Snot ran down my nose, and my ears burned – exhaling a wisp of steam into gray, still air. As I whipped through the wind, floating above the black-slick road I noticed the light, dim and translucent. I knew the afternoon would be pastel-tinted sunsets and frostbit toes. I peddled harder, seeing the absence of white all around me.
I wasn’t an ill-prepared traveler. A moment before, while hugging warm farewells at my godmother’s house, I had an unexpected prideful joy spill out of me – perhaps from the snowsuit I slipped on. It filled the room with heat and light as I spun like a lighthouse, blinding my godmother. I looked like an astronaut wearing a headlamp. Or maybe the pride came from her; she was the one who wisely gifted me an appreciation of the frigid Winter.
The snowsuit was black, with two striking red stripes traveling from my collar all the way down to my shoes, where they flowed into the fur-lined wide-set boots. I adored that suit; it represented the welcome I had received upon returning from college. Everything warm – from my boots to my hat – were gifts from my godmother. The headlamp was my idea, attached askew with duct tape to the bike helmet that was shoved tightly over my lumpy beanie. My garments wrapped me like her hug, promising me the ability to live with the weather, to be of it, and more than that, to be of a place and move in rhythm with that place, like two dancers.
I felt that dance between me and Winter on the days I biked in my snowsuit.
“Now Zoe, if you want to sit outside, you have to place something between you and the ground… it’s not about the weather, it’s how you plan for it. That’s just how it’s done!” My godmother told me many things directly and firmly, followed by a laugh that would spill over between us as if we were sharing something secret and special. When I grew up, I met friends unfamiliar with Winter. Only then did I realize my godmother’s playful chiding was rooting me like a tree to the place I called home. While I moved in harmony with the dark days and slippery landscape, my friends shakily wobbled. As I danced through the snow, warm in my snowsuit, others couldn’t fathom staying outside.
My godmother’s eyes laughed as she reached into her closet. She pulled from a lumpy mass of tangled cloth, the final item that would ready me for my journey: a knitted black and green scarf. It looked more like a tangled mess of wool hastily cobbled together than a chic, utilitarian product.
“Be careful on the ice patches,” she said.
“My bike will break the fall” I replied, chuckling.
“At least there’s no snow.”
As the words left her mouth, we both paused. That eerie feeling washed over me for a moment, an uncomfortable, sharp dread. I stepped out of the door and found myself uncomfortably warm on that temperate January morning in my suit.
As I biked home alone, surrounded by a ground bleached of white, I felt out of step with the hard-fought love my godmother taught me to feel for Winter.
I haven’t always loved Winter, but it wasn’t Winter’s fault. My godmother introduced me to Winter when I was too young to understand that discomfort doesn’t need to mean something isn’t fun. Mine and Winter’s introduction is hazy, but what I can remember is my godmother pushing us down a snowy hill too tall for my size, our bodies spilling out of the sled and I tumbled head over heels, with the white and blue of the sky blurring as I rolled. We would prepare for play like we were embarking on a journey. She would grab blankets and tuck me into a sled, foisting a warm container of tea into my hands.
“It’s your job to keep that safe” she would say “How else will we warm up?” then she’d march ahead, pulling me along. She always seemed to have a knack for finding the deepest snow to build our fort, or the best ice to slide on. I was often reluctant to join her.
“That snow is too deep” I’d shout from behind her. “The air hurts!” but she would just laugh until I was too curious to know what was so funny that I stopped thinking about my snow-dampened socks and instead fell into the snow and ice with her for hours. I reluctantly came to think of Winter as a friend. But even before she pushed us together, Winter was always a part of my story.
I was born during the early hours of a snowstorm as if Winter was so excited I was here it needed to shout from the rooftops. Days before I was born, my mother prayed for snow so she could take me (still in her belly) sledding and encourage me to get out of her and into the world. My family told me I came out howling, screaming right back at Winter, indignant at its demanding cold.
When I left for college, I left the climate activism and love for Winter behind too. I lost myself. Perhaps something inside of me still felt resistant to my godmother’s teachings when I went away to college. That’s when I first experienced climate numbness.
My best friend living on the West Coast spent her senior year of college locked in her house for three weeks because of the poor air quality, while my friend going to university in the South couldn’t drink the tap water when saltwater intruded on her city’s freshwater systems during a record-breaking drought. It was all too much. My friends would mention those grim stories so casually as if we’d all just accepted that this was how the world had to be. I felt detached in those moments. I became increasingly involved in other issues, even as I became more frustrated that climate change needed to be something I took serious action on. All I wanted was to ignore the looming beast of climate change, but even in these deeply personal conversations, the harsh facts couldn’t be eluded.
My climate numbness persisted until one day in the Winter of my Sophomore year. The temperature was unseasonably warm, and as I pushed up a hill I saw a bright flash of blue peeking out of the ground. A Bluebell, so bright it was as if it were shouting “I’m here! Spring is here!” But it wasn’t right. February had only just begun, yet it was clear that spring was here. I began to cry.
At that moment, everything clicked.
We don’t control how we enter this world. We don’t choose where we are born, and we certainly don’t choose what greets us when we arrive. And yet so many of us are shaped deeply by how, who, and where we are from.
What matters as we grow is our ability to sit with the uncertainty of the world that shapes us — approaching, rather than numbing out hard truths. What matters is the relationships we build. The relationships between loved ones, our community, ourselves, and the place we come from. Taking action against systems perpetuating the climate crisis requires a degree of hope that I’d forgotten how to act upon. Hope is a discipline. Hope requires sitting with the truth that climate change and climate injustice are hurting so many, wiping away the seasons, animals, places, and people we call home. Communities provide me the strength and unity to empower the work needed to build resilience, break down systems, and reimagine a new tomorrow.
In my junior and senior years, my appetite to become interconnected once again with those taking action grew. So did my hope. When I graduated, I came home.
That Winter I returned, my godmother called. Winter was so cold that year, a rarity among the temperate gray-warm Winters I’ve come to expect. It was as if Winter was welcoming me home. “It’s cold outside, and I have an extra snowsuit for you. Maybe we can go for a bike by the creek like we used to?” my godmother asked. And we did.
Zoe Redfern-Hall is the Senior Communications and Marketing Manager at Climate Generation and YEA! Alumni. She graduated from Clark University in 2021 with a degree in Political Science. After graduating, she returned to Minnesota. Zoe became deeply involved with organizing against the Line 3 oil pipeline. Last year, more than 2,000 oil lobbyists were allowed to attend COP, impacting the negotiations, stories, and transparency of the conference. She is excited and honored to join the Climate Generation delegation of climate leaders, educators, and activists calling for real change and ambition for a just cultural, economic, and energy transition away from fossil fuels.
The post It was my godmother and Winter that taught me appeared first on Climate Generation.
Climate Change
“Sink or swim”: WA Gov hugely underestimating decline in regional gas demand while sleeping on green exports, new report finds
PERTH, Tuesday 13 October 2026 — A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals green commodity exports are an untapped economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, while offering a genuine solution for decarbonising Asia.
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State is a comprehensive analysis of the declining gas market in Asia, and the untapped economic opportunity for WA to become a global leader in green commodity exports while driving the regional shift away from fossil fuels.
The report offers key recommendations for the WA Government to support regional decarbonisation through an orderly phase out of gas exports in favour of green iron and other green exports. It comes as global climate leaders from across business, politics and advocacy prepare to meet for the Global Citizen Now: Perth event focused on decarbonising WA.
Key findings:
- Gas demand is falling across WA’s core markets in Asia: Gas demand fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline, driven by a combination of global geopolitical factors and domestic concerns.
- Policy shifts in key markets since the war on Iran now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas: Japan, South Korea and China have legislated energy plans that prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- New WA gas would arrive in a saturated, uncertain Asian market filled with cheaper gas: The US is now the world’s largest liquefied gas producer and plans to double its capacity as it also targets Asian markets.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to sustain WA’s economy: WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars.
- Exporting more WA gas is likely to delay or impede Asia decarbonisation: Despite claims by the gas industry, there is no evidence that WA gas is displacing coal in Asia, and in fact diverts resources from genuine decarbonisation options.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “As our export partners in Asia shift away from expensive and polluting gas, the WA Government has a golden opportunity to pivot our economy to green exports, like green iron, which is the most effective way to help our region to decarbonise.
“The writing is on the wall: gas is in decline, renewables are our future. In this context, it makes zero sense for the government to encourage high risk projects like Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal at Scott Reef.
“This report clearly shows that the WA Government faces a choice: sink or swim. They can either allow the gas industry to keep ripping off West Australians and continue propping up its decline, or choose the path that will deliver enormous benefits to the state and the world by becoming a leader in the rapidly expanding green economy.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director of Springmount Advisory: “Western Australia prospers when it looks to the future and builds for future demand. Twenty years from now, what the world needs is green commodities made using WAs abundant renewable resources. Just like it did with iron ore in the 1950s and gas in the 1970s, WA should look to the future and build what the world will need, not sunsetting industries like gas that are already past their peak.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
REPORT: “From Gas to Green” Building Western Australia’s Future State
Cleaner cooking projects in the UN carbon market will have to set aside a share of their credits to insure against the risk that the trees they save are lost to fire, drought or logging, after the market’s regulator rejected calls to exempt the sector.
The requirement is part of a new rulebook that the Paris Agreement carbon market regulator – the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body – approved last Friday for programmes that aim to cut emissions by distributing new and cleaner cookstoves in regions that still burn wood or charcoal for cooking.
These are the UN mechanism’s first rulebooks for cookstoves, one of the carbon market’s most popular credit types and also one of its most criticised for overstating climate benefits.
They consist of two methodologies: one for programmes that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by distributing more efficient cookstoves that burn less wood or charcoal, and a separate methodology for projects shifting households to lower-emissions cookers running on electricity or liquid petroleum gas (LPG).
Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Supervisory Body, said “this decision gives cleaner cooking projects a new pathway under the UN carbon market, with clear rules to ensure that each credit represents a real and credible emission reduction”.
Industry and NGOs lobby to weaken UN carbon credit rules in “coordinated” push
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Repeated delays are raising questions about the bank’s momentum and whether it can mobilise investment to finance Africa’s oil and gas ambitions in an era of energy transition
Exemption push rejected
More efficient cookstove projects earn credits based on the amount of carbon they save by preserving trees that would have otherwise been cut down and burned for fuel. But if those trees later burn in a wildfire or are logged, the carbon stored would be released anyway, erasing the climate benefits of the credits.
Several carbon credit developers, conservation NGOs and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) disputed that cookstove projects face this risk, in what critics described as a “coordinated lobbying campaign”.
They argued that, unlike forest protection schemes, this type of credit represents a “flow” of avoided emissions rather than a “stock” of stored carbon that can be released. They also warned that requiring a buffer would impose disproportionate costs and undermine the financial viability of these activities.
But the UN carbon market regulator was not persuaded by the argument. It decided that projects would have to protect against this reversal risk by handing over a percentage of credits to a so-called “buffer pool” instead of selling them.
‘New paradigm’
The amount of credits to be given up is calculated by applying different methods for natural risks, like wildfires, droughts or hurricanes, and human-caused ones, such as logging or land clearing.
For natural risks, project developers will need to apply local risk values derived from new modelling published by a group of independent scientists.
Campaigners have broadly welcomed the decision. Federica Dossi, an expert at Brussels-based advocacy group Carbon Market Watch, said it sets a new paradigm for calculating reversal risk based on empirical data. “This approach is grounded in science and we hope to see this now being adopted by other carbon crediting mechanisms in the voluntary market,” she added.
Backers claim this method is more rigorous than current practice in the voluntary carbon market, which largely relies on expert guesswork.
Pre-COP draws attention to Pacific’s climate plight and 1.5C goal
Pushback over science
As Climate Home News previously revealed, the same industry and NGO groups that sought an exemption from the “buffer pool”, along with some corporate buyers, criticised the use of a study backed by the UN carbon market’s experts that recommende