How Exxon is using international law to sue the Dutch government
Exxon owes the people of Groningen millions in compensation for damage caused by gas extraction. Thanks to a legal instrument, it could be the residents of the province that end up compensating the fossil fuel giant.
“Shocking and sad”: how corporations use investment agreements to block decarbonisation in the Global South
Camille Corcoran talks to experts about investor-state dispute settlements, which allow fossil fuel companies to bring multi-billion dollar lawsuits against countries that pass green policies.
Why was organic policy blamed for Sri Lanka’s financial crisis?
Academic research offers a different story from news media on Sri Lanka's short-lived ban on agrochemicals. Bertie Harrison-Broninski explores what really happened, and whether there's a future for national-scale organic policy.
Is corruption and slavery the cost of a mobile phone?
Guinean bauxite is the source of aluminium in everything from our office buildings to our cars - but the bauxite supply chain is a black box of human rights issues.
The Emperor’s new carbon credits? Silicon Valley’s non-existent offsets
Experts expect more than half of the voluntary carbon market to be carbon removals by 2030. The sales are happening already - but the removals are not.
Ted Theisinger wades into two big new contributions to ‘river thought’. From the late, great James C. Scott and Colorado’s Ellen Wohl.
Opinion
Nuclear fusion will change the world – but not in time for net zero
BY
Matthew Hole
Private companies are overpromising with fusion power – it is vital that public funding survives the inevitable bankruptcies that follow, says Professor Matthew Hole.
Opinion
The cryosphere is nearing irreversible tipping points – and the world is not prepared
BY
Letizia Tedesco, Josephine Z. Rapp and Petra Heil
Time is rapidly running out to prevent catastrophic climate impacts to the Earth’s polar ice sheets, glaciers and permafrost - decision-makers at COP30 must act now, say leading polar scientists.
Opinion
I helped convict my mother’s killers, but I know courts will not bring justice
BY
Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres
Female, Indigenous, and environmental activists are ruthlessly targeted in Honduras, warns Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres.
Opinion
Climate diplomacy must shift focus from markets to land rights
BY
Frederike Klümper and Joanna Trimble
Land tenure is key to climate goals, but carbon markets have had harrowing impacts on local communities. A new agenda on adaptation must succeed where decarbonisation has failed, say Frederike Klümper and Joanna Trimble.
Opinion
Effective climate policy targets economics, not emissions
BY
Jessica F. Green
Current Net Zero policies are unpopular and ineffective - it is time to dethrone fossil capital and forget emissions trading, says Jessica F. Green.
Opinion
Climate donors must address the gender funding gap
BY
Namnyak Sinandei Makko and Omaira Bolaños
Women are neglected by climate funding, despite their pivotal role in Indigenous land management and climate resilience, say Namnyak Sinandei Makko and Omaira Bolaños.
Opinion
The Global Plastics Treaty must include production reduction
BY
Punyathorn Jeungsmarn
After three years of negotiations, delegates must not compromise on their principles at the UN's final session to decide international legally binding rules on plastic pollution, says Punyathorn Jeungsmarn.
Opinion
Trump will leave climate science in smoking ruins – and the economy will suffer for it
BY
John Holdren
Donald Trump is dismantling all sources of independent opinion in the United States to increase the power of the presidency, says John Holdren, former Presidential Science Advisor to Barack Obama.
Opinion
How a few giant companies came to dominate global food
BY
Jennifer Clapp
How do agricultural monopolies create higher food prices? Is market concentration at breaking point for seeds, agrichemicals and farm tech? Jennifer Clapp explains.
Opinion
Ecocide in Ukraine, and the meanings of bread
BY
Darya Tysmbalyuk
Darya Tsymbaluk explores how Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s land and agriculture also target the nation’s cultural identity.
Opinion
Après moi, le deluge: how a fight over garbage challenged China’s growth model
BY
Ma Tianjie
Ma Tianjie explores how public resistance challenged waste management policies in China as overconsumption pushed pollution to the margins.
Opinion
Privatising space will make emissions soar
BY
D. Raghunandan
Space travel comes with atmospheric risks – and if corporations take over the world beyond our orbit, who will regulate extraterrestrial waste and mining?
Opinion
Courts must not depoliticise climate protest
BY
Oscar Berglund
The criminalisation and repression of protest serves as a substitute for taking adequate climate action, says Dr Berglund of University of Bristol.
Opinion
A Sri Lankan village was offered help from the UN’s Green Climate Fund – now they feel misled
BY
Nethmi Bathige
New research looked at an adaptation project funded by the World Bank & UNFCCC-run Green Climate Fund. Instead of helping farmers, it helped their corporate partners.
Opinion
The Cargill Playbook: how corn subsidies created America’s largest private company
BY
Austin Frerick
Austin Frerick describes how US farming policy created a grain monopoly, in an extract from his acclaimed 2024 book 'Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry'.
Opinion
Europe must act urgently to protect its natural ecosystems
BY
Faustine Bas-Defossez
Biodiversity is under threat. The EU Nature Restoration law is crucial to protecting it, says Faustine Bas-Defossez.
Opinion
Is climate denial over? Not until behaviours change
BY
Tad DeLay
Society may recognise that climate change exists, but we are still dishonest about solutions. An economic reckoning is due, says Tad DeLay.
Opinion
Farmers’ protests are about more than green policies
BY
Thin Lei Win
Europe has lost 800 farmers a day since 2010 – the sector has real issues that need fixing. Backtracking on climate will only appease lobbyists, not protesters, says Thin Lei Win.
Opinion
Rejecting the EU’s due diligence law is a colossal mistake
BY
Steve Trent
Will this week mark the end for the EU's corporate responsibility bill? That would be a shameful legacy for Germany's FDP, says Environmental Justice Foundation CEO Steve Trent
Opinion
Without reform, the EU’s CBAM risks leaving developing countries behind
BY
Hugo Harvey
Not all countries stand to benefit from the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, says Hugo Harvey
Opinion
Forests of gold: carbon credits could be game-changing for Vietnam
BY
Quan-Hoang Vuong and Minh-Hoang Nguyen
Vietnam’s forests are at risk - carbon offset schemes could be the best chance of saving them, say Dr. Quan-Hoang Vuong and Minh-Hoang Nguyen
Opinion
Europe already has the tools it needs to end forced labour
BY
Steve Trent
The EU successfully regulated illegal fishing with a 'carding' system in 2010. It should take the same approach with the upcoming forced labour law, says the Environmental Justice Foundation's CEO.
Opinion
Texas pollution shows the danger in legal loopholes
BY
Hannah Storey and Alysha Khambay
The human impact of petrochemical plants along the Houston Ship Channel prove that Amnesty's recommendations to the EU are vital, say the authors of a new report.
Opinion
Time for a World Climate Bank
BY
Thomas Marois
The World Bank prioritises private investors over justice and the climate - a new institution is needed, says Professor Thomas Marois
Opinion
Green extractivism mirrors the fossil fuel era, and the Global South suffers
BY
Leandro Vergara-Camus
The geopolitics of mining must change with decarbonisation, or less will improve than many realise, says Dr Leandro Vergara-Camus
Opinion
Car manufacturers must not repeat solar’s mistakes with China
BY
Kendyl Salcito
It is vital that electric vehicles do not become reliant on Uyghur forced labour, says Professor Kendyl Salcito
Opinion
Contradictions abound in the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act
BY
Edward Robinson
Europe's demand for lithium is set to soar to 60 times current levels, with cobalt and graphite 15 times higher. But how will proposals for new EU mining and refining interact with the EU's role as a champion of biodiversity and development?
Opinion
The EU’s due diligence law must protect farmers in the Global South
BY
Catarina Vieira
Ahead of a key vote in European Parliament on 1st June, Solidaridad's Catarina Vieira warns that the law risks cutting smallholder farmers out of European supply chains, forcing them into even less regulated markets.
Opinion
Enhanced weathering will not work without EU research funds
BY
Amann Thorben
Too many uncertainties exist around enhanced weathering for it to be implemented, despite significant potential. The EU must be less frugal with R&D or the private sector will step in and transparency will suffer, says Amann Thorben.
Podcasts
Economics
Why is wellbeing ignored in climate modelling?
Inge Schrijver talks to Alasdair about whether false assumptions around growth underpin climate models.
Alasdair speaks to Jennifer Clapp about her new book “Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters.”
Bertie speaks to Ståle Holgersen about his new book 'Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World' and the relationship between ecological and economic crises.
Alasdair talks to Sir Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at The University of Oxford, about his new book 'Legacy: How to Build the Sustainable Economy'.
Alasdair talks to Professor Jonas Fossli Gjersø about the history of Equinor - previously Statoil - and the way it has shaped Norway's economy, history, and environmental policy.
Alasdair speaks to Kelly Stone, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid, about her time at COP27 and where international diplomacy is taking offset markets and their governance.
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