Published

2 years ago

February 13, 2024

Alice Rush

Argentina’s new free-market president Javier Milei is pushing for a rollback in environmental regulation, endangering forests and glaciers.

Milei, who has called climate change a “socialist lie”, has tried to ease restrictions on mining near glaciers and remove protections for forests.

But the moves have sparked protests, petitions and open letters. Milei has been forced to withdraw the wider free market reform bill that they are contained in, as it became clear he lacked the votes in Argentina’s lower house to pass it in its entirety.

Although he was elected president in November with 56% of the vote, Milei’s party holds less than a fifth of the seats in the lower house and less than a tenth in the Senate, making passing legislation a big challenge and reliant on a large block of independents.

Milei has yet to outline the next step for the reform bill. The government could choose to resubmit the law for another vote in parliament, incorporate aspects of it into an executive degree or put it to a referendum of the people.

Red tape cuts

After decades of mainly left-wing rule, Milei was elected on a promise to drastically cut government spending, tackle rampant inflation and boost economic growth.

Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone

Lucas Ruiz, a glaciologist at Argentine government scientific agency Conicet told Climate Home that Milei’s environmental agenda was “about relaxing regulations or reducing the area under protection with the argument that they go against economic development”.

Enrique Viale, who heads the Argentine association of environmental lawyers said that Milei “is part of an international trend that views environmentalism as an enemy”. Milei has praised former far-right presidents Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the USA.

Although he committed Argentina to staying in the Paris climate agreement and keeping its net zero by 2050 target, Milei quickly abolished the environment ministry and proposed a huge and radical reform bill.

The bill contains hundreds of items pushing his agenda in a broad range of industries, from tourism and wine to mining and farming. But the two items which most angered environmentalists were easing restrictions on economic activities in glacial areas and forests.

While some items in the bill received support from legislators, these two were more controversial after scientists and environmental associations widely rejected them.

Forests and glaciers

One item would allow provincial governments to authorise deforestation in areas where it is currently banned. It would also cut the budget for tackling illegal deforestation and forest fires.

Greenpeace estimates that, with this change, about four-fifths of the country’s forests would have been left without any legal protection.

Greenpeace forest campaigner Hernán Giardini called it a “serious setback in terms of environmental regression”, which would lead to an “uncontrolled increase” in forest destruction.

Ecuador’s new president tries to wriggle out of oil drilling referendum

Milei also proposed to change the legal definition of glaciers so that smaller glaciers, and those not previously accounted for in an offical log, aren’t counted. This means they would not be legally protected from the gold, silver and copper miners that have been eyeing up deposits in the Andes.

Giardini said the idea that you could mine on the fringes of glaciers without damaging the glaciers themselves as like “removing the door from the refrigerator and expecting the freezer not to defrost”.

The Perito Moreno glacier in Los Glaciares National Park (Photos: Amanderson2)

Argentina has almost 17,000 glaciers, spanning an area bigger than Palestine. They provide drinking water to cities and help Argentina adapt to climate change.

Glaciologist Ruiz said they help mitigate the effects of drought by providing water. “The greatest risk we now face [with mining] is contamination of the very areas where many rivers originate”.

The fate of these measures and the reform bill is uncertain. But Giardini warns that their passing would be “a shameful setback”.

The laws the reforms would water down “took many years of work”, he said, and wrecking them “would mean throwing away many years worth of effort”.

The post Argentine resistance hinders Milei’s forest and glacier destruction appeared first on Climate Home News.

Argentine resistance hinders Milei’s forest and glacier destruction

Climate Change

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Published

10 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.

Interview by Paloma Beltran, Living on Earth

From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.

A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won

Climate Change

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Published

15 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.

ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.

Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.

“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”

The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]

ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]

Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.

“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”

Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.

-ENDS-

Images available in Greenpeace Media Library

Notes:

[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.

[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee

[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.

[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.

Media contact:

Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit

Climate Change

Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump

Published

15 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.

By Liza Gross

In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.