More than a dozen wildfires have been sweeping through Los Angeles in California, consuming tens of thousands of acres of land and devastating some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the US.
As firefighters battle to contain the blazes, at least 24 people have died, while tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate and thousands of properties have been razed to the ground.
The disaster has received widespread attention across international media, covering the scale of the damage through to the causes of the fires – and the political spats they have triggered.
Both US president Joe Biden and his Californian vice-president Kamala Harris made the link between climate change and the fires.
Meanwhile, many scientists have pointed to “climate whiplash” – rapid switches from wet to dry conditions that are becoming more common in a warmer climate – as a factor in the scale of the devastation.
Many outlets have highlighted misleading claims by right-wing commentators about the Los Angeles fire department, as well as statements from incoming president Donald Trump casting blame on California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
A number of outlets have also explored the impact of the wildfires – which have already been dubbed the costliest in US history – on the state’s already-fragile property insurance market.
In this article, Carbon Brief examines the role of climate change in the Los Angeles wildfires and how the media has covered the disaster.
- How did the wildfires develop around Los Angeles?
- How were the fires ignited?
- What have been the impacts of the fires?
- Does climate change have a role in driving the fires?
- What has been the political reaction?
- How has the media responded to the wildfires?
- What are the implications for insurance in the state?
How did the wildfires develop around Los Angeles?
Over the course of just a week in early January, multiple fires erupted in and around Los Angeles in southern California.
The first – and what became the largest – wildfire was the Palisades fire. This was first reported at around 10:30am on Tuesday 7 January and quickly spread, explained the Washington Post, “as winds gust[ed] to about 50 mph in the area”.
The Financial Times reported that more than 29,000 acres [11,174 hectares] were burned on Tuesday in Palisades, “an affluent coastal community with some of the most expensive property in the US”. With thousands of homes at risk, evacuation orders were issued for around 30,000 people, according to the newspaper.
Rescuers were “forced to use a bulldozer to clear a path” through gridlocked, abandoned cars for emergency services to pass, reported the Times.
Through the day, a “life-threatening” windstorm “accelerated the fire’s spread across a parched landscape that has had very little rain in months”, the FT said. This storm was the “strongest to hit southern California in more than a decade”, the Associated Press noted.
An AP photographer reported seeing “multi-million dollar mansions on fire as helicopters overhead dropped water loads”.
The Washington Post described the Palisades fire as a “monster from the start”, noting that it spanned “the size of 150 football fields within half an hour and an area larger than Manhattan a day after that”.
On Tuesday night, a fast-moving fire broke out in the hills above Altadena near Eaton Canyon, reported the Los Angeles Times, prompting further evacuation orders.
The Eaton fire had “quickly grown to 200 acres” [81 hectares] by Tuesday night, said the Times, while “another fire had ignited in Sylmar, a suburb north-west of Los Angeles, and had already consumed 50 acres [20 hectares] with some nearby residents ordered to evacuate”.
These three fires – Palisade, Eaton and what would later be named the Hurst fire – would become the focus of media coverage, but a number of other fires, such as Kenneth, Archer, Sunset, Lidia, Woodley and Olivas, also ignited across the region through the week.
By Tuesday evening, California governor Gavin Newsom had declared a state of emergency, CBS News reported.
On Wednesday, the wildfires “burned uncontrollably across a wide swathe of greater Los Angeles”, reported the Washington Post, “transforming the landscape into scenes of apocalyptic destruction with blocks and blocks of neighborhoods reduced to ash”.
By the end of the day, more than 1,000 structures had been destroyed, at least 130,000 people were under evacuation orders and nearly 1.5 million residents were without power, the newspaper said. The fires were still raging with “almost zero containment”, it added.
The newspaper quoted Los Angeles county fire chief Anthony Marrone, who warned that his department was prepared for one or two major fires, but not for “this type of widespread disaster”. He added:
“There are not enough firefighters in LA county to address…fires of this magnitude.”
In response, firefighting teams from across California and the west “poured into the Los Angeles region in recent days to help relieve and reinforce local crews”, said the Washington Post.
Reports also emerged that firefighters were, in the words of BBC News, “struggl[ing] with water supply to their hoses and hydrants”. Reuters noted that “Los Angeles authorities said their municipal water systems were working effectively but they were designed for an urban environment, not for tackling wildfires”.
In total, at least a dozen fires have raged across the greater Los Angeles area over the past week. By Friday, the two largest fires of Palisades and Eaton were 8% and 3% contained, respectively, reported the Los Angeles Times. This increased to 11% and 15% by Saturday morning.
[As of early Monday 13 January (Pacific Standard Time), fire containment stood at 14%, 33% and 95% for the Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, respectively, according to California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All other fires have been contained.]
With more heavy winds expected this week, a local fire chief told BBC News that the fight against the blazes is “at a fork in the road”, warning that the fires could “take off on Tuesday or Wednesday”.
How were the fires ignited?
Investigators are still exploring the initial cause of the fires, reported the Associated Press.
While lightning is the “most common source of fires in the US…investigators were able to rule that out quickly”, the newswire said. It explained:
“There were no reports of lightning in the Palisades area or the terrain around the Eaton fire.”
The next two most-common causes are “fires intentionally set and those sparked by utility lines”, it added.
NBC News reported that the key to identifying the cause of the Palisades fire lies “on a brush-covered hilltop where the blaze broke out just after 10:30am on Tuesday”. A former battalion chief for the Los Angeles Fire Department told the outlet that arson was an unlikely cause:
“This is what we call inaccessible, rugged terrain…Arsonists usually aren’t going to go 500 feet off a trailhead through trees and brush, set a fire and then run away.”
Analysis by the Washington Post suggested the cause was an extinguished fire from New Year’s Eve. Combining photos, videos, satellite imagery, radio communications and interviews, the newspaper concluded that “the new fire started in the vicinity of the old fire, raising the possibility that the New Year’s Eve fire was reignited, which can occur in windy conditions”.
The Daily Mail picked up the Washington Post’s reporting, describing it as a “haunting new theory”.
Other fires, such as the Eaton fire, were linked to power lines, reported NBC News (link above):
“Whipping winds can cause the lines to slap together, shedding small balls of superhot molten metal.”
The Guardian noted that “it is routine for utilities to shut off power during ‘red-flag events’, but the power lines were on near the Eaton and Palisades fires” when they started last week.
However, NBC News said, this was just one theory, adding that “it’s also possible that it was started by a person operating a camping stove or a car or lawn mower that ejected a hot spark onto dry grass”.
What have been the impacts of the fires?
The fires that swept through Los Angeles have consumed more than 40,000 acres [16,187 hectares] of land, spread across a number of neighbourhoods in both the city and Los Angeles county, according to an update from the Washington Post on Monday 13 January.
The outlet also noted the fires had claimed the lives of 24 individuals at the latest count.
NPR added that more than 12,000 structures, including houses and businesses, had been destroyed by the fires over seven days.
In a separate article, the Washington Post mapped the wildfires in various areas in Los Angeles – Palisades, Eaton and Hurst. It noted that, as of 12 January, the Lidia, Sunset, Woodley, Archer and Kenneth fires had been contained.
In response to the fires, evacuation orders were issued for approximately 153,000 people in LA county, NBC Los Angeles reported.
The New York Times added that some evacuees found temporary housing in Los Angeles hotels, including a luxury hotel in Santa Monica and 19 hotels owned by the IHG chain, which includes Intercontinental, Regent and Holiday Inn.
Evacuations were ordered in “many parts of Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Santa Monica, Calabasas, Brentwood and Encino”, Los Angeles Times reported. Meanwhile, in areas including Glenoaks Canyon and Chevy Chase Canyon, evacuation orders were lifted, allowing residents to return to their homes, according to the outlet.
However, due to poor air quality affecting regions not directly impacted by the fires, schools in Los Angeles were cancelled on Friday, according to NBC Los Angeles. “Nearly all LA unified [school district] campuses and all offices would reopen Monday”, the Los Angeles Times added.
Cultural events have also been impacted, with the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards, and the Critics’ Choice Awards being postponed, as well as television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, as reported by ABC News.
Meanwhile, an early estimate of total damages by insurance provider AccuWeather, widely cited in the media, including BBC News, predicts the fires have caused $135-150bn in total damages.
The fires are expected to have a major impact on California’s property insurance market. (See: What are the implications for insurance in Los Angeles?)
Does climate change have a role in driving the fires?
The severity and likelihood of wildfires are affected by a wide range of conditions. Some of these are related to the climate, such as temperature, wind speed and rainfall. Meanwhile, others are linked to land use, such as the density and type of vegetation, or human-implemented fire-suppression techniques.
Nevertheless, there is a wide body of evidence showing that climate change is making wildfire conditions more likely in many parts of the world. Attribution studies have revealed that climate change has already made many individual wildfires more intense or likely. However, no such attribution study has yet been published about the Los Angeles wildfires.
News outlets and experts across the world have been making the climate connection to the fires in recent days. Many outlets note that Los Angeles has seen rapid swings between extremely dry and wet conditions over the past few years.
BBC News reported that “decades of drought in California were followed by extremely heavy rainfall for two years in 2022 and 2023”, which allowed lots of vegetation to grow. However, the state saw a switch to very dry conditions in the autumn and winter of 2024, which dried out the vegetation, providing ideal fuel for the wildfire.
The outlet highlighted a timely academic paper, which explains that climate change has increased “hydroclimate whiplash” conditions – the rapid swings between periods of high and low rainfall – globally by 31-66% since the middle of the 20th century.
Dr Daniel Swain – a climate scientist from UCLA, who led the research – wrote a Bluesky thread explaining why climate “whiplash” can create the ideal conditions for fires to spread. He said:
“In coastal southern California, where grass and brush (including chaparral) are predominant vegetation types, there is actually a historical relationship between wetter winters and increased fire activity in [the] following fire season.”
Many outlets unpacked the rapid changes in California’s rainfall. The Guardian reported that in both the rainy seasons of 2023 and 2024, more than 25 inches of rain fell over southern California. However, it said this year’s rainy season “is running at just 2% of normal for Los Angeles, which has only seen 0.16in [4mm] of rain so far”.
Al Jazeera reported that, on 7 January, only 39% of California was completely drought-free, with the rest of the state described as “abnormally dry”. However, around the same time last year, 97% of the state was classed as “drought-free”, with only 3% classed as abnormally dry, it said.
Many outlets also pointed to the Santa Ana winds. According to the Guardian, these winds blow dry, warm air into California from the US western desert during cooler months, and have contributed to many forest fires in the past. The Associated Press reported that the winds were “much faster than normal” this year and have been “whipping flames and embers at 100mph – much faster than normal”.
BBC News reported that the low-humidity Santa Ana wind “strips the vegetation of a lot of its moisture, meaning that fire can catch quicker and the vegetation burn more readily”.
Inside Climate News said the “unusually warm” band of the Pacific Ocean near southern California is bending the jet stream, allowing high pressure to settle over the north-east of Los Angeles, while intensifying the Santa Ana winds.
In the Conversation, Prof Jon Keelet from the University of California, Los Angeles, explained his research, which shows a shift in the timing of Santa Ana winds. “Due to well-documented trends in climate change, it is tempting to ascribe this to global warming, but, as yet, there is no substantial evidence of this,” he said.
What has been the political reaction?
As the fires blazed, US president Joe Biden met with California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, and approved his request for a major disaster declaration, enabling increased federal funding, according to the Los Angeles Times.
When asked by NBC News if he thought these fires would be the worst “natural” disaster in US history, Newsom replied: “I think it will be just in terms of just the costs associated.”
Craig Fugate, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator under former president Barack Obama, told the Los Angeles Times that the fires were LA’s “Hurricane Katrina” – a moment that would “forever change the community”.
Bloomberg reported that Biden said federal support would cover 100% of the costs of the fire response for 180 days. The president also directed 400 additional federal firefighters and more than 30 helicopters and planes towards the region, the news outlet added.
Both Biden and his Californian vice-president Kamala Harris made the link between climate change and the fires in their public statements.
The wildfires come at a fraught political moment for the US. Biden, who has championed climate action during his presidency, will soon be replaced by Donald Trump, a climate sceptic who has vowed to roll back many of his predecessor’s policies.
Trump’s response to the fires was summarised in an Associated Press headline that stated: “As wildfires rage in LA, Trump doesn’t offer much sympathy. He’s casting blame.”
The article said Trump had taken aim at his “longtime political foe” and falsely blamed Newsom’s forest management policies and fish conservation efforts in California for the water shortages affecting the response effort . It added that Trump “has a history of withholding or delaying federal aid to punish his political enemies”.
The Los Angeles Times noted that both Biden and current FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell “stopped short” of guaranteeing that aid would continue under Trump.
Following the incoming president’s remarks, Newsom addressed a letter to Trump inviting him to visit LA fire victims and stating “we must not politicise human tragedy or spread disinformation”, according to the Los Angeles Times.
There were also claims in right-wing media that Democratic LA mayor Karen Bass had cut the fire department’s budget, but the Los Angeles Times noted that its budget “actually grew by more than 7%”. BBC News and Media Matters both ran articles fact-checking various claims made about Democrats by figures on the US right.
The Guardian reported on “misinformation” spread by the US right, including claims that the LA fire department prioritised “diversity schemes” – often referred to as “DEI” – over fighting fires. Elon Musk, Trump’s new “efficiency tsar”, supported such claims, and wrote on Twitter: “Wild theory: maybe, just maybe, the root cause wasn’t climate change?”
Meanwhile, another Guardian article noted that “nearby blue and red states as well as foreign countries are making their own political statements in their decisions to deploy firefighters to aid California”. CBS Austin reported that Republican Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has provided resources to California.
Canada and Mexico sent firefighters to help in California, with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau offering his nation’s “full support”. Trump has threatened to impose punitive tariffs on both nations.
How has the media responded to the fires?
There has been extensive coverage in the media of the wildfires, across the US and around the world.
This has taken many forms, but there has been a particular focus in editorials on political divisions and the role of climate denial. For example, an editorial in the Guardian argued that “political obstruction is deepening a climate crisis that needs urgent action”.
In the Washington Post, columnist Jennifer Rubin said that the fires should affect the spread of climate denial, “but won’t”. She wrote:
“The hellish fires tearing through the Los Angeles area are a preview of what’s to come if politicians, ideologues and big oil continue to ignore climate change…These sorts of horror shows will become routine if climate change deniers, led by the [Make America Great Again] anti-science crowd, get their way.”
Explainers on the role of climate change in the Los Angeles wildfires have formed a notable part of the media reaction. This included pieces from the Associated Press, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 News, Le Monde, Axios and the Los Angeles Times, among others.
Elsewhere, right-leaning, climate-sceptic media has called into question the role of climate change and conservation on the wildfires. Many have also criticised the Democratic government of California, as well as the Los Angeles fire chief and members of her department.
In the Daily Telegraph, Freddy Gray, deputy editor of the Spectator, argued that “the LA fires are an epitaph for Democrat misrule”, hitting out at the “climate change lobby” and arguing that the Biden administration “spent far too much time and resources pursuing politically correct causes at the expense of competent or even sane governance”.
An article in the New York Post hit out at Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass’s “botched response” to the fires. It also amplified the comments made across social media by celebrities such as actor James Woods, who claimed that “the fire is not from ‘climate change’” and instead blamed “liberal idiots” for electing “liberal idiots like Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass”.
As noted in a piece in Forbes, Youtubers have been among the right-wing influencers pushing criticism of fire department policy. For example, journalist Megyn Kelly – recently dubbed the “Rumplestiltskin of irritation” in Vox – alleged that the fire chief “has made not filling the fire hydrants top priority, but diversity” in a viral clip.
Similar misleading claims have been made on social media, including by Twitter CEO and leader of the new US Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk, who, as noted above, argued the Los Angeles fire department “prioritised [DEI] over saving lives and homes”.
In response to the misinformation and disinformation being spread, there has also been a wave of articles attempting to counter or factcheck claims. This includes articles in the Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, BBC News and the Times, among others.
One specific aspect of the coverage of the Los Angeles wildfires has been the impact on celebrities, with the homes of Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton and Eugene Levy destroyed in the fires. As such, there has been a range of coverage from sources for whom disasters would generally fall outside their remit, including Hello!, Elle, TMZ and others.
An editorial in the Daily Mirror argued that “the destruction of celebrity mansions has captured attention, but we should not forget ordinary Americans”.
What are the implications for insurance in Los Angeles?
Media coverage has highlighted how the fires are set to deliver a major blow to the area’s property insurance market – seen as in “crisis” already – with major consequences for the Californian economy and households across the state.
Insured losses of the Los Angeles fires are expected to be in the tens of billions, according to early predictions from the insurance industry cited by Bloomberg and Reinsurance News.
The eye-watering damages are driven in part by Los Angeles’ expensive real estate. The National Post said the wildfires could prove to be “the costliest in US history, specifically because they have ripped through densely populated areas with higher end-properties”. Properties in the affected Palisades neighbourhood, for example, have a median home value of $3.1m, according to real-estate data cited in a CBS News report.
After wildfires in 2017 and 2018 decimated the industry’s profits, insurers have pulled back from California’s property insurance market in recent years, making it difficult for homeowners to find affordable cover. State Farm, Allstate and Farmers Insurance are among the insurers that have either dropped California policies or halted underwriting in recent years, CBS News said.
As a result, the Los Angeles Times said the fires threaten “to deepen a crisis that has already left hundreds of thousands of Californians struggling to find and keep affordable homeowners insurance”.
Meanwhile, the New Yorker said the “insurance crisis” has been “years in the making”, noting that people had been moving to wildfire-prone areas, despite fires “becoming more destructive, in large measure due to climate change”.
The retreat of insurers from California means a significant proportion of homeowners in Los Angeles rely on the state’s insurer of last resort, California’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan.
There are now concerns the FAIR plan – which is run by the state government, but pools funds from insurers – could run out of money, putting private insurance firms on the hook to foot the bill. These costs – which could be as large as $24bn, according to the San Francisco Chronicle – would likely be passed on to insurance policyholders across the state.
The New York Times said such a scenario “would further strain the financial health of those insurers, adding to the pressure to pull back from the [California property insurance] market”. It adds:
“The potential consequences are huge. Without insurance, banks won’t issue a mortgage; without a mortgage, most people can’t buy a home. Fewer buyers mean falling home prices, threatening the tax base of fire-prone communities. It’s a scenario that could come to define California, as rising temperatures and drier conditions caused by climate change intensify the risk of wildfires.”
The Los Angeles Times said rising insurance costs for homeowners were just one way the fires would exacerbate the region’s “housing affordability crisis”. The paper has also pointed to higher rents and fierce competition for contractors that can rebuild destroyed and damaged properties.
The crisis comes as insurers around the world grapple with the rising costs attached to escalating climate impacts. Munich Re data – covered by Reuters – reveals that extreme weather events in 2024 caused an estimated $140bn in insured losses globally, up from $106bn the previous year.
Dave Jones, the former insurance commissioner of California and director of the Climate Risk Initiative at Berkeley School of Law, told Time the dynamics hurting California’s beleaguered insurance market could spread to other states as climate impacts intensified. He said:
“In the long term, we’re not doing enough to deal with the underlying driver, which is fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions, so we’re going to continue to see insurance unavailability throughout the US. We are marching steadily towards an uninsurable future in this country.”
The post Media reaction: The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and the role of climate change appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Media reaction: The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and the role of climate change
New Zealand’s parliament has adopted a controversial new law blocking a whole avenue of climate litigation and shutting down its most advanced corporate lawsuit, which has been blamed by the government for shaking business confidence and investment.
The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill, expected to take effect in the coming days after it is formally signed by the Governor-General, prevents all current and future civil claims for climate loss or harm under tort law.
Justice minister Paul Goldsmith said last week that the aim was to give businesses “certainty around their climate change obligations”, noting it would not alter the government’s responsibilities under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 nor business obligations under the Emissions Trading Scheme.
“Our response to climate change is best managed by the Government at a national level and not through piece-meal litigation in the courts,” he added in a statement.
Such litigation, he said, “risks developing a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted” to tackle climate change.
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Experts say that despite dismissing the lawsuit, the ruling sets a precedent by confirming that climate science can establish legal liability for the damage caused by emissions
Goldsmith singled out a key domestic climate lawsuit brought by Northland iwi leader and activist Mike Smith against six big companies: dairy firms Fonterra and Dairy Holdings, energy firms Genesis Energy and Z Energy, New Zealand Steel and coal mining firm BT Mining. A seventh original defendant, Channel Infrastructure, was dropped after it permanently decommissioned its Marsden Point oil refinery.
Smith argued that these companies had caused him harm under public nuisance and negligence law, as well as a third breach of a duty to cease contributing to climate change that has yet to be tested domestically. He did not seek financial compensation, instead asking for the companies to immediately stop emitting or contributing to net greenhouse gas emissions.
In one of the most advanced corporate climate accountability lawsuits in the world, a trial had been scheduled for April 2027 after the Supreme Court unanimously allowed the case to continue.
Corporate lobbying in the shadows
Smith described the passing of the bill as “deeply concerning”, particularly as it coincided with the Supreme Court hearing another of his climate lawsuits. In that case, Smith v Attorney-General, he argues that the government’s response to climate change and its impacts on Māori communities in particular breaches rights to life and culture.
“That timing raises profound questions about the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Smith. “Whatever one’s view of the merits of these cases, it is deeply troubling when parliament intervenes to remove a legal pathway while the courts are actively considering fundamental questions about climate responsibility, rights and the crown’s obligations.”
The bill – which says that no person (including the government) can be found liable in tort for emissions-related climate change effects – followed major lobbying efforts by the companies defending themselves in Smith’s lawsuit. They outlined a proposed legal amendment in a briefing note to the government in 2024.
The centre-right government has been fiercely criticised over its lack of transparency in relation to this lobbying activity. The national ombudsman recently found that the Prime Minister’s Office effectively withheld information requested by the Environmental Law Initiative about meetings, discussions and conversations regarding Smith’s case.
Green groups fail to stop bill
The bill sparked huge concern among environmental campaigners in New Zealand and elsewhere. Greenpeace Aotearoa called it a “shocking abuse of executive power” and the vast majority of submissions to a parliamentary inquiry said it should be rejected.
But in the end, it was adopted with little resistance, moving relatively smoothly through parliament, passing its third reading by 67 votes to 53. Sam Bookman, climate law lecturer at Melbourne Law School, told Climate Home News he was not surprised by this, given that the coalition government has a secure majority.
A complaint has been made to the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights by Smith, the National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga and youth coalition Climate Clinic Aotearoa over what they see as the government’s heavy-handed approach. Smith is also challenging the new law in yet another lawsuit.
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Bookman thinks it “very unlikely” that such a challenge will succeed, noting that New Zealand’s constitution is firmly anchored in parliamentary sovereignty.
But the expert in climate law does not see the bill as the end of legal action in the country, noting that New Zealand has a “sophisticated climate litigation landscape with a growing number of specialist and experienced lawyers and NGOs”.
The country is also approaching its next general election in November, and some opposition parties have pledged to restore access to the courts if elected.
Amanda Larsson, global project lead on agriculture for Greenpeace International, said: “This law deserves to be tested, and I strongly encourage the international climate litigation community to unite and help defend New Zealanders’ fundamental right to hold polluters accountable before this becomes a global blueprint.”
Copycat legislation on the rise
New Zealand’s move is part of a small but growing legislative effort to shut down climate litigation around the world.
In the US, Republican politicians introduced legislation in the House and Senate in April that would shield fossil fuel firms from climate liability lawsuits. Similar laws have already been passed at state level in Tennessee, Utah, Iowa and Louisiana.
The German state of Bavaria has put forward a similar proposal to the Federal Council, aiming to block private climate claims as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments imposing such liability. There are also proposals to limit available remedies and actions in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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Bookman said he expects more efforts to counter climate damages litigation and advised plaintiffs to think about how to respond, including drawing on broader support in opposing them.
“Even though it’s very hard for plaintiffs to win these types of cases, companies are very eager to avoid the expense, embarrassment and political accountability that come even with unsuccessful lawsuits,” he said.
The post New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation appeared first on Climate Home News.
New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation
Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is the Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), an Indonesia-based economic think tank. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia desk at CELIOS.
Indonesia produces around 60% of the world’s nickel, a metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) – more than any other country in the world. But in 2026, the government sharply reduced how much of its nickel can be extracted from the ground.
Production quotas were reduced by around 40% this year compared to 2025. Weda Bay, the largest nickel mine on Earth, had its allowance cut by more than 70% and exhausted its full-year quota by the end of May, halting mining entirely; it cannot resume large-scale extraction until next year unless regulators grant an extension.
The policy has sparked a vivid debate in Indonesian policy circles: how can the country shift its strategy from a decade of mining vast quantities of cheap nickel to producing a high-value and low-carbon material that the rest of the world wants for EV batteries.
The cuts aren’t a silver bullet to clean up Indonesia’s nickel industry, whose smelters are powered by coal – the most polluting fossil fuels. But alongside stricter enforcement of environmental rules, it is one side of efforts to produce more sustainable nickel for a premium.
Restricting Indonesia’s nickel output
Production quotas were introduced to stop the collapse of nickel prices because of oversupply in the market. Prices had fallen more than 40% in 2023 alone and kept sliding as Indonesian supply kept growing, hitting a four-year low of around $13,900 a ton in late 2025.
Critics called the recent tightening of production quotas proof that Indonesia’s nickel strategy has failed, arguing that the industry shouldn’t need to throttle its own output to survive. But when assessed against what the policy was supposed to do – push up nickel prices – it has worked. Prices jumped to $20,000 a ton in May, the highest since 2024.
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Chinese industry groups representing companies that have invested billions to mine and refine the country’s nickel were furious, warning Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto that the cuts put $50 billion worth of investment at risk. But much of that Chinese capital is sunk into smelters and processing plants built specifically to run on Indonesian ore, and cannot simply be moved elsewhere. That gives Jakarta more room to hold its ground than the warning suggests.
Stronger environmental enforcement
Since the start of the year, Indonesia’s forestry task force has seized more than four million hectares of land from mines and plantations operating illegally in protected forests, collecting over two trillion rupiah ($113 million) in fines.
This included 148 hectares seized from Weda Bay for lacking a forestry permit. The share of nickel produced from illegal small-scale mining also fell from about a quarter in 2022 to roughly 10% by 2024.
The crackdown responds to serious environmental damages in the nickel industry. On Obi Island, a waste pond collapsed after heavy rain in June 2025, flooding three villages and killing a resident. Internal company tests found chromium-6 – a carcinogen – in the water, in quantities far above the legal limit. The footprint of another mine near Raja Ampat, which is home to some of the world’s richest coral reefs, grew 60-fold in just eight years.
The market is responding to early cleanup efforts. Low-carbon nickel now sells for a real premium, roughly $18,800 to $19,300 a ton compared with $17,900 to $18,300 otherwise, as carmakers seek to source cleaner materials to comply with the European Union’s new emissions rules for imports.
In turn, this is incentivising the industry to do more to green its operations. Vale Indonesia’s smelter in South Sulawesi now runs almost entirely on hydropower, for example.
None of this addresses coal use, however. Major Indonesian nickel producers still emitted an estimated 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2023. Indonesia may be cracking down on illegal mining and rewarding cleaner producers but it is still running its mines on the dirtiest fuel available.
Unequal benefits
For Indonesia to truly benefit from producing cleaner and high-value nickel, it needs to reap the economic benefits too. Although the industry has boosted the country’s economic growth, the reality on the ground tells a different story.
Konawe in Southeast Sulawesi is home to a major smelting complex. Growth in the district jumped from 6% to 22% between 2015 and 2023, driven almost entirely by the nickel industry, according to a study by the Lowy Institute study. At the same time, poverty levels increased slightly and unemployment remained unchanged.
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The government has abandoned its plan to shut down a major coal plant, which was a key part of the deal, raising doubts about the donor-backed approach
In Halmahera, another epicentre of the nickel industry, spending by the poorest fifth grew just 5% between 2019 and 2022, compared with 28% for the wealthiest fifth, according to a separate study.
Part of the reason for this inequality is the system for transferring mining royalties to district authorities where the mines are located. In theory, they are entitled to the largest share. But in practice, payments are delayed, companies routinely dispute what they owe and royalties are pooled and distributed across a larger area.
The Natural Resource Governance Institute has found that decentralisation handed local governments power to approve new mines faster than they could build their capacity to manage them. Higher output raises national income on paper, but local governments remain constrained by fiscal rules and infrastructure costs that scale with mining.
None of this makes the 2026 quota cuts a mistake. Indonesia has every right to defend its pricing power over a resource it controls. But limiting extraction isn’t going to fix underlying issues around environmental enforcement and revenue-sharing. That requires rules that are consistently enforced, royalties that reach communities living by the mines, and a plan to wean smelters off coal.
The post Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry appeared first on Climate Home News.
Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry
Climate Change
Risk of “catastrophic” oil spill reaching Kimberley coast found in Woodside’s Scott Reef gas drilling plans
SYDNEY, Monday 24 August 2026 – New analysis of Woodside modelling released by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley has revealed the oil and gas corporation’s plans to drill at Scott Reef could cause an oil spill up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara disaster, impacting the Kimberley coastline and reaching as far as Indonesia.
The new analysis details the “catastrophic” oil spill risk put to environmental regulators for approval by Woodside in its Browse to North West Shelf Project (Browse) plans, the worst-case scenario being a blowout directly below Scott Reef, polluting whale migratory pathways and covering isolated turtle nesting ground with oil condensate.
An FOI application (F348) revealed the federal environment department (DCCEEW) asked offshore oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA to look into the oil spill risk in 2025. NOPSEMA’s response to the application refused access to its report, and one document shows DCCEEW sought further advice this year.
Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley are calling on the Federal Government to publicly release the NOPSEMA report given the risk of an uncontrolled release of oil condensate from directly below Scott Reef.
Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Woodside is aware that drilling at Scott Reef risks a massive oil spill that would have severe, far-reaching consequences. It appears environmental regulators are aware too.
“The state and federal governments need to take this risk from Woodside’s drilling plans seriously, as they could end up allowing the worst oil spill in Australian history.
“The pygmy blue whales that migrate up and down the WA coast with their newborns each year could be swimming and feeding in toxic, oil-slicked water. Woodside’s proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and the WA and federal governments have one surefire way to prevent catastrophe — reject Browse.”
Martin Prichard, Executive Director at Environs Kimberley, said: “A catastrophic oil spill by Woodside would be disastrous not just for marine life in the area but also for the Kimberley’s $500 million tourism industry.
“The state and federal governments will see five marine parks on the Kimberley coast included in the risk area of a catastrophic Woodside oil spill.
“The Montara oil spill was disastrous for West Timor with the toxic oil destroying seaweed farmers’ livelihoods. The Kimberley dodged a bullet with Montara, we were lucky the spill didn’t head our way. Myself and a crew flew over the Montara oil spill and followed it as far as we could. It was like a scene from a disaster movie.”
After the WA Environmental Protection Authority deemed Browse “unacceptable” due, in part, to oil spill risk, Woodside submitted a mitigation plan based on technology that has never been used “in anger”, a weakness stated in an independent expert review of the plan.
Professor Richard Steiner, independent oil spill expert, said: “A large offshore spill is impossible to effectively contain or recover. Historically, only 2-6% of total spill volume is recovered and the ecological injury from the release of toxic hydrocarbons in the sea can be severe, extensive, and long-term.
“Here in Alaska, government research concludes that several marine populations injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, including whales, fish, and seabirds, are still not recovering today, 37 years later. We should expect similar long-term ecological impacts in Western Australia if there were to be a major oil spill. The only sure way to avoid the risk of a catastrophic marine oil spill is to not develop oil and gas projects in marine environments.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Emma Sangalli on emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org or 0431 513 465
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