Ilka Vega is the executive for economic and environmental justice at United Women in Faith, the largest denominational faith organisation for women in the United States.
For climate justice advocates around the globe, many of the United States’ environmental policies have felt dangerous. In this moment, Earth Day might feel sobering as we acknowledge the gravity of these dangers. However, we cannot allow bad actors at the national level to shake our spirit. Instead, we can harness the energy of Earth Day and mobilize our communities for change.
Of course, while local action is powerful, it is against a backdrop of rollbacks to environmental protections. In 2026, the current US administration has continued on its track of undermining climate action, taking us back decades on efforts to mitigate and adapt to the escalating climate crisis.
In January, the US withdrew from several international climate organizations and treaties, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. In February, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) repealed the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which will make it more difficult to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants.
More destructive weather extremes
Climate change is not a future threat – it is affecting people right now. And it is not an abstract concept. We have seen its impact in tangible ways.
In 2025, the mainland United States experienced the fourth hottest year on record. In February of this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported an average surface temperature 2.12° F higher than the 20th-century average.
Tornadoes, tropical cyclones, floods and other natural disasters devastated communities around the world, and have been growing more frequent and destructive due to climate change. Frontline communities disproportionately suffer these effects. Women and children are most likely to be displaced and are more likely to suffer gender-based violence when natural disasters and weather emergencies occur.
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As climate change devastates communities, it is important that we take practical steps to prevent future harm. We can work with each other to encourage new practices, even without the support of powerful people. Our force can have an impact on communities beyond our imaginations. I have seen this in action, from my own neighborhood to organizations across the US and around the world.
Communities resisting the old and building the new
For example, last year in Texas, people from all walks of life came together to protest the toxicity of fossil fuels in front of oil and gas CEOs. In Oak Flat Arizona, an Apache stronghold is still resisting a destructive copper mine project despite setbacks that threaten to shatter their sacred lands.
One woman in La Mesa, California led efforts to engage nearby school districts in discussions about joining the EPA’s Clean School Bus program. In the wake of hurricanes, First Grace United Methodist Church in New Orleans used their solar panels to offer relief through charging and cooling for neighbors experiencing power outages.
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In Marange, Zimbabwe, Environmental Buddies Zimbabwe installed energy-efficient stoves in their community. A project with similar goals, Eco-Green Gold in Bolgatanga, Ghana trained 40 women to produce charcoal from grass as an eco-friendly alternative to wood-based charcoal. They both are creating opportunities for their neighbors while reducing deforestation and promoting renewable energy.
Shared responsibility for a cleaner, safer planet
These communities have shown that we all have a responsibility to fight for a cleaner, healthier and safer Earth. That responsibility does not end when the government is not doing enough; rather, it becomes imperative that we boost our efforts.
Although there is only so much we can do about the actions of a powerful government and wealthy corporations, we can influence what happens in our own communities – and that influence matters.
Individual actions build powerful movements; change must always begin at the local level. When we see people around the world organizing and taking direct action, we realize the true scale of what is possible. Every effort, no matter how small, becomes part of a larger movement that cannot be ignored.
We hold onto the unwavering belief that we can still turn the tide on climate change – and it is that hope that drives every step of our work toward a better, sustainable future.
The post Earth Day is an opportunity for communities to show the way on climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.
Earth Day is an opportunity for communities to show the way on climate action
Aiqun Yu, Christine Shearer and Joe Hittinger work at Global Energy Monitor, a US-based organisation that seeks to provide the worldwide energy transition with transparent data and analysis.
With global oil and gas prices soaring at the start of the Iran war, China quietly broke ground on three major coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemical projects worth roughly $10 billion in two regions with abundant coal resources.
But as a Chinese saying goes, “three feet of ice does not form in a single day”. China’s push to use coal as a substitute for imported oil and gas has been gathering momentum since the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022, prompting a recalibration of energy security priorities in Beijing and beyond.
The policy raises new concerns, threatening China’s climate goals and growing reputation as a global clean energy leader by creating renewed demand for coal.
A new expansion wave
Over the past three years, China has entered a new cycle of investment in so-called “modern coal chemicals”, differentiated from conventional coal chemicals. Four pathways – coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-olefins, and coal-to-ethylene glycol – account for the bulk of new modern coal-chemical capacity under development.
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According to Global Energy Monitor data, proposed and under-construction coal-to-gas capacity is approaching three times current operating capacity. Together, 34 projects under active consideration represent more than 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in planned investment and could add roughly 300 million tonnes of annual coal demand if completed, equivalent to South Africa’s entire coal mining capacity.
Most projects are in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Ningxia, regions with plentiful coal resources and relatively low mining costs. Xinjiang has emerged as the epicentre of the new boom, accounting for more than half of all proposed modern coal chemical projects.
Why the world abandoned coal chemicals
Coal chemicals are often presented as an emerging industry, but the technologies themselves are more than a century old.
Earlier “conventional” coal chemistry was a byproduct of coking, a process run primarily for iron and steel making. “Modern” coal chemistry instead uses gasification to convert coal into synthesis gas, a versatile building block for fuels, plastics, fertilisers and other chemicals that would traditionally be made from oil or gas.
These modern processes were developed in the early 20th century and expanded during periods of wartime fuel shortages. For example, Germany relied heavily on synthetic fuels during the Second World War while South Africa developed similar technologies in the apartheid era to reduce vulnerability to international sanctions.
Once cheap oil and gas became widely available, however, most countries moved away from coal chemicals, which required large amounts of energy, water and capital investment, and generally produced more pollution and carbon emissions than the conventional alternatives.
Today, only a handful of commercial coal gasification facilities operate outside China.
China has already tested this theory once
The current expansion is not China’s first attempt to build a major coal chemical industry.
A previous boom emerged during the 2010s, driven by many of the same arguments: high oil prices, concerns over energy security and expectations that technological improvements would unlock a new era of coal-based industrial growth.
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The outcome was far from successful. Dozens of projects were proposed, but many were delayed, suspended or scrapped before completion, and there were difficulties among those that did get off the ground.
Three of China’s four operating coal-to-gas projects reportedly spent much of the past decade operating at a loss, and several large coal chemical facilities generated only marginal returns despite government support.
Policy support is driving the revival
Backers say technological improvements have made the industry more competitive than it was a decade ago.
Yet coal chemical projects remain highly dependent on oil and gas prices. When international prices rise, coal-derived products can appear competitive. When prices fall, the economics often deteriorate rapidly.
More than changes in technology, government policy has played a pivotal role in the sector’s revival.
Following power shortages in 2021 and the energy market disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy security became a national priority. Coal production expanded, particularly in western China, boosted by government support.
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A key policy change in 2022 exempted coal used as industrial feedstock from certain energy consumption controls, easing regulatory pressure on coal chemical projects.
The impact of such measures highlights the degree to which coal chemicals depend on expansive and favourable policy treatment to remain viable.
At the same time, the current expansion is creating new demand for an industry confronting structural decline as China races to renewables in electricity generation.
The cost to China’s climate leadership
Converting coal into fuels and petrochemical products also releases substantially more carbon dioxide than conventional oil- and gas-based alternatives, which themselves are a major source of emissions.
Proponents argue that coupling production with green hydrogen and carbon capture could resolve the emissions problem, but the arithmetic doesn’t support this.
Sinopec’s flagship Dalu coal-to-olefins plant, paired with a 10,000 tonne-per-year green hydrogen demonstration, displaces less than 2% of the plant’s annual coal use. Replicating this across the proposed buildout would consume enormous quantities of clean energy just to partially decarbonise an inherently dirty process.
China could instead leverage that same industrial capacity and policy support to lead the development of cleaner chemical pathways, such as green ammonia for fertiliser, bio-based and CO2-derived feedstocks for plastics, and e-fuels or biofuels where liquid fuels are still needed.
Rather than locking in another generation of coal-dependent infrastructure, China should learn from the lessons of the past and seek a cleaner and more viable industrial future.
The post China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past appeared first on Climate Home News.
China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past
Welcome to the Project Cosmos homepage.
The project was launched by Carbon Brief in June 2026 following an 18-month research and development effort.
The aim: to build the world’s largest database of climate change research.
Containing more than 1.8 million unique publications linked by 40 million citation relationships, the Cosmos database represents the most complete and expansive mapping of human knowledge on climate change ever assembled.
The articles and visuals below will guide you through how the Cosmos database was built, as well as all the subsequent analysis, including the Cosmos 500 rankings of most cited authors, publications and institutions.
The post Project Cosmos appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/project-cosmos/
This is the vast “cosmos” of academic literature and evidence that underpins humanity’s knowledge of climate change.
Every “star” – all 1.8m of them – represents one of the studies inside Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database.
The coloured “nebulae” and “galaxies” within this cosmos illustrate where clusters of studies share similar citations and, hence, areas of common academic focus.
The post Mapped: Inside Carbon Brief’s Cosmos database of 1.8 million climate studies appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-inside-carbon-briefs-cosmos-database-of-1-8-million-climate-studies/
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