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The upside of climate pessimism

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Sunday, December 1, 2024

Hope is often said to be the best medicine, essential to getting people through difficult times. So it’s unsurprising that it has seemingly become a mantra of climate communication in recent years. Instilling hope, the theory goes, is key to motivating people to act; without it, people will succumb to despair and apathy. The emphasis on hope may help explain why so many climate scientists keep their predominantly grim views about our future climate to themselves, while cautioning against what they perceive to be doom-and-gloom narratives in social media (although many scientists are genuinely optimistic). Last year, when a major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that we’ll likely fail to contain warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, many scientists — and journalists — nonetheless presented the 1.5 degree goal as achievable. In reality, most scientists believe that warming will reach at least 2.5 degrees Celsius, according to a recent survey by The Guardian. Being unhopeful about climate change is so unpopular that I myself, an environment-focused journalist, am fearful of publicly admitting my own pessimistic outlook. But social science and psychology research presents a more nuanced picture of the emotions that drive action. Certainly, hope is an important psychological motivator for many people, and relying solely on doom-and-gloom messaging could push some people into despondency. But not all hope is equally effective; wishful thinking often falls short. And certain breeds of pessimists are actually highly motivated by threat-centered communication. What matters, it seems, is not so much whether a person feels hopeful or unhopeful about the future, but how constructively they deal with their emotions. “How people interpret their emotions and rationalize the threat of climate change might be the determining factor in whether it leads to action or inaction,” Matthew Ballew, an environmental psychologist at Pierce College in Puyallup, Washington, wrote to me in an email. In this light, effective climate communication means not only highlighting the rosier end of climate trajectories and the solutions that may help get us there, but also the possibility of a bleak future and the massive amount of work it will take to avoid it. These nuances of climate emotions were illustrated in a 2019 study that Ballew co-authored, which surveyed American adults during the Obama administration. One arm of the survey encompassed 1,310 adults demographically representative of the U.S. population, focusing on people who believed that climate change is happening. Not all hope is equally effective; wishful thinking often falls short. And certain breeds of pessimists are actually highly motivated by threat-centered communication. The researchers distinguished between participants with what they call constructive hope (who agreed to statements like “humanity will rise to the occasion”) and those with false hope (“we don’t need to worry about global warming/climate change because nature will take care of it”). They similarly distinguished between constructive doubt (“most people are unwilling to take individual action”) and fatalistic doubt (“humans can’t affect global warming/climate change because you can’t fight Mother Nature”). Participants were then asked how likely they’d be to contact their government officials, sign petitions demanding more climate action, or support policies like regulating carbon emissions or instituting tax rebates for electric vehicles. Remarkably, the authors found that constructive doubt and constructive hope both correlated with increased policy support and willingness to take political action, whereas false hope and fatalistic thinking had a negative association.  The study is limited in that it looked at people’s self-reported willingness to engage in climate action rather than their actual behavior, noted co-author Brittany Bloodhart, a social psychologist at California State University, San Bernardino. And it’s not clear if feeling doubtful necessarily caused people to be more willing to take action, or if the two correlate for other reasons. Nevertheless, the relationship between constructive doubt and political engagement, the authors wrote, suggests it may be worthwhile to recognize the difficulties inherent in addressing climate change. Interestingly, a recent survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults found that people experiencing psychological distress related to climate change were more likely to engage in collective climate change action or to report a willingness to do so. And other research has found a positive correlation between climate anxiety and climate action. While anxiety or distress are not exactly the same as doubt or pessimism, they’re similarly believed to cause people to shut down, when in fact they may be a helpful driver of action. “The people that I know who are really seriously working on these issues and who are engaging in climate change activism,” Bloodhart said, stressing that this is her personal observation, “they have a little bit of hope, but they mostly are pretty pessimistic and concerned.” So why do people choose to act when they believe the worst outcomes are the most likely? Some light may come from psychological research on so-called defensive pessimists. While run-of-the-mill pessimists might become immobilized and despondent by focusing on negative outcomes, defensive pessimists take action to avoid them. “They use their worry and their anxiety about that worst possible outcome to drive them to take action so that it never becomes a reality,” said social and health psychology researcher Fuschia Sirois of Durham University. In one 2008 experiment, for example, defensive pessimists performed relatively poorly in a word puzzle when prompted to imagine a positive scenario, but they did much better, on average, when they were prompted to imagine the opposite, negative effect. In another study that tracked university students for over four years, researchers found that defensive pessimists had higher self-esteem compared to other students with anxiety, and even eventually reached nearly similar levels of confidence as optimists. Research comparing optimists and defensive pessimists has often found similar benefits, although pessimists tend to have a less enjoyable journey towards achieving outcomes, Sirois added. Although there is no data on how defensive pessimists cope with collective action problems like climate change, existing studies suggest they may respond well to clear information about threats — provided it’s paired with guidance on how their individual actions can help avoid negative outcomes. “For people who are defensive pessimists, that’s what’s going to mobilize them to action,” Sirois said. None of this is to say that purely doomsday messaging can’t have counterproductive outcomes: One recent survey of 59,440 people from 63 countries found that messages focusing solely on the catastrophic nature of climate breakdown performed more poorly than solutions-oriented messaging in motivating climate action. Fortunately, however, surveys of the American public do not indicate a rise in fatalism in the population. The percentage who believes it’s too late to act on climate change has hovered around 13 percent for years, social scientist John Kotcher of George Mason University wrote in an email. “At the very least, this calls into question whether there’s actually a growing sense of fatalism among Americans, despite the online discourse and concern around doom-and-gloom messaging.” One poll suggests that although 64 percent of Americans say they’re at least “somewhat worried” about climate change, less than half of those report they are “very worried.” It just means that we shouldn’t hold back from clearly communicating the risk at hand and the scale of work that lies ahead. Indeed, some of Kotcher’s studies have found that threat information can help increase public engagement with climate change in productive ways. Research from health psychology, meanwhile, suggests that people need both explicit information about the threat — for instance, that smoking can cause lung cancer — and what they can do to avoid it. Highlighting the solutions that are already underway is also important. Some behavioral experiments suggest that people are more willing to help tackle a problem if they know that they’re not starting from scratch. If anything, the public is not worried enough about climate change, said Lorraine Whitmarsh, an environmental psychologist at the University of Bath. And while it’s hard to pinpoint the right amount of hope, Whitmarsh thinks people tend to be overly optimistic. One poll suggests that although 64 percent of Americans say they’re at least “somewhat worried” about climate change, less than half of those report they are “very worried.” Whitmarsh said she believes this stems from techno-optimism among policymakers and the media that has fostered a widespread belief that incremental changes through recycling or green technologies will be enough, without requiring behavioral changes such as reducing meat consumption or using more public transportation. “Maybe a lot of those people are acknowledging that there is a major problem but they think that — because they’ve heard it from politicians and many other people — technology will save us,” Whitmarsh said, adding, “and like, there’s not much that I can do as an individual.”  This is why climate communication should not just be about instilling hope. It means also confronting the worst possible outcomes and the tough, transformative work that lies ahead. That means inspiring not only the optimists among us but the pessimists, too. Katarina Zimmer is a science and environment journalist. Her work has been published in Knowable Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Grist, Nautilus Magazine, and more. This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article. Read more about climate change

Optimism doesn’t always lead to action on climate change, whereas pessimistic outlooks can sometimes help

Hope is often said to be the best medicine, essential to getting people through difficult times. So it’s unsurprising that it has seemingly become a mantra of climate communication in recent years. Instilling hope, the theory goes, is key to motivating people to act; without it, people will succumb to despair and apathy.

The emphasis on hope may help explain why so many climate scientists keep their predominantly grim views about our future climate to themselves, while cautioning against what they perceive to be doom-and-gloom narratives in social media (although many scientists are genuinely optimistic). Last year, when a major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that we’ll likely fail to contain warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, many scientists — and journalists — nonetheless presented the 1.5 degree goal as achievable. In reality, most scientists believe that warming will reach at least 2.5 degrees Celsius, according to a recent survey by The Guardian. Being unhopeful about climate change is so unpopular that I myself, an environment-focused journalist, am fearful of publicly admitting my own pessimistic outlook.

But social science and psychology research presents a more nuanced picture of the emotions that drive action. Certainly, hope is an important psychological motivator for many people, and relying solely on doom-and-gloom messaging could push some people into despondency. But not all hope is equally effective; wishful thinking often falls short. And certain breeds of pessimists are actually highly motivated by threat-centered communication.

What matters, it seems, is not so much whether a person feels hopeful or unhopeful about the future, but how constructively they deal with their emotions. “How people interpret their emotions and rationalize the threat of climate change might be the determining factor in whether it leads to action or inaction,” Matthew Ballew, an environmental psychologist at Pierce College in Puyallup, Washington, wrote to me in an email. In this light, effective climate communication means not only highlighting the rosier end of climate trajectories and the solutions that may help get us there, but also the possibility of a bleak future and the massive amount of work it will take to avoid it.

These nuances of climate emotions were illustrated in a 2019 study that Ballew co-authored, which surveyed American adults during the Obama administration. One arm of the survey encompassed 1,310 adults demographically representative of the U.S. population, focusing on people who believed that climate change is happening.

Not all hope is equally effective; wishful thinking often falls short. And certain breeds of pessimists are actually highly motivated by threat-centered communication.

The researchers distinguished between participants with what they call constructive hope (who agreed to statements like “humanity will rise to the occasion”) and those with false hope (“we don’t need to worry about global warming/climate change because nature will take care of it”). They similarly distinguished between constructive doubt (“most people are unwilling to take individual action”) and fatalistic doubt (“humans can’t affect global warming/climate change because you can’t fight Mother Nature”). Participants were then asked how likely they’d be to contact their government officials, sign petitions demanding more climate action, or support policies like regulating carbon emissions or instituting tax rebates for electric vehicles. Remarkably, the authors found that constructive doubt and constructive hope both correlated with increased policy support and willingness to take political action, whereas false hope and fatalistic thinking had a negative association. 

The study is limited in that it looked at people’s self-reported willingness to engage in climate action rather than their actual behavior, noted co-author Brittany Bloodhart, a social psychologist at California State University, San Bernardino. And it’s not clear if feeling doubtful necessarily caused people to be more willing to take action, or if the two correlate for other reasons. Nevertheless, the relationship between constructive doubt and political engagement, the authors wrote, suggests it may be worthwhile to recognize the difficulties inherent in addressing climate change.

Interestingly, a recent survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults found that people experiencing psychological distress related to climate change were more likely to engage in collective climate change action or to report a willingness to do so. And other research has found a positive correlation between climate anxiety and climate action. While anxiety or distress are not exactly the same as doubt or pessimism, they’re similarly believed to cause people to shut down, when in fact they may be a helpful driver of action. “The people that I know who are really seriously working on these issues and who are engaging in climate change activism,” Bloodhart said, stressing that this is her personal observation, “they have a little bit of hope, but they mostly are pretty pessimistic and concerned.”

So why do people choose to act when they believe the worst outcomes are the most likely?

Some light may come from psychological research on so-called defensive pessimists. While run-of-the-mill pessimists might become immobilized and despondent by focusing on negative outcomes, defensive pessimists take action to avoid them. “They use their worry and their anxiety about that worst possible outcome to drive them to take action so that it never becomes a reality,” said social and health psychology researcher Fuschia Sirois of Durham University. In one 2008 experiment, for example, defensive pessimists performed relatively poorly in a word puzzle when prompted to imagine a positive scenario, but they did much better, on average, when they were prompted to imagine the opposite, negative effect.

In another study that tracked university students for over four years, researchers found that defensive pessimists had higher self-esteem compared to other students with anxiety, and even eventually reached nearly similar levels of confidence as optimists. Research comparing optimists and defensive pessimists has often found similar benefits, although pessimists tend to have a less enjoyable journey towards achieving outcomes, Sirois added.

Although there is no data on how defensive pessimists cope with collective action problems like climate change, existing studies suggest they may respond well to clear information about threats — provided it’s paired with guidance on how their individual actions can help avoid negative outcomes. “For people who are defensive pessimists, that’s what’s going to mobilize them to action,” Sirois said.

None of this is to say that purely doomsday messaging can’t have counterproductive outcomes: One recent survey of 59,440 people from 63 countries found that messages focusing solely on the catastrophic nature of climate breakdown performed more poorly than solutions-oriented messaging in motivating climate action. Fortunately, however, surveys of the American public do not indicate a rise in fatalism in the population. The percentage who believes it’s too late to act on climate change has hovered around 13 percent for years, social scientist John Kotcher of George Mason University wrote in an email. “At the very least, this calls into question whether there’s actually a growing sense of fatalism among Americans, despite the online discourse and concern around doom-and-gloom messaging.”

One poll suggests that although 64 percent of Americans say they’re at least “somewhat worried” about climate change, less than half of those report they are “very worried.”

It just means that we shouldn’t hold back from clearly communicating the risk at hand and the scale of work that lies ahead. Indeed, some of Kotcher’s studies have found that threat information can help increase public engagement with climate change in productive ways. Research from health psychology, meanwhile, suggests that people need both explicit information about the threat — for instance, that smoking can cause lung cancer — and what they can do to avoid it. Highlighting the solutions that are already underway is also important. Some behavioral experiments suggest that people are more willing to help tackle a problem if they know that they’re not starting from scratch.

If anything, the public is not worried enough about climate change, said Lorraine Whitmarsh, an environmental psychologist at the University of Bath. And while it’s hard to pinpoint the right amount of hope, Whitmarsh thinks people tend to be overly optimistic. One poll suggests that although 64 percent of Americans say they’re at least “somewhat worried” about climate change, less than half of those report they are “very worried.” Whitmarsh said she believes this stems from techno-optimism among policymakers and the media that has fostered a widespread belief that incremental changes through recycling or green technologies will be enough, without requiring behavioral changes such as reducing meat consumption or using more public transportation. “Maybe a lot of those people are acknowledging that there is a major problem but they think that — because they’ve heard it from politicians and many other people — technology will save us,” Whitmarsh said, adding, “and like, there’s not much that I can do as an individual.” 

This is why climate communication should not just be about instilling hope. It means also confronting the worst possible outcomes and the tough, transformative work that lies ahead. That means inspiring not only the optimists among us but the pessimists, too.

Katarina Zimmer is a science and environment journalist. Her work has been published in Knowable Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Grist, Nautilus Magazine, and more.

This article was originally published on Undark. Read the original article.

Read more

about climate change

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Where climate meets community

MIT’s Living Climate Futures Lab takes a human-centered approach to investigating a global challenge.

The MIT Living Climate Futures Lab (LCFL) centers the human dimensions of climate change, bringing together expertise from across MIT to address one of the world’s biggest challenges.The LCFL has three main goals: “addressing how climate change plays out in everyday life, focusing on community-oriented partnerships, and encouraging cross-disciplinary conversations around climate change on campus,” says Chris Walley, the SHASS Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and head of MIT’s Anthropology Section. “We think this is a crucial direction for MIT and will make a strong statement about the kind of human-centered, interdisciplinary work needed to tackle this issue.”Walley is faculty lead of LCFL, working in collaboration with a group of 19 faculty colleagues and researchers. The LCFL began to coalesce in 2022 when MIT faculty and affiliates already working with communities dealing with climate change issues organized a symposium, inviting urban farmers, place-based environmental groups, and others to MIT. Since then, the lab has consolidated the efforts of faculty and affiliates representing disciplines from across the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) and the Institute.Amah Edoh, a cultural anthropologist and managing director of LCFL, says the lab’s collaboration with community organizations and development of experiential learning classes aims to bridge the gap that can exist between the classroom and the real world.“Sometimes we can find ourselves in a bubble where we’re only in conversation with other people from within academia or our own field of practice. There can be a disconnect between what students are learning somewhat abstractly and the ‘real world’ experience of the issues” Edoh says. “By taking up topics from the multidimensional approach that experiential learning makes possible, students learn to take complexity as a given, which can help to foster more critical thinking in them, and inform their future practice in profound ways.”Edoh points out that the effects of climate change play out in a huge array of areas: health, food security, livelihoods, housing, and governance structures, to name a few.“The Living Climate Futures Lab supports MIT researchers in developing the long-term collaborations with community partners that are essential to adequately identifying and responding to the challenges that climate change creates in everyday life,” she says.Manduhai Buyandelger, professor of anthropology and one of the participants in LCFL, developed the class 21A.S01 (Anthro-Engineering: Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale), which has in turn sparked related classes. The goal is “to merge technological innovation with people-centered environments.” Working closely with residents of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Buyandelger and collaborator Mike Short, the Class of 1941 Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, helped develop a molten salt heat bank as a reusable energy source.“My work with Mike Short on energy and alternative heating in Mongolia helps to cultivate a new generation of creative and socially minded engineers who prioritize people in thinking about technical solutions,” Buyandelger says, adding, “In our course, we collaborate on creating interdisciplinary methods where we fuse anthropological methods with engineering innovations so that we can expand and deepen our approach to mitigate climate change.”Iselle Barrios ’25, says 21A.S01 was her first anthropology course. She traveled to Mongolia and was able to experience firsthand all the ways in which the air pollution and heating problem was much larger and more complicated than it seemed from MIT’s Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus.“It was my first exposure to anthropological and STS critiques of science and engineering, as well as international development,” says Barrios, a chemical engineering major. “It fundamentally reshaped the way I see the role of technology and engineers in the broader social context in which they operate. It really helped me learn to think about problems in a more holistic and people-centered way.”LCFL participant Alvin Harvey, a postdoc in the MIT Media Lab’s Space Enabled Research Group and a citizen of the Navajo Nation, works to incorporate traditional knowledge in engineering and science to “support global stewardship of earth and space ecologies.”"I envision the Living Climate Futures Lab as a collaborative space that can be an igniter and sustainer of relationships, especially between MIT and those whose have generational and cultural ties to land and space that is being impacted by climate change,” Harvey says. “I think everyone in our lab understands that protecting our climate future is a collective journey."Kate Brown, the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in History of Science, is also a participant in LCFL. Her current interest is urban food sovereignty movements, in which working-class city dwellers used waste to create “the most productive agriculture in recorded human history,” Brown says. While pursuing that work, Brown has developed relationships and worked with urban farmers in Mansfield, Ohio, as well as in Washington and Amsterdam.Brown and Susan Solomon, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Chemistry, teach a class called STS.055 (Living Dangerously: Environmental Programs from 1900 to Today) that presents the environmental problems and solutions of the 20th century, and how some “solutions” created more problems over time. Brown also plans to teach a class on the history of global food production once she gets access to a small plot of land on campus for a lab site.“The Living Climate Futures Lab gives us the structure and flexibility to work with communities that are struggling to find solutions to the problems being created by the climate crisis,” says Brown.Earlier this year, the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC) selected the Living Climate Futures Lab as its inaugural Faculty-Driven Initiative (FDI), which comes with a $500,000 seed grant.MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan, co-chair of MITHIC, says the LCFL exemplifies how we can confront the climate crisis by working in true partnership with the communities most affected.“By combining scientific insight with cultural understanding and lived experience, this initiative brings a deeper dimension to MIT’s climate efforts — one grounded in collaboration, empathy, and real-world impact,” says Chandrakasan.Agustín Rayo, the Kenan Sahin Dean of SHASS and co-chair of MITHIC, says the LCFL is precisely the type of interdisciplinary collaboration the FDI program was designed to support."By bringing together expertise from across MIT, I am confident the Living Climate Futures Lab will make significant contributions in the Institute’s effort to address the climate crisis," says Rayo.Walley said the seed grant will support a second symposium in 2026 to be co-designed with community groups, a suite of experiential learning classes, workshops, a speaker series, and other programming. Throughout this development phase, the lab will solicit donor support to build it into an ongoing MIT initiative and a leader in the response to climate change.

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Climate Change Boosted Hurricane Melissa's Destructive Winds and Rain, Analysis Finds

An analysis from World Weather Attribution reports human-caused climate change intensified the winds and rainfall unleashed by Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean

Human-caused climate change boosted the destructive winds and rain unleashed by Hurricane Melissa and increased the temperatures and humidity that fueled the storm, according to an analysis released Thursday.Melissa was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall and brought destructive weather to Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba, causing dozens of deaths across the Caribbean. Roofs were torn off of homes, hospitals were damaged, roads were blocked by landslides and crop fields were ruined.The rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution found that climate change increased Melissa’s maximum wind speeds by 7% and made the rainfall 16% more intense. The scientists also wrote that the temperature and humidity in which the storm intensified were made six times more likely due to climate change compared to a pre-industrial world.Rapid attribution analyses are a type of research that study factors influencing an extreme weather event and explore what the event would have been like in a world without climate change. They are typically published days or weeks after an extreme weather event.Melissa slowly tracked across the region and drew in enormous amounts of energy from abnormally warm ocean water. The analysis reported ocean temperatures in Melissa’s path through the Caribbean were about 1.4°C (2.5°F) warmer compared to a pre-industrial climate.“Warmer ocean temperatures are effectively the engine that drives a hurricane … the warmer the ocean temperatures, the greater the wind speed a hurricane can have,” said Theodore Keeping, a climate scientist who works for WWA and contributed to the analysis.Melissa is the fourth storm in the Atlantic this year to undergo rapid intensification, which is when a tropical cyclone’s maximum sustained winds increase by at least 30 knots (about 35 mph or 56 kph) in 24 hours.“A hurricane this rare would actually have had wind speeds about 10 mph (16 kph) less extreme” in a pre-industrial climate, said Keeping. He said research links hurricane wind speeds to economic damage and there would have been less destruction caused by Melissa if the winds were slower.Scientists have linked rapid intensification of hurricanes in the Atlantic to human-caused climate change. Planet-warming gases released by humans, such as carbon dioxide, cause the atmosphere to hold more water vapor and increase ocean temperatures. Warmer oceans give hurricanes fuel to unleash more rain and strengthen more quickly. “It’s like basically taking a sponge and wringing it out, and climate change is making that sponge even larger,” said Brian Tang, a professor of atmospheric science at University at Albany.Tang, who was not involved in the WWA research, said the methodology of the study released Thursday seems robust, and one of the more novel aspects of the analysis was the connection the scientists drew between wind speeds and increase in damage, which he said is a challenging area of research.Andrew Dessler, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, who was not involved in the WWA research, said the findings of the rapid analysis are in line with existing research about climate change and tropical storms in the Atlantic. “This is completely consistent with our expectation of what’s going to happen in the future,” Dessler said.Rapid attribution analyses help fill the need for an explanation about the influence of climate change shortly after a catastrophic weather event occurs, said Dessler. He said such analyses are “very valuable as a quick look” before the scientists are able to do more time-consuming calculations. Dessler said one of the scariest aspects of Melissa was the storm's peak sustained winds of 185 mph (298 kph) winds. “That’s pretty rare to have a storm that strong. And I think that, to the extent that this is a harbinger of the future, it’s not good,” he said.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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UN Climate Summit Kicks off in Brazil's Amazon With Hopes for Action Despite US Absence

World leaders are gathering in a coastal city in the Brazilian Amazon for the U.N.'s annual climate summit

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — World leaders descending on the United Nations annual climate summit in Brazil this week will not need to see much more than the view from their airplane window to sense the unfathomable stakes. Surrounding the coastal city of Belem is an emerald green carpet festooned with winding rivers. But the view also reveals barren plains: some 17% of the Amazon's forest cover has vanished in the past 50 years, swallowed up for farmland, logging and mining.Often called the “lungs of the world” for its capacity to absorb vast quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the planet, the biodiverse Amazon rainforest has been increasingly choked by wildfires and cleared by cattle ranching.It is here on the edge of the world's largest tropical rainforest that Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva hopes to convince world powers to mobilize enough funds to halt the ongoing destruction of climate-stabilizing tropical rainforests in danger around the world and make progress on other critical climate goals.Organizers are hoping this year's Conference of Parties — known less formally as COP30 — will yield commitments of money and action to support the goals laid out at previous such meetings, billing it as the "Implementation COP." But they'll have to overcome reduced participation from the world's biggest emitters as the heads of the world’s three biggest polluters — China, the United States and India — will be notably absent.These tensions are on display as a preliminary leaders’ gathering gets underway on Thursday before formal U.N. climate talks kick off next week. US absence looms over leaders’ meeting That leaves the rest of the summit’s leaders — including U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron — to confront not only the consequences of an intensifying global climate crisis but a daunting set of political challenges.“Trump’s stance affects the whole global balance. It pushes governments further toward denial and deregulation,” said Nadino Kalapucha, the spokesperson for the Amazonian Kichwa Indigenous group in Ecuador. “That trickles down to us, to Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, where environmental protection is already under pressure.”Trump’s close ideological ally, President Javier Milei of Argentina called human-caused climate change a “socialist hoax,” threatened to quit the Paris Agreement and pulled Argentine negotiators out of last year’s summit in Azerbaijan as part of what he described as a reassessment of climate policy. Brazil illustrates climate dilemma He's expected to launch on Thursdays an initiative called the Tropical Forests Forever Fund, which aims to support more than 70 developing countries that commit to rainforest preservation. The official COP website describes the initiative as a “permanent trust fund” that would generate about $4 from the private sector for every $1 contributed.“We will go past the negotiation of rules to implementation,” Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira told reporters late Wednesday. “It will be the moment when global leaders face with honesty the challenge of climate change.”“I don’t want to be an environmental leader,” Lula said Tuesday. “I never claimed to be.” Logistical headaches for Brazil A town of 1.3 million inhabitants, Belem had just 18,000 hotel beds before its preparations to host the conference, which typically draws tens of thousands of delegates, environmentalists, company executives, journalists and other members of civil society. Foreign officials and journalists scrambled to reserve rooms as prices surged to surreal heights. Some booked spots on one of a few docked cruise ships brought into a nearby port for the occasion. Public schools, military facilities and even the local Internal Revenue Building have been outfitted with air-conditioning and bunk beds to become makeshift hostels. The more adventurous or frugal participants can pay $55 a night to crash in hammocks in a facility that normally caters to cats.“Some two-legged creatures deserve our generosity, too,” Eugênia Lima, the 59-year-old owner of a local cat hotel that stopped accepting feline guests to seize on spiking demand during COP30. “I am very proud that the world will be looking at us this month.” Belem's by-the-hour "love motels" have also cashed in, luring civil servants and climate scientists to rooms that would otherwise host prostitutes or couples in need of privacy. Usually $10 an hour, most love motels are charging COP30 guests $200 per night. Activists find a forum for protest Large-scale marches, sit-ins and rallies are essential aspects of annual U.N. climate talks, but the previous three summits have taken place in autocratic nations that outlaw most forms of protest. Egypt, the UAE and Azerbaijan complied with U.N. rules that facilitate pre-approved protests within a walled-off part of the venue not subject to local laws.Brazil is a different story. Even before the start of the leaders' summit, on Wednesday demonstrators were reveling in their much-missed freedom. Youth activists, Indigenous leaders and climate campaigners sailed into Belem on vessels outfitted with giant protest banners.“Action, justice, hope" read one sign strung between the sails of a boat belonging to environmental group Greenpeace. “Respect the Amazon” read another. Dozens disembarked after multi-day river journeys to rally along the coast."Being able to protest and dialogue is a great thing about this COP," said Laurent Durieux, a researcher at the U.S.-based International Relief and Development organization who arrived by boat from Santarem, a city 1,200 kilometers (1,000 miles) west of Belem.“Brazil has a long history of social struggle and that is part of this event."The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.orgCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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William follows in mother Diana's footsteps with Rio statue photo

The Prince of Wales posed beneath the Christ the Redeemer statue 34 years after his mother did.

William follows in mother Diana's footsteps with statue photoDaniela Relph,Royal correspondent, Rio de Janeiro and Hafsa KhalilPA MediaThe Prince of Wales has followed in his mother's footsteps with a visit to the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro.Prince William stood in the same spot that Diana, Princess of Wales, was photographed in 34 years ago.He is on the third day of his five-day visit to Brazil, where he will be presenting the Earthshot Prize, the annual award from the charity he set up.The star-studded event will be held in Rio's Museum of Tomorrow on Wednesday evening, where Kylie Minogue and Shawn Mendes will perform as five projects win £1m.Associated PressPrincess Diana pictured in front of the Christ the Redeemer statue in 1991The prince is also scheduled to give a speech at COP30, the UN's annual climate meeting.On a picture perfect day, the future king stood alone in a moment of reflection as he took in the views of Rio de Janeiro from the top of Mount Corcovado where Christ the Redeemer stands.The iconic and imposing statue is one of the largest Art Deco sculptures in the world, standing at 30 metres tall and reaching 28 metres wide with its outstretched arms.It has become a symbol of hope and resilience and is said to protect the people of Rio. Princess Diana posed in the same spot in April 1991 during her six-day tour of Brazil with the now King Charles III.During Prince William's walkabouts in Rio, dozens of people spoke to him about his late mother, who died in August 1997. "The prince has loved meeting so many people from across Rio over the last few days," said a spokesperson for the prince. "He's been incredibly struck by the number of people who fondly remember his mother's visit to this beautiful city."At Christ the Redeemer, Prince William also had some time away from the cameras in the chapel that sits beneath the statue.Security has been high throughout his trip.Public access to the statue was temporarily suspended to allow him to visit the site and meet the 15 Earthshot Prize finalists ahead of the evening's awards ceremony.ReutersThe Prince of Wales spoke to the Earthshot Prize finalists before Wednesday evening's ceremonyThe shortlist this year includes the city of Guangzhou in China and its electric public transport network, Lagos Fashion Week in Nigeria, nominated for its work reshaping the fashion industry, and Barbados for its environmental leadership.The prize annually awards a £1m grant in five different categories to projects that aim to repair the world's climate.UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will join the prince for the ceremony before they both head to Belem in the Amazon rainforest for COP30, where world leaders will discuss how to limit and pepare for further climate change.Prince William's first day in Brazil involved football in the Maracana Stadium and barefoot beach volleyball on Copacabana.On Tuesday, focus shifted to the environment - his reason for visiting the country.The prince criticised criminals for their involvment in the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest during a speech at the United for Wildlife conference.He also travelled to the small island of Paqueta, where he met locals, learnt about mangrove conservation and planted tree saplings.

Climate
Conservation
Forests

Democrats Win Big Over GOP Incumbents in 2 Statewide Georgia Utility Regulator Races

Democrats have won blowout victories in two races for the Georgia Public Service Commission

ATLANTA (AP) — Two Democrats romped to wins over Republican incumbents in elections to the Georgia Public Service Commission on Tuesday, delivering the largest statewide margins of victory by Democrats in more than 20 years.Wins by Democrats Peter Hubbard and Alicia Johnson over Republicans Fitz Johnson and Tim Echols are the first time Democrats have won statewide elections to a state-level office in Georgia since 2006. The victories could juice Democratic fundraising and enthusiasm next year, when Georgia’s ballot will be topped by Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s reelection bid and an open governor’s race.Both Hubbard and Johnson won nearly 63% of the vote in complete but unofficial results compiled by the Georgia Secretary of State. Results aren't official until certified, and turnout was only 30% of last year's presidential election. But such large victories in a swing state where Democrats have been able to eke out only the narrowest wins suggest discontent over high electricity bills could be a potent political issue nationwide.“The people of Georgia came out very strong and said, ’You know what? We’re not putting up with it no more,’” Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Charlie Bailey said. “We’re ready to turn the page on this 22 years of Republican rule in our state that has made the American dream less attainable now than it was 22 years ago.”Georgia wasn't the only state where electricity prices are a political issue this year. They were debated in governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia. Nationwide, electric prices for residential consumers went up 5.2% from July 2024 to July 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.“I think that we decisively won this election, flipped two seats to the Democrats on this all-Republican Public Service Commission because they were not centering the people in their decision making,” Hubbard told The Associated Press, saying commissioners have been “rubber-stamping” the plans of Georgia Power Co., the state’s only privately owned utility.Georgia's Public Service Commission had been made up of five Republicans, and a three-member GOP majority will remain after Hubbard and Alicia Johnson take office in January.“Georgia Power has always worked constructively with the elected members of the Georgia Public Service Commission, and we will continue to do so,” said Matthew Kent, a company spokesperson.Alicia Johnson will become the first Black woman elected to a partisan office statewide in Georgia. Multiple Black women have won nonpartisan elections to statewide courts after being appointed by governors. Environmental groups backed Democrats Environmental groups led by Georgia Conservation Voters spent more than $3 million to elect Hubbard, a green energy advocate and Johnson, a health care consultant, because they see the current commission as too friendly to utility plans to keep burning climate-changing fossil fuels to generate power.Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other Republicans pledged to spend millions of their own, urging Republicans to reject green energy and vote on party loyalty. The GOP sees Tuesday’s results as a fluke, driven by unusual off-year elections following a court case that took place as elections in Atlanta and other cities drew Democrats to the polls.“Voters have chose a different direction in this election, but I'm certain the underlying policies offered by the Democrats don't reflect the preferences of the majority of Georgians,” said Fitz Johnson, who was appointed to the commission in 2021 by Kemp. Hubbard must run for reelection in 2026 and Fitz Johnson pledged to challenge him next year.Hubbard pledged aggressive action to cut rates in the next year.“I intend to ask hard questions of Georgia Power Co. about why they’re constantly pushing what is lucrative for their shareholders,” Hubbard said. Focus on costs yields Democratic blowout Echols said Democrats were effective in appealing to voters unhappy with bill increases from Georgia Power, which serves 2.3 million customers. The unit of Atlanta-based Southern Co. has raised bills six times in recent years because of higher natural gas costs and construction projects, including two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta. A typical Georgia Power residential customer now pays more than $175 a month, including taxes.“The Democrats, really, I think, did a good job focusing everything on that power bill,” Echols, who had served on the commission since 2011, said in an election-night webcast.Republicans touted a three-year freeze in base rates they enacted in July. They tried to flip the cost argument, claiming Democrats would try to shutter natural gas plants, drive up power bills with environmental mandates and unfairly subsidize poorer customers.Ed McElveen of Stone Mountain, said he backed Republican incumbents. “I wanted somebody who knows what they’re doing,” McElveen said.But even some voters who aren't Georgia Power customers voted Tuesday to express their discontent.“I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Georgia Power,” said Angela Ford, also of Stone Mountain. She gets her electricity from a cooperative.The breadth of the Republican defeat was stunning. Turnout lagged in key Republican areas during early voting. GOP hopes for a comeback grew as Election Day turnout soared, but Democrats scored a blowout win among those who voted Tuesday as well. They made deep inroads into Republican territories, for example, winning the Augusta suburb of Columbia County, which Trump carried 62% to 37% last year.Associated Press writer Charlotte Kramon 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 – Oct. 2025

Climate
Conservation
Energy

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Conservation
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Climate

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