Following years of violence surrounding one of Latin America’s largest wind energy projects, local residents in southern Oaxaca state are cautiously optimistic that Mexico’s incoming president understands their anger over what they call poor consultations and environmental damage.
Claudia Sheinbaum will be sworn in as Mexico’s first female president on October 1 with a broad electoral mandate. Before entering politics, she was a scientist studying renewable energy, including the ongoing conflict over wind farms on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The tensions have spawned deadly violence, and lawsuits from Oaxaca City to Paris.
One of Mexico’s windiest areas, energy companies have flocked to the strip of land between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean since 2006, making it one of the most important locations for renewable energy in the world’s 13th largest country.
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Supporters say projects like this are crucial for transitioning Mexico away from fossil fuels and creating green jobs based on renewable energy. Opponents are concerned about wind turbines harming migratory birds, land access, revenue sharing and – most importantly – problems related to Indigenous community consultations over the investments.
Bloody conflict
In several cases, anger over the projects has turned bloody, including at least 15 killed in a dispute over the wind farms in 2020.
Today, more than 2,000 turbines cover the land, according to data from Amnesty International, leading to “dispossession” and violations of the “collective rights of Indigenous communities”, the rights charity says. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in the projects, mostly by European energy companies.
Anti-wind farm activist Guadalupe Ramirez poses for a picture inside her home in Union Hidalgo, Mexico. (Leon Pineda/Climate Home)
Anti-wind farm activist Guadalupe Ramirez poses for a picture inside her home in Union Hidalgo, Mexico. (Leon Pineda/Climate Home)Guadalupe Ramirez is an Indigenous Zapotec farmer who grows pumpkins and corn on a communal plot in the town of Union Hidalgo, a hub for wind energy. She told Climate Home that “at first, they (wind companies) said they would just take a little piece of the land but they ended up destroying a big piece”.
“The companies started dividing families,” said Ramirez, who also complained about local environmental disruption from the projects. “We were very mad about this. I have hope with Sheinbaum.”
Ramirez expects the new president and former Mexico City mayor may have some unique insights on the problems her community faces. The academic turned politician co-authored a study analysing the unrest over wind projects in Oaxaca state.
“Although wind energy has numerous benefits, [the] concerns of the local people have to be taken seriously,” Sheinbaum wrote in 2016. “Far from the old-fashioned thinking of looking at social acceptance of renewable technologies as a NIMBY (not in my backyard) problem… information, consultation, and participation are key elements to the success and acceptance of wind farm projects.”
Sheinbaum celebrates her election victory in Mexico City on June 3, 2024. (REUTERS/Raquel Cunha TPX)
Those are exactly the elements Ramírez and many of her neighbors say were missing when they were first approached by energy companies back in 2009.
From there, the conflict escalated, said Carlos Lopez, who has experienced it firsthand. As an activist and community journalist in Union Hidalgo, he said he was threatened by masked men toting automatic weapons. He suspects they were hired by landowners or corrupt local politicians who wanted windmills erected in the area in order to receive rent from companies.
“They were killing people here,” Lopez told Climate Home, during an interview in a crumbling building which had been a community radio hub in Union Hidalgo as it underwent renovations.
In 2013, for instance, he said local fishermen and hunters were working in an area near Union Hidalgo coveted by wind investors, when they were accosted by masked men with heavy weapons. The fishermen then fled to the radio station, so Lopez could broadcast what was happening.
Deadly violence
“They [investors and their supporters in government] don’t respect the vision and culture of the original peoples of the Isthmus and want to push through these megaprojects,” said Lopez, sitting on a plastic chair next to pictures of Che Guevara and posters for protest movements.
Posters are displayed inside a community radio station in Union Hidalgo (Picture: Leon Pineda)
Residents later set up barricades around six areas they considered sacred sites to stop encroachment by companies, he added, as threats continued and violence simmered.
In 2020, for instance, at least 15 people were killed in San Mateo del Mar, a coastal community in Oaxaca and a hotbed of Indigenous opposition to wind projects. Campaigners said they were stopped at a coronavirus checkpoint and shot at by supporters of a local mayor who backed the wind projects.
Last month, a French court allowed a civil case against the energy giant EDF to proceed after Indigenous people in Oaxaca argued the company failed to prevent violence and intimidation of wind farm opponents.
The violence has quietened down in the past few years due to national government policy changes and several court cases limiting new wind investment in the area, said local residents, including both critics and supporters of the projects.
Opposition is “political”
Not everyone in Union Hidalgo is opposed to the wind farms. On a rainy Saturday on his mango, avocado and guava farm, Dueter Toledo Ordonez told Climate Home: “These projects aren’t bothering me.”
“Some people don’t like it,” he said, with wind turbines in the distance, “but it’s all political … It’s clean energy; it’s the future.”
His father, who farms a nearby plot, had a contract with an energy company to install windmills on his land, added Ordonez, “but something happened with the politics and people said they were polluting” so the company stopped construction.
Deuter Toledo Ordonez tends to crops on his land in Union Hidalgo on June 8, 2024. (Photo: Leon Pineda)
Juqulia Elizabeth Lopez Ruiz, a spokesperson for the secretary of renewable energy for Juchitan district, told Climate Home the 28 wind parks in Tehuantepec bring a lot of jobs.
But she acknowledges some farmers aren’t happy about the projects. “To respond to these concerns: we have Indigenous assemblies where we decide the correct way to act with these wind farms,” she said.
As for concerns raised by wind farm opponents that some municipal lawmakers have been corrupted by energy companies, Lopez Ruiz said this was “just speculation”.
“At one point there was a candidate who had the support of the companies but he stopped being a candidate,” said the local government spokesperson, without naming the politician or discussing specifics of the case.
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Eduardo Martinez Noriegua is an ecologist with the environmental group Ecological Forum in Juchitan, which has conducted some monitoring around the projects.
He said that anger over potential disruptions to migratory bird populations from wind farms, increased litter and soil and water contamination from the oil lubricating the turbines are justified.
“I believe the government is being very permissive with the quality control for these operations,” he said.
Energy nationalisation
When Sheinbaum takes office, she will be leading a country that gets nearly 80% of its electricity from fossil fuels and is one of only two G20 countries without a commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions.
Her key political backer – the popular current president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) – invested heavily in new oil infrastructure, and asserted greater national control over the electricity market.
Mexico nationalized its oil industry in the 1930s, and AMLO has taken a similar approach to key materials for the energy transition, cancelling lithium mining concessions granted to foreign firms and creating a new national company to extract the critical mineral.
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The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), a state agency, was also given more control over power generation and distribution.
Sheinbaum has signalled she will continue her predecessor’s policies of state dominance in the energy sector.
Despite the government’s “quest to nationalise electricity generation”, Marilyn Christian, an advisor to the Mexican Centre for Environmental Law, an advocacy group, said the CFE doesn’t currently have the technology to rapidly increase renewable power production. Instead, as demand grows, it has turned to fossil fuels to generate electricity.
“Emissions in the electricity sector … have been on the rise since 2021 – that is bad news for our commitments on reducing carbon emissions,” she said. “We have many expectations with Claudia Sheinbaum. She has a solid academic background in environmental issues … [but] Claudia is also a politician. She has a clear position and ideology.”
Christian said she supports the idea of public control over electricity in principle, an effective option in some European countries, but it will only work if the CFE has the capacity to deliver.
Back in Union Hidalgo, most wind farm critics said their views wouldn’t change if a public institution like the CFE, rather than private companies, managed the projects, posing another complication for generating more renewable power.
But some of the changes recommended by Sheinbaum in her study on Oaxaca, including deeper consultation with communities living nearby and taking their concerns seriously, could help smooth things out, Ramirez said.
“We are not totally against this kind of green energy,” she said as hundreds of white windmills whirred in the distance. “It’s about how they do business.”
(Reporting by Chris Arsenault and Philippe Le Billon, editing by Joe Lo and Megan Rowling)
The travel and reporting for this story were funded by a grant from the Global Reporting Centre and Social Sciences Humanities and Research Council.
The post A simmering conflict over one of Latin America’s biggest wind hubs confronts Mexico’s next president appeared first on Climate Home News.
A simmering conflict over one of Latin America’s biggest wind hubs confronts Mexico’s next president
Climate Change
FLIP OFF WOODSIDE TO SAVE SCOTT REEF: Greenpeace, Michael Caton, Thinkerbell mobilise Australia to challenge gas project at Scott Reef
6 November 2026
Greenpeace Australia Pacific has joined forces with Thinkerbell and iconic Australian actor Michael Caton on a major public movement and behaviour change initiative to save Scott Reef, calling on Australians to “flip off” gas corporation Woodside. The company plans to drill for gas at Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to vulnerable green sea turtles, endangered pygmy blue whales, and thousands of marine species, off the coast of Western Australia.
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO HERE
At the heart of the collaboration is somebody who knows a thing or two about fighting off corporations to protect a home: Michael Caton. Set in a courtroom, Caton gives his voice to a voiceless inhabitant, a green sea turtle, and together they invite the public to show their support to save Scott Reef.
Designed to shift public behaviour and drive national debate, the movement asks the public to tag their MPs – applying direct political pressure on Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Albanese Albanese to “flip off” Woodside’s dirty gas project, which would see up to 57 toxic wells drilled around Scott Reef off the coast of Western Australia.
Voiced by Michael Caton and set to a soundtrack provided by Radiohead, the narrative centres on our hero turtle defending her home from corporate overreach in a courtroom showdown. As the turtle defiantly flips her flippers at Woodside, Michael Caton calls on everyday Australians to take a stand and help save her home.
Michael Caton said: “I’m proud to lend my voice to Greenpeace to help save Scott Reef. The marine life out there can’t speak up, so we need to. Some things are too precious to risk.”
Glenn Walker, Head of Nature at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, added: “Woodside’s dirty gas project at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, threatening thousands of species, including the extremely vulnerable green sea turtles that nest there. By literally flipping off Woodside and Big Gas, Aussies are cutting through corporate spin and sending an unignorable message to Environment Minister Murray Watt and the Albanese government: save Scott Reef.”
Adam Ferrier, co-founder of Thinkerbell, said: “You can fight a corporation in the courtroom forever, but the real power to deliver lasting protection rests in parliament. Right now, our MPs hold an extraordinary opportunity to safeguard Scott Reef for generations to come. I’m proudly from WA, and I know how much the natural environment means to the people and economy of Western Australia. I’m also sure Woodside wants to do the right thing, and with enough public support and government action we’ll together save Scott Reef.
Paul Swann, Chief Creative Tinker at Thinkerbell notes: “When the stakes are this high, polite ads don’t work. You need an unignorable provocation that galvanises people and puts the pressure squarely where it belongs, on our leaders in Canberra. This isn’t just about protecting a reef; it’s about holding power to account.”
Greenpeace has been campaigning to stop Woodside’s dirty gas plans for years, increasing pressure on the Australian government to save Scott Reef from becoming an industrialised gas zone. From actions aboard Woodside’s gas platform to cinemas across Australia, Greenpeace isn’t backing off in their advocacy to save Scott Reef.
Rolling out across OOH, digital, social and cinema with an interactive landing page, this project will be amplified by high-profile figures urging Australians to take action, tag their MPs, and defend Scott Reef. The movement combines cinematic storytelling with organic social mobilsation and earned media, planned via Thinkerbell’s Alchemy model to drive real behaviour change and impact.
Marking their first Australian tour in 15 years, English rock band Radiohead will play 16 arena shows across Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in May and June 2027. A $2 donation is included in every ticket price with proceeds going to Greenpeace Australia Pacific and the Australian Marine Conservation Society. Radiohead will match the final amount raised.
ENDS
WATCH NOW:
FOR ASSETS OR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Adam Ferrier | 0413 633 344 | adamferrier@thinkerbell.com
Kimberley Bernard | 0407 581 404 | kbernard@greenpeace.org
ABOUT THINKERBELL
Thinkerbell is a 9-year-old independent creative company. We practise Measured Magic – the coming together of marketing science and hardcore creativity – to help our clients build their brands and change behaviour.
ABOUT GREENPEACE
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is a global independent campaigning organisation that uses peaceful protest and creative confrontation to expose environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
Climate Change
Jimmy Barnes, King Gizz lead Aussie music supergroup on new release to save Scott Reef
SYDNEY, Monday 9 November 2026 — Australian music icons Jimmy Barnes AO, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Fred Leone, Gordi & Montaigne are among the more than 20 Australian artists who have joined forces to release a new song with an urgent message: save Scott Reef.
Released today, “If Not Now” is a reimagining of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Environmental Music Prize-winning song “If Not Now, Then When?”, and is a collaboration between Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Green Music Australia, and p(doom) Records.
Scott Reef is a 15-million-year-old ancient coral reef located 270 kilometres off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia. It is Australia’s largest oceanic reef and is home to thousands of marine animals and endangered species, but fossil fuel corporation Woodside plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells under and around the reef, threatening to turn it into an industrial gas zone.
“If Not Now” is the reef’s first and only release, out on all digital platforms and on limited edition 7” vinyl. The song is accompanied by cover art and visualiser from acclaimed Australian artist and ARIA-winning music video director Jonathan Zawada (Flume, The Avalanches).
Speaking about the track, Stu Mackenzie (lead singer, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard) said: “Why are we still digging up coal and gas? Why are we allowing this? Why is the Australian government so hell-bent on destroying our beautiful wild and untouched places? I’m proud that a King Gizz song was chosen to represent a growing movement of people who are asking these questions and applying pressure. Let’s shut it down and keep it beautiful.”
Rock legend Jimmy Barnes AO said: “Scott Reef is one of the few pristine reefs left in the world and it happens to be on our doorstep. We’re custodians of it — we’re supposed to be looking after it. It’s ridiculous. We must protect our country and look after what we value most, which is the nature and the beauty of this country.”
Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “I’m filled with hope by the incredible musicians and artists who are using their voices and skills to amplify the voices of half a million Australians who are calling on the government to stop Woodside’s nature and climate-wrecking gas plans and save Scott Reef. Australian music has long been a powerful catalyst for change, so saving Scott Reef is a no-brainer for Australian music lovers.”
Contributing artists (in alphabetic order):
- Alex Lahey
- Brinkley Davies (marine biologist/freediver)
- Birdland
- Close Counters
- DOBBY
- Fred Leone (Artist of the Year at the 2026 NIMAs, singing in Butculla)
- Gordi
- John Butler
- Jimmy Barnes
- King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
- Leah Senior
- Mahalia Barnes
- Montaigne
- Ngaiire
- NIDALA
- Peppa Lane (Spacey Jane)
- Ruby Rodgers (2026 Environmental Music Prize winner)
- Terry Guyula (Drifting Clouds, singing in Yolgu Matha)
- Tom Mahler (The Moving Stills)
- Urthboy
Production cast:
- Becki Whitton (G Flip, Allday, Stella Donnelly)
- Stu McKenzie (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard)
- Tay Blunt (FVNERAL)
- Tim Shiel (Green Music Australia)
Three generations of the Barnes family, Jimmy Barnes, his daughter, Mahalia Barnes and granddaughter Ruby Rodgers, contributed to the track.
The release comes amid growing national pressure on the Federal Government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s gas drilling plans.
Last week, a leaked letter from WA’s environmental watchdog to Woodside revealed the agency deemed drilling risks to Scott Reef ‘serious, significant and irreversible’, while Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists occupied a major Woodside gas platform, and Perth communities delivered one of the biggest environmental petitions in Australia’s history to Woodside HQ.
The Federal Government is expected to make a decision on Woodside’s Scott Reef drilling plans in the coming months.
-ENDS-
Media contact
To arrange an interview or for more information, contact Emma Sangalli on 0431 513 465 or emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org
High res images and footage of Scott Reef can be found here (NEW) and here.
Jimmy Barnes, King Gizz lead Aussie music supergroup on new release to save Scott Reef
What might a high-school course look like if it helped students understand climate change—and see a place for themselves in responding to it?
Not simply a course about emissions or environmental problems. A course that connects science with the places students know, the decisions their communities face, and the work they might one day do.
Canadian schools already teach climate change and environmental responsibility, including through required curriculum expectations. Ontario’s Grade 9 science course, for example, asks students to assess climate change’s effects on ecosystems and communities, including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities. Across Canada, however, the depth and placement of climate learning vary, and opportunities for more specialized study often sit within elective courses.
Part 1 explored how we could build on that foundation through sustained learning from elementary school onward, shaped with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis governments, educators, and education authorities.
One next step worth considering is a required senior-secondary course that brings these threads together. Imagine a course called Climate, Land, and Future Economies: a place to explore climate evidence, community resilience, Indigenous governance, practical solutions, and the possibilities of a changing world.
The idea is not to turn every student into a climate scientist. It is to give every student a stronger foundation for the choices ahead—whether their path leads to university, college, an apprenticeship, employment, entrepreneurship, public service, or work within their own Nation or community.
Start with the science—and make room for questions
A meaningful course would begin with sound science: how the greenhouse effect works, how carbon moves through living systems, how energy choices affect emissions, and how scientists study a changing climate.
But the learning could become more engaging when students have an opportunity to investigate questions close to home.
What can local weather records tell us? How do we distinguish a single unusual season from a longer-term trend? What does a climate projection mean for a community planning its roads, housing, or water systems? What can a dataset tell us—and what remains outside its scope?
These questions invite students into the process of understanding evidence rather than asking them simply to memorize conclusions.
They also create space to discuss uncertainty honestly. Students could explore how researchers reach conclusions, why findings sometimes change, and how to distinguish a legitimate scientific question from a misleading claim.
The aim would be informed curiosity: the confidence to ask good questions, find credible information, and explain what the evidence supports.
Look at climate through the life of a community
Climate learning becomes more meaningful when it moves beyond global averages and into the places people live.
A class might explore a neighbourhood with little shade, a community concerned about flooding, or the choices involved in preparing a school for extreme heat. Students could examine a local emergency plan, speak with community planners, or investigate how housing and transportation decisions affect environmental risk.
The questions soon become as much about people as about climate.
Who has access to a cool, safe place during a heat wave? Who can leave when an evacuation is ordered? What happens when roads, water systems, or food supplies are disrupted? What resources does a community need to prepare?
A course could help students explore how housing, health, income, disability, infrastructure, and access to services shape people’s experiences of environmental change. It could also introduce environmental racism and historic dispossession through carefully researched cases, giving students a way to understand why risks and resources are not always distributed fairly.
That approach would connect climate learning with civic life. Students would begin to see that resilience is not only about stronger buildings or better technology. It is also about relationships, public services, and the ability of communities to care for their members.
Recognize that climate decisions are governance decisions
Consider the questions surrounding a new transmission line, wind project, mine, protected area, or housing development.
Where should it go? Who decides? Whose knowledge informs the decision? Who benefits, and who carries the costs?
These are environmental questions, but they are also questions about governance.
A climate course offers an opportunity to introduce Treaty relationships, Indigenous rights and title, consent, and jurisdiction through specific places and decisions. Rather than presenting these concepts as a single checklist, students could explore the Nations, agreements, histories, and legal frameworks relevant to the case they are studying.
Indigenous governments and communities would enter the discussion as decision-makers with their own laws, responsibilities, and priorities—not only as people affected by projects proposed elsewhere.
Learning of this kind would be strongest when developed through relationships with the relevant Nations and Indigenous education authorities. Their participation could help determine which local examples are appropriate, who should guide the learning, and what knowledge can be shared.
The purpose would not be to simplify difficult issues. It would be to help students understand why responsible decisions require attention to authority, relationships, evidence, and rights.
Explore solutions without pretending they are simple
Students deserve to encounter possibilities as well as problems.
Home retrofits, renewable energy, public transit, ecological restoration, local food systems, repair businesses, flood planning, and community emergency preparedness all offer starting points for investigation.
A class could compare options for improving the school building. Another might study a community-owned energy proposal or explore what would make a neighbourhood safer during extreme heat.
The interesting learning lies in looking beneath the label. Calling something “green” tells us little on its own. What does it accomplish? What materials and energy does it require? Who owns it? What effects might it have on land, water, workers, or neighbouring communities?
Students could learn to ask:
- Does this reduce emissions, strengthen resilience, or both?
- What environmental benefits and harms need to be considered?
- How are Indigenous rights and jurisdiction addressed?
- Who participates in decisions, and who receives the benefits?
- What alternatives or trade-offs deserve a closer look?
These questi