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UK government accused of trying to ‘stoke culture war on climate issues’

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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Green MP Caroline Lucas has accused the government of stoking a culture war on climate issues by calling for more investment in new gas-fired power plants ahead of a general election.Lucas used an urgent question in the House of Commons to challenge the energy minister, Graham Stuart, on the plans set out on Wednesday, which could see a string of new plants built in the coming years despite the government’s commitment to phase out fossil fuels.She called on Stuart to admit that “this is the government’s latest attempt to stoke a culture war on climate”. The MP for Brighton Pavilion warned that the plans to encourage more investment in unabated gas power in the 2030s would jeopardise Britain’s climate goals.The shadow climate change minister, Alan Whitehead, echoed the concerns and accused the government of trying to “conjure a culture war” with energy policy. He challenged Stuart to set out how many new gas plants the government was hoping to build, adding: “There is no mention of that in the 1,500 pages of documents that were published yesterday.”The government plans to extend the life of many existing power plants, but it estimates that it will need to have around 5 gigawatts of new gas power capacity in reserve to provide a limited amount of backup power when renewable energy is in short supply.The planned reforms to the UK’s electricity market have angered environmental campaigners but have won favour among Conservative MPs including the former minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.He suggested during the debate that the UK’s legally binding net-zero targets should be “postponed indefinitely” to level Britain’s economic playing field with the US and China, which have cheaper energy costs.The UK has a legally binding target to reduce its emissions to net zero by 2050. The government’s official advisers at the Committee on Climate Change have forecast that gas-fired power generation can make up only 1-2% of the UK’s power generation in the 2030s if it hopes to keep its climate goals on track. The UK used gas to generate almost 40% of its electricity last year.Rees-Mogg said the government’s plan to call for more investment in gas power projects was “a good first step against the net-zero obsession” but called on the government to go further.“We have become fundamentally uncompetitive because of this green obsession,” he told the Commons. “We want cheap electricity, and we should have gas and we should have coal and we should postpone net zero indefinitely, because we are only 1% of global emissions, we are making no difference and the US economy is growing consistently faster than ours because of cheap energy.”Stuart responded to Rees-Mogg saying “there is a climate challenge and a climate emergency, that’s why we’re looking to reduce our emissions”.

Green MP Caroline Lucas says call for investment in gas-fired power plants is election ploy that will jeopardise UK’s net zero targetGreen MP Caroline Lucas has accused the government of stoking a culture war on climate issues by calling for more investment in new gas-fired power plants ahead of a general election.Lucas used an urgent question in the House of Commons to challenge the energy minister, Graham Stuart, on the plans set out on Wednesday, which could see a string of new plants built in the coming years despite the government’s commitment to phase out fossil fuels. Continue reading...

Green MP Caroline Lucas has accused the government of stoking a culture war on climate issues by calling for more investment in new gas-fired power plants ahead of a general election.

Lucas used an urgent question in the House of Commons to challenge the energy minister, Graham Stuart, on the plans set out on Wednesday, which could see a string of new plants built in the coming years despite the government’s commitment to phase out fossil fuels.

She called on Stuart to admit that “this is the government’s latest attempt to stoke a culture war on climate”. The MP for Brighton Pavilion warned that the plans to encourage more investment in unabated gas power in the 2030s would jeopardise Britain’s climate goals.

The shadow climate change minister, Alan Whitehead, echoed the concerns and accused the government of trying to “conjure a culture war” with energy policy. He challenged Stuart to set out how many new gas plants the government was hoping to build, adding: “There is no mention of that in the 1,500 pages of documents that were published yesterday.”

The government plans to extend the life of many existing power plants, but it estimates that it will need to have around 5 gigawatts of new gas power capacity in reserve to provide a limited amount of backup power when renewable energy is in short supply.

The planned reforms to the UK’s electricity market have angered environmental campaigners but have won favour among Conservative MPs including the former minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.

He suggested during the debate that the UK’s legally binding net-zero targets should be “postponed indefinitely” to level Britain’s economic playing field with the US and China, which have cheaper energy costs.

The UK has a legally binding target to reduce its emissions to net zero by 2050. The government’s official advisers at the Committee on Climate Change have forecast that gas-fired power generation can make up only 1-2% of the UK’s power generation in the 2030s if it hopes to keep its climate goals on track. The UK used gas to generate almost 40% of its electricity last year.

Rees-Mogg said the government’s plan to call for more investment in gas power projects was “a good first step against the net-zero obsession” but called on the government to go further.

“We have become fundamentally uncompetitive because of this green obsession,” he told the Commons. “We want cheap electricity, and we should have gas and we should have coal and we should postpone net zero indefinitely, because we are only 1% of global emissions, we are making no difference and the US economy is growing consistently faster than ours because of cheap energy.”

Stuart responded to Rees-Mogg saying “there is a climate challenge and a climate emergency, that’s why we’re looking to reduce our emissions”.

Read the full story here.
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Sydney’s west on frontline for most extreme heat and biggest health risks – but inner city faces water threat

Western suburbs, where temperatures are often 5C warmer, need shaded bus stops, more green space and better environmental standards in rented homes, locals sayFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesFull Story: Rising sea levels and soaring heat deaths: will climate action match the risks?Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter hereBud Moses is all too aware of the longer, hotter summers impacting his community in Sydney’s west.As black summer bushfires raged on 4 January 2020, Penrith was sweltering in temperatures of 48.9C, making it the hottest place on the planet that day. It was just one of a growing number of above-40C days Moses has witnessed in recent years. Continue reading...

Bud Moses is all too aware of the longer, hotter summers impacting his community in Sydney’s west.As black summer bushfires raged on 4 January 2020, Penrith was sweltering in temperatures of 48.9C, making it the hottest place on the planet that day. It was just one of a growing number of above-40C days Moses has witnessed in recent years.“We’ve seen the heat get a lot worse – it’s one of the clear physical attributes of climate change that most people seem to understand,” Moses, the western Sydney organiser of the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales, said.Landmark climate report shows 'every Australian has a lot at stake', minister says – video“People talk about what impacts them – and here, that’s heatwaves, flooding and bushfires,” he said of the locals he meets when running Tabiea, a joint Nature Conservation Council and Arab Council Australia climate change awareness campaign targeting western Sydney’s culturally diverse community.“It’s a lot for them to take physically and mentally.”It’s no surprise to him that Sydney’s west and south have emerged as “heat-health risk” hotspots in the federal government’s long-awaited national climate risk assessment. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletterWarming across the Australian continent has already reached 1.5C, Monday’s report by the Australian Climate Service (ACS) noted. Under a 3C scenario, the number of heat-related deaths in Sydney increases by 444%.With heatwaves causing more deaths in Australia than all other extreme events combined, the report found Blacktown and the outer west are some of Sydney’s most exposed suburbs when considering the health risks associated with ever-hotter summers.Extreme heat may lead to higher rates of heat-related illness which in turn will put additional strain on emergency services and hospital infrastructure, according to the assessment.Moses said many in his community live in rented or social housing and do not have access to air conditioning – and those who do limit its use because of cost-of-living pressures. The area needed shaded bus stops, more green space and better environmental standards in rented homes, he said.“If you talk to doctors in relation to heat stress, all the forecasts are showing that it’s going to have an impact, especially on old and vulnerable people,” Moses said.A temperature rise of 3C would, he said, “be dire”.Dr Judith Landberg, head of the ACS, told a Senate committee on Tuesday the number of heat-related deaths in Sydney was currently between 80 and 117 annually.Heat-health risk index map of Sydney, provided by the Australian Climate ServiceThe Blacktown mayor, Brad Bunting, said the report confirmed the experiences of and research undertaken by his council.“Blacktown is on the frontline of extreme heat, and the national report shows how serious the risks are for our community,” he said in a statement.The council is part of the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, which developed the 2021 Heat Smart Western Sydney plan to prepare for and respond to heatwaves. The Blue Mountains, Liverpool, Cumberland and Hawkesbury councils are also members.“Urban heat is not just an environmental challenge. It affects health, liveability and how we plan our city,” Bunting said.Heat-health risk is lowered by urban greening, according to the report, with the leafy, generally affluent suburbs of the northern beaches, north Sydney and Hornsby found to have lower heat-health risk. The city’s eastern suburbs have a moderate heat-health risk.Dr Milton Speer, a meteorologist and fellow with the University Technology Sydney, said his research comparing weather observations from 1962 to 2021 between Observatory Hill on Sydney harbour and Richmond revealed the west was often 5C warmer.In the west, one in 10 days exceeded 35.4C. On the coast, one in 10 days was above 30.4C. One in 20 days reached 37.8C or more in the west.Speer said western Sydney was further from sea breezes which can regulate the heat – “and the fact that there are fewer trees is very important”.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Clear Air AustraliaAdam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisisPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“Elderly people especially can suffer heat stress if exposed outside for long enough or at night if there’s no air con during heatwaves,” he said.Suburbs exposed to sea level riseAlongside rising temperatures, Sydney faces the threat of rising sea levels.Sea level rise, storm surges and extreme weather events make coastal cities particularly vulnerable given their extensive infrastructure, dense populations and economic significance, the report states.Suburbs with increased exposure to sea level rise include the inner-city suburbs of Darlinghurst, Haymarket, Millers Point, Double Bay and Darling Point, according to the assessment.Kogarah, in Sydney’s south, was also named – despite, like Darlinghurst, not being situated on the shoreline. Darlinghurst is generally about 50 metres above sea level, while Kogarah’s elevation is about 30 metres.Aerial view of flooding at North Narrabeen, on Sydney’s northern beaches, in April. Photograph: AAPIt is understood the report’s analysis included areas within 10km of the coastline and that the effects of sea level rise were not constrained to the coastline.The Australian National University emeritus professor and chair of the assessment’s expert advisory committee, Mark Howden, said its authors had taken a conservative approach which did not reflect current expert assessments of future sea level rise.In a 3C scenario, the sea level would rise 54cm, according to the report.A separate research paper had put sea level rise at a median point of 111cm within a range of 62cm-238cm in a high emissions scenario, he said.Saltwater intrusions into freshwater suppliesThe City of Sydney lord mayor, Clover Moore, said her council, which covers some of the country’s most densely populated postcodes, was doing its “best to ensure the city remains climate-resilient and adapts to additional extreme heat, drought, storms, flash flooding and rising sea levels” – but that heat was its priority.“We are most concerned about the impact of hotter days, for longer periods,” she said in a statement.“We are currently in the process of updating our floodplain management plans to prepare the city for sea level rise, while also advocating for state government guidance to be updated to reflect recent climate modelling.”She said addressing sea level rise was a bigger issue than any one council could address alone and should be led by state and federal governments.The assessment suggests the effect of Sydney’s rising sea level may be more widespread, with saltwater intrusions threatening freshwater supplies and water security across the city.A spokesperson for the Georges River council, which covers Kogarah, said in a statement the council was “committed to the current and future resilience” of the LGA and was actively planning for a climate-resilient future.They said the council would “consider the insights” in the report.

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Sweeping California climate bills heading to Newsom's desk

California state lawmakers gave their stamp of approval over the weekend to a slate of sweeping energy and climate-related bills, which will now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) desk. The package's six bills — some of which passed with bipartisan support in an extended session on Saturday — marked a last-minute victory for Newsom, who...

California state lawmakers gave their stamp of approval over the weekend to a slate of sweeping energy and climate-related bills, which will now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) desk. The package's six bills — some of which passed with bipartisan support in an extended session on Saturday — marked a last-minute victory for Newsom, who negotiated the final terms of the legislation with State Senate and Assembly leaders over the past week. “We have agreed to historic reforms that will save money on your electric bills, stabilize gas supply, and slash toxic air pollution — all while fast-tracking California’s transition to a clean, green job-creating economy,” the governor said in a statement in the days leading up to the package’s passage. Within the package is a bill to increase the amount of climate credit appearing on utility bills, as well as another that would revive California’s ability to expand regional power markets via U.S. West clean energy. A third bill focused on improving utility wildfire safety by strengthening oversight and expanding a dedicated fund for wildfire readiness. The package also included an extension of the state’s cap-and-trade program, now to be known as “cap-and-invest.” This system, which sets emissions caps and distributes tradable credits within that framework, seeks to hold carbon polluters accountable by charging them for excessive emissions. Established by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, the program was set to expire in 2030 but would now be reauthorized until 2045, if signed into law. The fifth bill in the package centered on strengthening local air pollution reduction efforts and oversight by extending monitoring periods, redoubling the efforts of state and local air quality agencies to deploy effective strategies. A final piece of legislation, which received pushback from some progressive lawmakers, involved the stabilization of both in-state petroleum production and refinery supply, while also offering protections to communities located near wells. The Center for Biological Diversity slammed the passage of this bill, arguing that it was included “as a last minute ‘gut and amend’ measure at the end of the legislative session.” The bill, the organization warned, exempts oil drilling in California’s Kern County from state environmental quality requirements for the next decade, allowing for the approval of up to 20,000 new wells. “It’s senseless and horrifying that California just gave its seal of approval to this reckless ‘drill, baby, drill’ bill,” Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney for the center, said in a statement. Other environmental groups, however, voiced their support for the suite of climate-related bills, with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) commending the state for maintaining “its climate leadership.” NRDC staff members particularly praised the advancement of the cap-and-invest extension, as well as western grid regionalization and the wildfire protections. “While the Trump administration takes us backward, California will continue to address climate change, while improving affordability,” Victoria Rome, California government affairs director for the NRDC, said in a statement. “Our lives and prosperity depend on it.” In addition to the six-bill energy package, Newsom will also be receiving a selection of unrelated climate bills that received the legislature’s approval. Among those are first-in-the-nation legislation to require tests of prenatal vitamins for heavy metals, a public transportation funding bill and a plan to phase out toxic “forever chemicals” from cookware, food packaging and other consumer products. 

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Shipping Companies Support a First-Ever Global Fee on Greenhouse Gases, Opposed by Trump Officials

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Can We Feed 10 Billion People Without Destroying the Planet in the Process?

This story was originally published by Grist in partnership with the Chicago public radio station WBEZ. It is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. . When veteran journalist Michael Grunwald set out to write his third book, he was determined not to produce a “Debbie Downer.” And he hasn’t. That’s surprising considering his latest book, We’re Eating the […]

This story was originally published by Grist in partnership with the Chicago public radio station WBEZ. It is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. . When veteran journalist Michael Grunwald set out to write his third book, he was determined not to produce a “Debbie Downer.” And he hasn’t. That’s surprising considering his latest book, We’re Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System, wrestles with an increasingly thorny question: Can the world’s food systems be transformed in time to feed everyone without destroying the ecosystems that sustain us?  The math is brutal. With the global population projected to hit 10 billion by 2050, experts warn we will need to produce at least 50 percent more calories than we did in 2010. That surge in demand, he writes, is the equivalent of handing a dozen extra Olive Garden breadsticks to everyone alive—every single day.  “I’m an idealistic enough optimist to think that these smart people are going to figure out some cool shit and bring it to scale at some point.” But the food systems that produce, process, package, and distribute crops and meat will need to accommodate the staggering demand and are already a primary driver of the climate crisis. The industry is currently responsible for about a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. That footprint includes everything from methane in cows’ burps and decomposing food in landfills to nitrous oxide released by fertilizers.  To that end, Grunwald’s new book is a sustained search for the ideas that could kick off the next Green Revolution and provide new, climate-friendly ways of producing food. Many of these solutions, including using farmland to grow crops for biofuels instead of food, regenerative agriculture practices that restore carbon in soil, and replacing meat with fermented fungi, have fallen short, failed, or gone bankrupt. Still, Grunwald makes the case that it’s far too early to call it quits. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.  The book starts with your protagonist, Tim Searchinger, a longtime environmental lawyer on a crusade against ethanol, the biofuel made from crops like corn. What is it about ethanol that so effectively drives home agriculture’s climate problem? The sort of punch line is that ethanol and other biofuels are eating an area about the size of Texas, and agriculture is eating about 75 Texases worth of the Earth. But what Tim discovered was that the climate analysis of ethanol was ignoring land use. The problem is that when you grow fuel instead of food, you are going to have to replace the food by growing more somewhere else, and it’s probably not going to be a parking lot. It’s going to be a forest, or a wetland, or some other carbon-storing piece of nature. That had been forgotten because the climate analysis just treated land as if it were free. The real message of the book is that land is not free—there’s a lot of it on Earth, but not an infinite amount. So this gets to your idea that to feed our growing population, we’ll need to increase the yields of the farmland already in production or otherwise risk increasing our agricultural footprint. What does the drive to increase agricultural yield mean for the natural lands we have left? Two out of every five acres of the planet are cropped or grazed, while only 1 out of every 100 acres is covered by cities or suburbs. Our natural planet has become an agricultural planet, and we’re going to need 50 percent more food by 2050. We’re on track to eat a lot more meat, which is the most land-intensive form of food. So we are on track to deforest another dozen Californias’ worth of land by 2050, and we don’t have another dozen Californias’ worth of forest to spare. It’s a very simple idea—this notion that we need to make more food with less land—but it’s a really hard thing to do. We’re going to have to reduce our agricultural emissions 75 to 80 percent over the next 25 years, even as we produce more food. That means that we can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. So far, the Trump administration has increased the renewable fuel mandate—a 20-year-old rule, which requires gasoline sold in the US to be blended with renewable fuels like ethanol—and worked to make it harder to put wind and solar on farmland. Are we digging the hole deeper?  The first thing the Trump administration has done is call for a massive expansion of soy biodiesel, as well as an expansion of sustainable aviation fuel, which is mostly made from corn and soybeans. Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture is on a campaign against the use of farmland for wind and solar. It’s incredibly short-sighted, because even though it is true that there is a cost to using land to make electricity rather than making food, it’s extraordinarily efficient compared to other forms of land use for energy, such as biofuels. Because we are so far away from figuring out the food and climate problem, one of the things we really need to do is accelerate the parts of the energy and climate problem that we have figured out—particularly solar, and wind as well. Those are really efficient and quite cheap ways of solving our energy and climate problems. Obviously, Trump’s going the opposite direction. You seem to have a real appreciation for the kind of output industrial agriculture can crank out. Where does Big Ag fit into the future of our food system? Look, they treat people badly. They treat animals horribly. They often make a really big mess. They’re responsible for a lot of water pollution and air pollution. They use too many antibiotics. They’re always fighting climate action. Their politics really suck, right? People hate factory farms, I get it. But factories are good at manufacturing a lot of stuff, and factory farms are good at manufacturing a lot of food, and agriculture’s number one job over the next 25 years is going to be manufacturing even more food than we’ve made over the last 12,000. I don’t say that these industrial approaches are necessarily the only way to get high yields. I went to Brazil, and I saw how some ranches there are using some regenerative practices that are helping them get really kick-ass yields—and if they’re five times as productive as a degraded ranch, then they’re using only one-fifth as much of the Amazon. We’re going to need to make even more food with even less land and hopefully less mess as well. You explore lots of big climate solutions, everything from plans to grow food indoors in vertical farms to meat alternatives made from fermented fungi. Each has hit a wall. Do you see this as a failure of political will or that people’s food preferences and personal diets are harder to change than previously imagined?  I wrote about two dozen really promising solutions, and none of them has panned out yet. That is a bummer. I say that kind of laughing; I do believe that human beings kind of suck at making sacrifices for the good of the planet, but we’re really good at inventing stuff. And some of these solutions, whether it’s alternative fertilizers made from gene-edited microbes, [using] alternative pesticides made from using the mRNA technology behind the COVID-19 vaccine to constipate beetles to death, or these guys who are trying to use artificial intelligence and supercomputers and genomics to reinvent photosynthesis, there are really smart people working on this stuff. One thing you could also say is that a lot of government money went into helping to solve the energy problem, and you don’t see that right now in food. But these are solvable problems, and there are a lot of people smarter than me who think that there are technological solutions that can really move the needle. I’m an honest enough reporter to have to point out that none of these really has any traction yet, but I’m an idealistic enough optimist to think that these smart people are going to figure out some cool shit and bring it to scale at some point.

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California to Extend Cap-And-Trade Program Aimed at Advancing State Climate Goals

The California Legislature has voted to extend the state's cap-and-trade program

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will extend a key climate program under a bill state lawmakers passed Saturday, sending the measure to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has championed it as a crucial tool to respond to the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks.The Democrat-dominated Legislature voted to reauthorize the state's cap-and-trade program, which is set to expire after 2030. Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, signed a law authorizing the program in 2006, and it launched in 2013. The program sets a declining limit on total planet-warming emissions in the state from major polluters. Companies must reduce their emissions, buy allowances from the state or other businesses, or fund projects aimed at offsetting their emissions. Money the state receives from the sales funds climate-change mitigation, affordable housing and transportation projects, as well as utility bill credits for Californians. Newsom, a Democrat, and legislative leaders, who said months ago they would prioritize reauthorizing the program, almost ran out of time to introduce the proposal before the statehouse wraps for the year.“After months of hard work with the Legislature, we have agreed to historic reforms that will save money on your electric bills, stabilize gas supply, and slash toxic air pollution — all while fast-tracking California’s transition to a clean, green job-creating economy,” Newsom said after striking the deal this week.The proposal would reauthorize the program through 2045, better align the declining cap on emissions with the state's climate targets and potentially boost carbon-removal projects. It would also change the name to “cap and invest" to emphasize its funding of climate programs.The Legislature will vote on another bill committing annual funding from the program's revenues. It includes $1 billion for the state's long-delayed high-speed rail project, $800 million for an affordable housing program, $250 million for community air protection programs and $1 billion for the Legislature to decide on annually.The votes come as officials contend with balancing the state’s ambitious climate goals and the cost of living. California has some of the highest utility and gas prices in the country. Officials face increased pressure to stabilize the cost and supply of fuel amid the planned closures of two oil refineries that make up roughly 18% of the state's refining capacity, according to energy regulators.Proponents of the extension say it will give companies certainty over the program's future. The state lost out on $3.6 billion in revenues over the past year and a half, largely due to uncertainty, according to a report from Clean and Prosperous California, a group of economists and lawyers supporting the program. Some environmentalists say the Trump administration's attacks on climate programs, including the state's first-in-the-nation ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, added urgency to the reauthorization effort.Cap and trade is an important cost-effective tool for curbing carbon emissions, said Katelyn Roedner Sutter, the California state director for the Environmental Defense Fund.“Supporting this program and making this commitment into the future is extremely important — now more than ever,” she said.But environmental justice advocates opposing the proposal say it doesn't go far enough and lacks strong air quality protections for low-income Californians and communities of color more likely to live near major polluters.“This really continues to allow big oil to reduce their emissions on paper instead of in real life,” said Asha Sharma, state policy manager at the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability.GOP lawmakers criticized the program, saying it would make living in California more expensive.“Cap and trade has become cap and tax,” said James Gallagher, the Assembly Republican minority leader. “It’s going to raise everybody’s costs.”Cap and trade has increased gas costs by about 26 cents per gallon, according to a February report from the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee, a group of experts that analyzes the program. It has played “a very small role” in increasing electricity prices because the state's grid isn't very carbon intensive, the report says.Lawmakers and lobbyists criticized the governor and legislative leaders for rushing the deal through with little public input.Ben Golombek, executive vice president of the California Chamber of Commerce, said at a hearing this week that the Legislature should have taken more time “to do this right.”Democratic state Sen. Caroline Menjivar said it shouldn't be par for the course for lawmakers to jam through bills without the opportunity for amendments. “We’re expected to vote on it," she said of Democrats. "If not, you’re seen to not be part of the team or not want to be a team player.” Menjivar ultimately voted to advance the bill out of committee. Energy affordability and fuel supply The cap-and-trade bills are part of a sweeping package aimed at advancing the state’s energy transition and lowering costs for Californians. One of the bills would speed up permitting for oil production in Kern County, which proponents have hailed as a necessary response to planned refinery closures and critics have blasted as a threat to air quality.Another would increase requirements for air monitoring in areas overburdened by pollution and codify a bureau within the Justice Department created in 2018 to protect communities from environmental injustices. The state could refill a fund that covers the cost of wildfire damage when utility equipment sparks a blaze. The bill would set up public financing to build electric utility projects. Lawmakers will also vote on a measure allowing the state's grid operator to partner with a regional group to manage power markets in western states. The bill aims to improve grid reliability. It would save ratepayers money because California would sell power to other states when it generates more than it needs and buy cheaper energy from out of state when necessary, the governor's office said.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

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Pollution

Suggested Viewing

Carbon Men Salvation: The Senator's Dilemma

Climate change is heating up the world at an accelerating rate, but Congress is frozen to action. Humanity is heading towards devastation; there is only one chance to change the future by traveling into the past. Brilliant climatologist student Anna Jones is researching a massive glacier in Antarctica that is on the verge of collapse. This disaster will drown coastal cities, trigger unprecedented climate refugee numbers and loss of life, while inciting wars. Anna’s father, Dan Jones, the newly elected Senator from New Jersey, is pivotal to the success or failure of a key climate bill. The vote is imminent. Powerful climate denier factions work against the necessary climate actions, even as the planet teeters on the prime tipping point where human behavior, science and legislation collide. Only Noah Poem, a time traveling scientist from the future, can help Anna Jones convince her climate doubting father to do the right thing. But time is running out as science fiction meets science fact. The fate of the human race hangs in the balance. One vote could save humanity.

Government
Climate
Activism

We Trees

Ever wonder what trees think of us now that we have created a climate disaster? This 2-minute film answers that question. As Bill McKibben recently tweeted about the film, “Who speaks for trees? In this short and elegant video, the trees themselves.” It has been screened at Green Fest (Serbia), The Colorado Environmental Film Festival, The Wildlife Conservation Film Festival and Winner of Merit at the Nature Without Borders Film Festival.

Forests
Chemicals
Climate

THE SPRAYER

In the land occupied with the sprayers army, no one has the right to grow any kind of plants either in public or private. So many of the people and soldiers do not even know how a plant grows or looks like, until one day one of the soldiers finds a seed buried deep down in the dust and his curiosity is just the beginning of something extraordinary, something big, something revolutionary.

Plants
CO2
Animation

Uncovering the Permian Climate Bomb

The fossil fuel industry is building a global threat in the oil fields of West Texas. Miguel Escoto, who has lived close to this region his whole life, witnesses the industry’s villainy for the first time by viewing oil and gas site emissions through optical gas imaging cameras, becoming a stand-in for a world that has yet to grasp the gravity of the Permian Climate Bomb.

Pollution
Activism
Climate

The Wisdom To Survive: Climate Change, Capitalism & Community

This film reveals how diverse environmental problems, from climate change to species extinction to ruined ecosystems, are all ultimately rooted in the “growth at all costs” attitude that pervades modern industrial society. Through beautiful and disturbing images and interviews with ecological scholars, spiritual leaders and activists, The Wisdom to Survive argues that the survival of humanity and most living beings on the planet will not come from technology, but from a profound raising of consciousness and deep spiritual transformation of humans who finally realize that we must live differently on planet earth.

Climate
Business
Extinction

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