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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
Morgan Folger, Environment America Destination: Zero Carbon Campaign Director, mfolger@environmentamerica.org
Mac Dressman, PIRG Transportation Associate, mdressman@pirg.org
Josh Chetwynd, Deputy Director, Media Relations, josh.chetwynd@
The U.S. Departments of Transportation and Energy announced Thursday the state-by-state allocations of its $5 billion formula grants for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. Lack of available electric vehicle charging is a major barrier preventing people from making the switch to an electric car. This new funding will create a better network of EV charging across the country and help address global warming pollution by growing the EV market.
Environment America Research & Policy Center, which is Environment America's research partner, estimates that the United States will need more than 1.8 million chargers by 2030 to meet anticipated demand. In addition to installing more EV charging, policymakers can do more to bring down the upfront cost of EVs, according to Environment America.
Experts from Environment America and PIRG issued the following statement:
"With this money flowing to states, we can start to build for the electric vehicle revolution we know is coming," said Environment America Destination: Zero Carbon Director Morgan Folger. "A more prolific charging network makes it easier for people to choose to drive an electric car and feel confident they have a place to power up along the way. The key to unlocking a more climate-friendly future featuring electric cars on every block is to make owning an EV more convenient and affordable. Restoring the electric vehicle tax credit is the next step Congress should take to ensure these cars are affordable, which will further allowing the EV market to continue to grow."
"Building a national network of EV charging stations is just what the U.S. needs to make the transition to electric vehicles. It gives Americans the right infrastructure to reduce air pollution and tackle the climate crisis by making it easier to switch to zero-emission vehicles," said PIRG Transportation Associate Mac Dressman. "Tragically, pollution from cars, trucks and other vehicles cuts short an estimated 58,000 lives every year. This step toward an all-electric, zero-emission future is essential to ensure cleaner air for all."
With Environment America, you protect the places that all of us love and promote core environmental values, such as clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and clean energy to power our lives. We're a national network of 29 state environmental groups with members and supporters in every state. Together, we focus on timely, targeted action that wins tangible improvements in the quality of our environment and our lives.
(303) 801-0581U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), stands up to powerful special interests on behalf of the American public, working to win concrete results for our health and our well-being. With a strong network of researchers, advocates, organizers and students in state capitols across the country, we take on the special interests on issues, such as product safety,political corruption, prescription drugs and voting rights,where these interests stand in the way of reform and progress.
"The time to hold campaign finance violators accountable is now—not after illegal election spending has corrupted our democracy," said the research director of Public Citizen.
The progressive watchdog group Public Citizen accused the U.S. Federal Election Commission of abdicating its responsibility by failing to act in the face of "illegal" election spending by the cryptocurrency exchange giant Coinbase, a federal contractor.
Public Citizen noted in a statement Thursday that "federal law bars campaign contributions to political parties, committees, or candidates from federal contractors."
The group's statement came a day after Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, pledged that his company would pump another $25 million into Fairshake PAC, a super PAC dedicated to electing candidates supportive of the crypto industry, which has spent big to influence the outcome of the 2024 elections. Fairshake has spent roughly the same amount of money supporting Democratic and Republican candidates, reflecting the extent to which both parties have sought to court the still-nascent crypto industry.
According to Public Citizen, Armstrong's pledge brought Coinbase's total 2024 election spending above $76 million. In August, Public Citizen filed a complaint with the FEC arguing that a portion of Coinbase's spending appears to be unlawful due to the company's multimillion-dollar contract with the U.S. Marshals Service.
"Coinbase has spent more than $50 million in what appears to be illegal campaign contributions from a federal contractor to attack candidates who might stand up to Big Crypto; meanwhile, the FEC is snoozing through the election," Rick Claypool, Public Citizen's research director, said Thursday.
"The time to hold campaign finance violators accountable is now—not after illegal election spending has corrupted our democracy," Claypool added.
The FEC is currently chaired by Sean Cooksey, a Republican appointed by former president and GOP nominee Donald Trump. Evenly divided between three Democrats and three Republicans, the agency has faced backlash for refusing to take action to stem the proliferation of AI-generated deepfakes and illegal campaign spending.
What's more, as The New York Timesreported earlier this year, the agency has moved aggressively in recent months to weaken already-inadequate constraints on political spending.
"One decision this spring that is already reshaping the 2024 presidential race allowed super PACs and campaigns for the first time to work together to plan and execute costly door-to-door canvassing operations," the Times noted.
Additionally, the commission "decided that a wealthy donor could put money into a trust that then could distribute donations to campaigns—while keeping the original source anonymous," the Times reported.
This year's federal election cycle is on pace to be the most expensive in U.S. history, according to OpenSecrets. An analysis released earlier this week by Americans for Tax Fairness found that billionaire families have pumped nearly $2 billion into federal elections so far—likely a significant underestimate, given that the sum excludes untraceable dark money.
"We are fighting for life," said one Indigenous leader. "We do not want our land to be exploited, we want to continue living in harmony with nature."
Thousands of Indigenous Brazilians rallied and marched in the capital Brasília and staged demonstrations in at least five states on Wednesday in a bid to block a proposed constitutional amendment that critics say could halt or even reverse the process of demarcating native lands.
Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 48 was introduced in September 2023 by federal Sen. Hiran Gonçalves of the right-wing Progressives party. The amendment would constitutionally enshrine a thesis backed by the country's powerful agribusiness sector under which Indigenous land claims made after October 5, 1988—the date Brazil's current constitution was adopted—would be invalidated.
Many Indigenous Brazilians call the proposal the "PEC of death." The Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the country's leading nongovernmental Indian advocacy group, says the amendment "is an agribusiness and anti-Indigenous proposal as it violates the original right of peoples to their ancestral territory, already recognized by the 1988 constitution, which PEC 48 seeks to alter."
"The measure also ignores the violence and persecutions that Indigenous peoples have faced for over 500 years, especially during the military dictatorship, which prevented many peoples from being in their territories on that exact date in 1988," APIB added, referring to the U.S.-backed regime that ruled through terror and torture from 1964-85 and in whose army former far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsnaro—a big supporter of PEC 48—proudly served.
On September 21, 2023, Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal ruled 9-2 that the Temporal Framework thesis is unconstitutional. On the same day, both houses of Brazil's Congress approved PL 2903, which contained provisions to codify the Temporal Framework.
Leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva subsequently issued a veto for parts of the bill dealing with the Temporal Framework and other provisions that abolished Indigenous peoples' right to free, prior, and informed consultation; made it easier to intrude upon Indigenous lands; and would have banned the expansion of previously demarcated Indigenous lands.
However, right-wing Brazilian lawmakers overruled Lula's veto in December 2023. Despite being declared unconstitutional, lawmakers passed Law 14.701, which codified the Temporal Framework and was subsequently challenged in multiple lawsuits. In April 2024, the Supreme Federal Tribunal suspended these cases and suggested a process of mediation and conciliation between Indigenous people and agribusiness interests. That process began in August.
In a Wednesday interview with Agência Brasil, APIC executive coordinator Alberto Terena of the Terena Indigenous community said that PEC 48 "is a threat against our demarcated lands" that will exacerbate the planetary climate emergency.
"As soon as we stop protecting the environment, the climate crisis will be even worse," he argued. "Indigenous lands are the territories with the greatest preservation of the environment, the greatest biodiversity. We are fighting for life. We do not want our land to be exploited, we want to continue living in harmony with nature."
The demonstrations in Brazil came as a United Nations biodiversity summit (COP16) is underway in neighboring Colombia. Indigenous rights advocates reported that Amazon defender Txai Suruí, one of Brazil's best-known Indigenous activists, was accosted at COP16 after speaking out against the Temporal Framework.
Takakpe Tapayuna Metuktire of the Raoni Institute, which promotes Indigenous rights and sustainability, toldg1 that the Temporal Framework is a death decree for us and our children."
Brian O'Donnell, head of the international advocacy group Campaign for Nature, said in a statement Thursday that "if the world is to maintain its important cultural diversity, or achieve its biodiversity and climate goals, Indigenous peoples' territories must be recognized and secured."
"We are outraged by the assault on Indigenous territories and the disenfranchisement of Indigenous people," O'Donnell added. "Their rights to their ancestral lands must be secured. We stand in solidarity with Indigenous people in Brazil and around the world, who are calling for this ill-conceived set of policies to be scrapped and for world leaders to recognize the territorial rights of Indigenous peoples."
In addition to the Brasília rally and march, Indigenous-led demonstrations saw road blockages and other actions across the country of 200 million inhabitants. Protests took place in the states of São Paulo, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul, Maranhão, and Roraima.
"We will not stop our mobilization as long as there is this assault on our rights," said Terena. "This march is not only in the streets, but in Congress and other government agencies... We want the constitution to be respected within this country."
"The very limited progress we've seen so far in the negotiations at COP16 is insufficient to address the very real implications of getting this wrong," one expert said.
As a major international biodiversity summit approaches its Friday conclusion, environmental advocates fear that world leaders will not make the conservation and financial commitments needed to halt the destruction of nature.
The 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity launched in Cali, Colombia on October 21. It is the first international meeting since nations pledged to protect 30% of land and ocean ecosystems by 2030 and generate $700 billion a year to fund the protection of nature, with a smaller goal of $200 billion per year by 2030.
Yet nations are not on track to meet these goals, even as studies released this month warn that vertebrates have declined on average by nearly three-quarters in the last half-century and that over a third of analyzed tree species are at risk of extinction.
"Each passing day without the fulfillment of agreed commitments is a missed opportunity to protect biodiversity."
"The very limited progress we've seen so far in the negotiations at COP16 is insufficient to address the very real implications of getting this wrong," Yadvinder Malhi, a University of Oxford professor of ecosystem science, toldThe Guardian. "Biodiversity is continuing to decline at an alarming rate. I really hope that the crunch discussions this week yield those commitments, for the sake of a flourishing future for people and for our planet."
World leaders failed to meet a single one of the biodiversity targets set for 2020 in Aichi, Japan. There was hope, after nations agreed to a Global Biodiversity Framework during the Kunming-Montreal talks that concluded in December 2022, that the next decade would be different. Yet progress so far has been lagging.
Ahead of COP16, nearly 85% of countries missed the deadline to submit new national biodiversity strategies and action plans, according to an analysis from Carbon Brief. Since the deadline passed, only five more countries had submitted plans as of October 25.
An official progress report published Monday by the United Nations Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center and the International Union for Conservation of Nature concluded that only 17.6% of land and 8.4% of the ocean are currently protected. To meet the 30 by 30 goal, nations will need to protect a land area the size of Australia and Brazil put together and a marine area larger than the Indian Ocean within the next six years.
"This report is a clear reminder that with only six years remaining until 2030, the window is closing for us to equitably and meaningfully conserve 30% of the Earth," IUCN director general Grethel Aguilar said in a statement. "The '30 by 30' is an ambitious target, but one that is still within reach if the international community works together across borders, demographics, and sectors."
A major stumbling block to meeting any targets is the question of who will pay for it, how, and how much. This has emerged as a central point of contention in the talks, with Global South nations and environmental justice advocates calling on the wealthier nations of the Global North to do more.
Wealthier countries have pledged $20 billion a year in public money by 2025, yet the African delegation said that the idea these countries would reach the goal was "wishful thinking," The Guardian reported.
On Monday, the U.K., Germany, France, Norway, and four other countries promised $163 million. But Alice Jay, Campaign for Nature's director of international relations, said actually meeting the target "would require them to announce $300 million each month from now to 2025, and then keep that up each year until 2030."
"Countries from the Global South expect more from the Global North," Nigeria Environment Minister Iziaq Kunle Salako said. "Finance is key in the context of implementing all the targets."
Brian O'Donnell, director of the Campaign for Nature, told The Guardian that progress had been "too slow."
"I think political prioritization of nature is still too low," O'Donnell said. "This is reflected by progress on the targets. Several target[s] are very easy to measure: 30x30 has metrics on area and quality, finance has a dollar figure. We have new data on both that show we're not on pace."
O'Donnell added that it was "disturbing' to approach countries about their finance plans and be received as if making an unrealistic demand, rather than a follow-up on a pledge the country had already made.
"To me, that is a reflection of not a true commitment to this," he said.
As the second week of negotiations began on Sunday, Greenpeace called on wealthier nations to step up and also to offer funds for Indigenous and local communities that are on the frontlines of protecting biodiversity in their territories.
"Each passing day without the fulfillment of agreed commitments is a missed opportunity to protect biodiversity," Estefania Gonzalez, Greenpeace Andino's deputy campaigns director, said in a statement. "Countries with greater resources have both the capacity and responsibility to drive change, by meeting the agreed goals and supporting those facing the greatest impacts of biodiversity loss."
An Lambrechts, a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International, said that progress had partly been held up by lobbying efforts from the private sector, as has notably been the case at international climate talks as well.
"Well-paid industry representatives are doing their worst to undermine progress to ensure they can continue profiting off nature for free," Lambrechts said. "We need less big promo shows for false solutions like 'biodiversity credits' and more of the new money for actual nature protection that is absent so far. What is clear in Cali is the world is ready for global action on biodiversity if governments can deliver a real outcome at COP16."
Indigenous advocates have also called for money to be sent to them directly, rather than through intermediaries.
"Very little reaches the territories," Tabea Cacique, a member of the Asháninka people of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, said at the talks, as El Paísreported. "Do not look at us as Indigenous peoples who cannot manage the funds; teach us."
Yet even as funding remains illusive, the stakes are high.
"Nature is life," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in an address at COP16 on Tuesday, "and yet we are waging a war against it. A war where there can be no winner."
"Every year, we see temperatures climbing higher," he continued. "Every day, we lose more species. Every minute, we dump a garbage truck of plastic waste into our oceans, rivers, and lakes. Make no mistake. This is what an existential crisis looks like."
In his address, Guterres called for "making peace with nature."
"Biodiversity is humanity's ally," he said. "We must move from plundering it to preserving it. As I have said time and again, making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century."