The 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement has gone to Johan Rockström who led the team of international researchers who originated the planetary boundary framework in 2009.
As the Biden administration pauses to ponder licenses for 12 new LNG export facilities, it is investing billions in natural gas infrastructure abroad. Critics warn U.S. gas expansion poses a direct threat to Earth’s ecosystems and people.
The government in Ecuador is looking for ways to keep open a controversial oil block in the Amazon Rainforest, defying the results of a referendum to close the operation due…
Brazil’s “Transversal Environmental Agenda,” released on 25 January 2024, contains many good things for the government to be doing, but it misses the opportunity to implant what a transversal agenda…
Yuly Velásquez grew up on the banks of the Magdalena River near the Colombian city of Barrancabermeja, an area surrounded by a large network of swamps, lagoons and tropical forests.…
In December, the Venezuelan government launched a series of measures and legislation to cement the country’s annexation of Guyana’s oil and mineral-rich Essequibo region. This is prompting fears among dozens…
On Dec. 20, the U.S. government auctioned off oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico despite concerns the move could endanger a newly described and very rare…
One day after the end of the COP28 climate summit, Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) conducted what is known as the “End-of-the-World” auction, selling off drilling rights in 602 new…
On Wednesday, Brazil’s Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP) put 602 new oil blocks up for auction, at least 21 of which are in the Amazon River Basin. This is…
VERDE ISLAND, Philippines — Working together to lift an outrigger from the clear, teal water onto a white sand beach, a group of fishers had just returned home to Verde…
Negotiators at the UN climate summit in Dubai have agreed to "transitioning away from fossil fuels," but the deal isn't legally binding and can't force nations to act. Environmental lawyers around the globe are working to force countries to follow through.
In today’s industrialized world, avoiding plastic is virtually impossible. Every trip to the grocery store likely means coming home with food and household items packaged in plastic bottles, tubs and…
The early optimism that launched plastic treaty negotiations in 2022 was stymied at talks this month in Nairobi at which large petrostates stonewalled against creating a binding international treaty that would regulate cradle-to-grave plastics production.
As oil and gas production surge, shifting the global economy to a circular model is essential to charting a path away from fossil fuels, petroleum-based nitrogen fertilizers and petrochemicals such as plastics. Part 3 of a three-part miniseries.
In his May 2022 state of the nation address, Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso laid out his vision for the South American country’s hydrocarbon industry. “Now that the global trend is…
This story is the second in a three-part mini-series surveying the range of impacts by the fossil fuel industry on the global environment. Part one and part two review harm…
Fossil fuels have done great good for humanity, but they are now not only threatening our planet’s climate, but also taking a terrible toll on the global environment, putting at risk Earth systems vital to life as we know it. Part 1 of a three-part miniseries.
A new report by GreenFaith, an international, multifaith climate justice organization, alleges that the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) will disturb at least 2,000 graves along its route from…
Last month, the U.S. agreed to lift some sanctions on Venezuela in exchange for a roadmap to presidential elections, tentatively scheduled for the second half of next year. The deal…
ORELLANA, Ecuador — "There's a pool here," says Ermel Chávez, a representative of the Amazon Defense Front in Ecuador. Chávez plucks a long branch from a tree, crouches down, and…
In the two decades since the Franco-British multinational Perenco established operations at Muanda, at the mouth of the Congo River, surrounding communities have suffered the loss of the natural resources…
The discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in Nigeria has substantially increased environmental problems across major oil exploration states in the past half-century, particularly in the Niger Delta region.…
A diverse international coalition of funders — ranging from national governments to oil companies and even U.S. schoolchildren — have averted a potentially catastrophic million-barrel oil spill in the Red…
The Achuar Indigenous people in the Peruvian community of José Olaya grew tired of seeing oil traveling through their creeks as they awaited the arrival of authorities. This is why…
MEXICO CITY — Canada has become a major force in Latin America. It’s spent the last 30 years beefing up its portfolio with investments in mining, oil and natural gas.…
More than half of Indigenous environmental defenders and leaders killed for safeguarding their ecosystems, their homes, and their family on the planet are Amazonians. This violence stems from a new…
More than 2,800 kilometers (1,740 miles) of pipelines run through the Amazon and along the coasts of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia. These hundreds of pipelines transport millions of liters…
Aguaragüe National Park, located in southern Bolivia, is suffering from hydrocarbon exploitation, which has been carried out in this region for more than 100 years. The park’s soils and water…
Yesterday, Ecuador voted to halt all future oil drilling in a sensitive protected area known for its fragile rainforest ecosystem and isolated Indigenous communities. Millions of people participated in a…
José Celestino Trujillo is a fisherman who lived for nearly 80 years in the same rural district in central Colombia. For decades, he had borne witness to the transformations that…