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MILAN (Reuters) -Italy's antitrust agency has launched an investigation into a Dublin-based company that manages the Italian website of online...

The Olympics are a sustainability nightmare, and Paris, despite its efforts, is no exception

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For years, eagle-eyed environmentalists have called out banks and consumer businesses—from Barclays to fashion brand ASOS—for making misleading claims that their practices or products are sustainable, otherwise known as greenwashing.  However, lately there has been an uptick in “greenhushing,” a […]

Greenpeace argues European-backed projects hamper countries’ ability to decarbonise their own economiesEuropean countries are extracting renewable energy from Morocco and Egypt to “greenwash” their own economies, while leaving north Africans reliant on dirty imported fuels and paying the environmental costs, a Greenpeace report says.Both Morocco and Egypt are aiming to leverage their strategic locations south of the Mediterranean, and their solar and wind power potential, to position themselves as pivotal to Europe’s quest to diversify its energy supply. Continue reading...

Major banks were underwriting bonds by energy giants that failed to meet climate goals. The post As Green Bonds Tank, Analysts Fear Greenwashing Is to Blame appeared first on .

Exclusive: Environmental groups say bank is misleading public over ‘sustainable’ financing for Eni as company vastly expands fossil fuel productionBarclays is being accused by environmental groups of greenwashing after helping to arrange €4bn (£3.4bn) in financing for the Italian oil company Eni in a way that allows them to qualify towards its $1tn sustainable financing goal.Environmental groups have said the London-based bank is deliberately misleading the public by labelling the financial instruments as “sustainable” at the same time that Eni is in the midst of a multibillion-pound fossil fuel expansion drive designed to increase production. Continue reading...

Arguments abound on the benefits and dangers of trophy hunting. We need a careful, measured approach to analyzing how it’s justified and promoted. The post Greenwashing and Social Justice: Pro-Trophy Hunting Narratives Need Careful Examination appeared first on The Revelator.

Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility alleges Santos’s plan to reach net zero by 2040 is ‘little more than a series of speculations’Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastA world-first greenwashing case that seeks to hold oil and gas company Santos accountable for its net zero commitments began in the federal court today, brought by one of its own shareholders, the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR).The organisation claims Santos did not have a proper basis for saying it had a clear pathway to reduce emissions by 26% to 30% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040, which constituted misleading or deceptive conduct in breach of Australian corporate and consumer laws.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Institutions alleged to have given billions of dollars to oil and gas companies involved in projects that are harming the rainforestsFive of the world’s biggest banks are “greenwashing” their role in the destruction of the Amazon, according to a report that indicates that their environmental and social guidelines fail to cover more than 70% of the rainforest.The institutions are alleged to have provided billions of dollars of finance to oil and gas companies involved in projects that are impacting the Amazon, destabilising the climate, or impinging on the land and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. Continue reading...

Operator also found by Amsterdam court to have painted ‘overly rosy picture’ of sustainable aviation fuelThe Dutch airline KLM has misled customers with vague environmental claims and painted “an overly rosy picture” of its sustainable aviation fuel, a court has found.In a greenwashing case brought by the campaign group Fossielvrij, the district court of Amsterdam ruled on Wednesday that KLM had broken the law with misleading advertising in 15 of the 19 environmental statements it assessed. They include claims that the airline is moving towards a “more sustainable” future and statements on its website about the benefits of offsetting a flight. Continue reading...

Climate activists advocate for a return to Earth Day's protest roots, opposing the commercial exploitation of the event.Kristin Hostetter reports for Outside.In short:Earth Day began in 1970 as a significant protest and has since morphed into a marketing tool for companies.Activists emphasize the day's origins and the need to focus on genuine environmental change rather than superficial corporate shows.Despite the commercialization, the activists interviewed maintain that Earth Day can still inspire valuable ecological behaviors and community actions.Key quote:"I urge anyone who wants to take action for climate to see the undeniable link to social justice.— Pattie Gonia, co-founder of The Outdoorist OathWhy this matters:Understanding the shift from Earth Day's activist roots to corporate greenwashing is important for distinguishing genuine community actions over superficial corporate initiatives. Read more: Earth Day: Amidst the greenwashing, it's still a good thing..

New York attorney general’s lawsuit accuses JBS of deceiving customers about being climate-friendly – and the implications could be far-reachingWhen the office of the New York attorney general, Letitia James, announced that it would be suing the world’s largest meat company, JBS, for misleading customers about its climate commitments, it caused a stir far beyond the world of food. That’s because the suit’s impact has the potential to influence the approach all kinds of big businesses take in their advertising about sustainability, according to experts.It’s just one in a string of greenwashing lawsuits being brought against large airline, automobile and fashion companies of late. “It’s been 20 years of companies lying about their environmental and climate justice impacts. And it feels like all of a sudden, from Europe to the US, the crackdown is beginning to happen,” said Todd Paglia, executive director of environmental non-profit Stand.earth. “I think greenwash[ing] is actually one of the pivotal issues in the next five years.” Continue reading...

Past Presentation | A supposedly eco-friendly tour company is guiding tourists through a wooded area with the hopes of glimpsing an elusive, critically endangered animal.

The pledge was born out of shareholder activism — and was withdrawn as regulators crack down on greenwashing.

When Labor took office, it promised to reverse nature’s decline. But that looks more and more like greenwashing

Upton Sinclair, author of the scathing 1906 meat industry exposé The Jungle, would later in his life coin a particularly useful aphorism: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” But if you’ve been following news about the meat and dairy industries this fall, that aphorism might well be rearranged to this: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his tastes depend on not understanding it.At a time when the corpses of dairy cattle felled by the H5N1 avian flu are left to rot on roadsides in California’s Central Valley and human cases of the disease creep upward, and when water-guzzling feed crops for beef and dairy are driving the American West’s worsening water crisis, the biggest stories about livestock in the national media in the past few months were downright effusive about the industry’s future: With a few small fixes to their diets, these stories promised, cows can transform from climate villains to climate heroes, ushering in an era of net-zero beef and dairy. This blend of science, public relations, and status quo bias might be the best window yet into the meat industry’s quest to prevent any serious discussion about the environmental and public health problems posed by animal agriculture. The recent positive press about cows revolves around a red algae seaweed native to Australia called Asparagopsis taxiformis. Over the past half-decade, a number of studies have been published showing that, under small-scale and short-term experimental conditions, adding dried and processed asparagopsis to cows’ feed on feedlots and dairy farms can massively diminish the amount of methane they belch into the atmosphere. Two of the most widely cited studies report reductions of up to 80 percent and up to a stunning 98 percent. The news media has dutifully covered these studies, usually taking them at face value. The Guardian alone has run stories about the promise of feed additives in 2021, 2023, and this past August; since then asparagopsis has also been covered by The Wall Street Journal and on NBC. (I was a guest on the NBC segment, where I presented a very short version of the argument in this article.)If feeding cows seaweed really did reduce their total emissions by 98 percent, and if asparagopsis production and distribution could be scaled globally, this sort of reduction would be a game-changer. But it’s not clear that the math actually holds up. Feed additives are only really effective mixed into processed feed, meaning they work best in industrialized systems where ruminants are confined and fed a prepared diet rather than when they’re grazing on pasture. Most beef cattle are slaughtered between 18 and 24 months of age and spend the majority of their lives on pasture, only being rounded up on feedlots for the last few months of their lives and fed corn, soy, and grasses like alfalfa. This feed is designed to fatten cattle to slaughter weight, but it’s also much easier to digest, meaning that most beef cattle will only emit about 11 percent of their lifetime emissions on feedlots. Dairy cows, meanwhile, live longer than beef cattle and are kept in barns for most of their lives, where they are inseminated, separated from their young, and milked for their productive lives. This means dairy cattle eat an almost all-feed diet, but it also means they emit relatively less over their lifetime than beef cattle because they’re not digesting roughage.Back in 2021, seeing the discrepancy between the reduction promised by headlines and press releases and the basic facts of cows’ life cycles, New York University environmental science professor Matthew Hayek and I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and came up with far less promising numbers. Assuming an 80 percent reduction of emissions on feedlots, where cattle emit 11 percent of their methane, we figured that would make asparagopsis lead to lifetime emissions reductions of about 9 percent. Even that bombastic 98 percent reduction estimate—which hasn’t been replicated in any other studies—would still only result in about an 11 percent total emissions reduction. Hardly game-changing numbers.Since then, longer-term trials have showed our calculations were, if anything, too optimistic. A 300-day study of Wagyu cattle on a feedlot in Australia—Wagyu are allowed to live longer than standard American Angus cattle and spend longer on feedlots to develop the fatty tissues for which their carcasses are so prized—showed only a 28 percent reduction in methane over those 300 days. If we again assume that only 11 percent of the Wagyu’s lifetime emissions take place on feedlots, that means algae additives would reduce only 28 percent of 11 percent of lifetime emissions, amounting to a 3 percent total reduction. But even if we assume that Wagyu emit more of their lifetime emissions on feedlots instead—say, a third of their total emissions—a 28 percent reduction of one-third of lifetime emissions still comes out to around 9 percent: pretty much exactly what Hayek and I calculated. Either way, the math throws cold water on the hype.Feeding algae to beef cattle, in short, doesn’t do much. So algae proponents have switched to touting the possible benefits of feeding algae to dairy cattle instead. Here, the numbers from long-term trials are a little more optimistic but still fall far short of upending agriculture as we know it: a 25 percent lifetime reduction in a Norwegian study and 38 percent in an Australian one. However, the Norwegian study noted that dairy cattle fed asparagopsis had lower milk yield and high milk iodine content, leading its authors to question the viability of large-scale asparagopsis use. If feeding cows algae reduces the quality or quantity of the goods they produce, this plan might not make practical or economic sense.This math may seem tedious. But ultimately, claims about emissions reductions are claims about math. So the best way to evaluate these claims is by asking three questions. First, does the math add up? That’s what I’ve explained above: In this case, it doesn’t. Second, can the solution be scaled such that the math can apply globally and really make a dent in total emissions? Scholars have been asking questions about the feasibility of large-scale asparagopsis use ever since studies about it started being published, and the answer to these questions is far from clear. Asparagopsis is a tropical seaweed that acts as an invasive species if it spreads to new habitats, meaning that growing it in marine environments would be tricky. It lends itself best to on-land aquaculture cultivation, but the economics of scaling this technology and getting the seaweed to any meaningful fraction of the planet’s billion-plus cows would be a herculean undertaking. Another problem with scaling up would involve dose control: The reason that asparagopsis reduces cows’ methane is because it contains bromoform, which is toxic to humans and currently classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a “probable human carcinogen.” Initial research suggests the risk to humans is pretty low if the initial dose to the cow is low. But that does mean doses given to cows would have to be low enough that this didn’t find its way into their milk.Third, how does the reduced-emissions product compare to alternatives? For beef and dairy coming out of the asparagopsis trials, the answer is: terribly. Reducing beef emissions by 3 percent, or even 9 percent, would still leave beef at least five times as greenhouse gas–intensive as other meats, and even more so than plant-based proteins like beans, tofu, or Impossible burgers. And even 38 percent-less-emitting dairy emits more greenhouse gas than soy milk. So even if asparagopsis could be scaled, beef and dairy would still be the most climate-unfriendly foods available. This shouldn’t be surprising given the physical qualities of ruminants, which simply can’t be erased with a sprinkle of fairy—sorry, seaweed—dust. It’s the cow, not the how, as it were.Given all this, there’s a real risk that focusing on algae and other feed additives will distract from true food-systems emissions reduction and, instead, help “greenwash” the animal agriculture industry—making it seem more environmentally friendly than it actually is. That may already be happening.Since at least 2006, when the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization published the “Livestock’s Long Shadow” report showing the magnitude of the global livestock industry’s environmental and climate impact, that industry has divided its time between trying to discredit the science and scientists linking its emissions to climate change and promising that it can reduce those very emissions. As academic, government, and public scrutiny of the climate impacts of food have only increased, the animal agriculture industry has responded by making broad and often unsubstantiated promises about lower-emissions products or even about becoming net-zero. It’s the clean coal debacle all over again. For instance, Tyson Foods has been marketing its Brazen Beef brand as more climate friendly. Matthew Hayek and I broke down the dubious math of those claims for The New Republic last year. Now Tyson is being sued for false advertising of Brazen by the Environmental Working Group. This comes on the heels of JBS, the Brazil-based meat giant, being sued in New York state for false advertising over making unsubstantiated claims about its ability to reach net-zero. Greenwashing matters not simply because it’s often based on spurious claims but because it aims to stave off regulation by showing policymakers that polluters are being proactive in lowering their carbon footprints. Greenwashing also serves, as the New York state suit against JBS argues, to “provide environmentally conscious consumers with a ‘license’ to eat beef.” In others words, as environmental science increasingly points to the need to drastically reduce the amount of beef and dairy in our diets, the promise that beef and dairy can instead be made greener might stop consumers or institutions concerned with climate change from changing what food they choose to buy. Greenwashing eases or erases the concerns that might spur change. And people want their concerns to be eased. This is what makes the story of asparagopsis so appealing: The public is hungry for anything but change.This impulse quickly becomes self-rationalizing. For example, some argue that humans will keep eating meat and drinking dairy, so we should at least try to make them more sustainable. This feels like basic common sense. But behind it lurks the very complacency that greenwashing is designed to fuel: the assumption that change is unnecessary, undesirable, and perhaps even impossible. All of the talk about seaweed—including all of this article so far—falls victim to a much bigger issue: a carbon tunnel vision that reduces environmental impacts and sustainability measurements only to emissions. Merely reducing emissions from beef and dairy—no matter how much—does nothing to offset its other impacts on soil and water, on labor, on the animals themselves, or on public health. And it doesn’t address one of the biggest ways beef and dairy exacerbate both emissions and other forms of environmental degradation: by driving deforestation, as wilderness is replaced with grazing lands and crops grown for animal feed. We not only need more laws and lawsuits cracking down on corporate greenwashing, but we need changes in agricultural policy, diets, and technology that will allow us to shift our food system away from livestock toward more sustainable alternatives.Seaweed, then, doesn’t just fail to reduce emissions as well as promised. It sucks the air out of productive debate. Hoping for any simple solution to hack complex food system problems distracts us from both the complexity and the magnitude of the changes necessary. Red algae, in other words, is a red herring.

Researchers looked at more than 25,000 everyday items available at supermarkets like Aldi, Coles, Woolworths, Harris Farm and IGAGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastSimple grocery swaps – including substituting red meat for chicken or plant-based alternatives, opting for dairy-free milk and yoghurt and choosing fruit toast instead of muffins – could substantially cut household greenhouse gas emissions, new research has found.A report by the George Institute for Global Health found switches could reduce a household’s climate pollution by 6 tonnes a year, which it said was roughly equivalent to the emissions from an average household’s grid-based electricity use.Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Continue reading...

Now Playing | Fifteen years after his eye opening examination of the average, everyday waste consumption habits of his fellow Canadians in Garbage! The Revolution Starts At Home, filmmaker Andrew Nisker finds himself more concerned than ever about humanity’s filthy habits. A quick glance outside confirms that the situation is critical. In a world full of performative greenwashing, corporations fueling the fires of mindless consumerism and governments’ futile efforts to clean up the mess, it’s no wonder that the average citizen has fallen out of touch with the waste we each create, everyday. Enlisting the help of your average condo dwelling couple and a typical rural nuclear family, Andrew once again embarks on an adventure through our waste, tracing our garbage from our carefully sorted bins to landfills and beyond, and meeting innovators along the way who are working hard to create sustainable alternatives, turning our expendable trash into repurposed treasures. Even as it wades through our muck, This Film is Garbage is an ultimately hopeful look at the little things we can each do to change our collectively smelly ways!

The worldwide event aims to raise awareness about the need to protect the environment.

The lawsuit was among a burgeoning crop of plastics litigation amid growing awareness of a global plastics crisis.

The succession of authoritarian fossil fuel producers hosting international climate negotiations is a concern. We must pay attention to political influences on the talks and beware of greenwashing.

Indian government accused of PR stunt after moving 337 tonnes of toxic waste that had been held in containersForty years after one of world’s deadliest industrial disasters struck the Indian city of Bhopal, a cleanup operation has finally begun to remove hundreds of tonnes of toxic waste from the site.However, local campaigners have accused the Indian government of greenwashing, arguing that the 337 tonnes of waste removed this week represents less than 1% of the more than 1m tonnes of hazardous materials left after the disaster and that the cleanup has done nothing to tackle chemical contamination of the area. Continue reading...

A new form of zero-carbon, on-demand energy could help bring stability to the grid with support on both sides of the aisle — if the diverse coalition now backing it can hold together despite clashing over politics and climate action. Geothermal energy, which taps the heat of the Earth for industrial purposes or to generate electricity, represents...

Environmental advocacy group the Sierra Club is suing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), arguing the agency’s new rule doesn’t give investors the full truth about a company’s climate risks. The Sierra Club and the Sierra Club Foundation, represented by Earthjustice, filed the lawsuit Wednesday, joining a growing list of states that have filed challenges to the...

Exxon lawsuit accuses California's attorney general, the Sierra Club and others of defaming the oil giant with negative comments about plastic recycling.

The phrase ‘net zero’ has a long history.

Firm will instead invest A$2m a year in ‘climate impact fund’ supporting renewables and switching to EVsOne of the travel industry’s most environmentally focused tour operators, Intrepid, is scrapping carbon offsets and abandoning its emissions targets as unreachable.The Australian-headquartered global travel company said it will instead invest A$2m a year in an audited “climate impact fund” supporting immediate practical measures such as switching to electric vehicles and investing in renewable energy. Continue reading...

Coal Australia also wants government to broaden restrictions on foreign donations to stop money flowing to environmental groupsAn Australian coal industry lobby group wants national intelligence agencies to report on any involvement of foreign interests in unnamed “activist groups” it claims are attempting to undermine the nation’s prosperity.Coal Australia also wants the government to broaden restrictions on foreign donations to stop money being channelled to Australia-based environmental groups and create powers to terminate grants and rescind charity status to organisations who aren’t transparent about funding sources. Continue reading...

New rule hailed as major step toward reining in source of local toxic air pollution that hits low-income neighborhoodsThe EPA plans to require the nation’s municipal waste incinerators to monitor for dangerous air emissions, a move environmental groups have hailed as a major step toward reining in a staggering source of localized toxic air pollution that most frequently hits low-income neighborhoods.Municipal incinerators’ stacks often spew hazardous pollutants like dioxins, particulate matter, PFAS, carbon monoxide, acid gases, or nitrogen oxides. The substances are linked to cancer, developmental disorders and other serious diseases, but still are burned with limited or patchwork oversight. Continue reading...

Industrially made foods involve several ingredients and processes to put together, making it difficult to examine their true costIf you look at a package of M&Ms, one of the most popular candies in the US, you’ll see some familiar ingredients: sugar, skimmed milk powder, cocoa butter. But you’ll see many more that aren’t so recognizable: gum arabic, dextrin, carnauba wax, soya lecithin and E100.There are 34 ingredients in M&Ms, and, according to Mars, the company that produces the candy, at least 30 countries – from Ivory Coast to New Zealand – are involved in supplying them. Each has its own supply chain that transforms the raw materials into ingredients – cocoa into cocoa liquor, cane into sugar, petroleum into blue food dye. Continue reading...

Negative scientific and press reports on the efficacy of carbon credit projects has led to a ‘direct pullback in buyer investment’The market for carbon offsets shrank dramatically last year, falling from $1.9bn (£1.5bn) in 2022 to $723m in 2023, a new report has found. The drop came after a series of scientific and media reports found many offsetting schemes do nothing to mitigate the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.The research by Ecosystem Marketplace, a nonprofit initiative that collects data about the carbon market from brokers and traders, found the market had shrunk 61%. Continue reading...

Carbon capture and storage is one of the least effective and most expensive emissions reduction methods.

More lobbyists for the controversial technology were present this year, despite debate about its viabilityAt least 480 lobbyists working on carbon capture and storage (CCS) have been granted access to the UN climate summit, known as Cop29, the Guardian can reveal.That is five more CCS lobbyists than were present at last year’s climate talks, despite the overall number of participants shrinking significantly from about 85,000 to about 70,000. Continue reading...

The Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint by environment charity River Action.

The plastics industry uses a controversial accounting method to inflate the recycled content it advertises

The people who clean up the world's trash say some companies' statements of support are little more than lip service.

The prime minister’s first budget revisits a decade of Liberal policy on climate, taxes and the public service.

Los Angeles should help lead California and the country in banning plastic ground covering. It's expensive, unhealthy and terrible for the environment.

I’m not a fan of New York City’s Climate Week. As I wrote last year, the annual programming timed to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly has “devolved into a marketing opportunity for all the worst capitalists.” This year, the prominence of heavily polluting tech companies among the sponsors—in a year when Kamala Harris, the most climate-friendly major party presidential candidate on offer, is emerging as a wholly owned subsidiary of Silicon Valley—is especially worrying. Is there no limit to the amount of abuse and gaslighting we will tolerate from the tech billionaire class?The theme for this year is “It’s Time.” In her opening address, Climate Week CEO Helen Clarkson emphasized the peril of delaying action on the climate crisis, warning that “history will judge us.” She imagined the people of the future asking, “How many warnings from scientists did they need? How many people needed to die in heat waves for them to believe what was happening?”But some major polluters—Apple, Google, and Meta—are on the list of Climate Week sponsors. These indignant future humans Clarkson imagines might also ask: Why did even those most concerned—the people dedicating their lives and careers to solving this problem—tolerate such bad actors, enabling big polluters to look like climate heroes? While its native California burns and thirsts, Meta—though it has attempted to confuse the public on this point—has by some measures increased its greenhouse gas emissions steadily since 2019, spewing more than 14 million metric tons of carbon last year. Many of us fret about our personal carbon footprint—and sure, we should—but Meta’s is the equivalent of three million individual humans’. Though Meta has been proactive about renewable energy, including geothermal, its data centers are still largely dependent on fossil fuels. It’s still recklessly pouring energy into planet-killing and pointless A.I. Despite constant wildfires, heat waves, and drought and unprecedented public awareness of what is causing such symptoms of crisis, Meta’s carbon footprint is worse now than it was in 2020. In addition to being a giant energy suck, Meta is also a climate offender in its role as an information source: Numerous advocates, climate scientists, and journalists have said that Meta suppresses climate information and boosts denialist disinformation. Meta has called some of these instances a “security error.”By its own admission, Google has also increased its carbon emissions by 13 percent in 2023 alone, to 14.31 million metric tons, about the same as Meta’s. That’s a whopping 50 percent since 2019, and with similar causes to Meta’s: energy use of the data centers that power its A.I. Last year, Apple boasted about its green commitments and achievements in one of the most cringe ads ever, in which “Mother Nature,” played by Octavia Spencer, shows up to a team meeting and yells at them, and walks away placated, even impressed after hearing about the company’s reforestation work and the alleged carbon neutrality of its new Apple Watch. I’m not the first to feel embarrassed for the company every time I watch this ad: Others have called it “greenwashing” and the “Mother of All Virtue Signals.”Undeterred, Apple published a lofty white paper earlier this year deeming its global corporate operations “carbon neutral.” The company’s “Environmental Progress Report” in April boasted of reducing its emissions by 55 percent since 2015. Yet the company’s carbon footprint is even a little bit higher than Google’s or Meta’s, at 16.1 metric tons. Joseph Romm, a senior research fellow at University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, has said that Apple’s definition of “carbon neutrality” is arbitrary and unambitious, relying on offsets, which are such a scam that much of the private sector—even Shell and Nestle, not exactly shining paragons of the triple bottom line—has given up on them. Much of what’s holding back progress for these companies—besides the blinding entitlement of a Silicon Valley culture that believes fervently that it is saving the world just by existing—is A.I. I’ve previously discussed the horrific environmental and climate costs of the technology, and the lengths to which tech companies are going to avoid public disclosure of those costs. They can spout on all they like about renewables and forests, but the fact is that A.I. is vastly complicating the shift away from fossil fuels and even perpetuating our coal use because the data centers the technology requires put so much pressure on the grid.All three companies—Meta, Google, and Apple—have a net zero-goal for 2030, and all three are moving in exactly the opposite direction, poster children for the meaninglessness of such goal setting. Together, they have a carbon footprint greater than many countries’.After record heat this summer, as a hurricane barrels into Florida and much of the West remains on fire, the standards for climate discourse and “climate action” should be higher. Exxon Mobil isn’t listed as a Climate Week sponsor, and other big polluters and purveyors of climate disinformation shouldn’t be able to launder their reputations by sponsoring Climate Week either. Big Tech is enjoying a moment of liberal legitimacy, with presidential nominee Kamala Harris benefiting from its campaign largesse. But, coming back to Climate Week’s theme, “it’s time” to recognize these companies for the noxious environmental offenders they are.

The Saudis have won the right to host football’s biggest tournament. But its bid doesn’t seriously address the environmental issues.

This story was first published by Energy News Network . The term “clean energy” often brings to mind gleaming solar panels, spinning wind turbines or water surging through a hydroelectric dam. Few people would imagine dark salt caverns a mile underground, but these geologic formations could play a key role in the…

Even a majority of Republicans support efforts to hold manufacturers accountable for allegedly deceptive claimsConcern about the fossil fuel and plastics industries’ alleged deception about recycling is growing, with new polling showing a majority of American voters, including 54% of Republicans, support legal efforts to hold the sectors accountable.The industries have faced increasing scrutiny for their role in the global plastics pollution crisis, including an ongoing California investigation and dozens of suits filed over the last decade against consumer brands that sell plastics. Continue reading...

After nearly a decade of negotiations, leaders during the United Nations climate conference’s first day decided on some of the finer points of much-debated sticking point aimed at cutting planet-warming emissions from coal, oil and gas

“Climate tech” isn’t a thing. It has shifted in recent years from a category to define clean energy companies to an umbrella phrase that loses meaning the more we use it. Granted, the term is everywhere: inserted into VC pitch decks, plastered on billboards along highways from San Francisco to Austin to Boston, wedged into government policy papers, and featured prominently on conference agendas. Media properties from CNBC to GreenBiz rely on it as a traffic-driving category. And there’s a reason why. A changing climate is the most complex and vast challenge and opportunity confronting our society today. That also means we can’t afford ambiguity. We need accountability. We need progress. We need to reengineer infrastructure with advanced tech that future-proofs as it solves urgent and complex problems. Now. Which means we need precision. And we need to acknowledge that infrastructure and markets that have served us for so long are failing—and in need of rebuilding to anticipate and meet future challenges. Our world is in desperate need of solutions tied to specific applications and impact across energy tech, waste tech, food tech, and carbon tech. We need solutions that advance specific areas of deeply specialized work with distinct metrics and challenges like energy storage, batteries, food security, and sustainable fuel development. And, we need talent trained and sharpened to tackle these specific problems. Ambiguity is the enemy of progress Progress requires clarity. Energy technology is a distinct thing. Waste technology is a distinct thing. Transportation technology, energy storage, agriculture and food sustainability, carbon removal—these are specific categories with definable challenges and measurable outcomes. Each is firmly tied to infrastructure and requires dedicated engineering, specialized expertise, and different pools of capital. For example, grid storage is not a “climate tech” problem—it’s a specific energy challenge with concrete metrics: cost per kilowatt-hour, storage capacity, duration, and efficiency. Grid storage is about optimizing supply and demand, the outcome of which is a financial, political, and engineering goal, not a moral imperative. We must connect the promise and hype of AI-powered software solutions to their physical applications in the real world. Why? Because solving these big, specific problems requires more than computation behind a screen. Realizing the promise of AI to transform and improve is only possible if it enters the physical realm and changes the mechanics of existing ways of doing things. Calling the solutions to these problems “climate tech” is a disservice to the work because it no longer adequately captures the scale and range of what’s required. Breaking “climate tech” down to drive breakthroughs We need to build and invest in technologies that are better, faster, cheaper than what came before and solve real problems—rather than loaded words that offer environmental promise and not much else. The trajectory of biotech offers a solid framework. Rather than lumping everything under a term like “health tech,” industry pioneers stood up clearly defined categories, including: immunotherapy, CRISPR, mRNA vaccine development, oncology, longevity, and so on. Each domain pursued a specific set of problems and attracted talent and capital to solve them. The result? Breakthroughs. Whether we realize it or not, software also focused in recent years, which has helped to accelerate progress. Information technology gave way to specific technical disciplines like cybersecurity, cloud computing, and enterprise tools. Category focus allowed companies to gain market share and differentiate with customer experience and accountability front-and-center. It’s time that “climate tech” undergoes the same level of rigorous redefinition. And it’s not just because we’re approaching critical climate “tipping points” (which we are). It’s because the economic opportunity cost of not acting is too great. The future of American communities and industries from agriculture to manufacturing rests on our ability to effectively seize the opportunities in front of us and reengineer them. Everything needs to be built for the future with engineering precision and a specific problem in mind to solve. We need infrastructure and hardware solutions to solve focused problems like recycling plastic for manufacturing, rendering cement carbon-neutral, electrifying freight transport, rethinking protein production, and removing carbon at scale. We cannot grow the economy in the future without approaching all tech as climate tech. For example, the investment firm I cofounded, Incite, invested in Monarch, a startup with a fleet of AI-powered electric vehicles and tech solutions that work for agricultural clients ranging from dairy farmers to municipalities to winemakers. Monarch recently shipped MonarchOne™, an end-to-end physical AI platform for OEMs to more efficiently manage work and use data to influence operations across environments. Monarch isn’t a “climate tech” company. It’s an AI and robotics company with clear environmental benefits. Working toward a post-”climate tech” world “Climate tech” served its purpose as an initial rallying cry. It placed an urgent crisis squarely on the map of capital markets, boardrooms, and policy agendas. It made innovation to help us take care of our planet inevitable. Totally unsurprisingly, however, grouping a product or tech into the vague category enables more greenwashing and ambiguity when what we need is progress, focus, and accountability. In order to scale up the grid, add resilience to infrastructure, and prevent the housing market from insurance collapse, we need to retire not just the language but the entire categorization of “climate tech” completely. We must dismantle the umbrella term into specific, infrastructure-centered areas in need of urgent work. Let’s refine our language. Words matter. Tech is crucial to curbing negative environmental impacts. But the utility of “climate tech” is running on fumes. Let’s stop pretending it’s still a thing—and seize the opportunity to build and invest in the physical infrastructure, software, apps, and technologies that will power economic opportunities and enrich life around the world.

Vanguard among the institutional investors that dominate fossil-fuel financing. The post Denver Residents Fight Proposal to Drill for Oil and Gas Under Their Homes appeared first on .

The Paris games are shaping up as the greenest games yet. But some critics say even more needs to be done.

Exxon Mobil has touted 'advanced recycling' as a groundbreaking technology that will turn the tide in our plastic crisis. California says it's a lie.

Ten years after Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, the Indigenous Krenak people are still mourning what they call “the death of the river.”

"Argentina's certification approach relies on a silvopastoral system"

Jeff Bezos’s $10bn climate and biodiversity fund has garnered glittering prizes, but concerns have been voiced over the influence it can buy – and its interest in carbon offsetsLate last month, the coronation of Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sánchez as environmental royalty was complete. At Conservation International’s glitzy annual gala in New York, with Harrison Ford, Jacinda Ardern and Shailene Woodley looking on, the couple were given the global visionary award for the financial contribution of the Bezos Earth Fund to the natural world.“Jeff and Lauren are making history, not just with the sum of their investment in nature but also the speed of it,” said the Conservation International CEO, Dr M Sanjayan, whose organisation received a $20m grant from Bezos in 2021 for its work in the tropical Andes. Continue reading...

The suit claims Atlanta-based WinCup continues to sell, distribute and market foam products in California despite a state law that was supposed to ban such sales starting Jan. 1.

Context Labs, led by Dan Harple SM ’13, uses AI-enabled data analytics and verification to help companies measure their true greenhouse emissions and document reductions.

Phoenix broke several heat records last year. Now Grant Park, which has inequitable tree cover, is seeing a tree planting drive that promises some respite from 100F temperaturesIt was a relatively cool spring day in Phoenix, Arizona, as a tree planting crew dug large holes in one of the desert city’s hottest and least shaded neighborhoods.Still, it was sweaty backbreaking work as they carefully positioned, watered and staked a 10-ft tall Blue palo verde and Chilean mesquite in opposite corners of resident Ana Cordoba’s dusty unshaded backyard. Continue reading...

Here are the world’s top banks financing fossil fuels — is yours on the list? The post Abandoned Wells, Methane-Emission Loopholes and Underground Toxic Waste Dumps All Raise Concerns appeared first on .

Attorney General Rob Bonta said the company has “manipulated the public and lied to consumers.”

Colombian environment minister Susana Muhamad once worked for Shell. Now, as the country gears up to host the biodiversity Cop16, she is calling for a just transition away from fossil fuelsShe is one of the biggest opponents of fossil fuel on the world stage – but Susana Muhamad’s political career was sparked in the halls of an oil company. It began when she resigned as a sustainability consultant with Shell in 2009 and returned home to Colombia. She was 32 and disillusioned, a far cry from the heights she would later reach as the country’s environment minister, and one of the most high-profile progressive leaders in global environmental politics.Muhamad joined Shell an idealistic 26-year-old. “I really thought that you could make a huge impact within an energy company on the climate issue, especially because all their publicity was saying that they were going to become an energy company, meaning they will not be only a fossil fuel company,” she says, when we meet in the Colombian embassy in London. Continue reading...

Seven guest collaborators bring new eyes to a Smithsonian museum founder’s collection of American art

Trackers placed in 93 bundles of Amazon packaging marked for "store drop-off" recycling showed many of them were buried or burned.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Some of the world’s most profitable—and most polluting corporations—have invested in carbon offset projects that have fundamental failings and are “probably junk,” suggesting industry claims about greenhouse gas reductions were likely overblown, according to new analysis. Delta, Gucci, Volkswagen, ExxonMobil, Disney, easyJet and […]