Thirteen nonprofits and six municipalities said they filed suit after they were forced to furlough employees and pause programs intended to benefit farmers, communities and public health.

By Amy Green

A federal judge said Monday he would order the Trump administration to restore $176 million granted by Congress to 13 nonprofit groups and six municipalities nationwide.

Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Restore Environmental Grant Funding

I have developed and updated 15 resources in my four years at Climate Generation. However, the 2025 update of Next Generation Climate for grades 6-8 (NGC) felt significantly more challenging. For the first time, I faced an atmosphere of federal pushback against the validity of climate change science and education. I struggled to find alternative sources for data sets and graphs that I would normally access from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Resources I wanted to share, like the 2024 Climate Literacy Principles, disappeared from websites as quickly as I found them. I wrote words like “climate justice” and “equity”, wondering how many educators would avoid downloading NGC due to anti-DEI policies. Honestly, the process was disheartening at times. The chaos sowed by the federal government created uncertainty, as intended.

However, amidst the uncertainty exists a more powerful feeling: a conviction that climate change curricula like NGC are more needed than ever.

As government agencies like NOAA and the EPA are dismantled, limiting their abilities to inform the public about climate adaptation strategies and protect us from environmental threats, it is crucial that our students have access at school to information about how climate change impacts their daily lives and futures. Education is a climate solution because an informed public is one that can make the necessary changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to local climate impacts.

Beyond climate science and data, the updated NGC builds on previous versions to bring a more human-centered approach. Our students need inspiration to take localized climate action to create safer, more equitable futures. In the 2025 edition, you will see:

• Discussions of the social, economic, and political causes of climate change;
• Examples of leaders in climate justice movements;
• More guidance for how to take climate action; and
• Opportunities for reflection and mindfulness to support students’ mental health.

Education is not only a climate solution; it is now an act of resistance.

Teaching concepts like climate change and climate justice can oppose the oppression and cruelty we’re witnessing at the federal level. Educating about what’s really happening, what people experience every day, is necessary for students to feel safe, secure, and supported, so that they don’t feel that they alone care about the crises facing our world. We need to show students that most people care, and that together we can leverage our efforts toward making the world a better place for all. We need educational resources that center our collective humanity; foster empathy for all of life; celebrate working for the common good, not individual gain; and give students opportunities to develop the knowledge, skills, confidence, and motivation to live into their values and take positive action.

We know that in some states, the reality of censoring words and concepts like climate change has existed for some time. It can be risky to teach directly about climate change in some places. For those whose states follow the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), remember that the standards directly mention human-caused climate change and offer foundational concepts for understanding it. NGC includes a table of the NGSS performance expectations most closely associated with the lessons. For others, we must remember that we are a collective. We can all contribute in some way; some of us can say climate change, and some of us can talk about the weather. Some of us can use the full NGC curriculum, and others may incorporate small ideas from it.

Restrictions in education aren’t really about specific words; they’re about controlling narratives, erasing truth, and amassing power against the people. It’s hard work, but in times of uncertainty, it can help to focus on what we can control.

As educators, we can influence what happens in our learning spaces:

• We can localize climate change so that our students see the personal effects and tangible opportunities for change.
• We can integrate community science so that students can participate in researching and communicating about climate issues and solutions.
• We can discuss the root causes of climate change (even without saying climate change) — how our global legacy of hurting the many to enrich the few has impacted everything from wars to housing stability to the air and water we need to live.
• We can facilitate civic engagement in everything from writing to legislators, to planting trees, to creating public art with a message.
• We can share stories with our students that inspire them to be kind, honest, fair, and brave.

We hope that NGC provides enough inroads that everyone can find a path to introduce their students to climate change, particularly the ways in which we can take action together to protect and nurture ourselves and our environment.

In the final week of editing NGC, I triple-checked a link to a graph from NOAA; one that depicts the data collected since the 1880s showing the substantial increase in land and ocean temperatures over the past century. Not surprisingly, the link no longer exists. I left the graph in Appendix B with the citation to a broken link; to me, this data tells an essential story that we cannot fully appreciate with another figure. This administration is trying to overwhelm us, to silence us, to exhaust us to the point of inaction. But they will not succeed; they cannot, for the sake of our planet and the next generations after us.

Moments of uncertainty are an invitation to determine what you are certain about.

What and whom do you value? What are you going to do about it? Climate Generation will continue to do this work as long as we are able. While we always advocate for rest and self-care, we also encourage you to find ways you can plug into everyday actions. We hope that, for many of you, it might look like downloading NGC and facilitating the activities with your students. Together, we can make a positive impact on our present and future. No matter your situation, Climate Generation’s staff and resources will support you along the way.

Marie grew up in Wisconsin on the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Menominee, Potowatomi, and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ and the contemporary lands of the Oneida. Marie’s fascination with human relationships to the earth led her to study Environmental Education and Spanish Language at UW-Stevens Point and later earn her master’s degree in Environmental Studies and Environmental Education from Antioch University New England. She’s pursued her varied interests at multiple nature centers and an aquarium in Minnesota; community gardens in New Hampshire; and as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua. At Climate Generation, Marie loves creating resources that encourage people to be curious, connect deeply, and work collaboratively. When she’s not writing curriculum, she enjoys hiking, cross country skiing, reading, and spending time with her husband and her dog, Merlin.

The post What does the “Next Generation” Require of Us? appeared first on Climate Generation.

What does the “Next Generation” Require of Us?

Nigeria’s presidential villa is being kitted out with a $6-million solar mini-grid – a pricey solution to erratic power supplies that small business manager Victor Onyim can only dream of as he grapples with near-daily power cuts.

For more than two weeks until early May, Onyim’s drinking water company and other businesses in the southern city of Port Harcourt struggled to keep operating due to a total blackout blamed by the local power utility on vandalism. It has since been resolved, but regular outages continue.

“The lack of light (electricity) is affecting our business. We have not been making sales since the power issue,” he told Climate Home, gesturing towards the half-empty stock room and idle delivery trucks parked at the front of the plant in the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta region.

To keep the business afloat during the recent outage, Onyim spent 30,000 naira ($18) daily on diesel and was forced to halt production at midday to reduce the fuel bill, sending workers home early.

“Substituting the light from the grid with generators … is better than not having light at all,” he said.

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Generators far cheaper than solar

The whirr of generators is a common sound in Nigeria, where the national power grid is prone to frequent failures, plagued by creaky and poorly maintained infrastructure despite repeated pledges by governments over the years to tackle it.

While those who can afford it are starting to install solar panels and storage batteries to bypass grid supplies, poorer Nigerians have no option but to stretch household budgets to buy fuel – to supply generators – kerosene lamps and candles for lighting and bottled gas for cooking.

Petrol and diesel generators remain the favoured alternative for power generation. While the fuel is an extra running cost, a small petrol generator can be bought for as little as 120,000 naira ($74).

It costs roughly five times more than that – 600,000 naira ($323) – to buy just one solar panel with an inverter battery. The minimum monthly wage in Nigeria is 70,000 naira ($45).

Leapfrogging straight to renewables

In much of Africa, where an estimated 600 million people still have no access at all to mains electricity, leapfrogging straight to solar power would boost power access while also reducing the need for fossil fuels such as natural gas, oil and coal to generate electricity.

Nigeria’s power sector is heavily reliant on fossil fuels, with gas accounting for over three-quarters of electricity generated in 2022, hydropower delivering about a quarter, and renewables less than 1%.

But high solar system installation costs are a huge hurdle, particularly in the poorer rural areas that would stand to gain the most – access to electricity, in many cases for the first time.

Almost half of Nigeria’s roughly 230 million people live without access to electricity from the grid – making it the country with the highest number of people lacking it globally.

Even for those who are connected to the grid, dilapidated transmission infrastructure, vandalism and inadequate maintenance resources mean the supply is unreliable, raising the appeal of self-contained solar systems – even for the country’s leader.

In Nigeria, Zimbabwe and South Africa, solar booms have been driven by power cuts prompting those who can afford to invest in reliable solar electricity. However, this is usually a fraction of the majority. The 2025 Africa Solar Outlook report found that commercial and industrial users made up a large part of the installations in 2024.

Renewables for the rich?

With few signs of improvement in Nigeria’s power supply, civil society campaigners have criticised the government’s approval of the multi-million-dollar solar system at the sprawling Aso Rock presidential residence in the capital, Abuja.

A spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu said the initial investment would soon be clawed back through savings on electricity bills.

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But solar for the rich, and government officials, is not the equitable shift to greener electricity that Africa’s policymakers should be working to implement, said Joshua Alade, founder of Network of Youth for Sustainable Initiative, a youth-led civil society organisation based in Nigeria.

“This current trend of renewables being accessible mainly to the affluent is far from what we advocate for,” Alade said, adding that government efforts to foster renewable energy must focus on vulnerable communities “historically left behind by traditional energy systems”.

Nigeria’s power crisis perpetuates deep economic inequalities in Africa’s most populous country, with smaller businesses and micro enterprises like Onyim’s in Port Harcourt less able to cope with the blackouts.

According to estimates by the World Bank, unreliable electricity supplies cost the Nigerian economy $29 billion a year.

Clean energy investments are growing – slowly

Investments in renewable energy in Africa are growing, but too slowly to put the continent on track to reach its sustainable development goals, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Clean energy investments in Africa account for just 2% of the global total, the IEA said in its latest World Energy Investment Analysis report, adding that as they stand, energy investments are equivalent to only 1.2% of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Efforts to tackle Africa’s power access gap, and boosting renewable energy generation at the same time, are the focus of initiatives such as Mission300, a joint effort of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the World Bank.

The programme, which aims to get power supplies to 300 million people – half of the number without electricity access in Africa – by 2030, raised over $50 billion in pledges of support earlier this year at a meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Ensuring green power shift benefits all

For the initiative to succeed where others have failed, Nigeria-based energy expert Teslim Giwa said African governments must place greater emphasis on the economic benefits of improving – and widening access to – electricity.

In order to ensure lower-income communities are reached, he called for policies including subsidies on products such as solar panels and batteries for storage and discounted electricity bills for the poorest people.

Community ownership of clean electricity initiatives – for example, solar mini-grids in neighbourhoods – should also be promoted, Giwa said, adding that the approach would help prevent vandalism and stop infrastructure falling into disrepair.

Back in Port Harcourt’s Rumuokwachi district, not far from Onyim’s water packaging plant, welder Bright Azuka hunches over a steel gate, sparks flying as his welding machine crackles to life.

The hum of a generator can be heard in the background as he works swiftly, racing to finish a job before it runs out of fuel. Azuka spends 10,000 naira ($7) per day on petrol so he can carry on working during power outages.

He urged President Tinubu’s government to find ways of making solar systems more affordable for ordinary Nigerians like him.

“Even though I don’t have electricity here, I am paying monthly bills,” he said. “It’s not easy.”

The post Nigerian president’s solar panels stir debate over renewables for the rich appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nigerian president’s solar panels stir debate over renewables for the rich