, producing hydrogen from water would cost generally from $4 to $6 per kilogram, and producing it from natural gas would cost generally from $2 to $4, Fisher said. He stressed that it would depend on the specifics of the project. The government’s goal is to get the cost to $1 per kilogram for both types. Environmental groups and critics raise concerns  The hydrogen solution does not sound so promising to environmental groups, especially when it comes to making it from natural gas using carbon capture. A number of critics came together in a windowless Houston conference room of their own later in October to build the case to journalists that carbon capture in hydrogen production shouldn’t be seen as a way to address climate change but instead as a boost to the oil and gas industry. “This is not a transfer off of fossil fuel dependency,” said Jane Patton, campaign manager for U.S. fossil economy at the Center for International Environmental Law. “This is a perpetuation of fossil fuel dependency.” With money from the Rockefeller Family Fund, which has an initiative focused on slowing oil and gas production because it drives climate change, organizers brought in the big guns to tell the other side of the story. The day began with a speech from Bob Bullard, founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, known by many as the father of environmental justice. Bullard has passionately told many versions of the same narrative. He pioneered his environmental justice work decades ago when he highlighted that the city of Houston primarily built its trash incinerators and landfills in Black neighborhoods. And he brought attention to one example after another of companies polluting poor communities of color rather than wealthy, white ones. Professor Robert Bullard, center, speaks at a roundtable event with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan at Texas Southern University in Houston on Nov. 18, 2021. Credit: Annie Mulligan for The Texas Tribune Now a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, Bullard said he’s seen no proof that a build-out of hydrogen and carbon storage will be any better for local communities than the expansion of the petrochemical industry was over the past century, bringing more pollution than benefits to surrounding communities. He continued to call for a federal study to find out whether hydrogen production with carbon capture is safe for the people who live around it. “You’re asking the same people to sacrifice in the same way,” Bullard said at the event. “Can we trust the oil and gas industry to be truthful? I don’t have to write a book on that. We know the answer.” Schlissel, the director of resource planning analysis for the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis, believes the government is using a badly built model to judge how clean hydrogen projects are when they’re evaluated for federal support. One problem is that the model inappropriately leaves out the fact that hydrogen pipelines could leak, Schlissel says. Hydrogen can react with the molecule that breaks down harmful methane in the atmosphere and make the methane last longer, contributing to climate change. Schlissel also says the model assumes companies can catch a lot of carbon dioxide — which he believes is totally unrealistic. While companies using carbon capture technology don’t typically publicize their capture rates, Schlissel and his colleagues dug up what they could and concluded that the technology was far short of where it needs to be. Speakers at the event also expressed little confidence in the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, to regulate hydrogen pipelines and underground storage. Commission Shift, a watchdog group that calls for reforming the Railroad Commission, says the agency has a poor track record when it comes to protecting Texans from explosions, leaks and other problems with wells and pipelines. In a statement, commission spokesperson Patty Ramon said the agency has "protected public safety and the environment for more than a century." The agency does pipeline inspections regularly and has exceeded Legislative performance goals, Ramon added. These advocates are up against wealthy, politically powerful companies that say making hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture is a ready solution to start lowering how much carbon dioxide escapes into the atmosphere — even if it’s imperfect. “I find this polarization of seeking perfect at the expense of very good is problematic,” Chris Greig, a senior research scientist with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, said in an interview. “And, to be clear, the distrust (of oil and gas companies) is not unwarranted, right? There’s been some wrongs done,” Greig added. “But somehow we have to set that aside and find some sort of middle ground.” Disclosure: Exxon Mobil Corporation and Texas Southern University - Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. We can’t wait to welcome you to downtown Austin Sept. 5-7 for the 2024 Texas Tribune Festival! Join us at Texas’ breakout politics and policy event as we dig into the 2024 elections, state and national politics, the state of democracy, and so much more. When tickets go on sale this spring, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today.

UN: Droughts hit women and girls hardest in vulnerable areas

In poor and rural regions around the globe, women and girls bear the brunt of drought's impacts, underscoring the need for water strategies to address their unique challenges, according to the United Nations.Fiona Harvey reports for The Guardian.In short:The UN's world water development report calls for enhanced global cooperation on water resources to mitigate conflicts and improve conditions for women and girls.Access to clean water and safe sanitation significantly affect women's and girls' education and safety in disadvantaged areas.Conflicts over water, exacerbated by climate change, pollution and overuse, pose risks of local and regional disputes, impacting food security and health.Key quote:"As water stress increases, so do the risks of local or regional conflict."— Audrey Azoulay, director general of UNESCOWhy this matters:Climate-related water stress significantly impacts communities worldwide, but its effects tend to be more acute for women and girls, who often bear the brunt of environmental crises. Due to traditional roles and socio-economic factors, women and girls are primarily responsible for water collection in many cultures. This task becomes increasingly arduous and time-consuming as water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, forces them to travel longer distances.Bangladesh is on the front lines of a water crisis driven by climate change and politics. There, as in many other countries, women are made especially vulnerable by safe drinking water shortages.

In poor and rural regions around the globe, women and girls bear the brunt of drought's impacts, underscoring the need for water strategies to address their unique challenges, according to the United Nations.Fiona Harvey reports for The Guardian.In short:The UN's world water development report calls for enhanced global cooperation on water resources to mitigate conflicts and improve conditions for women and girls.Access to clean water and safe sanitation significantly affect women's and girls' education and safety in disadvantaged areas.Conflicts over water, exacerbated by climate change, pollution and overuse, pose risks of local and regional disputes, impacting food security and health.Key quote:"As water stress increases, so do the risks of local or regional conflict."— Audrey Azoulay, director general of UNESCOWhy this matters:Climate-related water stress significantly impacts communities worldwide, but its effects tend to be more acute for women and girls, who often bear the brunt of environmental crises. Due to traditional roles and socio-economic factors, women and girls are primarily responsible for water collection in many cultures. This task becomes increasingly arduous and time-consuming as water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, forces them to travel longer distances.Bangladesh is on the front lines of a water crisis driven by climate change and politics. There, as in many other countries, women are made especially vulnerable by safe drinking water shortages.

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