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More Americans Are Going to Fall Into Toxic Traps

Environmental justice was patching over gaps in federal law that allowed for zones of concentrated harms.

Tracking the Trump administration’s rollback of climate and environmental policies can seem like being forced through a wormhole back in time. The administration tried to freeze funding that Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act directed to clean energy, turning that particular clock back to 2022. The Environmental Protection Agency could scrap the finding that greenhouse-gas emissions pose threats to human health and the environment, which has underpinned federal climate efforts since 2009. The Trump administration has also barred scientists from working on the UN’s benchmark international climate report, a continuous collaboration since 1990. And it has demolished federal work on environmental justice, which dates back to the George H. W. Bush administration. As part of its purge of so-called DEI initiatives, the administration put 160 EPA employees who work on environmental justice on leave, rescinded Biden’s executive orders prioritizing this work, and pushed to terminate, “to the maximum extent allowed by law,” all environmental-justice offices and positions by March 21.The concept of environmental justice is grounded in activists’ attempt in the early ’80s to block a dump for polychlorinated biphenyls, once widely used toxic chemicals, from being installed in Warren Country, North Carolina, a predominantly Black community. Evidence quickly mounted that Americans who were nonwhite or poor, and particularly those who were both, were more likely to live near hazardous-waste sites and other sources of pollution. Advocates for addressing these ills called unequal toxic exposures “environmental racism,” and the efforts to address them “environmental justice.” In the early ’90s, the first President Bush established the Office of Environmental Equity, eventually known as the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, and President Bill Clinton mandated that federal agencies incorporate environmental justice into their work.Biden, though, was the first president to direct real money toward communities disproportionately affected by pollution—places where, say, multiple factories, refineries, truck yards, and garbage incinerators all operated in a condensed area. As with so many targets of Trump’s crusade against DEI, the damage will be felt by poor people across the country. This choice will certainly harm communities of color, but it will also touch everyone, including many of Trump’s supporters, living in a place burdened by multiple forms of environmental stress. Under Trump’s deregulatory policies, that category will only keep expanding.“There are still these places where life expectancy is 10 to 15 years less than other parts of the country,” Adam Ortiz, the former administrator for EPA Region 3, which covers the mid-Atlantic, told me. Cancer rates are sky high in many of these areas too. Some of these communities are predominantly Black, such as Ivy City, in Washington, D.C., a historically redlined, segregated, working-class community where the air is fouled by a rail switchyard, a highway, and dozens of industrial sites located in a small area. But plenty of the small rural areas that have benefited from environmental-justice money look like Richwood, West Virginia, where catastrophic flooding—a growing climate hazard in the region—knocked out the local water-treatment plant. Residents there are poor, white, and generally politically conservative. In many cases, these communities had gotten little federal attention for generations, Ortiz said.Untangling the knot of pollution in these places is slow work, in part because federal laws don’t adequately address overlapping environmental ills: The Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act regulate only one form and one source of pollution at a time. A population exposed to many pollution sources simultaneously, or to a cocktail of toxins, has little redress. Each business regulated by these laws may follow them and still end up creating places that, like Ivy City, have dangerously bad air quality. Cumulative impact is a gaping regulatory chasm into which millions of Americans fall each year. Federal environmental-justice efforts aimed to fill it.The Trump administration has now halted projects such as the ones Ortiz worked on. People who had spent years gaining trust with local communities, and who had worked with local companies to help them alter things such as how they vented pollution, were dismissed or reassigned. By then, in Ivy City, the EPA had managed to address a “handful” of the 40 or 50 pollution sources plaguing the area, Ortiz said.But some work did get done, and its benefit will likely persist despite the Trump administration’s attempt to make environmental justice disappear. Paul Mohai, a professor at the University of Michigan who served as a senior adviser to the EPA’s environmental-justice office, told me. In his view, one president can’t erase the progress made over the past decades, particularly outside the federal government.Because he was there at the beginning, Mohai knows what these knotty pollution problems looked like when few in government were paying attention. When he co-wrote a review of the literature on environmental justice in the early 1990s, he struggled to find more than a dozen papers on the topic. Now, he said, more publications are coming out and more nonprofit groups have formed to tackle these issues than he can keep track of.Surely some of them will be affected by the president’s restrictions on grant making for scientific research. But the facts accrued through existing research cannot be erased: People of color in the U.S. are exposed to a 38 percent higher level of the respiratory irritant nitrogen dioxide, on average, than white people. Low-income communities are disproportionately targeted for hazardous-waste sites. Poor people and people of color suffer the most from climate impacts such as flooding and extreme heat. Several states have also put environmental-justice considerations into their laws; one in New Jersey restricts certain new industrial permits in places that are already overburdened, for instance. The decisions of a single administration can’t undo all that.But millions of disadvantaged Americans live in states that are not interested in passing these kinds of laws. And layoffs at the EPA will dilute what protections federal clean-air and water legislation do afford, by making enforcement less possible. As the climate crisis deepens—growing the threats of extreme heat, sea-level rise, and catastrophic rainfall, each a hazard that can rob people of safety—more places could succumb to the gaps in these laws as well. Many climate dangers are akin to those of pollution because they create zones of harm where residents bear the costs of the country’s environmental compromises and have little to help them through it. Nothing in any federal law specifically compels the government to protect people from extreme heat, or from unprecedented flooding, though both are set to descend on Americans more often and disproportionately harm poor people and people of color.As these stresses multiply, they’ll be layered onto a landscape already dotted with sites where heavy industry and major traffic create concentrations of emissions. Without laws to address the cumulative impact of these, more Americans will be left sicker and will die sooner. It’s taken decades for the country to start reckoning with that fact to begin to move toward a more useful vision of safety. For now, it seems, all progress is on pause.

Activism
Business
Chemicals

Switzerland told it must do better on climate after older women’s ECHR win

Council of Europe says Swiss government failing to respect human rights court’s ruling on emissionsEurope live – latest updatesThe Swiss government has been told it must do more to show that its national climate plans are ambitious enough to comply with a landmark legal ruling.The Council of Europe’s committee of ministers, in a meeting this week, decided that Switzerland was not doing enough to respect a decision by the European court of human rights last year that it must do more to cut its greenhouse gas emissions and rejected the government’s plea to close the case. Continue reading...

The Swiss government has been told it must do more to show that its national climate plans are ambitious enough to comply with a landmark legal ruling.The Council of Europe’s committee of ministers, in a meeting this week, decided that Switzerland was not doing enough to respect a decision by the European court of human rights last year that it must do more to cut its greenhouse gas emissions and rejected the government’s plea to close the case.The KlimaSeniorinnen organisation of more than 2,000 older Swiss women successfully argued that its members’ rights to privacy and family life were being breached because they were particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of heatwaves.It was seen as a historic decision in Europe, where it was the court’s first ruling on climate, with direct ramifications for all 46 Council of Europe member states. It has also influenced climate litigation around the world.However, there was resistance within Switzerland from the start, and by the summer the Swiss federal council had rebuffed the ruling.While it acknowledged the importance of the underlying European convention on human rights, the Swiss government said the court’s interpretation was too broad in extending it to the climate crisis and in accepting a complaint from an organisation.It claimed it was already doing enough to cut national emissions, and submitted an “action report” in October rather than the required action plan. This maintained that the judgment did not require it to set specific carbon budgets and that there was no internationally recognised method for doing so.The committee of ministers, which is responsible for upholding the judgment, noted this week that Switzerland had closed some legislative gaps, including revising its CO2 act and setting goals up to 2030.But it invited Switzerland to provide more information showing how its climate framework aligned with the court’s ruling, “through a carbon budget or otherwise, of national greenhouse gas emissions limitations”. The committee took note of methodologies put forward by a broad coalition of NGOs to calculate this.Georg Klingler, a project coordinator and climate campaigner at Greenpeace, which supported the Swiss women’s case, said this essentially meant setting budgets that reflect Switzerland’s “fair share” of emission reductions in line with the Paris agreement’s goal of limiting warming to under 1.5C. That could mean toughening up existing goals, he said.The Swiss government was also told to keep the committee of ministers informed about planned adaptation measures to protect vulnerable citizens during events such as heatwaves. And it must provide “concrete examples” of citizens’ involvement in developing climate policies. Switzerland has until September to provide this information.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe KlimaSeniorinnen co-president Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti welcomed the decision. She called on the Swiss federal council and parliament “to take the dangers of global warming seriously and finally take decisive action against the climate crisis”.Sébastien Duyck, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law, said European governments had “reaffirmed the rule of law”. “The decision … makes clear that the Swiss federal council must fulfil its legal obligation to protect its citizens’ human rights by ramping up its climate ambition.”Başak Çalı, a professor of international law at the Oxford Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, said: “It is a good day for respect for European court judgments and international law. This decision also shows just how important international institutions – such as the European court – are for helping to improve the lives of people everywhere.”In a statement, the Swiss federal government said the “competent authorities” would analyse the decision and determine what further information they would submit, adding: “The aim is to demonstrate that Switzerland is complying with the climate policy requirements of the ruling.”

Climate
Government
Health

Nigerian king faces Shell in London high court over decades of oil spills

King Okpabi, ruler of Ogale, says Shell has caused chronic pollution, while oil firm argues it is not responsible His Royal Highness King Godwin Bebe Okpabi has carried bottles of water drawn from the wells of his homeland in the Niger delta to the high court in London.It stinks. “This is the water that Shell has left for my people,” said the ruler of the Ogale community in Ogoniland, Nigeria. “This is poison, and they are spending millions of dollars to pay the best lawyers in the world so that they will not clean my land.” Continue reading...

His Royal Highness King Godwin Bebe Okpabi has carried bottles of water drawn from the wells of his homeland in the Niger delta to the high court in London.It stinks. “This is the water that Shell has left for my people,” said the ruler of the Ogale community in Ogoniland, Nigeria. “This is poison, and they are spending millions of dollars to pay the best lawyers in the world so that they will not clean my land.”For the past three and a half weeks, lawyers for Shell have argued at the high court that their client cannot be held responsible for an environmental catastrophe in Ogale, which has suffered from decades of spills and pollution from oil extraction.King Okpabi said ‘people’s way of life has been destroyed’. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The GuardianFor most of that time, Okpabi was there too, watching proceedings in court 63, a nondescript room lined with empty bookcases. Between hearings, he met journalists and activists to spread word of the health crisis his people face.“A people have been completely destroyed: people’s way of life destroyed; people’s only drinking water, which is the underground water aquifer, has been poisoned; people’s farmland has been completely poisoned; people’s streams that they use [for] their normal livelihood have been completely destroyed,” he said.When oil first flowed from the wells in Ogoniland in 1956, before Okpabi was born, it was a lush landscape of mangrove forests. Its sparkling watercourses were populated by fishes, crabs, oysters and other creatures. The land’s people were primarily fishers and farmers.Five and a half decades later, scientists from the UN Environment Programme visited the region to investigate the industry’s effects. They found extensive soil and groundwater contamination, mangrove roots choked with bitumen-like substances, surface water in creeks and streams covered in thick layers of oil. The fish had fled or died and farmers struggled to grow crops in fields soaked with oil.A sign at a creek in Ogale, in Ogoniland in the Niger delta, warns people not to use the water. Photograph: Leigh DayOf all the areas tested, Nisisioken Ogale, Okpabi’s domain, was “of most immediate concern”. People there were drinking from wells contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen, at levels more than 900 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline. Follow-up testing carried out in the same area last year found levels that were even higher – 2,600 times the WHO guideline.The effects of this contamination have been tragic, says Okpabi. “There is a lot of cancer: young girls of 20 to 30 years old, 40 years old, developing breast cancer and other forms of cancer; a lot of strange skin diseases that we don’t know the cause of; low life expectancy, people just drying up and dying. Even eye diseases. In some cases birth defects … Strange diseases everywhere in our lives.”The trial centres on claims by Oganiland’s Ogale and Bille communities that the enduring effects of hundreds of leaks and spills from Shell’s pipelines and infrastructure have breached their right to a clean and healthy environment.The three and a half weeks of hearings, which ended on Friday, were a “preliminary issues trial”, heard by Mrs Justice Juliet May, to determine the scope of the legal issues to be decided at the case’s full trial, set for late 2026. Although the case is being heard by a British judge in a UK court, it will apply Nigerian law, and so May heard from a range of senior Nigerian lawyers about what the law is and how it should be applied.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionKing Okpabi holds up a bottle of polluted water outside the high court in London. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPAThe claimants, represented by the London law firm Leigh Day, argue that oil pollution by a private company could be legally construed as a violation of a community’s fundamental rights under the Nigerian constitution and African charter. A second key issue was whether Shell could be held responsible for damage to its pipelines due to oil theft, or for the waste produced as a result of illegal refining of spilled or stolen oil – endemic in the Niger delta.Shell argues it cannot be held responsible. The company insists its Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), works closely with the Nigerian government to prevent spills and to respond to them and clean them up when they do occur.A man stands on fishing canoes surrounded by polluted water in the Niger Delta. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP“We strongly believe in the merits of our case. Oil is being stolen on an industrial scale in the Niger delta. This criminality is a major source of pollution and is the cause of the majority of spills in the Bille and Ogale claims,” a spokesperson for the company said.But for Okpabi, the legal technicalities wrangled over in the court have been frustrating, “because as we are sitting here for these three weeks, people are dying at home,” he said.“I’m not a lawyer, but as I sit down in the court and I see all the arguments going on, Shell trying to bring up arguments as if to try to see how they can wheedle their way out [of it], it’s very painful. But I trust the judicial system here.”

Pollution
Water
Crisis

Potassium Mining Project in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest Divides Indigenous Tribe

Beneath Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, one of the planet’s largest potassium reserves is fueling tensions between industrial ambitions and Indigenous rights

LAGO DO SOARES, Brazil (AP) — Indigenous leader Filipe Gabriel Mura stands before Soares Lake in Brazil’s Amazon, looking out at the amber waters that are surrounded by a jagged shoreline that has been home for centuries to Indigenous people known as Mura.“It’s the most beautiful sunset," said Mura. "I doubt there’s another like it in the world.”Mura and others from the tribe fear that the pristine beauty of the place may soon change. Hidden from view dozens of miles below ground, the region holds one of the largest reserves of potash, a mineral that includes potassium, on the planet. Now, Brazil Potash Corp., a Toronto-based mining company listed in the New York Stock Exchange, is set to start tapping the mineral, which is used to make fertilizer and is a key to Brazil's booming agribusiness. As can happen when mammoth projects are planned in Indigenous communities, Brazil Potash's plans are sparking fears of environmental impact and creating divisions. Opponents fear that mining will expose the tribe to harmful pollution and hurt tribal unity, while supoorters think it will raise their standard of living. The project, expected to soon break ground, has an estimated cost of $2.5 billion. It is planned near the mouth of the Madeira River, which flows into the Amazon River. The build-out will include two shafts reaching a depth of 920 meters (3,018 feet) below ground—the equivalent to a 300-story building. One shaft will be to transport workers and the ore they mine while the other will be for ventilation.Above ground, the project includes a processing plant, an area for solid waste storage, a 13-kilometer (8 miles) road and a port connecting to the Madeira River. The estimate production is 9.2 million tons of potash ore annually, which would meet 17% of Brazil's current demand, according to the company. The project received licensing by Amazonas Environmental Protection Institute, a state-level agency. However, it faces lawsuits from the Office of the Attorney General for a lack of proper consultation with the Mura and potential environmental risks, such as soil and water contamination, as the plant will be in a region prone to seasonal flooding.“We risk losing our culture if the state denies our existence and that of our ancestors to pave the way for mining. I am honored to represent a people determined not to be erased,” said Mura, the tribal leader. Key Mura villages don't have government recognition In colonial times, the Mura were nearly driven to extinction while resisting non-Indigenous settlers. Today, the population is about 13,000 spread across this stretch of the Madeira River, a maze of smaller rivers, lakes and headwaters. Soares, a small village, is the closest to the planned mining site while nearby Urucurituba, another small village, is where the port will be built. Neither village has been officially recognized as an Indigenous territory, despite a formal request by the tribe in 2003. Historical records show the tribe has inhabited the area for at least 200 years. Brazilian law prohibits mining on Indigenous land.In a statement to The Associated Press, Brazil's Indigenous bureau, known as FUNAI, said that the recognition process was underway but couldn't provide more details on when or if the territorial designation may be made. FUNAI added that there was strong evidence that Soares and Urucurituba are Indigenous lands and that the project could bring deforestation, noise and air pollution, changes in aquatic fauna and other environmental impacts.Brazil Potash says it has consulted the Mura people and that the majority support the project. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said 90% of representatives from 34 out of 36 nearby villages voted. However, Brazil’s Attorney General’s Office, which is tasked with defending Indigenous rights, argues the consultation process was flawed. It secured a court order prohibiting company representatives from entering Mura territory. In a statement to the AP, Brazil Potash said it does not comment on ongoing lawsuits and declined to respond to emailed questions. Some Mura see a chance to raise their standard of living Aldinelson Moraes Pavão, 53, a leader of the Mura Indigenous Council who lives near the projected port, says the mining is a way out poverty and a way to preserve their culture.“We’re going to get schools and health grants. Professionals will be hired to work here. We are hopeful,” said Pavão.Another leader, Marcelo Lopes, a father of nine, says that the crops and fishing yields are no longer enough to sustain his Urucurituba village. Life has become more difficult thanks to drought, wildfires and the resulting smoke. “Many times, we’re left begging. It’s humiliating, especially now that we have this treasure," Lopes said. In the lawsuit, the Attorney General's Office says the internal division is one of the project’s first consequences. The suit alleges that the mining company acquired plots in the project area through deception, threats and coercion. It also highlights what it says are flaws in the licensing process. The project has potential risks and government support One environmental risk is the handling of rock salt, a byproduct of the mining called brine. The company says there will be two sites next to brine ponds to collect surface water, and thus contaminated water will be contained. According to the Attorney General, the site will be in a flood-prone area vulnerable to seasonal rising and falling river levels.Geologist Cisnea Basílio says that while the location is attractive because the mining can happen at relatively shallow depths, that comes with inherent risks. She warns that the underground mining carries the potential to crumble the surface, swallowing nearby villages. “Accidents happen even in developed countries," she said. The federal government supports the project as vital for the economy. Brazil is one of world's largest importers of potash. The leading suppliers include Russia, Belarus and Israel, raising concerns that armed conflicts may cut supply or lead prices to skyrocket, which happened after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In the agribusiness sector, Brazil Potash has secured a transportation agreement with giant Amaggi conglomerate, which holds 362,000 hectares (894,000 acres) of productive area, almost five times the size of New York City. The plan is to transport the mineral in large barges through major Amazon Rivers to reach Mato Grosso State, Brazil's largest soybean producer. Internal disagreements have led to alienation Divisions over the project have become so deep that the tribal members are no longer meeting together, or taking collective decisions.On Feb. 19, 34 villages in favor of mining gathered at the Mura Indigenous Council's headquarters in Autazes. Amid cultural celebrations, they delivered hopeful speeches, anticipating prosperity from the mining.The next day, opponents met a few kilometers (miles) away, in Moyray village, and decided to break with the council, which was created over 30 years ago to represent the tribe. Instead, they created the Indigenous Organization for Mura Resistance of Autazes. “I feel sad," Vavá Izague dos Santos, 48, a member of the new organization, said of the internal division. "We always walked together, stood together in the Indigenous struggle." Associated Press reporter Fabiano Maisonnave contributed from Brasilia.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.orgCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Forests
Indigenous
Climate

Climate Change Made South Sudan Heat Wave More Likely, Study Finds

Years of war and food insecurity in the region made the extreme heat especially dangerous.

After a blistering February heat wave in South Sudan’s capital city caused dozens of students to collapse from heat stroke, officials closed schools for two weeks. It was the second time in less than a year that the country’s schools closed to protect young people from the deadly effects of extreme heat.Climate change, largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels in rich nations, made at least one week of that heat wave 10 times as likely, and 2 degrees Celsius hotter, according to a new study by World Weather Attribution. Temperatures in some parts of the region soared above 42 degrees Celsius, or 107 degrees Fahrenheit, in the last week of February.The analysis used weather data, observations and climate models to get the results, which have not been peer reviewed but are based on standardized methods.South Sudan, in the tropical band of East Africa, was torn apart by a civil war that led to independence from Sudan in 2011. It’s also one of the countries least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that are heating up the globe. “The continent has contributed a tiny fraction of global emissions, but is bearing the brunt of climate change,” said Joyce Kimutai, a researcher at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.Heat waves are one of the deadliest extreme weather events and have become more frequent and more severe on a warming planet. But analysis methods connecting heat to mortality vary between and within countries, and death tolls can be underreported and are often unknown for months after an event.Prolonged heat is particularly dangerous for children, older adults and pregnant women. For the last three weeks, extreme heat has settled over a large region of continental Eastern Africa, including parts of Kenya and Uganda. Residents have been told to stay indoors and drink water, a difficult directive for countries where many people work outdoors, electricity is sporadic, access to clean water is difficult and modest housing means there are few cooling systems.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Climate
Water

Blackbird deaths point to looming West Nile virus threat in the UK

Mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus could become a growing concern in the UK and other northern European nations as the climate warms, with a virus affecting blackbirds showing how these pathogens can take hold

Blackbird numbers have fallen in the UK as the Usutu virus has taken holdYtje Veenstra/Shutterstock A deadly virus is killing blackbirds across the UK. Beyond the risk to the birds, its spread indicates that mosquito-borne viruses now pose a growing threat to humans and animals in the country, in part as a result of climate change. The virus in question, Usutu, originated in South Africa in 1959 but is now widespread in Europe. It causes deadly disease in certain bird species, particularly blackbirds, and was first detected in the UK in 2020. In some parts of the country, most notably London, blackbird populations have dropped by more than 40 per cent since 2018. “We first noticed the decline at the same time as Usutu popped up,” says Hugh Hanmer at the British Trust for Ornithology.  Although devastating for bird life, Usutu poses a low risk to humans and mammals. Infections in people are rare and generally only cause a mild fever, but the arrival of the virus in the UK marked the first time a mosquito-borne viral zoonosis – a disease that can be transmitted from an animal to a human – had emerged in animal hosts in the country. Virus experts are keeping a close watch on how far and fast the disease is spreading because it could be a template for the future spread of other mosquito-borne diseases.   For example, the West Nile virus spreads in the same way as Usutu and requires the same environmental conditions. “The same mosquitoes that can transmit Usutu typically can transmit West Nile, and the same birds which act as hosts [for Usutu] can also act as hosts of West Nile,” says Arran Folly at the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA).  Humans can also be infected by West Nile virus from a mosquito bite, but its symptoms can be more severe than those of Usutu. Around 20 per cent of those infected will experience symptoms, which include fever, headache, body aches, vomiting and diarrhoea. In rare cases, the virus can cause serious inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, which can be fatal. There is no known human vaccine. Climate change has helped accelerate the spread of West Nile virus through northern and eastern Europe, research shows, as the virus thrives in warm summer temperatures. In the Netherlands, Usutu was first detected in 2016 and West Nile virus followed in 2020. UK officials fear a similar pattern will play out in their country, with studies demonstrating that the climate there is becoming increasingly hospitable to mosquito-borne viruses. “The idea is that, if we have Usutu here, West Nile is probably going to come at some point and is likely to persist, given the right conditions,” says Folly. In response to the threat, APHA launched a project in 2023 to track the emergence and transmission pathways of Usutu and other mosquito-borne viruses in wild birds. This virus-tracing infrastructure will be vital if the country is to respond quickly to West Nile’s arrival, says Folly. “Our real goal, or drive from a governmental point of view, is to be able to detect these [new viruses] circulating in animal populations before we get transmission to humans.” Reina Sikkema at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam has been studying the emergence of Usutu and West Nile virus in the Netherlands. Although West Nile hasn’t been detected since 2022, she believes the virus is circulating at a low level, kept in check currently by the country’s relatively cool climate. “I believe it is present, but it needs the right circumstances to flare up,” she says. A UK detection of West Nile is now all but inevitable, says Sikkema, but she believes similar climatic factors could prevent the virus spreading too widely for now. But rising summer temperatures, including the increasing frequency of tropical nights – which the UK’s Met Office weather agency defines as when minimum temperatures fail to fall below 20°C – could change the picture in the UK, the Netherlands and other northern European nations in coming years, warns Sikkema. “Mosquito-borne disease is not [just] on your Spanish holiday or when you go to the South Americas,” says Folly. As well as the potential risk of West Nile virus to people, Folly says we shouldn’t forget what Usutu is doing to the UK’s blackbirds: “If 40 per cent of humans dropped dead in Greater London, you’d know about it quite quickly.”

Climate
Animals
Health

How a Trump effort to cut environmental red tape could backfire

The White House is revoking its own authority to oversee implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act — and leaving a bureaucratic mess in its wake.

For roughly half a century, a little-known body called the White House Council on Environmental Quality has been in charge of overseeing implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, a 1970 statute widely considered the “Magna Carta” of environmental law. Congress passed the law at a time when Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River was on fire and yellow smog blanketed American cities. In an attempt to prevent such calamities, NEPA requires that any big infrastructure project funded or authorized by the federal government must account for its environmental impacts before it’s permitted to go forward. Now, when cities and states build federally funded roads, a developer erects an offshore wind farm, or an oil company builds a new refining unit on the Gulf Coast, NEPA applies. This sweeping requirement created a need for coordination within the government. Given the number of federal agencies involved and the potential for larger projects to require authorization from multiple departments — a pipeline, for example, might require sign-off from the Department of Transportation, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency — Congress created the Council on Environmental Quality, or CEQ, and housed it within the White House in part to oversee NEPA implementation across the federal government. Since then, CEQ has been a central clearinghouse for interpreting the landmark law. In the years after its creation, the council issued rules that set forth requirements for public comment, defined key terminology, and laid out when projects required extensive analysis. The rules ensured uniformity in how agencies applied the law, and they were left largely untouched for roughly five decades.  Last month, the Trump administration unraveled those rules, and with them the council’s central role in implementing NEPA. By issuing a new interim rule, the White House is proposing to rescind CEQ’s guidance and instruct federal agencies to develop their own individual guidelines. The White House’s rule is expected to be finalized in the coming months, at which point every agency, from the Bureau of Land Management to the U.S. Forest Service, will be expected to develop its own standards and processes for determining whether a project complies with NEPA requirements, a process that could take years. Their interpretations could also be challenged in court, creating further uncertainty about what standards now apply for getting nearly any infrastructure project approved by the feds. In an echo of the Trump administration’s refrain that extraordinary measures are required to curb government inefficiency, the unraveling of CEQ is intended to “expedite and simplify the permitting process” for important projects, according to Trump’s executive order. But experts who spoke to Grist anticipate that it will have the opposite effect.  “It’s chaos,” said Deborah Sivas, director of the environmental law clinic at Stanford University. “No business would run this way. If you’re a developer, you’re like, ‘What the heck? What even applies? How do I go about doing this right?’” Complying with NEPA involves preparing lengthy environmental assessments, a process that is time-consuming and resource-intensive. The average time to complete the NEPA process is three years, and the average Environmental Impact Statement, one type of assessment reserved for larger projects, is more than 1,200 pages long. As a result, reforming NEPA has become a priority for prominent lawmakers in both parties. (Many Democrats in particular worry that the process hampers efforts to build renewable energy infrastructure.) But simply throwing out a longstanding, centralized playbook for agencies to follow will create uncertainty and slow the process down, at least in the short term, according to Justin Pidot, a law professor at the University of Arizona who was the general counsel at CEQ during the Biden administration.  “It’s a huge mistake,” said Pidot. “It’s going to be very resource-intensive for them to do all these new procedures, and there’s going to be more uncertainty, and the permitting process is going to be harder and more complex. And all that is going to be happening at a time when there are fewer federal employees with less expertise.” CEQ’s authority was largely unquestioned over its 50-year lifespan, but two court cases in the last year seemed to indicate a change in opinion among some legal scholars. In November, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case deciding whether federal agencies had adequately considered environmental impacts when developing plans to regulate tourist flights over national parks. In their ruling, the judges suggested that CEQ did not have the authority to issue binding regulations in its implementation of NEPA. Then, in February, a district court in North Dakota came to a similar conclusion. Since CEQ is an office within the White House and not an agency created by Congress, the court ruled that CEQ did not have the authority to issue binding regulations.  “The two cases definitely started going down that pathway of questioning or calling out what authority CEQ actually had,” said Jennifer Jeffers, senior counsel at the law firm Allen Matkins. “I don’t think that many people had foreseen this because it had been a longstanding practice and had not been a source of contention until quite recently.” Still, the most significant blow to the office’s authority came only with Trump’s executive order. While it’s unclear how quickly agencies will produce their own NEPA-related rules and what it will mean for project developers, Jeffers said she expects the current requirements will continue to apply for projects in the pipeline as long as they are not inconsistent with the executive order. The irony is that even Trump’s favored constituencies, like the fossil fuel developers he says will restore U.S. “energy dominance,” are left to wonder what new rules they’ll be forced to navigate when seeking federal permits in the future. “It is not a good way for this administration to accomplish what this administration wants to accomplish,” said Pidot. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How a Trump effort to cut environmental red tape could backfire on Mar 7, 2025.

Business
Energy
Forests

Study tells California legislators to declare war on red tape — but will they?

California needs to "facilitate new construction at an unprecedented scale" to solve housing, water and climate issues, a legislative report says.

Construction of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and its more famous cousin, the Golden Gate Bridge, began in 1933, and both were carrying traffic by 1937. The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake severely damaged the Bay Bridge, leading to a decision to replace its eastern section rather than merely repair or refit it. However state and local politicians argued for more than a decade over design of the new section and how to pay for it. Construction finally began in 2002 and was finished 11 years later — nearly four times as long as the entire bridge took — at a cost of $6.5 billion, the costliest public works project in California history. The Bay Bridge saga exemplifies how California, which once taught the world how to build things, lost its mojo by erecting so many political, legal and financial hurdles to getting things done. Sixty-plus years ago, the state’s water managers proposed a canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to complete the state project that carries water from the northern part of the state to the southern. As the years rolled by, the project languished. Eventually it was revised to twin tunnels and more recently to a single tunnel, but construction, if it ever occurs, is still many years away. Lesser projects suffer from the same political and procedural sclerosis. It can take years, or even decades, for large-scale housing projects, electric generation facilities and desalination plants to traverse the thickets of permits from federal, state and local agencies. Even small housing projects are subject to lengthy entanglements in red tape as costs escalate. A newly released report from a special legislative committee declares that to deal with housing, homelessness, water supply and climate change issues, California “will need to facilitate new construction at an unprecedented scale. “This includes millions of housing units, thousands of gigawatts of clean energy generation, storage, and transmission capacity, a million electric vehicle chargers and thousands of miles of transit, and thousands of climate resiliency projects to address drought, flooding and sea level rise, and changing habitats.” However, it continues, “each of these projects will require a government-issued permit before they can be built — and some will require dozens! Therefore, only if governments consistently issue permits in a manner that is timely, transparent, consistent, and outcomes-oriented will we be able to address our housing and climate crises. Unfortunately, for most projects, the opposite is true. They face permitting processes that are time consuming, opaque, confusing, and favor process over outcomes.” Read Next Housing Should builders permit their own projects? Post-fire LA considers a radical idea by Ben Christopher The Legislature itself erected many of these procedural barriers — most notably by passing the California Environmental Quality Act more than a half-century ago — and the Legislature is controlled by regulation-prone Democrats, so it’s remarkable that such a report would be issued. The California Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform spent months talking to those who have been affected by California’s permit-happy system, as well as experts on specific kinds of projects, before reaching a conclusion that sounds like it came from conservative Republicans. “It is too damn hard to build anything in California,” Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who chaired the committee, said in a statement. “Our broken permitting system is driving up the cost of housing, the cost of energy, and even the cost of inaction on climate change. “If we’re serious about making California more affordable, sustainable, and resilient, we have to make it easier to build housing, clean energy, public transportation, and climate adaptation projects. This report makes it clear: the system isn’t working, and it’s on us to fix it.” Yes it is — and we’ll see whether the report has legs or winds up in the discard bin like so many other governance reform proposals. Read More Environment California lawmakers want to cut red tape to ramp up clean energy but rural communities push back December 13, 2024December 16, 2024 Housing ‘Too damn hard to build’:  A key California Democrat’s push for speedier construction March 4, 2025March 6, 2025

Climate
Water
Government

Analysis-Germany's Climate Activists on Edge as Parties Shape Coalition Agenda

By Riham AlkousaaBERLIN (Reuters) - Climate activists fear the worst when Germany's conservatives and Social Democrats begin to thrash out a joint...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Climate activists fear the worst when Germany's conservatives and Social Democrats begin to thrash out a joint climate policy for their future coalition government. A country once seen as a beacon of progressive climate policy is poised for a significant reset, with the conservatives - having in part blamed Germany's ambitious green goals for chronic economic weakness - keen to roll back targets and policies amid rising voter apathy on climate.As Europe's largest emitter of CO2 but also Europe's biggest generator of renewable energy, Germany's future stance on climate issues will be even more critical after the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and with the European Union under pressure from some members to ease regulations and goals."If there was ever a time to panic about climate and politics, now would be it," Luisa Neubauer, a prominent German climate activist with Fridays for Future, told Reuters.Since winning February's election, the CDU has affirmed its commitment to Germany's overarching 2045 target of being climate neutral but emphasizes a "pragmatic approach that supports the economy, industry, and public acceptance", according to Andreas Jung, the conservatives' climate policy spokesperson.The party wants to abolish a future ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, end restrictions on the use of cars, reverse a law phasing out fossil fuel heating, and reintroduce diesel subsidies in agriculture. How strongly the SPD will defend its green election pledges - to stick to national and EU targets, invest in green infrastructure and renewables, and focus on affordable climate protection - in coalition talks is key, climate activists say. Nina Scheer, an SPD climate spokeswoman, told Reuters it would be important to develop a common understanding with the conservatives on an accelerated and systematic transition to renewable energies. But that could be tricky. The SPD has been significantly weakened and came in third place in the election, with just 16.4% of the vote, its worst ever result."The SPD is not a traditional climate policy party like the Greens, so we shouldn’t expect them to push this issue as strongly," said Stefan Marschall, political scientist at the University of Duesseldorf.Greenhouse gas emissions in Germany fell by 12.5% under the three-party "traffic light" coalition of the SPD, Greens, and Free Democrats, thanks to a renewable energy push and a drop in industrial production.But emissions cuts in sectors such as transport and building - 38% of Germany's 2024 total emissions- have stalled.Expanding net-zero policies to these sectors has faced growing resistance in Germany and Europe, amid a cost-of-living crisis that has shifted climate protection lower on German voters' priorities in the February election.Only 12.8% of Germans saw climate protection as the most important issue in this election, down from 24.4% in 2021, a study by IW Koeln economic institute showed.Environmental and expert groups say Germany is not expected to meet the 2045 target as things stand. The Green Party, heading for opposition, still wields some influence, after threatening to tie its support for a new conservative-SPD financial package to the inclusion of some climate investment commitments within that plan.    Germany cannot unilaterally reverse EU laws, but its influence is strong. The center-right European People's Party (EPP), the largest group at the European parliament and which includes Germany's conservatives, launched a campaign in December to weaken the bloc's climate rules.At a recent EPP retreat in Berlin, conservative leader and Germany's likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a declaration calling on the EU to abandon its renewable energy goals, a step backed by industry."If Germany is not standing by the Green Deal, the Green Deal is gone," said German Green MEP Michael Bloss, referring to the EU's target. The conservatives' climate policy relies heavily on CO2 pricing as a mechanism to cut emissions and fund investment."We are focusing on three pillars: gradual CO2 pricing with social compensation, reliable subsidies, and a strategy of enabling rather than excessive regulation," CDU's Jung said. The European emissions trading system (ETS), extending to the transport and buildings sectors from 2027, is expected to increase prices and make heating or powering vehicles with fossil fuels less appealing. But if prices rise too much that creates a crisis of affordability.Germany must annually invest about 3% of its GDP in climate protection measures like power grid upgrades, industry electrification and public transport expansion, to meet its 2045 climate neutrality goal, says Berlin-based think tank Agora.The conservatives and SPD this week agreed to create a 500 billion euro infrastructure fund and overhaul borrowing rules but dedicated climate investments are not included in the fund. The conservatives have also promised sweeping tax cuts that would deprive state coffers of almost 100 billion euros of annual revenue, according to the Ifo economic institute. "The biggest gap in the conservatives’ current program is the lack of a clear strategy to make climate transition fair or affordable for the poorer half of the population," said Christoph Bals, political director at research group Germanwatch.The chance of sluggish climate action under a future conservative-led government is likely to spark more legal battles and direct action activism, which surged in Germany, despite the greener SPD-led government.Roadblocks, airport protests, and demonstrations at oil installations captured national attention and triggered a government crackdown and there are already three climate-related constitutional complaints pending before Germany's top court."It's our job to keep this issue alive. The next few years will be challenging, not just for us but also for the CDU (conservatives)," Lena Donat, Greenpeace mobility expert, said. (Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Activism
Climate
Crisis

Guanacaste Housing Crisis Deepens Amid Costa Rica’s Luxury Boom

Guanacaste continues to solidify its reputation as one of Costa Rica’s most dynamic real estate hubs, with construction activity showing steady growth in 2024, according to the latest data from the Association of Engineers and Architects (CFIA). The province recorded a 3.2% increase in construction compared to the previous year, driven largely by urban infrastructure […] The post Guanacaste Housing Crisis Deepens Amid Costa Rica’s Luxury Boom appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

Guanacaste continues to solidify its reputation as one of Costa Rica’s most dynamic real estate hubs, with construction activity showing steady growth in 2024, according to the latest data from the Association of Engineers and Architects (CFIA). The province recorded a 3.2% increase in construction compared to the previous year, driven largely by urban infrastructure and housing projects. Yet, as development accelerates, outdated regulatory plans, environmental degradation, and a widening housing gap threaten the region’s sustainability. The CFIA reports that urban infrastructure led the construction surge in 2024, comprising 44% of the total square meters built. Housing projects followed closely at 35%, with coastal areas like Nosara, Tamarindo, and Sámara seeing a proliferation of residential condominiums catering to tourists and foreign investors. Commercial developments, while growing steadily, accounted for just 9% of the built-up area, with industrial projects at 5% and miscellaneous construction at 7%. Notably, 79% of these efforts involve new developments, compared to 14% for remodeling, highlighting Guanacaste’s rapid expansion and high demand. In key areas like Nicoya, Liberia, and Santa Cruz, real estate development is advancing at a brisk pace. However, the Association of Topographical Engineers warns that outdated urban planning regulations are stifling sustainable growth. Nicoya’s regulatory plan, unchanged for 42 years, is the oldest in the province, followed by Santa Cruz’s 31-year-old framework and Liberia’s 19-year-old guidelines—among the most antiquated in Costa Rica. These plans, meant to govern land use, protect water resources, and mitigate risks like flooding and sewer failures, are ill-equipped for the region’s modern demands. Nicoya’s municipality is tackling this issue head-on, drafting a new regulatory plan that will extend construction guidelines to coastal hotspots like Nosara and Sámara. Currently in the study phase, the project—backed by local authorities and urban planning experts—aims to address unchecked growth and environmental strain. However, completion is projected to take four years, leaving a window for unregulated development to persist. “We’re racing against time,” said Josué Ruiz, head of Nicoya’s Public Works and Construction Control Department, in a recent interview with Voz de Guanacaste. “The longer we delay, the harder it becomes to balance progress with preservation.” The stakes are high. Guanacaste’s luxury real estate boom, fueled by a 400% surge in coastal property prices between 2020 and 2023 (per the Observatory of Tourism, Migrations, and Sustainable Development), has transformed the province into a magnet for wealthy expatriates and retirees. High-end developments—such as the Waldorf Astoria and Ritz-Carlton projects slated for 2025—dominate the market, yet affordable housing remains elusive. A 2023 study by the CFIA and the University of Costa Rica found that while 26% of homes built in Guanacaste over the past decade exceed 150 square meters, the province faces a qualitative housing deficit of over 750,000 units, leaving most locals priced out. This disparity is driving displacement. In districts like Cuajiniquil, vacancy rates have soared from 32.1% in 2011 to 66.4% in 2022, as homes sit empty for seasonal use by tourists rather than serving residents, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC). “Housing has become a privilege, not a right,” said Franklin Solano, an urban planning researcher at UCR, in a Voz de Guanacaste report. “The boom satisfies economic needs for some, but the social impacts are mounting.” Environmental concerns compound the crisis. Deforestation, loss of green spaces, and damage to protected areas are escalating as construction outpaces oversight. We reported in March 2024 that unchecked development in Guanacaste’s coastal zones has led to aquifer salinization and biodiversity loss, echoing local protests against mega-projects documented in a 2024 ResearchGate study. In Nosara, for instance, luxury developments have sparked outrage over water access, with communities reliant on overexploited wells. Meanwhile, the CFIA notes that only nine of Guanacaste’s 11 municipalities use its online permitting platform, leaving gaps in enforcement—Santa Cruz and La Cruz lag behind due to inadequate technology and training. Despite these challenges, optimism persists. The Latinvestor forecasted in January 2024 that infrastructure upgrades—like the expansion of Liberia’s Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport—could bolster Guanacaste’s appeal, potentially stabilizing the market. Legislative efforts, such as the Water for Guanacaste Law signed in 2022, aim to address resource scarcity, though implementation remains slow. Nicoya’s forthcoming regulatory plan, expected by 2029, promises stricter environmental and zoning controls, but experts warn that bureaucratic delays could undermine its impact. For now, Guanacaste stands at a crossroads. As construction topped 2 million square meters in 2024—a milestone hailed by Revista Viajes—the province’s leaders face a stark choice: harness this growth for equitable, sustainable development or risk a future defined by inequality and ecological collapse The post Guanacaste Housing Crisis Deepens Amid Costa Rica’s Luxury Boom appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

Crisis
Forests
Sustainable

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