— Written by Lyle Jarvis

2025: Our Best Year Yet

By many metrics, this was Pique’s best year yet. We worked with and employed 56 people, sponsored seven events, grew our partners, told instrumental stories, and started producing our first feature documentary with climate leaders like Dr. Dana Fisher (check out her TED Talk) and Dr. Katharine Hayhoe.

We put out climate content of all shapes and sizes, telling important stories about cool climate solutions, and sharing reasons for optimism:

• Launched Unf*cking the Planet - Season 2 

• Trailer and teasers for the Moonshot Podcast 

• Posted Season 2’s final episode of Reinventing Tomorrow 

• Began production on Saving Ourselves in Altadena and Washington, DC

We’re also proud to have published an incredible Climate Creators to Watch List this year, putting the spotlight on some hugely talented creators helping change the narrative on climate action.

We helped bring the climate community closer than ever by sponsoring some awesome events (across 34 days), and showing up as a team at: 

• Hollywood Climate Summit

• Climate Film Festival

• Panel at Los Angeles Climate Week + Official Media Sponsor

• Carbonauts + Pique Mrs. Robinson Screening

• Harvard / CCTWL

• True/False sponsorship

• Film2Future

We garnered some remarkably flattering reactions to our work…

“These are so good! I literally started getting a tear in my eye because they are so powerful — and they hit all the right notes.” - Climate fund

“ Hi team, Thank you so much for the incredible video. It is a work of art”. Department of Energy

"It was an absolute hit. It was incredibly well received. Everybody in the room loved it." - Climate philanthropy 

And along the way, we picked up some new hardware for the Pique trophy case:

• Telly Award - Audience Award GOLD 2025

• Telly Award - Silver Award - Branded Series 2025

• Webby Award 2025

• Shorty Award - Finalist - Branded Series 2025

The Elephant in the Room

It’s impossible to summarize 2025 without acknowledging the broader political and cultural landscape. The Trump Administration has reshaped our institutions, our public policies (specifically to climate policy and the I.R.A.), and our national discourse – especially around climate. Climate change and ESG not only became dirty words, they were effectively run out of town.

We witnessed first hand the corporate pull-back from climate communications, the evolution of sustainability framing, the dissolution of the EPA and much of the DOE. Many of the organizations we relied on as partners, clients, and allies were forced to scale back or redirect.

And yet, we emerged as a storytelling force. 

Pique-ing around the corner into 2026, we have a great deal to look forward to and to do. Supporting science, truth, and climate communications are absolutely critical, and next year, we will double our efforts to share stories to compel, inform, and inspire. We have some very exciting announcements in early 2026, so stay tuned!

2025 Was Far From Perfect, but Progress Prevails

Despite some of the headwinds mentioned above, there were still plenty of reasons to feel optimistic this year. Here are just some of the many wins we’re celebrating:

• Public Lands Were Saved from Sale: In a huge win for conservation, a provision in the disastrous budget bill that would have sold off millions of acres of public land was successfully pulled after massive public mobilization.
  

• States Drove the Clean Energy Transition: When federal efforts stalled, many states charged ahead, passing crucial laws to accelerate clean energy goals and lower energy bills for families. This is critical, as state-level action is a primary way to sustain progress and usher in wins. For instance, Nevada mandated heat mitigation plans for its most populated counties to combat extreme heat, and Ohio repealed harmful coal bailouts.
  

• Global deforestation appears to be in decline: Over the past few decades, the amount of forest lost around the world has been cut by millions of hectares. While it's still off track to meet critical targets, experts say it's trending in the right direction.
  

• Solar Shined Brighter Than Ever: Solar power continued its massive surge. This was supported by the growing excitement around our new tradition, Sun Day!
  

• A.I. further proved itself a climate solution. Mangrove-Planting Drones supercharged restoration across the globe. The new AI-powered platform Climate TRACE, co-founded by Al Gore, started fundamentally changing how we track emissions. Many, many more cool tech-powered solutions are paving the way for climate progress!

Hand Up: A Global Reality Check

Looking into a more broad “state of the union,” it’s time to say the quiet part out loud. The climate movement faced some serious challenges this year. The "Big Ugly Bill" was considered “the most anti-environment bill in American history,” Check out this article for a deeper dive into how the law is impacting states across the country.

Bonus read: Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is one big betrayal of American energy progress (Fortune)

As a result, the U.S. remains the world's largest producer of oil and gas. It also reached record production highs this year. Globally, new reports show that to meet the Paris Agreement goal, climate action needs to accelerate at least twofold, and up to fourfold in many sectors. 

Bonus read: 2025: The year the US gave up on climate, and the world gave up on us (Grist)

It’s becoming clearer than ever that the leader across green innovation and deployment of clean energy technology is China. Despite being the world's largest emitter, they boasted some significant climate strides this year. And while motivation from Chinese Leadership still appears to be economic, we'll take all the wins we can get.

Bonus read: There’s a Race to Power the Future. China is Pulling Away. (New York Times)

Moving into 2026, we’ve got our sights set on some important goals; like the global momentum toward improved climate finance and the $1.3T target, and the rise of A.I 's climate potential.

Newsletter Mailbag: Some Top Stories from the Year

Thank you all for another great year together. Whatever happens in 2026, we’ll be celebrating the wins, learning from the losses, and growing our community in the best ways we know how. Have some climate wins you’re celebrating this holiday season? Reply to this email to tell us about them!

In the meantime, rolling a few re-runs to close us out:  

• Up in the Air: The Future of the E.P.A. ☁️: The EPA is the government agency tasked with protecting our clean air and water. And despite a decades-long track record of protecting us from environmental threats, the EPA faced serious threats of its own this year.
  

• Your Imports Just Got Hotter: The Climate Impact of Tariffs: Tariff turbulence grinds on. And while much of the conversation is around geopolitics and economics, tariff policies can also pose massive impacts for our climate future. Read on to learn more!
  

• Better State than Never: Climate Progress in 2025: The Federal Government has flat out left us out to dry in the climate action department. Luckily, state and local efforts have been working double time to pick up some of the slack left by the feds.
  

• Climate Impacts Aren’t Colorblind: Climate change is hitting Black and Brown communities hardest — not by accident, but by design. In this Juneteenth edition, read on to see how history, policy, and pollution collide.

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Olivier Rouge on Unsplash

Good Gifts Come in Small Packages, but the Best Ones Are Package-Free

The excitement of holiday gifting often comes with an unfortunate side effect: a massive surge in trash. In fact, household waste in the U.S. generally increases 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, roughly one million extra tons.

But the holiday season doesn’t have to be quite so trashy. Here are a few quick ways to cut back on waste:

• Choose digital or experience-based gifts (like concert tickets, online classes, or a gift certificate to a local spa) to avoid any physical waste entirely.
  

• Consider a nature-friendly experience gift, like this “America The Beautiful” National Parks Pass (honored at more than 2,000 parks), or an AllTrails subscription to help your loved ones get outside.
  

• For new purchases, sustainable options, companies like noissue offer eco-friendly, customizable packaging that's compostable or recyclable, so your gifts look great without contributing to the holiday waste pile.
  

• Better yet, ditch wrapping paper altogether! Article: 12 Unexpected Materials You Can Use for Wrapping Paper
  

• If you’re buying new products, try buying locally: Supporting small, local businesses greatly reduces how far those products need to be shipped, which can cut down on emissions.
  

• Sometimes, the most sustainable gift is often one that already exists. Thrifting for gifts is a fantastic way to find unique, high-quality presents while cutting down on production and transportation. Article flashback from last year: I Tried Thrifting All My Christmas Presents This Year — And I Spent Less Than $100 on 18 Gifts

Plants: The gift that keeps on growing. Consider gifting a potted herb, flower or mini succulent garden. Bonus points if it doubles as pollinator-friendly!

A Particular Grinch? Holiday Returns

Beyond just the mountains of bubble wrap, this time of year sees a huge spike in shipping and transportation, making for increased levels of shipping emissions. Oftentimes, the footprint it takes to deliver a gift goes right back to where it came from. Nearly 20% of online purchases this holiday season will be returned, doubling the carbon impact of each of those gifts. 

A 2023 report found that transporting returns generated more than 15 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year in the U.S. alone. That's nearly the equivalent of 3.5 million gas-powered cars in a full year! 

A rule of thumb when it comes to making holiday gifting more sustainable? Please don’t buy something if you’re gonna return it.

The Holidays Have a Shipping Problem

When it comes to holiday fleets, Amazon is, of course, impossible to ignore. More than five years ago, Jeff Bezos rolled out a climate pledge, touted his plans to upgrade his fleet to 100,000 EVs and more. But in September 2024, an investigation revealed Amazon increased its shipping emissions more than 75% between 2019 and 2023, from 3.33 million metric tons of carbon to 5.84 million.

The problem was, those EVs are often just delivering the last leg of a gift's trip, and they come on the heels of plane, cargo, or long-haul truck transit. This is the last-mile delivery; the final, shortest, and often most complex leg of a product's journey, when it moves from a local distribution hub (like a warehouse or sort center) to your doorstep. While it may be the smallest geographical part of the supply chain, it  accounts for up to half of all delivery vehicle carbon emissions.

Climate Solutions Make for Good Cheer

The good news is, we’re making progress in both the public and private sectors. Some of the world’s biggest companies are utilizing high-tech solutions like AI-driven route optimization, which saves fuel by reducing travel distances. In New York City, the DOT aims to shift 25% of last-mile freight deliveries from trucks to small, sustainable methods like cargo bikes by 2040. They're also rolling out programs to offer financial incentives for businesses to switch to EVs, move deliveries to off-peak times, all to reduce congestion, pollution and more. 

Startup Spotlight: Coco Robotics landed $80M to advance A.I powered, sustainable last-mile delivery

Wrapping it All Up

Whether it's workarounds to wrapping paper or avoiding reverse shipping, the cost of our holiday convenience is too high for the planet. The good news is, every decision, from secondhand gifts to advocating for smarter policies like e-bike delivery services, can make a world of difference.

Have an idea to make the holiday season more sustainable? Send it as a reply to this email, we’ll feature as many as we can for Pique readers!

Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Nike, Superdry and Lacoste had ads banned in the UK after "misleading" sustainability claims. (The Guardian)

2. The Department of Energy awarded a combined $800 million across two modular reactor projects (Energy.gov)

3. Texas has become a hub of innovation for creating electricity using geothermal power. Just don't call it renewable. (NYTimes)

Community Announcements 🫂🌱📣

1. Cool Climate Job Alert 🚨🤝
   
   Looking to break into the climate world, and join an awesome team?
   MCJ is hiring a Content Specialist! 
   
   MCJ is an early stage firm investing in the transition of energy and industry, and the impacts of climate change. In this role, you’ll support the creation and distribution of multimedia content across social media, podcasts, newsletters, web and beyond!
   
   If you (or someone you know) might be a good fit, check out this link.
   
   

2. Spotlight: Climate Cabinet: 💡⭐
   
   Have you checked out Climate Cabinet? They're an organization focused on supporting pro-climate candidates in under-the-radar races at the state or city level.
   
   Climate Cabinet uses data science to comb through the more than 500,000 public offices that US citizens have the opportunity to vote on every cycle, identifies candidates who could make a real impact on the climate, and offers them financial and policy support. 

   
   They're also getting some buzz! Check out this article: Inside the climate group working everywhere but DC: ‘You can still have huge wins’ (The Guardian)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Roger Starnes Sr on Unsplash

Rates Are Going Through the Roof 💰

Home insurance rates in the U.S. are rising even faster than inflation. And for years, we've seen the link between rising costs and climate change become more and more clear. The root of the matter remains; according to the IPCC, the U.S. is becoming a more volatile place to live.

At your kitchen table, that starts with higher bills from your insurance provider, but more broadly it's turning a basic homeowner expense into a major crisis. In fact, some estimates suggest they’ve shot up by as much as 70% since 2021. Between higher premiums, more volatile markets, and increased climate damages, one of the biggest assets Americans can own is starting to erode. 

A new report covered by the The New York Times estimates just how badly these premiums are cascading into the broader real estate market. The study, which analyzed tens of millions of housing payments through 2024 to understand where insurance costs have risen most. In the top 10 percent of U.S. ZIP codes most vulnerable to hurricanes and wildfires, home values have dropped by an average of $44,000.

The Insurance Business has a Climate Problem 🌎

For years now, the insurance market has been trying to distance itself from California, leaving policyholders struggling to keep up with rising costs. In 2023, State Farm announced it would stop writing new homeowners insurance policies in California. Last year, it wouldn’t renew 72,000 policies. Other major providers are following closely behind. 

In the wake of the wildfires, State Farm made its case for emergency rate hikes on homeowners, which was granted. And starting in June, they were able to raise rates an average 17% for homeowners, 15% for renters/condos and 38% for rental dwellings. When asked about the 38-page decision, an administrative judge called it a "rescue mission to stabilize State Farm’s financial condition while safeguarding policyholders."

Last month, NYTimes published another piece detailing how California's 2023 plan to stabilize the fire insurance market hasn't gone as planned. Instead, through a series of negotiated loopholes, it's actually incentivized major insurance companies to drop policyholders in high-risk areas before securing rate hikes. Check out the article below.

Further reading: California Promised Insurance Relief, but Delivered Loopholes (NYTimes)

California isn't alone. Florida, Texas and Louisiana are following close behind, largely driven by extreme flooding. In fact, in Florida, the average cost of homeowners insurance this year was more than $5,700. In Midwestern states that are prone to hail, insurance eats up more than a fifth of an average homeowner's total housing payments.

Hiding from the Numbers 🫣 

Since data about climate risks might deter buyers from a particular home, it’d be easier for real estate companies to just squash that data altogether. To do it, they've been pressuring Zillow and other sites to do away with the risk data buyers have come to rely on. Just over a year after adding climate risk scores, Zillow has removed them from more than 1 million listings after real estate agents were complaining about sales. 

Luckily, Zillow scores aren't the only option for buyers to get an idea of a home's climate risks. If you type an address into the search bar on first street.org, it will run the flood, fire, wind, and air quality risk factors. Check it out!

Further reading: Erasing a Home’s Risks on Zillow Doesn’t Make Them Go Away (Bloomberg)

Getting Serious About Solutions 📈

Ultimately, any long-term, sustainable solution to the insurance crisis will depend on reducing the risk. This means we need to seriously boost our climate mitigation efforts, which is well within our reach technologically and economically. Here are a few ways we can do it:

Actions for Leaders

Making Resilient Building Mainstream: Millions of U.S. homes are at a higher risk of disaster because of outdated building codes. States can update building codes to weave climate resilience into infrastructure. We need to make the push for things like stronger structural resistance to extreme weather, mandating energy efficiency through better insulation, heat pump compatibility, and including features for things like flood control.

Public Insurance Options Last-resort programs, like the Fair Access Plan often provide expensive, limited coverage for folks who have been dropped by private insurers. States can help by pushing for lower-cost alternatives for a wider section of the population.

Buyouts: A last resort? For neighborhoods that have become unsafe, states are working to blueprint successful programs around home buyouts as a mitigation strategy. New Jersey boasts the Blue Acres program, a voluntary state-funded buyout program that acquires flood-prone residential properties, then converts the land to act as a natural buffer against floodwaters.

Making polluters pay: There has been a push for big insurers to bring subrogation claims against major polluters to recoup losses from storms strengthened by climate change.

Further reading: State Policy Considerations for Disaster Risk and Resilience (National Conference of State Legislators)

For Homeowners:

Home resilience & fortification: This is about making your home as resistant as possible to climate threats in your area. Homes that meet FEMA's hazard-resistant standards could see declines in average annual damages by up to 48%.

Upgrade Your Roof: Replace an older roof with a new, more durable one using modern, wind and fire-resistant materials. Fortifying your roof to a FORTIFIED standard (like in Louisiana) can reduce claims and may qualify you for significant discounts on your premium.

Create defensible space against wildfire and storms: If you are in a fire-prone region, remove vegetation, combustible ground cover materials, and tree branches within various distances of your structure. If possible, add storm shutters, impact-resistant roofing, or pressure-rated windows and doors to guard against severe weather. Further reading: Fire-resistant plants for home landscaping

Ask for Resilience Discounts: Inquire about specific discounts for home hardening and safety upgrades, as many insurers don't offer these upfront. Many states, including Florida and California, offer incentives or require insurers to provide discounts for specific mitigation measures.

Advocate for Change: Support Stronger Building Codes. Push your state to offer more tax credits, rebates, or grants for undertaking home mitigation measures, particularly for low-income communities.

Just like climate change, the longer political leaders wait to respond to this crisis, the more it will cost us. Even worse, the people who can least afford it will be the most vulnerable. The good news is, it creates an opportunity for states to respond with climate-smart solutions, and serve as powerful examples for the entire country.

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Ding Dong, Coal is Dead: At least in California (Climate Colored Goggles)

2. New England kicks off $450M plan to supercharge heat pump adoption (Canary Media)

3. US drillers cut oil rigs to lowest in four years (Reuters)

4. These microbes could help reduce methane emissions (Washington Post)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Tejj on Unsplash

The Great Dam Debate

Dams have depleted fisheries and degraded river ecosystems on nearly all of our nation's rivers. They've destroyed aquatic habitats, disrupted natural river ecosystems, altered water flow, temperature and quality. They've also driven extinction for several species of fish.

The problem is, dams help us control and store water for when we need it (supply for homes, agriculture, and industry), handle floods and more. Dams are also used to protect against some invasive species, and perhaps most popularly, for power (although of the 90,000+ dams in the US, less than 3% actually produce power).

The Salmon are Back (And It’s Fin-tastic) 🐟

For over 100 years, four massive hydroelectric dams blocked the Klamath River, cutting off salmon from over 400 miles of their spawning grounds. For nearby tribes (Yurok, Karuk, and Klamath Tribes), this wasn't just an infrastructure issue; it was a threat to their culture and identity.

But after decades of tribal activism, the dams finally came down. And the results are already speaking for themselves:

• Immediate Fish Return: By late 2024, sonar detected approximately 7,700 fish passing the former Iron Gate Dam site.

• Cooling Down: Without the reservoirs acting as "heat batteries," the water temperature has dropped, making it safer for fish to migrate.

• Healing the Land: Crews are already revegetating 2,200 acres of former reservoir footprints to stabilize the riverbanks.

A new short film by Oregon Public Broadcasting, First Descent, follows a group of Indigenous youth kayakers paddling the river from source to sea, which hasn’t been possible for over a century.

🍿 Watch the full short film here: First Descent: Kayaking the Klamath

The Power Play 🔋 

From the power perspective, the idea that we have to choose between dams or no power is simply not true. We have many technical ways to capture the energy from moving water, or to provide the same reliable service to the power grid, all without destroying the ecosystem the way dams like the Klamath did.  Also, the cost of firming renewables with batteries has dropped to the point where it competes directly with the marginal cost of keeping aging hydro online.

In fact, a mix of solar power and 4-hour battery storage ($38-$78/MWh) is now cost-competitive with, and often less expensive than, keeping old hydro plants running or building new ones. When you consider the costs of wrecking a valuable ecosystem, it’s a no-brainer.

The Third Option: Fish-Safe Hydro 💡

If we can't remove a dam because we need the power or the water, we can at least stop it from blending the fish. If you’ve been reading along for a while now, you might remember our coverage of Natel Energy. 

Natel is pioneering a third option: retrofitting dams rather than removing them. With their novel turbine technology, they’re restoring California rivers and helping build a more sustainable future.

• How it works: They designed the "Restoration Hydro Turbine" (RHT) with thick, slanted blades that allow fish to pass through safely, rather than sharp blades that slice.

• Where is it? Their Monroe Drop project in Oregon is actively generating power inside an irrigation canal while letting rainbow trout pass through with 100% survival rates in testing.

• The Potential: By swapping out old turbines for these "FishSafe" ones, we could potentially keep the clean energy and save the salmon at large dam sites where removal isn't an option.

Besides retrofitting old larger dams, Natel is also pioneering restoration hydro approaches that combine large-scale dam removal and replacement with a series of smaller fish safe turbines that more closely mimic beaver dams.

Check out the Natel Energy episode of our NextNow series here!

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Philanthropies pledged $300m for solutions at COP (UN)

2. How urban farms can make cities more livable and help feed America (Grist)

3. One of America’s most dangerous volcanoes will soon power homes (WSJ)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Matthew TenBruggencate on Unsplash

Decoding The COP Jargon 🗣️

COP is officially in full swing. And with abstract negotiations and political drama brewing in the background, it can be hard to get to the heart of the matter, and understand what to hope for as the week goes on. Here’s our breakdown of a few core objectives shaping the conference:

When you read about: "Countries must submit new 2035 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)"
It really means: NDCs are essentially climate plans and pledges for countries to ditch fossil fuels, helping shape global progress on the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals. Countries across the globe were supposed to submit pledges to align with the crucial 1.5°C limit, but most are nowhere near the mark.

Bonus read: UN sees emissions falling 10% by 2035, far short of 60% goal (Bloomberg)

The good news is, NDCs are in the spotlight this year, and honing them can create a positive ripple all the way to your kitchen table. A strong pledge means investing in insulation, modernizing the grid, and building clean energy, all of which can double as an "inflation shield" and lower household costs for good.

When you read about: "A new global climate finance goal (NCQG) of trillions of dollars."
It really means: The "new collective quantified goal" or "NCQG," is a call for boosting climate finance across the globe. This isn't an "aid" handout, it's about global fairness, and wealthy, polluting nations bucking up to invest their fair share. Developed nations had previously committed to a $300 billion climate finance goal to developing countries by 2035, but now have their sights set on $1.3 trillion in total international climate finance. Last month in the newsletter, we talked about the importance of ensuring nations have investable climate plans to attract commercial capital, read more about it here.

Developed countries are also being asked to pay for the damage and to help developing nations build their economies green. Investing in climate action in developing nations helps keep prices down in developed nations through stabilizing global supply chains, and phasing out dirty, volatile fossil fuel markets. Thanks to the ICJ ruling earlier this year, the movement for climate reparations has become a legal reality, giving a powerful new bargaining chip at COP..

Bonus read: ‘Existential and urgent’: what impact will ICJ climate ruling have on Cop30? (The Guardian)

When you read about: "Brazil’s 'bio-economy' and securing Indigenous land rights
It really means: Justice as a climate solution. This year’s conference was marketed as “the most indigenous COP to date. Indigenous territories are also often the most preserved, and their participation on the frontlines (everyone’s participation, for that matter) is absolutely crucial to our global survival and success. The conference is also an opportunity for Brazil to position their bioeconomy as a central pillar in its climate agenda.

Disappointingly, it hasn’t gone as planned. Estimates show as low as 14% of indigenous representatives secured accreditation for the Blue Zone, the restricted area for official negotiations. Protestors have also been clashing with security guards, demanding climate action, forest protection, and land rights. 

Bonus read: ‘We are not here for theater’: Can the ‘most Indigenous COP’ live up to the hype? (Grist)

💅 COP Content Inspo

COP is also the kind of news that can often leave us feeling small, bored, or helpless. But by translating the jargon and understanding what these negotiations actually mean for our everyday lives, we can skip the "doom and gloom" and find productive, actionable narratives to share with your friends. Here are a couple to get you started:

• Green is the Growth Story of the 21st Century
  This is one of the strongest narratives of optimism, shifting climate action from a cost to an investment. 91% of renewable projects are now cheaper than fossil fuels.
  

• Technological Acceleration: The Clean Tech Revolution is Here
  The narrative is that innovation is making climate solutions inevitable, regardless of policy inertia. Technology is becoming the ultimate driver of optimism. Global solar PV capacity grew by a record ∼600 GW in 2024, and total renewable capacity is projected to increase by a staggering ∼4,600 GW between 2025 and 2030.

The Memo Heard Around the World

Speaking of narratives, Bill Gates’ memo has been causing quite the stir over the past week or so. It’s triggered immediate, chaotic response from climate scientists, with some critics arguing he created a "false dichotomy" between climate and poverty. Gates pushed back, telling Axios that foreign aid budgets are, in fact, often a "numeric game" where resources must be prioritized between health and climate.

However, scientists maintained that this "dangerous framing" legitimized arguments for inaction, despite Gates’s own pledge to increase funding for both areas.

In case you missed it: Sammy Roth had four climate scientists on Climate-Colored Goggles to talk about the memo, check it out here!

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Illinois General Assembly Passes Energy Reform Act Aiming to Reduce Rates and Reach Clean Energy Goals (Inside Climate News)

2. Democrats eye energy message to spark midterm victories (E&E Politico)

3. China’s CO2 emissions have now been flat or falling for 18 months (CarbonBrief)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Saj Shafique on Unsplash

America the No-Show ❌ 

The 30th UN Climate Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, is just around the corner, and things are already tense on the global stage. Perhaps most notably this week, the Trump Administration announced that no senior U.S. officials will attend the summit. Unfortunate as it may be, it's a somewhat unsurprising continuation of Trump's ongoing dismissal of climate change, reaffirming his deepening love affair with boosting fossil fuels. 

Bonus read (spin zone): How the US could shape the COP30 climate summit without even being there (CNN)

Nevertheless, while the world's second biggest polluter being a no-show is cause for a serious geopolitical ripple, a few other narratives are being thrust into the spotlight.

The Belem of the Ball, Brazil 🇧🇷 

The U.S.'s absence leaves big shoes to fill, putting unusually intense pressure on host country Brazil to pick up a larger share of the slack. Over the past few years, Brazil has tried to position itself as an emerging climate champion, specifically around the Global South. 

They’ve also made serious progress on things like deforestation, reporting an 11% drop compared to last year. In fact, since Lula de Silva returned to office in 2023, deforestation rates have more than halved. For more about Brazil’s deforestation project, check out this article.

The problem is, this progressive stance has been undercut by its own moves, like approving the state-run oil company to drill in highly ecologically sensitive regions, or letting Shell run wild toward new production highs. Also in the past few weeks, they’ve announced they’re going full speed ahead to capitalize on a massive offshore oil discovery, with BP running the show.

These big oil moves create a huge credibility fault line between their climate talk and their energy choices, setting the stage for intense scrutiny as the conference gets closer. It also begs the question: how long can they keep this up before being forced to choose a side?

Bonus read: Save the Amazon or Drill for Oil? Brazil Says It Can Do Both. (NY Times)

Negotiation Spotlights: Africa, The Global South, Climate Finance 🌍️ 

• The Global South is also stepping into the spotlight to help fill the shoes left empty by the U.S.. Africa, in particular, is leading the way, rebranding as a "continent of solutions".
  

• The toughest issue is still climate finance. Going into the negotiations, heads are turning at the "Baku-to-Belém Roadmap," designed to mobilize $1.3 trillion in private capital annually. 

• Though they account for only about 3% of global emissions, Africa’s disproportionate exposure to climate impacts means they need a serious and immediate increase in climate investment. To help make it happen, they’re strategically leveraging their vast mineral deposits to speed up the global transition. 

Success at the negotiation table hinges on critical (but pretty technical) things like interoperable financial taxonomies (classification systems for financial activities—crucial for tracking climate finance flows). It also hinges on ensuring nations have investable climate plans to attract commercial capital.

Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Mazama, an Oregon-based energy company, drilled the world's hottest enhanced geothermal well, capable of producing up to 5 gigawatts of geothermal energy. (TechCrunch)

2. The EV battery tech that’s worth the hype, according to experts (Wired)

3. A new national law in South Korea will help turn large parking lots into solar power farms (Electrek)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Kristin Hoel for Unsplash

Why are Mangroves so Important?

Mangroves are coastal wetlands of salt-tolerant trees, with intricate root systems that create vital habitats for marine life. They're also particularly good at storing carbon (and one of the world's most vital carbon sinks) which helps fight back against climate change. In fact, estimates suggest mangroves annually sequester ten times more carbon than mature tropical forests.

Beyond their climate value, they provide coastal protection against erosion and storm surges, valued at an estimated $855 billion annually. They’re also key biodiversity hotspots, protecting as many as 341 threatened species across the globe.

Since the 1970s, the world has lost approximately 35% of its mangrove forests to coastal development, rising seas, and other climate-related threats. Historically, restoration efforts have leaned on tedious and time-consuming manual planting, which simply hasn't been able to keep pace with the warp speed of the climate crisis.

Planting Trees at Unprecedented Scale

As climate change accelerates, the speed at which we need to boost our tree planting is only getting higher. We need advanced tech to feasibly keep up with our goals, like the UAE's national target to plant 100 million mangrove trees by 2030.

In 2019, a tech company called Dendra made headlines for announcing its ambitions to plant 500 billion trees by 2060 using drone technology. Planting drones, (technically called Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) like the ones launched by Dendra, can distribute as many as 2,000 seeds in about 10 minutes!

Like any other plant, mangrove saplings face various issues growing into adulthood, like lack of water, pollution brought up by a high tide, etc. With traditional planting methods, the success rate of a mangrove sapling surviving to adulthood was only around 40%. But with the help of drones and A.I. technology, projects are now reporting survival rates of up to 98% (this particular project planting 9 million).

Because of their hugely critical role in our coastal protection and climate resilience, mangroves are atop the list of most important trees to plant. In 2023, the environmental agency of the UAE announced its successful planting of one million mangrove trees by drone, with efforts around the world following suit.

Bonus resource: NASA study maps the roots of global mangrove loss (NASA)

This is all really exciting but it’s not a silver bullet. Ultimately, the key to boosting these survival rates is mitigating the degradation of mangrove forests, driven largely by agricultural activity. Mangroves take anywhere from 5-7 years to mature, the early years being especially critical.

Mangrove Planting Spotlight: Video: Using Drones to Restore Mangrove Forests: Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Madagascar (or, read the article here).

Restoration: Reaching New Heights

The benefits of these new technologies extend far beyond just the sheer number of seeds planted. Another core advantage of planting drones is their ability to operate in remote and challenging planting zones. They make it so we don't have to send personnel into dangerous, remote, or muddy terrain, lowering expenses and environmental footprints of on ground teams and speeding up project timelines.

A.I. is also learning to analyze satellite information, and craft more meticulous flight paths based on the terrain. Once the seeds are planted, A.I. models are also helping read and analyze the health of individual plants within the harvest.

Case Study Sneak Peek: Teams from the Flying Labs Network are using drones to revolutionize mangrove seed dispersal and habitat mapping in Panama, Tanzania, Fiji and beyond. [See Case Study]

Bonus Watch: Age of Change: How technology is helping restore mangrove forests (World Wildlife Fund)

Some news stories you might’ve missed this week 🗞️ 👀 

1. A judge ordered New York to follow through on its climate law (Canary)

2. Typhoon survivors from island communities in the Philippines are suing oil companies for their role in the storms (Guardian)

3. Iran is rolling out solar projects across the country. Here’s what to know. (Semafor)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Marina Esterlein on Unsplash

Bioremediation: What is it? 🍄 

Bioremediation is nature’s version of cleanup crew work. It’s the process of using living organisms (like plants, fungi, and microbes) to remove or neutralize pollutants from a contaminated site, such as soil, water, or air.  Bioremediation is part of the broader family of Nature-based Solutions (read more about nature-based solutions here). Through thoughtfully introducing microorganisms, bioremediation harnesses the natural power of living things to clean up environmental contaminants – a more cost-effective solution to outdated methods like the costly dig-and-dump strategy.

The idea behind the process is simple: plants are designed to pull nutrients from soil, which means they can extract toxic chemicals too. Fungi is especially effective at breaking down dead stuff, and certain mushroom varieties can particularly munch on nasty things like petrochemicals and lead to clean up polluted dirt.

Bonus read following our last newsletter: 3 ways nature-based solutions are tackling climate displacement in the Global South (World Economic Forum)

Spotlight: Danielle Stevenson, PhD, California 💡 

In Pique’s hometown, LA, wildfire restoration efforts have been chugging on all year long, cleaning up wreckage, monitoring the soil, the ocean, and beyond. When cars, buildings, and everyday materials burn they release nasty things like heavy metals (cadmium, arsenic, etc.), asbestos, and other contaminants that seep into soil and water. This threatens plants, animals, ecosystems and residents long after the fire itself gets put out, not to mention the lingering mental health impacts it has on communities.

Danielle Stevenson, PhD, is a pioneer in harnessing bioremediation techniques to restore contaminated land. In a pilot project in Los Angeles, her team used a combination of native plants and specialized fungi to detoxify an abandoned railyard. In just three months, they saw a more than 50% reduction in petrochemical pollutants, transforming a toxic site into a flowering meadow. After a year, the pollutants were basically undetectable.

Now she’s got her sights set on wildfire recovery. Check out this PBS video covering Dr. Stevenson’s efforts toward protecting the land, soil, and water of Los Angeles!

Underrated Climate Action Tool? 🌎️ 

Bioremediation is picking up steam across all sorts of environmental sectors. It can be used to de-escalate our rapid accumulation of waste, or help treat wastewater with microalgae. A project that started at University of Colorado Boulder used mycelium to clean urban soil and reconnect Indigenous families to the land for growing traditional foods. Tribal members in Northern Maine launched a community-based phytoremediation project to address PFAS contamination on their lands near the former Loring Air Force Base.

Most crucially, scientists now have clear proof that soil-healing work doubles as a key climate mitigation tool. Bioremediation directly aids carbon capture by restoring soil health, which creates a much better carbon sink than degraded land.

So, by nurturing our local soil architects, we’re not just cleaning up pollutants – we’re helping stabilize the global climate!

🫂🎃 Pique Readers, it’s almost Halloween!

Halloween is just around the corner, and we all know fast fashion is a monster for the environment. Rather than buying a cheap, single-use costume made of synthetic junk, we want to see how you're getting creative.

Share your sustainable Halloween costume ideas (and pics!) with us by replying to this email, and we'll try to feature as many as possible in our next edition!

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Electricity from renewables overtakes coal in Australia for the first time (The Guardian)

2. Global investors are pouring more money into climate tech (Bloomberg)

3. Painting with Fire: How Indigenous Practices can Help Protect Forests (Washington Post)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Anindito Mukherjee, courtesy Project Dandelion

A Global Paradox 🌍

Smallholder farmers are the backbone of global food production, providing around one-third of the world's food and nearly 70% of Africa's supply. Despite propping up our communities, they only receive less than 1% of global climate finance, leaving them especially vulnerable to climate impacts.

This gap isn't just about funding; it’s also a $1 trillion missed economic opportunity that could be unlocked by prioritizing these farmers and the food they supply to communities.

As climate change accelerates, smallholder farmers in rain-fed systems are facing an unfortunate double climate jeopardy. For starters, the severe extreme heat events, prolonged droughts, floods, make for lower yields, more crop failure, food insecurity and bring along new pests/diseases.

But perhaps even worse, coping with these changes forces them to adjust their practices, often in the form of more pesticides. In fact, over 76% of small farmers in India reported that the incidence of spraying pesticides has more than doubled. Beyond the health concerns, these pesticides cost money and drive up operational costs. In turn, farmers are going deeper into debt, undermining their soil health, and the feedback loop is only getting worse.

Empowering Women: A Key Climate and Community Solution 🌍

Despite the fact that Africa’s female farmers produce at least 70% of the continent's food, they own significantly less land than men. This means they have substantially less agricultural decision-making power, limited access to credit and other economic tools to lift themselves, their children and their community out of poverty. In divorce or widowhood, wives commonly lose all rights to land, regardless of their contributions to the farm.

Empowering women and girls is absolutely crucial to ensuring food security across the globe. In fact, when empowered with access to better education, women are far more likely to be involved in climate-smart agriculture, advocate for healthier communities and more.

Ahead of COP30, our friends at Project Dandelion have launched a global campaign urging leaders to increase investment in smallholder farmers.

Project Dandelion on Instagram: see the campaign’s debut post!

Learn more about the campaign here, and learn how you can spread the word.

Photo: Eduardo Soteras, courtesy Project Dandelion

Take climate action today: the campaign features a unique one-click public pressure tool to encourage and support organizations addressing the finance gap for smallholders. Click on “Speak out” to make your voice heard.

Bonus listen 🎧️ : The International Fund for Agricultural Development hosted former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson on their podcast, Farms. Food. Future, to talk about working with Project Dandelion to launch the campaign. Listen to the episode here, or read an excerpt!

The Road Ahead 💹 

Redirecting climate finance toward these smallholder farmers (beyond that 1% we talked about earlier) is a huge challenge. The private sector often sees agricultural investments as too risky, which is why we need a mix of public and philanthropic money to start de-risking these types of opportunities. Basically, we need to make them more mainstream to help attract larger private investments.

The good news is, new tech is making it easier to bridge that gap. As farmers respond to increasing climate challenges, we’re keeping our eyes on these solutions:

• Climate-Resilient Agriculture: Implementing innovative farming practices like improved water management and agroforestry helps farmers adapt to climate change and reduce post-harvest losses.

• Clean Tech Solutions: Investing in clean tech solutions, such as decentralized, solar-powered cold storage units like ColdHubs in Nigeria, can boost farmers' incomes and food security by preserving harvests, while also delivering climate benefits by preventing food waste.

• Strategic Investment & De-risking: Substantial funding from philanthropic organizations like the Gates Foundation, coupled with strategies to de-risk the agricultural sector for private capital, is crucial for empowering smallholder farmers, especially women.

• Digital Transformation and Access to Credit: The integration of AI and satellite technology provides real-time data, manages risks, and improves access to much-needed credit for millions of farmers globally, enabling them to grow their operations.

Further reading:
Making Climate Finance Work in Agriculture (The World Bank)
Examining the Climate Finance Gap for Small-Scale Agriculture (Climate Policy Initiative)

What We’re Watching 🎥 and Reading 📚 This Week

Searching for more positive and informative climate content? Look no further!

1. ☀️ California’s first solar-covered water canal is now generating power (ABC 7)

2. 🫂 Women in Mexico protect ancient Aztec farms and save a vanishing
   Ecosystem (The Associated Press)

3. New England’s final coal plant shuts down years ahead of schedule (Grist)

— Written by Hana Leshner

Photo: Csaba Gyulavári on Unsplash

There’s a power plant in your neighborhood

As our aging grid groans under the stress of extreme weather, the solution to keeping the lights on might be hiding in plain sight—in our homes, driveways, and businesses.

Enter the Virtual Power Plant (VPP), a smart network linking thousands of resources together to act in concert. Think of it like a digital orchestra that conducts thousands of homes, batteries, and solar panels to play together as one, big flexible power source. While many VPPs in the U.S. focus on home energy devices—like rooftop solar, batteries (think Tesla Powerwalls), and smart thermostats—the model is bigger than that. In Europe, successful VPPs also connect large-scale commercial assets like bio-gas plants, industrial equipment, and solar farms. Using cloud-based software, a VPP gets all these devices to work in concert, acting as a single, massive power source that can support the grid when it's needed most. It's a real power move.

Getting More From Every Electron ⚡️

Our traditional grid is wildly inefficient. To ensure reliability during the few hours of highest demand each year, utilities have to maintain expensive power plants that sit idle most of the time. This costs everyone money.

VPPs offer a smarter way. Instead of firing up costly power sources, a VPP can perform peak shaving by tapping into thousands of existing resources, like telling home batteries to send power back to the grid during a heatwave.

Not only is this another reason for energy optimism, it’s also hugely attractive to investors and other local leaders. State lawmakers are already considering VPPs as a solution to rising energy costs, which made particular headlines this week in Illinois.

The benefits are huge:

• It's Cheaper for Everyone: VPPs provide clean power at a fraction of the cost. Here’s the best part: when your neighbor’s solar and battery system sends power to the grid, it reduces the need for that expensive, dirty energy. That lowers costs for the entire system, which means smaller utility bills for you, even if you don't own solar panels yourself.

• It's Cleaner: VPPs directly displace fossil fuels and make it easier to integrate renewables by soaking up excess solar and wind power and saving it for later.

• It's More Resilient: A distributed network is much harder to knock offline than one single, centralized power plant.

Are They Shock-Proof? The Hurdles Ahead 😬 

Of course, the path to a decentralized grid isn't without its challenges.

• Cybersecurity: Connecting millions of smart devices to the grid creates a much larger "attack surface" for cyber threats. Keeping this network secure is a huge and complex challenge.

• Customer Trust: VPPs rely on people trusting a third party to control their devices without leaving them with an uncharged car or a hot house. Building and maintaining that trust is key.

• Technical Gremlins: Getting devices from dozens of different manufacturers to speak the same language is a major technical hurdle.

• Grid Upgrades: Our local grid was designed for a one-way flow of power. VPPs create a two-way street, and many local poles, wires, and substations will need significant upgrades to handle power flowing back from homes and businesses.

These are real, but solvable, challenges that require smart regulations and secure, customer-focused technology.

A Political Power Struggle 😠

So, if VPPs are so great, why aren't they everywhere? The biggest hurdles are often political.

In California, for example, Governor Gavin Newsom recently vetoed three key bills designed to accelerate VPP deployment. The conflict stems from a business model problem: utilities have historically profited from building big, expensive infrastructure. VPPs threaten that model by using existing, customer-owned assets more efficiently.

The bottom line? VPPs are a powerful tool for building the clean, resilient, and affordable grid of the future. The technology is here. Now, we just need the political will to match it.

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. The UK government is speeding up its plans to ban fracking for good (Guardian)

2. The EU is fueling Africa’s energy shift with a $638 Million clean energy push (Carbon Credits)

3. Republican moderates push back on White House coal strategy (EE Politico)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Plastic: Not Just Floating in the Ocean 🏭️ 

When most of us think about the environmental detriment of plastic, we picture ocean birds choked with bags, whales with bellies full of debris, or the garbage patch that’s twice the size of Texas. And yes, with a decomposition timeline in the hundreds of years, plastic is terrible wherever it is. What’s worse, around 460 million metric tons are made each year, and without stronger policies in place to protect us, that number could soar as much as 70% by 2040.

Devastating as that may be, the worst thing about plastic might not be where it ends up, but where it begins.

Stripped down to its core, plastic is basically fossil fuel in another form. Producing it is enormously carbon-intensive, driving huge amounts of emissions at every stage (extraction, refining, manufacturing). And perhaps unsurprisingly, the plastic industry’s carbon footprint has doubled in the past few decades.

In recent years. as demand for oil in transportation slowly declines, the fossil fuel industry has fallen back on its trusty safety net: push more plastic into our lives (and mouths). The plastic crisis isn’t just an environmental nuisance. It’s a climate problem, a big oil problem, and by design, a cripplingly hard addiction to break. 

The Treaty (or Lack Thereof) 📖

Earlier this year, global leaders gathered to negotiate what was supposed to be a historic treaty to rein in plastic production and pollution. Instead? The talks have officially collapsed.

Even more disappointingly, when you look at the countries to blame, the collapse of the treaty draws back to a key (predictable) culprit: the oil and gas industry lobby. While more than 100 countries, including the EU, UK, Colombia, and Pacific Island nations, pushed for binding limits on plastic production and toxic chemicals, oil-producing nations flatly rejected proposals that touched production, protecting their fossil fuel lifeline. 

The collapse of the treaty is yet another example of corporate interest buying its way into government, and holding a serious influence over the interest of its profits, not the citizens of those governments.

According to the Center for International Law, fossil fuel and chemical lobbyists outnumbered the combined diplomatic delegations of all 27 European Union nations and the EU combined (coming in at a whopping 233). Other sources are quoting it as high as 307. Even further, 19 of those lobbyists have secured places in the national delegations of Egypt (6), Kazakhstan (4), China (3), Iran (3), Chile (2), and the Dominican Republic (1).

Heavyweight corporations are found in all hats at these talks. Since the Paris session in 2023, Coca-Cola hasn’t missed a single round of negotiations. Lego, Nestlé, Unilever and PepsiCo were reported to be right alongside them.

Oil and gas companies see plastic as their lifeline, a way to secure demand for fossil fuels even as the world tries to decarbonize. Every water bottle, takeout container, and shipping wrapper is part of that strategy.

And because plastic is so deeply embedded in our global supply chains (agriculture, fashion, electronics, you name it) society remains in an embarrassingly tight chokehold. And while waste management and regulations are certainly a good place to start, our ultimate goal should really be loosening the grip of industries that have no incentive to scale back.

For decades, we’ve been told a complete lie: “the solution is simple: recycle! Sort your bottles, rinse your tubs, pat yourself on the back for "recycling." But in reality, less than 10% of plastic has ever been recycled. The rest has gone straight to landfills, incinerators, or (see above) places like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The very concept of plastic recycling was promoted by the oil and gas industry as a PR move to shift responsibility onto consumers while they kept pumping out more plastic. It wasn’t about solving the problem, it was about buying time (that as we all know, is running out).

Breaking Free from our Grip ⛓️ 

Plastic feels inescapable, but it’s not inevitable. If enough of us demand change, at the ballot box, via civic action, at the checkout counter, and in everyday conversations, the world doesn’t have to stay this shrink-wrapped in plastic.

• Demand legislative action. Advocate for bills that stop plastic proliferation such as extended producer responsibility bills, microplastic and PFAS regulation, and stricter materials standards across our economy.

• Spread the word. The most powerful thing you can do is puncture the recycling myth in your circles.

• Ditch disposables where you can. Reusables aren’t the whole answer, but swapping out water bottles, coffee cups, and shopping bags still sends a signal.

• Back community solutions. From local refill stations to plastic-free grocery co-ops, grassroots efforts need momentum and visibility.

The Shift to Bioplastics 🧪 

Most of us already know plastic is an environmental catastrophe, but society’s demand for it is only getting higher. To help fill that demand with solutions that are biodegradable and aren’t so carbon intensive, there are tons of great developments happening in the bioplastic alternatives.

Just last week, Trellis published a piece on big retailers like Target and Adidas exploring bioplastics for their shoe production. Here at Pique, we’ve covered solutions from using microorganisms to create biodegradable alternatives, creating plastic alternatives from food waste and beyond.

Looking for a few more ultra-cool plastic solutions? Check out this playlist of our NextNow series on harnessing the power of biology to mitigate plastic pollution!

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. The New York Times put out an interactive map to plan an EV roadtrip across the U.S.! (New York Times)

2. A federal judge allowed work to restart on a New England offshore wind farm that Trump had previously halted (Politico)

3. Wall Street is turning climate finance into an energy security pitch (WSJ)

— Written by Pique Action

F*ck Doom Party at Solutions House by Futerra

Dispatches from Climate Week NYC

Kip Pastor:

• Something I learned: ReefGen is creating small, economical underwater robots to repopulate coral reefs, seagrasses, and restore the oceans. 🤖

• Spotted: President Mary Robinson continues to lead by example and with love, urgency, and humanity. 🌟

• Meaningful moment: Watching environmental filmmakers celebrated at the Climate Film Festival. 🎬

Suzie Hicks, Kip Pastor, and Dana Fisher at the Climate Film Festival

Hana Leshner:

• Something I learned: 🚀 Rapid computational efficiency gains in AI have me feeling more optimistic about its potential to support climate solutions, including its own carbon footprint, as it helps decrease renewable interconnection backlogs.

• Spotted: Dr. Katherine Hayhoe at Futerra’s F*ck Doom event. 🌍 Reminding us that every tenth of a degree matters.

• Meaningful moment: Reconnecting with women from  Project Dandelion at a networking session focused on getting funding into the hands of women pursuing on-the-ground solutions. 🌱 Women are disproportionately impacted by climate change and receive an alarmingly small percentage of climate investments.

Dear Tomorrow display at The Nest Hub

Melissa Kepen:

• Something I learned: 56% of young people think humanity is doomed. 😟 But with impactful solutions and hopeful narratives, we can empower youth in climate action! 💪 

• Spotted: 🪧 A group of protestors in front of NewsCorp/Fox.

• Meaningful moment: ✨ Seeing our team's hard work showcased on the big screen and shared with others.

Team at Fossil Free Drinks

Lyle Jarvis:

• Something I learned: Some estimates suggest that climate action could create an additional $1T of additional economic output by 2070 compared to business as usual! 💰

• Spotted: Rock Climber Alex Honnold, star of the movie Free Solo, as a guest speaker on an OKTA panel, sharing his optimism for the future, particularly in solar energy! 🧗

• Meaningful moment: Sat next to a group of high school students listening in on a panel, who scored tickets through one of their teachers. The future is bright! 💡

Learn something at CWNY you just have to share? Send it our way so we can share with others with our form —> HERE!

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Yoann Laheurte on Unsplash

The World’s Largest Wildlife Corridor 🏞️

The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing has been more than a decade in the making. In the 2010s, evidence began to pile up that California's mountain lions and other species were suffering from genetic isolation, and experts began making more and more pleas to find a solution.

In 2015, CalTrans proposed a plan for a massive bridge over the 101, relying on donations from the public, with a lofty budget and monstrous timeline (flashback to this article in the LA Times, 2015, CalTrans’ proposal with the NWF).

Eventually, with a historic $25 million lead gift from the Annenberg Foundation, funding was secured in 2021. The following year, the project broke ground on Earth Day 2022, and now, it’s finally beginning to take shape above the 101 in Agoura Hills. Check out this video to get a sense of size! 

But why does habitat connectivity matter so much in California in particular?

The Importance of Habitat Connectivity 🌱

Wildlife corridors like this one are vital for California’s biodiversity. The state is a global hotspot, home to more species than anywhere else in the U.S., but development, highways, and climate change have carved up critical habitats. This creates a hugely unfortunate mismatch, leaving animals like mountain lions to face things like starvation, displacement and fatal vehicle collisions.

Bonus resource: Wild L.A.: Mountain Lions, Grizzly Bears & the Land that Once Was (PBS)

The crossing, designed with native plants and trees, blends seamlessly into the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding hills, creating a safe passageway for species to move, hunt, and reproduce.

Essentially, these species need more room to roam, and the corridor is making it happen.

So, What’s Next? 📈

The plan made particular headlines in June, for entering its final phase. But first, while you’re reading this – just take a minute to celebrate. In today’s political headwinds, with federal protections under strain, it’s more important than ever to stop and recognize victories like this corridor. While it's not done yet, it's a good reminder that bold, creative solutions aren't just possible, they're actually happening!

And it's not just California (although there are several smaller projects happening across the state). Colorado has built overpasses on I-70 where elk herds now cross safely. Utah, Oregon, and Washington are following suit. The data is clear: these crossings work, reducing wildlife-vehicle collisions by up to 90%. In a year when federal protections for wildlife are facing rollbacks, projects like this are a reminder to celebrate wins where we can.

The bridge is expected to open in 2026.

Bonus read: Bonus read (from June) The world’s largest wildlife crossing is entering Stage 2: What’s that mean for traffic? (LA Times)

Pieces of the Puzzle: The Triple Planetary Crisis 🌎

Biodiversity problems are just one piece of our planetary puzzle, and one of three main interlinked issues humanity is facing alongside climate change and pollution. Together, these three issues are what’s known as the Triple Planetary Crisis.

As the year goes on, we’ll be exploring more topics on how all three are connected, and dive deeper into pollution-specifics, biodiversity as it relates to climate change, and how solutions to one of these issues is a win for all three of them.

ICYMI: Here’s a newsletter we published on urban biodiversity earlier this summer.

Bonus read: Mapping Hope: Citizen Science and the Triple Planetary Crisis (Earth Journalism Network)

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Thanks to solar surges, Britain recorded it's cleanest quarter ever (Drax Global)

2. First onshore wave energy project in the U.S. launches in Los Angeles (LA Times)

3. NOAA and partners deploy mini ocean robots to collect hurricane data (NOAA)

Community Reminder: Sun Day 🫂☀️📅

Heads up, readers: Don’t forget about Sun Day on September 21st!

Sun Day is a new tradition, made to recreate the magic of Earth Day (which began in 1970), spotlights solar energy and the communities driving a renewable future. Join us, other climate warriors, scientists and community leaders in celebrating solar!

Show your support by drawing and signing your sun here.

(And read a New York Times story on Sun Day here).

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Product School on Unsplash

New York Climate Week is Back 🗽 

Despite the growing buzz around the U.S. becoming less and less of a climate leader on the world stage, NYCW is well-primed to be a catalyst for change this year.

We’re stoked to be back in New York, collaborating on an event with our friends at Google (details below!). But let’s be real: the climate movement has a bit of an echo-chamber problem, and NYCW is no exception.

The good news? With so many mission-oriented people, ideas, and events, Climate Week is the perfect place to break out of your bubble. Instead of doubling down in your usual lane, try crossing into new spaces, hearing perspectives you don’t normally encounter, and broadening your view of the movement.

Here are a few tips as we approach perhaps the most important climate week yet.

See the Guides Through Fresh Eyes 📑 

Use the best guides to help you craft your calendar. A few to get you started:

• Official Climate Week NYC search tool
  

• Curated Airtables (Here’s an AirTable of events collected by CTVC, Sightline
  Climate and Planeteer Capital), and another Airtable here to help fill up your calendar 
  

• Roundups like ClimateTechList or Climate Cities NY ultimate guide.
  

• Specific hubs around the city, like Solutions House

As you dig through the lists, challenge yourself to go beyond your usual circuit. If you’re in climate finance, spend an evening at a grassroots or climate justice event.

If you’re in government, explore early-stage climate tech. If you’re a communicator, try sitting in on an industry or UNGA session. The cross-pollination will spark new connections, and you're likely to leave with some unique ideas you might not otherwise find in your silo.

Key resource: Why cross-sector collaboration is key to building more resilient communities (World Economic Forum)

We’re on record as big believers in the power of storytelling toward climate progress. The conversations about how we talk about climate are just as important as what we build and finance. For a fresh lens of impactful climate narratives, here’s a running list of climate comms events worth bookmarking.

Spotlight rec for one of our long-time favorite themes (destroying doom):
F*CK DOOM: Glow Up for Solutionists

Keep the Bigger Picture in Mind 🌎️ 

With so many people flying in for Climate Week, questions about impact are getting louder (and it’s not just climate week, criticism is growing around other climate events, like COP).

We loved a recent LinkedIn post from Leah Thomas (an alum of our Climate Creators to Watch List) suggesting that everyone flying into New York should be on the hook to donate to grassroots climate orgs.

If you’re looking for where to start, check out the Intersectional Environmentalist database for frontline groups doing great work across the climate space!

Starting the Week off Hot 🌞 

While Climate Week doesn’t officially begin until Monday, September 22, the celebration starts early with Sun Day on September 21.

The new tradition, hoping to recreate the magic of Earth Day (which began in 1970), spotlights solar energy and the communities driving a renewable future. Noted by the New York Times, Sun Day is as much about culture and connection as it is about the actual solar technology, which we covered in last week’s edition of the newsletter. 

(Read the full New York Times story here).

Think of it as Climate Week’s opening act, and a timely reminder that solutions are already here (and very much worth celebrating).

Come Hang With Us! 🫂 

We’re back at Climate Week with something special. Join us for a storytelling experience that takes you inside Google’s data centers, featuring our award-winning Where The Internet Lives series.

Hosted by journalist Derek Thompson (The Atlantic, Abundance), Google’s Chief Sustainability Officer Kate Brandt, and other all-star experts, we’ll explore how AI is powering the next wave of climate solutions.

📍 The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W 42nd St, New York
⏰ September 23, 2025 | 4–7 PM EDT

👉 Request to attend here

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. States, companies sue Trump administration over wind farm stop-work order (Politico)

2. Spain Makes Carbon Reporting Mandatory in New Climate Emergency Plan (ESG News)

3. The climate solution both the right and the left can get behind, by Bill McKibben (The Guardian)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Andreas Gücklhorn on Unsplash

The Solar Surge 🔋 

Over the past several years, solar has become not just a green alternative, but the cheapest form of energy globally. In fact, even since 2020, the data has spoken for itself. Utility-scale solar consistently outcompetes coal and gas on cost in most countries, even when factoring in intermittency, and it’s poised to become the largest renewable energy source by the end of the decade.

We can’t afford for developing countries to make the same mistakes as we have in building their infrastructures (i.e., 150+ years of disastrously carbon-intensive energy systems). Luckily, with solar costs plunging around the world, developing countries (e.g., vast regions of Africa) have the opportunity to skip over coal and gas altogether, and pick up solar from the get go (we call this leapfrogging).

Quick note for further reading on the solar boom in Africa: You might remember Energicity from our Reinventing Tomorrow series –  an African-based minigrid utility bringing electricity to several Sub-Saharan countries.

The bottom line is, the question isn’t whether solar wins, it’s how quickly, and who leads the pack.

Power Players 🏆️ 

For starters, China leads the world by a wide margin. They crossed 1 TW of photovoltaic capacity this year, and made up over half of all new global solar installations last year.

In total, the BRICS economies (led by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) together accounted for more than half of global solar electricity generation in 2024. India, in particular, has garnered some buzz lately for its solar growth, along with Pakistan, both prime examples of how emerging markets are powering the solar revolution. These countries aren’t just adding panels, they’re building more renewable-driven infrastructures. Meanwhile in the U.S., we’re not exactly following suit.

Federal Headwinds 🇺🇸 

Here at home, the story is more complicated. Electricity bills are already climbing, and with demand set to grow sharply, the timing for clean new supply is critical.

New improvements to generation and storage (like more efficiently pairing solar farms to batteries) makes solar faster to market, more dispatchable, and versatile. Even without any subsidies, the economics strongly favor them. 

But the Trump administration has seriously undercut this potential trajectory, dismantling support for solar and wind through policy rollbacks, permitting freezes, and the withdrawal of incentive programs.  

It’s the equivalent of sending our ace pitcher back to the bench just as the season heats up, and taking our most competitive technologies off the field.

The U.S.’s bid to rival China in solar and battery manufacturing was always going to be a David-and-Goliath contest. But stripping away tools like tax credits and grants, we’re losing the possibility of a late-game comeback.

Key resources (some Pique favorites!) 

Bill McKibben’s book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization

Read an excerpt here, and an interview with Bill, Where Does The Climate Movement Go From Here?

The Path Forward 📈 

Despite federal pushback, solar is still making progress at the grassroots level. The New York Times put out a piece about homeowners in Columbus, Ohio, forming a rooftop-solar cooperative, uniting neighbors community ownership, cost savings, and energy independence.

Even better? Ohioans aren't the only ones. Communities across the U.S. are proving that solar is here to stay, and that policy setbacks can’t extinguish underlying innovation and momentum. But will the U.S. seize the opportunity, or let others pass us by?

Community Announcement 📅

New York! 📣 🫂 🗽 We’re coming to climate week.

Join us for a special event we're supporting alongside our friends at Google and Latitude! Go behind the scenes of Google's data centers with a live storytelling experience from award-winning podcast produced by Latitude Studios featuring the Pique produced Where The Internet Lives video series.

Learn more about the event and request to attend here!

⏰ September 23, 2025 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM EDT
📍 The Pershing Square Signature Center
🗺️ 480 West 42nd Street, Jim Houghton Way New York, NY 

Hosted by Derek Thompson (Journalist, Co-author of Abundance), Kate Brandt (Chief Sustainability Officer at Google) and more all-star experts, you'll hear stories about how AI is unlocking the next wave of innovation — accelerating clean energy technologies, supporting resiliency solutions, and modernizing the energy system.

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. California and Denmark Sign ‘Comprehensive’ Agreement on Climate and Tech | KQED

2. Ad Agency IPG was outed (and shamed) for breaking its climate pledge by working with the world’s biggest oil company (Financial Times)

3. 8 Amazon nations pledged support for Brazil’s COP30 rainforest fund (Climate Change News)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Kajetan Sumila on Unsplash

The Climate Conspiracy

More than a hundred years ago, scientists began to raise questions around the human influence on global temperatures. Decades later, in 1965, climate scientists summarized the risks of carbon pollution to President Lyndon B. Johnson, and by the 1970s, these (then) theories started to pick up steam. Until eventually, those theories became fact, and 99.9 percent of scientists would come to the overwhelming majority conclusion: climate change is real, and humans are the culprits.

And here we are, years, decades (some of our hottest recorded) later, and people are still arguing that real climate science is up for debate.

Climate misinformation has moved far beyond denying the science itself. Conspiracies (and trolls online) now target the solutions – branding common-sense ideas like bike lanes or renewable energy as tools of government control. Or thinking world leaders want you to survive only on insects.

Nevertheless, they're gaining traction, and tapping into deeper fears about freedom, privacy, and power. While these claims might sound laughable, they’re influencing policy debates and eroding public trust at a moment when climate action is more urgent than ever

False Narratives Floating Around

One of the most potent examples is the so-called “climate lockdown” theory. It spins the pandemic-era experience of lockdowns into a hypothetical future where governments will restrict travel, ration resources, or keep people indoors under the alleged guise curbing emissions. Because these claims focus on what could happen rather than what is happening (i.e., the actual science stuff), they’re tough to debunk with facts alone.

The same applies to distorted narratives around the “Great Reset” or urban planning tools like 15-minute cities, which are reframed as dystopian control schemes rather than sustainability measures. These conspiracies thrive not because they’re true, but because they are plausible enough to spark fear.

How are People Still Falling for This?

Psychologists and misinformation researchers point to a mix of emotional and identity-based factors. Conspiracies often lean on larger themes like government hypocrisy that provoke a stronger reaction than charts or climate models.

They align with preexisting political identities and distrust of institutions, making them “feel” right even when evidence says otherwise. Community forums like Reddit fuel the frenzy. And from a media perspective, disinformation is cheap, fast, and attention-grabbing, while truth is slow, technical, and often less emotionally satisfying.

Key resource: Here’s a guide for countering disinformation effectively from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Part of what makes climate conspiracies so sticky is that they often contain a kernel of reality. As this article from Time Magazine notes, things like installing traffic cameras or limiting car use in cities are real policies, which are designed for safety or sustainability, and can trigger genuine discomfort about surveillance or lifestyle changes.

Conspiracy narratives (and there’s scientific research to back this up) succeed because they prey on existing unease, stretching a small truth into a sweeping claim about government overreach. Recognizing the legitimate concerns behind these fears is key to addressing them, but it doesn’t make the leap to “climate lockdowns” or insect mandates any more credible.

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. According to the EIA, Solar may account for half of new US electricity added this year (Reuters)

2. Solar Growth is also keeping China’s emissions on a downward trend (CarbonBrief)

3. Scientists are exploring whether encouraging the growth of phytoplankton could draw down carbon (Grist)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

The Age of Extremes ⛈️ 

Climate change is no longer a distant threat, it’s happening now. Fires are burning faster and more frequently, floods are swelling higher, and hurricanes are striking harder, leaving a lasting toll on our infrastructure and communities.

As these climate impacts intensify, the cracks in traditional building practices are becoming harder and harder to ignore. In fact, there were 27 climate disasters exceeding a billion dollars in damages last year alone.

In California, major insurers have begun pulling out of fire-prone regions, leaving homeowners scrambling for protection. In Florida, houses are becoming uninsurable as flooding and sea-level rise accelerate. And in Europe, record-breaking heatwaves are making schools and care homes uninhabitable, underscoring the urgent need for adaptive design.

Society is waking up to the reality that resilience isn't optional, it's a means of survival. And from an economics perspective, it might be a better way forward for investors, architects, engineers and beyond.

Resilience: The Trillion Dollar Opportunity 💵 

The good news: breakthrough solutions already exist, things like:

• Fire-resistant materials: rebuilding smarter with defensible concrete walls

• Green roofs: can lower energy costs, control stormwater, and cool urban areas.

• Sponge-city systems: the flood-proof architecture of the future?

Even five years ago, it was estimated that investment in adaptation could yield $7.1 trillion in net benefits by 2030. While that figure is likely even greater now, it’s also a clear signal that resilience is not just smart climate policy, but smart economics.

To help bring this opportunity to life, we have to call on our leaders to embed innovative climate resilience into markets, policies, and everyday construction practices. Economics experts are also exploring how the private sector can supercharge these investments.

The Biden-Harris administration made a strong effort by hosting the first-ever White House Climate Resilience Summit, and releasing a National Climate Resilience Framework, but efforts have dwindled with the new administration.

Further reading: Lessons from the White House Summit on Building Climate Resilient Communities

Innovation Spotlights 💡

As part of our Reinventing Tomorrow series, we covered how Kubik is revolutionizing construction, creating building blocks from recycled plastic. Check out how they're building affordable, eco-friendly housing for a brighter future! Reinventing Tomorrow: Kubik

As sea levels were rising in this Oceanside, California, the ocean quite literally started to swallow the sand. In a remarkable story of togetherness, their community joined forces to innovate and adapt against coastal erosion and create a more resilient city.
Watch: Transforming Cities: Trying to save one beach at a time

This story of Oceanside is part of a series produced by BBC for C40 Cities, showcasing how cities are taking urgent climate action and moving towards a more resilient future. Check out more stories of climate resilience here! [Transforming Cities]

While we're still focused on creating climate solutions, the future isn’t just about resisting change, it’s about adapting to it. Fires will burn, floods will rise, and storms will strike, but our response can shape what survives and thrives. By weaving resilience into each fabric of our infrastructure, we can help safeguard the health, equity, and vitality of our communities. 

Further reading: 5 ways we need to adapt to climate change — or pay the price (Grist)

Take a 15-minute Climate Action Today! 📣

Instead of our regular news stories this week, we wanted to share a quick and easy way you can take HUGE climate action in as little as 15 minutes.

Our friends at Climate Changemakers set up an action plan to protect against the EPA, who, as you may have heard, is taking steps to repeal the Endangerment Finding (a key Obama-era climate victory).

But we’re not going down without a fight. Join us in taking these three steps to make your voice heard, and tell your leaders you’re serious about climate progress.

Community Announcement 📅

New York Community! 📣 🫂 🗽 We’re coming to climate week.

Join us for a special event we're supporting alongside our friends at Google and Latitude! Go behind the scenes of Google's data centers with a live storytelling experience from award-winning podcast produced by Latitude Studios featuring the Pique produced Where The Internet Lives video series.

Learn more about the event and request to attend here!

⏰ September 23, 2025 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM EDT
📍 The Pershing Square Signature Center
🗺️ 480 West 42nd Street, Jim Houghton Way New York, NY

Hosted by Derek Thompson (Journalist, Co-author of Abundance), Kate Brandt (Chief Sustainability Officer at Google) and more all-star experts, you'll hear stories about how AI is unlocking the next wave of innovation — accelerating clean energy technologies, supporting resiliency solutions, and modernizing the energy system.

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Maxwell Collins on Unsplash

Don’t Worry, We Won’t Tell You to Live in Silence

It's no secret that live music has long carried a substantial environmental burden (check out this list to see the biggest carbon footprints by genre). Summer concert season, with its surge of festivals and stadium tours is particularly costly, as millions travel and venues operate at peak capacity. But like anything else in the climate conversation, the answer shouldn't just be living in silence, it's about finding a compromise.

And over the past few years, artists, venues, production teams and beyond have begun pioneering efforts to reduce their footprint without compromising what makes shows so special. Among those leading the charge? Coldplay, Dave Matthews, Billie Eilish, Massive Attack, and more!

Breaking Down the Carbon Costs 🌎️ 

When people think of concert waste, they often think of a trash can overflowing with empty beer cups, trash strewn across the lawns, (or in some cases, on stages). And while those are certainly their own problems to be dealt with, they're merely a drop in the bucket of the total carbon emissions from shows.

The largest chunk of a concert’s carbon footprint comes from travel. Perhaps most famously, travel emissions coming from artists (looking at you, Taylor Swift). But while artist travel is often making the headlines, fan travel creates 38x more emissions than travel from the artists, crew, hotel stays, and gear transportation combined, especially when tens of thousands drive in from nearby towns and cities.

Add to that the freight emissions from trucking stage sets, flying in artists and crews, powering high-wattage lighting and sound rigs, plus the energy demands of on-site concessions, and you’ve got a seriously high ticket price to pay in environmental impacts.

Bonus Read (For our Swifty Readers): The Eras Tour Has a Huge Carbon Footprint. What’s a Green Swift Fan To Do?

REVERB is a nonprofit that has spent the last 20+ years working toward a more sustainable music industry. They conducted a study surveying 35,000+ concertgoers across 400+ concerts in over 170 cities in North America to better understand the climate impacts around fan travel. 

The results were clear: concert travel isn't just music’s biggest climate challenge, it's an avenue most ripe for change. While 80% of fans reported driving their personal vehicles to shows, 89% said they were interested in climate-friendly travel options if they became available. 

Alongside their study, REVERB is working directly with several artists to help make their shows more climate-friendly, with a roster including some of music's biggest names: Tyler Childers, Billie Eilish, Dave Matthews Band, Dead and Company and more!

Fun program spotlight: REVERB and Nalgene teamed up to create the #RockNRefill program, which Grist covered at a Dave Matthews show. The partnership gives fans special Nalgenes as an alternative to single-use bottles at concerts and festivals. With a $20 donation, fans can buy their reusable bottle, and are automatically entered into a raffle to win a guitar signed by Dave. The program has raised $5 million for climate and conservation nonprofits and eliminated an estimated 4 million single-use plastic bottles!

Learn more about REVERB and its work here.

Artist Spotlights: A Few Names Leading The Charge 📈 

Coldplay – Their Music of the Spheres tour cut direct emissions by 59% versus their 2016–17 tour, surpassing their 50% target. Their success came from things like solar panels, rechargeable show batteries, kinetic dance floors, sustainable aviation fuel, reusable wristbands, biodegradable confetti, and a pledge to plant a tree for every ticket sold. They’ve also teamed up with MIT to study the industry’s carbon footprint.

Billie Eilish – Billie was a co-funder of the REVERB study we talked about above, and is considered one of the greenest artists in music. She’s integrated sustainable practices like plant-based crew catering, single-use plastic reduction, “Eco-Action Villages” at shows, and guides for fans to choose low-carbon transit. Unfortunately, these new measures haven’t exactly struck a chord with Billie’s fans (booooo, they’ll come around). 

Massive Attack – Their Bristol “Act 1.5” concert replaced diesel generators with solar- and wind-charged batteries, deployed electric buses, encouraged walking and public transit by limiting parking, offered plant-based menus, used compostable materials, and even installed composting toilets.

Check out this article from the New York Times, “Is this Massive Attack Concert the Gold Standard for a Green Gig?”

People are Listening 🎤 

Music venues have become somewhat of a test case for how all live events are run. Looking back to our note in the intro about trash and plastic, you're right: single-use plastics are a huge problem. As they pile up in landfills and oceans, event spaces are turning to food packaging that can be washed and used hundreds of times.

In fact, 200 music venues, stadiums, arenas, zoos and convention centers across the United States are ditching single use plastics for r.World's cups, designed to withstand up to 300 wash cycles before replacement.

To very little surprise, live events in Europe are also changing rapidly – and fast. According to a study by Greener Future, surveying more than 40 festivals across Europe, festival bans on single use plastic foodware rose from 54% in 2022 to 75% in 2023, and almost two thirds (60%) had a reusable cup system last year.

The study also emphasized the impact of travel and transport, but declared food and drink are often the second largest source of emissions.

The bottom line is, while music is definitely a huge source of carbon pollution, it might very well become the catalyst in redefining how we run live events.

👀 Some Stories You Might Have Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. Nations around the world met in Geneva to work toward tackling the global plastic pollution crisis. (PBS)

2. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from diverting $4b from grants designed to protect against natural disasters (E&E Politico)

3. Coal plant closure led to major drop in kids’ asthma in Pennsylvania (Inside Climate News)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo by Henry Thong for Kit on Unsplash

A Life-Changing Lottery Ticket 🎟️

Over the past few months, Australia unveiled a first-of-its-kind "climate visa." Under the Falepili Union, this visa allows Tuvaluan citizens to enter a lottery for a chance to win one of 280 slots. The small pacific state, with a population hovering around 11,000, has become a test case for how countries might respond to climate‑driven migration.

The visa, which offers permanent residency (and frankly, is a pretty groundbreaking migration pathway), was created as an acknowledgment of the rising sea levels, and potentially disastrous climate challenges threatening Tuvalu and its citizens.

In fact, a team of scientists at NASA predicted that the majority of Tuvalu land and critical infrastructure will sit below the level of the current high tide by 2050.

Breaking Down the Visa 🛂

Through the program, Australia is accepting up to 280 Tuvaluans per year for permanent residency. Winners can live, study, work, and access health or education services in Australia, without needing a job offer, marriage license or any other traditional requirements. It’s open to all Tuvalu citizens above 18 years old, assuming they haven’t gotten their Tuvaluan citizenship through an investment to Tuvalu, and aren't citizens of New Zealand.

Also, on the note of New Zealand, while it’s not specifically a "climate visa," they also offer Tuvaluans and citizens from Pacific Island nations a pathway to residency through a ballot system (read more about that here, and some of its drawbacks).

Applications opened June 16 and closed July 18, 2025, with ballot draws running July 25 through January 2026. In just the opening days, over 1,124 primary applicants, including family members, totaling 4,000+ people entered the lottery, making up a whopping one‑third of their population.

Tuvalu isn’t Alone 🗺️

While Tuvalu leads this unfortunate trend, other communities across the globe are facing serious and similar threats. Alaska’s Newtok is moving due to permafrost thaw, and Panama’s Guna people face coastal flooding. Even coastal areas in the U.S are increasingly at climate‑related risk. 

Scientists have projected that by 2070, over 3 billion people could live outside habitable zones (pending any serious climate progress).

Australia’s climate visa is a landmark experiment. But for most countries, climate displacement remains largely unaddressed. The U.S. enforces stringent visa policies even for economic or humanitarian cases, let alone climate ones.

At the same time, cities in the U.S. are starting to tout themselves as “climate havens,” to invite domestic residents from across the country. Disappointingly, we haven’t seen any of them stand up to the political headwinds and speak up for this sentiment on a global level. Experts are starting to make the case that the U.S. (and any other world leaders with ‘climate haven’ spaces, for that matter) has a humanitarian responsibility to welcome people fleeing climate disasters, especially considering they’re the ones causing a lot of this mess.

As sea levels rise and more communities lose habitable land, policymakers must begin creating legal pathways for climate migration before the crisis forces chaotic, unsafe mass movements. Tuvalu’s ballot may be small, but it sets a precedent the global community may need to follow, and fast.

The bottom line? The U.S., along with other big global players and international frameworks alike, are seriously lacking protections for climate-displaced people. Big legal powerhouses, like the American Bar Association are beginning to explore the legal framework for redefining what it means to be a climate refugee, and taking steps toward a more fair system as climate migrations rise.

For further reading, check out this article from the Yale Center for Environmental Justice.

Special Rec: Jake Bittle’s Book📚

“The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration,” by Jake Bittle.
You might recognize Jake for his writing at Grist. His book is a phenomenal exploration of climate migration in the United States, and masterfully puts faces and communities to these questions, issues and realities. It’s been reviewed by Yale Climate Connections, covered by NPR and more – sparking much-needed dialogue about the impending disasters of these displacements, and their broader impact on society. And again, they’re not a future problem – they’ve already begun.

Bonus: listen to an interview with Jake here.

Some Good News Stories You Might‘ve Missed This Week 🗞️📺:

1. The IEA projected renewables will be the world’s top power source ‘by 2026’ (CarbonBrief)

2. Speaking of New Zealand, they want to double their use of geothermal energy by 2040 (Bloomberg)

3. How flood-ravaged Boston took on the climate deniers – and won. (The Guardian)

— Written by Lyle Jarvis

Photo: Markus Krisetya on Unsplash

The Case for Accountability 📖 

On July 23rd, the International Court of Justice ruled that countries have a legal responsibility, under international law, for their carbon emissions and contributions to climate change. Although the ruling is technically non‑binding, it marks a turning point in honoring climate change as a legal frontier, and opens the door for vulnerable countries to seek their rightful justice from some of the world's largest polluters.

Climate litigation has been on the rise for the past few years. But according to legal experts, this decision laid a clear and united line in the sand: climate obligations are real, and the law has a role to play. 

We've discussed this a few times now in the newsletter, but one of the biggest climate inequalities is becoming increasingly apparent: oftentimes, many countries with the lowest levels of emissions are actually the most vulnerable to its impacts.

This ruling clears a legal path for those nations to pursue legal action for things like destroyed buildings, infrastructure and the environmental harm facing its citizens.

A Student-Led Plan Comes to Life 🧑‍🎓 

Perhaps more impressively, the case emerged from a group of 27 students, mainly from the South Pacific. The idea was clear: change international law by getting the world’s highest court to issue an advisory opinion on the climate crisis. More than half a decade later, their plan came to life.

One of those students was in The Hague to hear the decision, and reported to BBC he was "lost for words."

The campaign was originally led by the nation of Vanuatu, a Pacific state that sits among the frontlines of the climate crisis. It's also considered by the U.N. as the country most prone to climate and natural hazard risk. The plan was hatched in 2019, and what started in Vanuatu picked up steam (and a string of other nation states), demanding clarity and enforceability in global climate obligations. In 2023, it was referred to the ICJ by a decision of the UN general assembly by 130 countries, including Australia.

Coincidentally, since the ruling, Australia is among the first of nations to make headlines facing warnings for their emissions.

Will This Actually Get Polluting Countries to Clean Up Their Act? 🌎️ 

While certainly a promising step forward, the ultimate test of the ICJ’s decision will be how it’s received on a global scale. More specifically, success will be determined by if the biggest polluters will play ball by these new rules.

Starting with the U.S., our courts don’t typically cite international cases. In fact, we dropped compulsory jurisdiction with the ICJ in 1986. In an article covering the ruling, the U.S. and Russia, both of whom are serious polluters, were described as being “staunchly opposed to the court mandating emissions reductions.”

To put it bluntly, we’re not holding our breath for the decision to sway President Trump’s love affair with oil and gas. When asked about the ruling, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said  "As always, President Trump and the entire Administration is committed to putting America first and prioritizing the interests of everyday Americans," which sounds like code for “drill baby, drill.” Especially when paired with his (second) departure from the Paris Climate Accord.

But nonetheless, global venues do apply pressure for stronger action, and we’ll be staying tuned to see how the decision is received around the world.

Climate Litigation is on The Rise

What we know for sure, is that there’s a growing legal battle over climate change. According to the London School of Economics, who published a study last year about the sharp rise in climate litigation, at least 230 new climate cases were filed in 2023. Many of these are seeking to hold companies and governments alike accountable for their emissions (e.g., Held V. Montana last year)

And according to Reuters, as companies face growing financial and legal risks for misleading sustainability claims and climate management, claimants were winning 70% of 'climate-washing' cases as of last year.

The icing on the cake for climate warriors? These cases are affecting companies' bottom lines. A study was published by nature.com that found: firms experience, on average, a 0.41% fall in stock returns following a climate-related filing or an unfavorable court decision.

As legal pathways continue to open up following the ICJ’s ruling, we’ll be keeping a close eye on how the legal battle over climate change helps us win the progress we deserve.

What We’re Watching 🎥, Reading 📚, and Listening to 🎧

🎥 How Water Makes This Town Flood-Proof | The Wall Street Journal - The WSJ spoke with an engineer of Babcock Ranch, Florida, to uncover the hurricane-proofing designs that help protect his community from storms.

📚 Dr. Dana Fisher’s Saving Ourselves is out on paperback. ICYMI, check out the piece she wrote in our newsletter earlier this month, and get your paperback copy here!

🎧️ Climate Rising: Geospatial AI Can Forecast Climate Risk | Harvard Business School Sarah Russell, GM of Project Bellwether at X, The Moonshot Factory, joined the Harvard Business School Climate Podcast to share how A.I. can help communities and businesses anticipate and respond to climate risks.