Inside Climate News

As a blue wave washed over Election Day, ballot measures across the country showed voters strongly support environmental protection, with notable early outcomes in California and Colorado.  Democrats swept Congress on Tuesday, winning control of both houses with notable victories in Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Michigan and Maine.  Results, which are still being tallied Wednesday, […]

This story was updated on Nov. 6, 2026 to include additional information from the Alabama Public Service Commission. On a busy election day, the Alabama Public Service Commission requested that Alabama Power voluntarily stop billing customers, effective immediately, for television commercials and other ads it buys to promote various aspects of its business. Alabama Power […]

NY-17: Last in a series on the environmental stakes behind one of the nation’s most fiercely contested congressional races. Before midnight, and before any official body had called the race, Republican incumbent Mike Lawler conceded to Democratic challenger Cait Conley in New York’s 17th Congressional District. Conley flipped the closely watched toss-up seat, denying Lawler […]

Democrats’ historic sweep of Texas on Tuesday raises new possibilities of environmental reform after more than 30 years of Republican rule in the home of the nation’s oil and gas industry. That includes opportunities to cement safeguards for data center development, lower energy costs and, over time, appoint new commissioners to the state’s regulatory agencies […]

An international team of lawyers on Wednesday filed a coordinated battery of lawsuits against JBS, the world’s largest meat company, and its financiers, accusing them of money laundering in connection with the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. The 14 legal actions, filed in four European jurisdictions, accuse JBS and its affiliated banks, asset managers, accountants […]

Georgia voters have broken the Republican grip on the state’s energy regulator, giving Democrats control of the Public Service Commission for the first time in 30 years.  Their victories come amid growing frustration over rising electricity bills, a data center buildout and calls for greater accountability from Georgia Power. On Tuesday, Democrat Peter Hubbard was […]

This story was produced in partnership by Inside Climate News and the Texas Newsroom, the state’s network of public radio stations. Amid a spate of historic political upsets across Texas, voters in the industrial port city of Corpus Christi on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a citizen-led petition to impose steep fees for water use on the […]

Just in time for Halloween, floodwaters washed into South Florida businesses and submerged roads, forcing residents to drive and walk through shin-high water in what officials called the most intense king tide event ever.  The federal government has an ambitious, multibillion-dollar plan for the Miami area to help ease the pain of future flooding as […]

Democrats on Tuesday won control of both houses of Congress and a decisive mandate to put a check on Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency, a victory propelled by voter anger over high prices, corruption and the unchecked spread of data centers. Some of the same concerns helped to lift Democrats to victories in statehouses, where they […]

A new satellite tracking system finds that the United States has lost 350,000 acres of forest land per year—a rate of approximately one football field every two minutes—which is the equivalent of 2.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions through the release of stored CO2 in the forests and lost potential carbon storage.  Researchers […]

This article was first reported by The Examination, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates global health threats. When Rachel Curtis visited her 86-year-old grandmother in Odessa, Texas, last summer, the putrid odor of hydrogen sulfide hit her as soon as she got out of the car. She could smell the toxic gas, which is often compared […]

Hi, I’m Kate Waxman, and this is my first edition of Today’s Climate. I’m taking this newsletter over from my colleague Kiley Price, whom I admire for her sharp coverage. I’m a Florida native and was a fellow at Inside Climate News this summer, where I covered climate and environmental justice in my home state. […]

The number of buildings across the contiguous United States threatened by wildfires could almost triple by 2060, according to a new study, if the country continues to ignore the perils of climate change, mismanage its forests and build homes in places where large fires naturally occur. The paper, published Tuesday in Nature Communications by researchers from […]

The Environmental Protection Agency late last week announced it would end a 20-plus-year effort to develop methods to monitor air pollution from factory farms, effectively shuttering the agency’s stop-and-start attempts to regulate the potentially pollutant-spewing facilities under the Clean Air Act. The announcement came just days before the midterm elections and was characterized by the […]

Climate negotiators head to Turkey next month for the United Nations annual climate summit, just two months after an alarming U.N. report said the world has a vanishing chance of limiting global warming to safe levels. The report’s projections will likely ripple through discussions at the event, known as the Conference of the Parties or […]

The call came late on a Wednesday afternoon in October, when the forecast cone stopped wobbling and started pointing steadily toward the Florida Panhandle. Tracie Hodson, who runs FavorHouse of Northwest Florida in Pensacola, decided to evacuate her domestic abuse treatment shelter.  By Thursday, her staff had relocated 15 women and 12 children. Some went […]

As demand for artificial intelligence surges worldwide, China is looking to its renewable energy sector for an advantage in the race to build the data centers that fuel the technology. Its vast wind, solar and battery industries could help power those facilities with cheaper electricity and bring them online faster by reducing reliance on conventional […]

SARAYAKU, Ecuador—The canoe motor rattled against the current as Guisel Marworno and Wagner Karipuna traveled down the Bobonaza River. The Brazilian Indigenous leaders had come seeking help. Last year, state-owned Petrobras began exploring for offshore oil near their coastal territories. The prospect of an oil boom is already reshaping the nearby city of Oiapoque, where […]

TAYLOR, Texas—A red thresher cuts across the countryside off County Road 401 in Taylor, leaving behind tufts of discarded stalks as farmers prepare to plant seeds for the next year’s harvest.  Less than five miles away, mom-and-pop antique shops open their doors on North Main Street, welcoming residents and tourists alike to glance into the […]

Perhaps no issue has tested the political agility of Pennsylvania’s popular Gov. Josh Shapiro over the past two years more than data centers.  In about 20 months, Shapiro went from introducing a fast-track permitting process that invited hyper-scale data centers to “move at the speed of business,” to kicking them out of the program and […]