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Why Climate Change May Be Worsening Your Seasonal Allergies

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Tuesday, April 9, 2024

It’s Not Just You—Seasonal Allergies May Be Getting Worse for Everyone Because of Climate ChangeLonger growing seasons and increased pollen production driven by climate change could be aggravating your seasonal allergy symptomsBy Riis WilliamsEvery spring when the weather turns warm and plants begin to bloom, people start flocking to Neelima Tummala’s ear, nose and throat clinic. They seek remedies for sinus infections, a scratchy throat and other pollen-induced allergy symptoms. And over the past several years, many have complained that their once run-of-the-mill hay fever symptoms are worsening and lasting many weeks longer than they used to. The likely culprit, Tummala says, is climate change.As fossil-fuel burning continues to flood the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, driving up average global temperatures, the planet’s once reliable seasons are also shifting. Summerlike weather often lingers well into fall, and buds are sprouting long before the spring equinox. With toasty temperatures dominating more of the year, pollen and other seasonal allergens can flourish, exacerbating symptoms for the 26 percent of adults and 19 percent of children in the U.S. who experience them. “The prevalence of allergic rhinitis, which is the technical name for seasonal allergies, has increased each year over the past several decades,” says Tummala, who practices in the Division of Otolaryngology at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences and co-directs the university’s Climate and Health Institute. “Climate change is also impacting the amount of pollen in the air and the length of pollen season.” Scientists haven’t yet shown a direct link between climate change and an uptick in allergies, but “it’s likely that climate change is partially responsible,” she says.Climate change could be altering U.S. pollen patterns in two ways. The first is by lengthening the country’s “frost-free” season, the period between the final 32-degree-Fahrenheit reading of the year in the spring and the first 32-degree-F reading in the fall. During this time, plants are able to produce blossoms and sprouts without risk of frost damage and can welcome honeybees and other pollinators to collect nectar and distribute pollen. The frost-free season has increased by more than two weeks on average in the contiguous U.S. since the beginning of the 20th century—most notably in the western U.S. And since the 1970s the season has expanded by an average of at least 11 days in all nine of the country’s distinct climate regions. This gives plants more time to produce pollen, thus subjecting pollen-sensitive people to symptoms such as a runny nose and itchy eyes that start sooner and end later in the year.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also ramping up the amount of pollen plants produce and thus the country’s average pollen count (the amount per cubic meter in the air in a 24-hour period). This largely has to do with how plants’ male sex organs, which produce pollen, react to carbon dioxide exposure. With high concentrations of this gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, plants can afford to use less energy to pull in carbon dioxide for photosynthesis; instead they invest that energy in producing more pollen. Between 1990 and 2018 pollen concentrations increased by an average of 21 percent across the U.S. and Canada.For people experiencing worse and longer allergy symptoms, it may be time to reexamine allergy medication type and dosage, Tummala says. “There are many different effective ways of treating allergies from a pharmacologic standpoint. The big ones are oral allergy medications, like Claritin, Allegra [and] Zyrtec,” she says. “But there are also nasal sprays that can easily be used to help ease symptoms in your sinuses.”Finding the right treatment, or the best combination of them, isn’t always a quick matter. “What works for one person might not work for another, so trying several on with different doses and at different times of the day is the best way to figure out what’s best for you,” Tummala says. She adds that many people can safely use multiple types of medication at once—as long as they strictly follow the instructions on the packaging.Seasonal allergies can also exacerbate preexisting conditions such as asthma or lead to more acute illnesses—especially in children, says Payel Gupta, an allergy, asthma and immunology specialist at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Prolonged allergic rhinitis can trigger severe eczema and respiratory problems such as chronic sinusitis and asthma attacks. “At my clinic we have definitely observed an increase in people who need help with seasonal allergy symptoms and some who are experiencing even more severe symptoms,” Gupta says. “And as seasons get longer and stronger [from] climate change, I see this trend only continuing to increase.”In addition to taking medication, people can limit their exposure to allergens by wearing masks, showering regularly, using a neti pot and changing clothes after coming indoors.But the best long-term way people can protect themselves against the growing pollen plague, Tummala says, is by engaging in climate advocacy and sharing the ways that climate change disproportionately harms people with preexisting respiratory illnesses—especially low-income people of color. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, people in these populations are more likely to have asthma, and to be regularly exposed to other ambient air pollution, than their white counterparts. “From a quality-of-life standpoint, pollen allergies can have a huge negative impact on people and the wallet,” Tummala says. “And this is just one of the many issues with climate change.”

Longer growing seasons and increased pollen production driven by climate change could be aggravating your seasonal allergy symptoms

It’s Not Just You—Seasonal Allergies May Be Getting Worse for Everyone Because of Climate Change

Longer growing seasons and increased pollen production driven by climate change could be aggravating your seasonal allergy symptoms

By Riis Williams

Map of the USA shows green spots throughout the country

Every spring when the weather turns warm and plants begin to bloom, people start flocking to Neelima Tummala’s ear, nose and throat clinic. They seek remedies for sinus infections, a scratchy throat and other pollen-induced allergy symptoms. And over the past several years, many have complained that their once run-of-the-mill hay fever symptoms are worsening and lasting many weeks longer than they used to. The likely culprit, Tummala says, is climate change.

As fossil-fuel burning continues to flood the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, driving up average global temperatures, the planet’s once reliable seasons are also shifting. Summerlike weather often lingers well into fall, and buds are sprouting long before the spring equinox. With toasty temperatures dominating more of the year, pollen and other seasonal allergens can flourish, exacerbating symptoms for the 26 percent of adults and 19 percent of children in the U.S. who experience them. “The prevalence of allergic rhinitis, which is the technical name for seasonal allergies, has increased each year over the past several decades,” says Tummala, who practices in the Division of Otolaryngology at the George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences and co-directs the university’s Climate and Health Institute. “Climate change is also impacting the amount of pollen in the air and the length of pollen season.” Scientists haven’t yet shown a direct link between climate change and an uptick in allergies, but “it’s likely that climate change is partially responsible,” she says.

Climate change could be altering U.S. pollen patterns in two ways. The first is by lengthening the country’s “frost-free” season, the period between the final 32-degree-Fahrenheit reading of the year in the spring and the first 32-degree-F reading in the fall. During this time, plants are able to produce blossoms and sprouts without risk of frost damage and can welcome honeybees and other pollinators to collect nectar and distribute pollen. The frost-free season has increased by more than two weeks on average in the contiguous U.S. since the beginning of the 20th century—most notably in the western U.S. And since the 1970s the season has expanded by an average of at least 11 days in all nine of the country’s distinct climate regions. This gives plants more time to produce pollen, thus subjecting pollen-sensitive people to symptoms such as a runny nose and itchy eyes that start sooner and end later in the year.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

Map shows the frost-free period trend across the U.S. between 1970 and 2023.

Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is also ramping up the amount of pollen plants produce and thus the country’s average pollen count (the amount per cubic meter in the air in a 24-hour period). This largely has to do with how plants’ male sex organs, which produce pollen, react to carbon dioxide exposure. With high concentrations of this gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, plants can afford to use less energy to pull in carbon dioxide for photosynthesis; instead they invest that energy in producing more pollen. Between 1990 and 2018 pollen concentrations increased by an average of 21 percent across the U.S. and Canada.

For people experiencing worse and longer allergy symptoms, it may be time to reexamine allergy medication type and dosage, Tummala says. “There are many different effective ways of treating allergies from a pharmacologic standpoint. The big ones are oral allergy medications, like Claritin, Allegra [and] Zyrtec,” she says. “But there are also nasal sprays that can easily be used to help ease symptoms in your sinuses.”

Finding the right treatment, or the best combination of them, isn’t always a quick matter. “What works for one person might not work for another, so trying several on with different doses and at different times of the day is the best way to figure out what’s best for you,” Tummala says. She adds that many people can safely use multiple types of medication at once—as long as they strictly follow the instructions on the packaging.

Seasonal allergies can also exacerbate preexisting conditions such as asthma or lead to more acute illnesses—especially in children, says Payel Gupta, an allergy, asthma and immunology specialist at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Prolonged allergic rhinitis can trigger severe eczema and respiratory problems such as chronic sinusitis and asthma attacks. “At my clinic we have definitely observed an increase in people who need help with seasonal allergy symptoms and some who are experiencing even more severe symptoms,” Gupta says. “And as seasons get longer and stronger [from] climate change, I see this trend only continuing to increase.”

In addition to taking medication, people can limit their exposure to allergens by wearing masks, showering regularly, using a neti pot and changing clothes after coming indoors.

But the best long-term way people can protect themselves against the growing pollen plague, Tummala says, is by engaging in climate advocacy and sharing the ways that climate change disproportionately harms people with preexisting respiratory illnesses—especially low-income people of color. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, people in these populations are more likely to have asthma, and to be regularly exposed to other ambient air pollution, than their white counterparts. “From a quality-of-life standpoint, pollen allergies can have a huge negative impact on people and the wallet,” Tummala says. “And this is just one of the many issues with climate change.”

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

If Trump’s EPA abandons climate policy, could California take over on greenhouse gases?

Legal experts, including a former federal official and UCLA professor, say California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. One reason to try is to protect the state’s clean-car economy.

In summary Legal experts, including a former federal official and UCLA professor, say California could go it alone if the federal government stops regulating greenhouse gases. One reason to try is to protect the state’s clean-car economy. California has long cast itself as the nation’s climate conscience — and its policy lab. Now, as the Environmental Protection Agency moves to revoke the backbone of federal climate rules — the scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health — one of the state’s top climate officials is weighing a provocative idea put forward by environmental law experts: If Washington retreats, California could lead on carbon-controlling regulation.   Absent what’s known as the endangerment finding, the EPA may soon consider abandoning the legal authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and other sources, furthering the Trump Administration’s stated aim to dismantle U.S. climate policy.  While decrying the prospect of such a move, climate advocates say a repeal would yield a silver lining: California and other states could in theory set their own greenhouse gas rules for cars and trucks, regulations previously superseded by federal authority. Cars and trucks represent more than a third of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. A long shot regulatory gambit could clean some of the nation’s dirtiest air – and keep the state’s clean-car transition alive. “All options are currently on the table,” Lauren Sanchez, chair of the California Air Resources Board, told CalMatters in an interview. Authority states have never had before A former federal official and expert on the Clean Air Act – who is also a law professor at UCLA – first floated this idea.  Ann Carlson wrote in the law journal Environmental Forum that an aggressive federal action against climate policy “could, ironically, provide states with authority they’ve never had before.” The Trump administration now argues that greenhouse gases do not endanger health and that regulation is more harmful — a claim widely rejected by scientists, businesses and environmental groups, as well as states, including California. The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Stella Kalinina for CalMatters “If greenhouse gases aren’t covered by the Clean Air Act,” Carlson told CalMatters, “then California could presumably regulate them — and so could every other state.” Carlson, who ran the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration until last year and has written extensively about the landmark law, argues that the act only preempts state rules for pollutants it actually covers. States “have a pretty strong legal argument” to regulate greenhouse gases, she said. The EPA, for its part, argues that states would still be barred from setting their own standards, arguing that its broad authority over air pollution covers even emissions the agency chooses not to regulate. That’s a view shared by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade association and lobbying group, which supported overturning California’s phaseout of new, gas-powered cars, as well as the American Trucking Associations, which has opposed some of California’s rules on trucks. Carlson said that argument doesn’t hold up. In her Environmental Forum article, she wrote: “If Congress didn’t intend the act to cover greenhouse gases, as the administration argues, then it’s hard to believe Congress intended to preempt states and localities from regulating them.” In other words, she says, preemption has its limits.  Other experts agreed the idea is worth considering.  Ethan Elkind, who directs the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, said that states are free to “do whatever they want,” as long as the federal government hasn’t preempted them.  Not a slam dunk for California to step in For the better part of a century, California has worked to curb air pollution at the state and local level. The state’s vanguard status positions it well to test Trump’s move to curb federal climate regulation, say experts.  “I personally would be advocating that they move ahead,” said Mary Nichols, a former air board chair. “And if I were there, I would be looking to gain support for doing it.” California holds a unique status under federal law. It can set tougher tailpipe-emission standards than the rest of the country — a recognition of its early leadership in fighting smog. Since 1968, the state has obtained more than 100 federal waivers for its vehicle rules, and other states can adopt California’s standards under certain conditions. UC Berkeley law professor Daniel Farber said the state could even take a dual-track approach. “We don’t really think we need a waiver,” he would argue after EPA abandons the field, “but just in case we do: yes, give us one.” California’s latest clash with Washington stems from a decades-long dance over who sets the nation’s toughest clean-car rules. The state’s strict vehicle rules have helped spur innovations from catalytic converters to cleaner fuel to electric cars. The regulatory push began in Los Angeles after skies grew so smog-choked they stung peoples’ eyes. In 1966, California adopted the nation’s first tailpipe standards. When Congress passed the 1970 Clean Air Act, it gave the state rare authority to set tougher rules — making California both a laboratory and a trailblazer, so long as it secured a federal waiver. In 2002, California passed the nation’s first law regulating greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The Supreme Court’s 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA ruling confirmed those gases are pollutants under federal law, leading to the Obama administration’s 2009 “endangerment finding” that they harm public health. Such a move would fit California’s pattern of pushing first and asking permission later. In 2005, the state adopted its greenhouse-gas standards for vehicles and sought a waiver before it was even clear whether carbon qualified as pollution under federal law. The EPA initially denied that request in 2008 but reversed course a year later, granting the waiver in 2009. “So this wouldn’t necessarily be a slam dunk approach for the state to take, but I think the legal avenue is now there,” said Elkin, of UC Berkeley. Targeting cars with new regulation If California tried to regulate greenhouse gases on its own, it would have both experience and infrastructure to rely on. The process would look a lot like how the state has written past clean-car rules — except this time, the target would be carbon itself. California’s clean-car rules have operated within the permission-seeking framework set up by the Clean Air Act — until this year, when Trump and Congress moved to block the state’s plans to phase out gas cars and tighten diesel-truck standards. Trump’s EPA then went further by proposing to repeal the 2009 endangerment finding, framing it as a win for “consumer choice.” Most of the state’s climate programs already run under authority of California’s own groundbreaking state laws: clean-energy mandates for utilities, a carbon-trading program for businesses, even standards to cut the carbon in fuels. Cars are different. They’re sold into a national market, and tailpipe emissions have long been federally preempted — one reason California has needed Washington’s permission to go its own way. If the state decides to test those limits, regulators would need to draft new rules and open them to public review — a process that could take years. California has already started down the path of new rules for clean cars and trucks. Last month, the Air Resources Board began the process of crafting clean car rules in response to the Trump administration’s rollback of the state’s new gas-car ban — a revocation the state is also fighting in court. In December, the board plans to begin the process of writing new emissions rules for trucks. The automobile association declined to comment on the new rulemaking effort.  Patrick Kelly, vice president of energy and environmental affairs for American Trucking Associations, said the group would work with its state affiliate to “respond to specific proposals. “ “More broadly, (our group) supports achievable national standards and opposes a patchwork of state and local standards that Congress sought to avoid,” Kelly wrote in an email. Gov. Gavin Newsom swears in incoming California Air Resources Board Chair Lauren Sanchez on Oct. 1, 2025. Photo courtesy of Office of the Governor Asked by CalMatters whether the new rulemakings could become the vehicle for California to go its own way under Trump, Sanchez, the air board chair, said it’s an option staff is studying. “It’s something that staff is looking into, and I look forward to digging into myself,” Sanchez said. No downside to trying, and some upsides Even if legal experts like the idea in theory, UC Berkeley’s Dan Farber says California going forward alone is a longshot in practice.  “There’s a chance you would win,” Farber said, of the argument that the state could directly regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars. “You’re buying a lawsuit, but other than litigation expenses, I don’t think there’s much downside in trying to do it.” Farber and others point out that the Trump administration and car and truck manufacturers would almost certainly sue to block state-level efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.  The Alliance for Automotive Innovation warned, in comments to the EPA, that if states were not preempted, any unregulated emission “would then become fair game,” creating conflicting standards across the country. Automakers have long argued that letting states write their own climate rules would create a costly patchwork of standards, raising prices for consumers and complicating production for a national market. California is in somewhat of a legal quandary. The Clean Air Act requires California to meet national pollution standards, and the state still has some of the most air-polluted regions in the country. The state’s solutions rely heavily on clean-car and truck rules to meet those requirements. If California falls short, it could lose federal highway funding, a situation that Sanchez called a “no-win, Catch 22.”  After decades of regulation and incentives, California has built a reputation as a leader in electric cars, and experts said if the state pushes further on policy, that could help keep California’s clean-car transition alive and its electric-vehicle goals within reach.  Nick Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, said California could also risk getting ahead of consumers if it goes it alone. Electric cars proved less popular than policymakers expected when it originally passed its goal to do away with sales of new gas-powered cars.  “What is clear is that the program was not overwhelmingly popular amongst the public, even in California, right?” Nigro said. “That’s usually a flag for policymakers.” Craig Segall, an independent consultant and former state air board deputy, said there’s another factor to consider: by preserving demand and infrastructure for EVs, the state could maintain a beachhead for innovation that a future president might build on. With no coherent federal policy to compete in the global EV market, California could again use its regulatory and investment muscle — just as it once did in helping spawn electric car maker Tesla — to push the market forward. “What the feds are basically signaling here is that the field is open for anyone who’s serious about being a competitive car or truck company in five years,” Segall said. “One of those paths is: the world’s fourth largest economy figures out ways to take its manufacturing economic capacity and just plow ahead.”

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Government
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How thousands of fossil fuel lobbyists got access to UN climate talks – and then kept drilling

Exclusive: Research shows oil, gas and coal firms’ unprecedented access to Cop26-29, blocking urgent climate actionMore than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Continue reading...

More than 5,000 fossil fuel lobbyists were given access to the UN climate summits over the past four years, a period marked by a rise in catastrophic extreme weather, inadequate climate action and record oil and gas expansion, new research reveals.Lobbyists representing the interests of the oil, gas and coal industries – which are mostly responsible for climate breakdown – have been allowed to participate in the annual climate negotiations where states are meant to come in good faith and commit to ambitious policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The roughly 5,350 lobbyists mingling with world leaders and climate negotiators in recent years worked for at least 859 fossil fuel organizations including trade groups, foundations and 180 oil, gas and coal companies involved in every part of the supply chain from exploration and production to distribution and equipment, research shared exclusively with the Guardian has found.Just 90 of the fossil fuel corporations that sent lobbyists to climate talks between 2021 and 2024 accounted for more than half (57%) of all the oil and gas produced last year, according to the analysis by Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), a coalition of 450 organizations campaigning to stop the fossil fuel industry blocking and delaying global climate action.These corporations, which include many of the world’s most profitable private and publicly owned oil and gas majors, accounted for the production of 33,699m barrels of oil equivalent in 2024 – enough to cover more than the entire area of Spain with a 1cm blanket of oil.The same 90 firms also account for almost two-thirds (63%) of all short-term upstream fossil fuel expansion projects which are gearing up for exploration and production, according to the newly released Global Oil and Gas Exit List – a dataset which includes more than 1,700 companies covering more than 90% of global oil and gas activity.If executed, these expansion projects will produce enough oil – 2.623m km² at 1cm thickness – to coat the entire landmass of seven European countries (France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway) combined.The findings have renewed calls for fossil fuel companies and other big polluters to be banned from the annual climate negotiations amid mounting scientific evidence that the world has failed to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial levels,.“This information clearly exposes corporate capture of the global climate process … the space that should be about science and the people has been transformed into a large carbon business hall,” said Adilson Vieira, spokesperson for the Amazonian Work Group. “While forest communities fight for survival, the same companies that cause climate collapse buy credentials and political influence to continue expanding their fossil empires.”“Not only are Indigenous peoples on the frontlines of their extractive sites suffering human rights violations, but we also face the brunt of climate chaos on our lands with worsening floods, wildfires, and extreme heat waves. We need to take down the ‘for sale’ sign on Mother Earth and bar entry to Cop for oil and gas lobbyists,” said Brenna Yellowthunder, lead coordinator for the Indigenous Environmental Network, a member of KBPO.The 30th UN climate summit (Cop30) opens on Monday in Belem, a city in the Brazilian Amazon – the world’s largest rainforest, which is being destroyed by ever-expanding fossil fuel exploitation, industrial agriculture, and mining, among other extractive industries.The annual meetings are where every country in the world negotiates on how best to tackle the climate crisis. The decisions should be driven by the legally binding United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty, and the 2015 Paris agreement to curtail global heating to under 1.5C.The research analyses the fossil fuel lobbyists known to have attended the negotiations in Glasgow (Cop26), Sharm el-Sheikh (Cop27), Dubai (Cop28) and Baku (Cop29). Until then, information about lobbyists was not collated by the UNFCCC.Growing anger at the lack of meaningful action by the world’s wealthiest, most polluting countries has been compounded by revelations that the fossil fuel industry appears to be granted greater access to the climate talks than most countries.Last year, 1,773 registered fossil fuel lobbyists attended the summit in Azerbaijan – 70% more than the total number of delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable nations combined (1,033).But the true reach of fossil fuel tentacles is undoubtedly deeper as the lobbyists data excludes executives and other company representatives on official country delegations participating directly in the confidential negotiations, and those attending as guests of governments, known as overflow delegates.The largest number of known lobbyists in recent years were representing state-owned companies from the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Azerbaijan.Many of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel corporations have also been present at recent Cop summits, at a time when governments faced huge public pressure – but failed – to agree to phase out fossil fuels despite deadly climate impacts affecting every corner of the planet.Between 2021 and 2024, Shell sent a combined total of 37 lobbyists, BP sent 36, ExxonMobil 32 and Chevron 20.In the past five years, the four oil majors made more than $420bn in combined profits.On Friday the Exxon CEO Darren Woods will headline a Cop30 launch event in Brasilia hosted by the US chamber of commerce called Pragmatic Business Solutions for Carbon Accounting and Emission Reductions. The US, which like every state is legally obliged under international law to tackle the climate crisis, has withdrawn from the Paris agreement and is not sending a country delegation to the summit.Petrobas, the majority state owned Brazilian multinational which sent at least 28 lobbyists to the past four climate summits, was recently grant ed a licence to conduct exploratory oil drilling in the sea off the Amazon, which is home to multiple Indigenous communities and about 10% of the planet’s known species.A spokesperson said: “Petrobras will be present at COP30, as it has been at previous talks, because it recognizes the opportunity to discuss sustainable models… The company’s participation in COP30 reinforces its commitment to follow and contribute to international debates on climate and energy.”Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron did not respond to requests for comment.After years of campaigning by civil society groups, Cop delegates this year are being asked to publicly disclose who is funding their participation – and confirm that their objectives are in alignment with the UNFCCC. But the new transparency requirement excludes anyone in official government delegations or overflows, and calls for stricter conflict of interest protections to cut industry influence have not been adequately heeded, advocates say.“The new rules are a welcome start, but they come decades too late … and transparency without exclusion is performative. You cannot claim to fix a process already captured by the very corporations burning the planet and fueling wars,” said Mohammed Usrof, executive director of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy. “The UNFCCC must move from disclosure to disqualification… without reform this process will not save the world, and instead, will just help bury it.”UNFCCC has been contacted for comment.

Climate
Agriculture
Crisis

Climate Risk Rarely Leads to ECB Collateral Downgrade, Blog Finds

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The European Central Bank is already factoring climate-related risk into the assessment of collateral used to borrow money...

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The European Central Bank is already factoring climate-related risk into the assessment of collateral used to borrow money from the bank but this rarely leads to credit rating changes, a blog post published by the ECB said on Friday.The ECB's 2021 climate action plan made the integration of climate risks into its collateral framework a key priority and the bank expects climate risk to be factored into credit ratings of assets posted by banks when they borrow from the central bank."While climate risks are widely recognised, they rarely lead to rating changes," the blog post, which does not necessarily represent the ECB's views, argued. "Several persistent challenges still limit the full and consistent integration of climate change risk into credit ratings."The ECB is using both its own in-house credit assessment systems and external rating agencies to determine climate risk but neither method has so far had a huge impact on collateral valuation.When using its in-house system, the share of credit ratings affected by climate risks is below 4% and the adjustments made are typically limited to one rating grade, the blog said.In the case of external agencies, environmental, social, and governance factors influence approximately 13% to 19% of all rating actions across the major agencies but climate change-specific downgrades account for only 2% to 7%, the blog post argued.While actual risk may be greater, assessment is difficult because banks can mask the vulnerabilities of some debtors, risk mitigation strategies can reduce their perceived exposure and because rating horizons are short- and medium-term, whereas climate risks tend to be long term, the blog said."Furthermore, reliable, granular climate change-related data remain scarce, particularly for smaller issuers, sovereigns and structured finance," it argued.(Reporting by Balazs KoranyiEditing by Tomasz Janowski)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Climate

The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart.

The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration.

The environmental group gave up its singular focus on climate change for a broader agenda. The ensuing internal strife left it weakened as it takes on the Trump administration.

Climate
Social Justice

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.

Climate
Agriculture
Crisis

Suggested Viewing

Total Disaster

Armed with realistic bird puppets, trickster environmental activists pretend to be oil company Total—staging a satirical press conference to introduce "RéHabitat," a program to rescue animals from the East African Oil Pipeline by relocating them to “more sustainable” habitats. Using humor and mischief, they expose a deadly ecological disaster in a zany effort to help #StopEACOP.

Activism
Energy
Animals

CO2? CO-Nee!

Joep van Dijk is a passionate climate scientist. He likes to search for extreme examples that show how life can be lived sustainably. This documentary follows Joep on his CO2-neutral journey from Amsterdam to the United States of America and shows how this choice inspires himself and others to live a climate conscious life.

Climate
CO2
Sustainable

Can Hydroponic Farming Help Reduce the Effects of Climate Change?

"Can Hydroponic Farming Help Reduce the Effects of Climate Change?" is an entertaining and educational short film. Rachel and her remarkable robot companion, Rex, witness the dire consequences of climate change through news reports of devastating natural disasters. When Rex encounters an alien emissary, he embarks on a journey to a ruined world where pollution and climate change led to the collapse of an entire civilization. Returning to Earth the three main causes of global warming are reveal—electricity production, transportation, and wasteful agriculture—and stress the importance of transitioning to clean energy sources, electric transport, and hydroponic farming. Rex takes on the mission of educating robots and humans alike about combating climate change. The film ends with a global commitment to address the crisis and a poignant celebration of Rex's role in this vital endeavor, reminding us of the urgency to protect our planet from climate catastrophe.

Conservation
Education
Climate

Evangelicals for Climate Action

This film introduces Evangelical Christians working for action on climate change and the environment. They explain how they became passionate about the environment, their fears about the future of our planet, and how their passion is based on their deep faith and love for creation. They call on all other Evangelicals to join them.

Climate
Culture

Talking Trees

Yes, trees can talk. They communicate through their roots. Please listen to what they have to say in this short film.

Forests
Extinction
Climate

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