On behalf of Climate Generation, an organization in Minnesota working with high school youth and educators, we are expressing our disappointment in your lobbying efforts at the State Capitol to stop HF3577/SF3561 – the Packaging Waste and Reduction Act. At Climate Generation, the students of our Youth Environmental Activist (YEA!) high school network have been advocating for sustainable solutions that not only reduce waste, but stop feeding harmful pollutants, like the HERC trash burner in North Minneapolis.
General Mills, Cargill, and 3M are all members of AMERIPEN, whose mission is to “Be the leading voice for the packaging industry, using science to inspire, create and advocate for sustainable solutions for the packaging value chain.” One would hope that you stay true to this mission in Minnesota, a state in which your companies call home, and welcome legislation that would reduce unnecessary packaging and the associated costs of added packaging on our communities.
The efforts your lobbyists are putting in to stop HF3577/SF3561 tell community members that you don’t support a bill that:
- Prioritizes Waste Reduction: We cannot recycle and compost our way out of this packaging crisis; we must prioritize reduction. The bill requires producers to meet targets for source reduction, reuse, recycling and composting, and post-consumer recycled content. These targets are enforced by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).
- Drives Packaging Redesign: Packaging producers will be charged based on the amount and type of packaging used. The less packaging a company uses, the less they will pay. There are also financial incentives for companies to reduce unnecessary packaging and use nontoxic, reusable, recyclable and compostable materials.
- Creates Equitable & Free Access to Recycling: Recycling is a growing financial burden for local governments and individual families. The program will provide free recycling for all Minnesotans, by requiring producers and profiters of packaging waste to reimburse local governments for the cost of these programs, rather than local taxpayers.
- Supports Quality Jobs: The program ensures that priority for service provider contracts is given to Minnesota companies that provide good jobs, strong safety standards, and quality services. Additionally, investments in reuse and recycling infrastructure will create new jobs across our state. The MPCA estimates that fully investing in recycling will result in over 15,000 new jobs.
- Strengthens Minnesota’s Economy: Businesses are struggling to source the metal, paper, plastic, and glass needed to make new packaging and products. Meanwhile, each year Minnesota buries and burns over 1 million tons of recyclables worth an estimated $143 million. By recycling more, we can create a reliable domestic supply of recycled metal, paper, plastic, and glass to make new products. Additionally, the recycled content requirements provide stability to, traditionally unstable, commodity markets.
Research tells us that packaging waste and printed paper make up 40% of our waste stream in Minnesota, and global plastic production is expected to double over the next two decades.
Not only are we asking that you support the efforts of passing the Packaging Waste and Reduction Act, but that you respect the science behind it. Your stance against this bill to save a few dollars is spreading a harmful message that we aren’t in a waste crisis, when in fact we are. This harmful messaging is in alignment with the fossil fuel industry and similar to the type of messaging spread by ExxonMobil, who also tried minimizing the impacts of climate change and the role they play in it. Moreover, these policy changes only represent single‒digit percentage increase to your companies in additional supply costs — a small price to pay in support of your consumers’ and our planet’s health considering each of your profits were in the billions in 2023.
Minnesota is not the first state to consider this legislation. In fact, several other states have already implemented similar policies, as has the entire European Union. Your corporations are already abiding by these rules in other places, so why are you fighting it here, in the state in which your employees and their families work and live? The policies represented in these bills align with the sustainability priorities of each of your companies, and do not require these changes to be implemented until 2033. In the case of General Mills, this is three years later than the company has already committed to publicly. The state’s legislation also allows for a waiver should any company show they will not be able to source the necessary materials through global supply chains by the 2033 deadline.
As we continue to tackle the climate and waste crisis, collaboration becomes essential in finding effective solutions. We hope you will join us in this conversation and take the crucial steps towards improving our state’s recycling, supporting local governments, and investing more services to our communities.
B. serves as Policy Manager for Climate Generation. They are a Minneapolis Southsider and first generation graduate of the University of Minnesota. B. has several years experience in community organizing and policy work and is excited to bring their experiences in voting rights and housing advocacy to Climate Generation’s climate justice work. They believe in investing in our young leaders to build a better future and sustain movement work and have centered the voices of young people in previous campaigns. B. is a participant in the Wilder Foundation’s Community Equity Program, a nine-month political leadership cohort-based learning journey for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color community leaders and change makers.
The post An open letter to AMERIPEN and the leadership of 3M, General Mills, and Cargill appeared first on Climate Generation.
An open letter to AMERIPEN and the leadership of 3M, General Mills, and Cargill
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight
The African Group wants dedicated space on tripling adaptation finance, the Green Climate Fund and trade, setting up a possible clash
To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.