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climate emergency
'Strongest-in-the-Nation' Data Center Moratorium Proposed in NY
"New Yorkers are suffering from an affordability crisis and a climate crisis, and data centers are going to make both of those much harder to deal with," said state Sen. Liz Krueger, one of the bill's sponsors.
Feb 06, 2026
In response to rising concerns about the extreme energy demands of artificial intelligence data centers, Democratic legislators in New York are proposing a three-year pause on their creation in the state.
The environmental group Food & Water Watch called the proposal, introduced Friday by state Sen. Liz Krueger (D-28) and Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-125), the "strongest data center moratorium bill in the country," the sort that is in increasing demand as the public becomes aware of the staggering energy costs required to power the centers.
Last month, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that US electricity demand could increase by 60% to 80% over the next quarter century, with data centers accounting for more than half the increase by 2030—costing anywhere from $886 billion to $978 billion and pumping anywhere from 19% to 29% more planet-heating carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In large part due to data centers, New York's power grid may fall as much as 1.6 gigawatts short of reliability requirements, according to a projection from the New York Independent System Operator last year.
“Massive data centers are gunning for New York, and right now we are completely unprepared," Krueger said. When one of these energy-guzzling facilities comes to town, they drive up utility prices and have significant negative impacts on the environment and the community—and they have little to no positive impact on the local economy.
"New Yorkers are suffering from an affordability crisis and a climate crisis, and data centers are going to make both of those much harder to deal with," she added.
The bill would halt new data center projects exceeding 20 megawatts for three years and require the state to conduct environmental reviews and propose new regulations to address any identified impacts.
"Data centers are being built rapidly and with little meaningful oversight, despite the serious strain they place on our energy system, water resources, and local communities," explained Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas (D-34), another supporter of the legislation.
"These facilities increase pollution, drive up electricity costs, and threaten farmland and natural land, while disproportionately impacting low-income communities and Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities that have long faced environmental injustice," she said.
According to Politico, pushes to curb data center growth are gaining steam around the country:
New York is the largest state where lawmakers have proposed a moratorium on data centers. But concerns about the growing issue are bipartisan, with Republicans and Democrats backing moratoriums in various states.
Similar measures have been introduced in Maryland, Georgia, Oklahoma, Virginia, and Vermont. A Republican legislator in Michigan—where dozens of local governments have already passed moratoriums—has said she’ll introduce a statewide measure there, as well. In Wisconsin, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate has also called for a moratorium.
Eric Weltman, senior New York organizer at Food & Water Watch, said the bill was necessary to curb "one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation."
"This expansion is rapidly increasing demand for dirty energy, straining water resources, and raising electricity rates for families and small businesses," Weltman said. "New Yorkers are paying the price while Big Tech rakes in the riches. This strongest-in-the-nation moratorium bill is logical, it’s timely, and it will deliver the results we need."
Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian, said the bill "not only safeguards our shared future here in New York, but sets a powerful precedent for states across the nation."
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Scientists Warn 'Garbage' Models Underestimate Risk of Economic Collapse From Climate Crisis
Current models "assume the future will behave like the past, even as we push the climate system into uncharted territory," said the lead author of a new report that's based on input from dozens of experts.
Feb 05, 2026
In a report published Thursday, UK experts highlighted the "growing gap between real-world climate risk and the economic analysis used to guide policy, supervision, and investment," while also warning that because the "window for preventing catastrophic warming" is narrowing, ambitious action "cannot await perfected models."
Various scientific institutions concur that 2025 was among the hottest years on record—and the ongoing failure of governments across the globe, particularly the Trump administration, to enact policies that would significantly cut planet-heating emissions from fossil fuels is pushing the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C and 2°C goals for this century further out of reach.
The new report from the University of Exeter and the think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative, titled Recalibrating Climate Risk, incorporates the expert opinions of 68 climate scientists from Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
"Our expert elicitation reveals a fundamental disconnect: Climate scientists understand that beyond 2°C, we're not dealing with manageable economic adjustments," said Jesse Abrams, lead author and senior impact fellow at Exeter's Green Futures Solutions, in a statement.
"The climate scientists we surveyed were unambiguous," he explained. "Current economic models systematically underestimate climate damages because they can't capture what matters most—the cascading failures, threshold effects, and compounding shocks that define climate risk in a warmer world and could undermine the very foundations of economic growth."
Abrams said that "for financial institutions and policymakers relying on these models, this isn't a technical problem—it's a fundamental misreading of the risks we face, which current models miss entirely because they assume the future will behave like the past, even as we push the climate system into uncharted territory."
Current economic models miss the mark on climate risks, warning that catastrophic tipping points and extreme weather could crash the global economy, far worse than 2008.As said many times before delaying action will be far costlier than cutting emissions now.www.theguardian.com/environment/...
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— Ian Hall (@ianhall.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 12:46 AM
Communities around the world are already contending with devastating droughts, fires, and storms—and, as another report from researchers at Exeter and the UK's Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFOA) pointed out last month, "above 1.5°C, we enter the danger zone where multiple climate tipping points may be triggered, such as the collapse of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, permafrost melt, Amazon dieback, and changes in ocean circulation."
The IFOA report "warned that when cascading and systemic risks are taken into account, warming of 2°C by 2050 could result in a 25% hit to projected GDP, rising to a halving of projected economic growth between 2070 and 2090," BusinessGreen editor-in-chief James Murray reported Thursday. "Similarly, a report from consultancy Boston Consulting Group calculated a third of the global economic output could be lost under a scenario where temperatures reach 3°C above preindustrial levels by 2100."
"The studies stand in stark contrast to some mainstream economic models that have suggested warming of 2°C or more will only reduce projected economic growth by a few percentage points—analyses that have been seized upon by opponents of climate action to argue that decarbonization policies can be dropped or delayed," Murray noted.
Abrams told the Guardian that some current economic models "are saying we'll have a 10% GDP loss at between 3°C and 4°C, but the physical climate scientists are saying the economy and society will cease to function as we know it. That's a big mismatch."
Your periodic reminder that the economic models that suggest climate change will knock a couple of percent of future GDP - models that are used widely by governments, investors, and businesses - are almost certainly complete garbage. www.businessgreen.com/news/4525211...
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— James Murray (@james-bg.bsky.social) February 5, 2026 at 7:08 AM
Laurie Laybourn, a Carbon Tracker board member and executive director of Strategic Climate Risks Initiative, cited another recent report that provides a bleak picture of the current moment and what lies ahead.
"As the UK government's landmark security assessment of ecosystem collapse showed last week, we are currently living through a paradigm shift in the speed, scale, and severity of risks driven by the climate-nature crisis," he said. "Yet, beyond this report, there has not been a corresponding paradigm shift in how regulators and government as a whole assess these risks."
"Instead, they're routinely underestimated if not missed entirely, meaning many regulations and government action are dangerously out of touch with reality," he continued. "This threatens disaster when that reality catches up with us. So, it's critical that policymakers change course, providing clear signals and guidance to markets that these risks should be priced accordingly, rather than downplayed."
And, as the experts emphasized Thursday, it's not just policymakers—investors are also still relying on "flawed economic advice," said Carbon Tracker founder and CEO Mark Campanale. The result is "widespread complacency... with many investors viewing climate scenario analysis as a tick-box disclosure exercise."
"Until the gap between scientists and economists' expectations of future climate damages is closed and government bodies act to ensure the integrity of advice upon which investment decisions are made," he added, "financial institutions will continue to chronically underprice climate risks—meaning that pension funds and taxpayers will remain dangerously exposed."
Hetal Patel, head of sustainable investment research at Phoenix Group, the UK's largest and retirement and savings business, said that her firm "supports the report's call for a more robust and coordinated approach to climate‑risk modeling. Underestimating physical risk doesn't just distort financial analysis and investment decisions, it underplays the real‑world consequences that will ultimately affect customer outcomes and society as a whole."
The new report stresses that addressing the "fundamental disconnect between what climate scientists understand about climate impacts and how these impacts are represented in economic models" would require "research investments spanning years," but rather than simply waiting for better modeling, decision-makers "must proceed on the basis of precautionary risk management, physical climate science, and observed impacts."
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'Regulators Should Remember': Louisiana Pipeline Blast Shows Risks of Methane Boom
The explosion "starkly illustrates the dangers of fossil fuel infrastructure, particularly its impact on vulnerable communities," one environmental justice leader said.
Feb 04, 2026
A pipeline explosion in Cameron Parish, Louisiana—a coastal community in the epicenter of the liquefied natural gas buildout—offers an object lesson in the immediate dangers posed by oil and gas expansion, frontline advocates warned.
The explosion occurred at around 11:00 am Central time on Tuesday on the Delfin LNG pipeline, injuring one worker, forcing nearby Johnson Bayou High School to shelter in place, and sending a wall of smoke and flame into the sky.
Community activist Roishetta Ozane of the Vessel Project of Louisiana said the blast "starkly illustrates the dangers of fossil fuel infrastructure, particularly its impact on vulnerable communities. This incident is a chilling reminder of the environmental injustice that disproportionately affects people of color, low-income populations, and especially fishermen."
Environmental justice campaigners and local residents, including fishers, have been pushing back in recent years against an LNG export boom in the Gulf South that threatens their local ecosystems, health, and livelihoods—not to mention the stability of the global climate.
"Today’s explosion and ongoing fire are a stark reminder that what they’re selling is highly combustible methane gas—a volatile fossil fuel.”
"This is a prime example of why we are fighting against this," Fisherman Involved in Sustaining Our Heritage (FISH) wrote in a post on Facebook in response to the news.
Cameron Parish is home to the largest LNG terminal in the country—Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass—as well as Venture Global's controversial Calcasieu Pass terminal, which violated its air permits more than 2,000 times during its first year of operation. Residents say the pollution is harming their health and that dredging and export tankers are destroying habitat for local fisheries. The situation is only set to deteriorate, as last year the Trump administration approved construction of a second Venture Global terminal and allowed the company to increase exports from its first as part of its push to ramp up fossil energy production.
Delfin is part of the LNG expansion. It is constructing an offshore terminal consisting of three vessels connected to preexisting pipelines which will eventually be able to produce 4 million tons of methane gas. Preliminary actions were being performed on the line when it exploded Tuesday, Ashley Buller, assistant director of Cameron Parish's emergency preparedness department, told The Advocate.
The cause of the explosion is not yet known, though the Louisiana State Police have promised an investigation, but for watchdog groups documenting fossil fuel expansion in the state, it does not come as a surprise.
“Every minute of every day, countless corporations pump oil, gas, and chemicals across Louisiana via pipeline. That means at any given moment, a Louisiana community could be faced with a leak; an explosion; or contamination of their air, land, or water," said Anne Rolfes of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. "The industry likes to use marketing terms like 'natural gas' to make their products seem benign, but today’s explosion and ongoing fire are a stark reminder that what they’re selling is highly combustible methane gas—a volatile fossil fuel.”
Ozane noted: "Fossil fuel pipelines pose significant risks due to leaks and explosions, exposing nearby residents to hazardous pollutants linked to severe health issues, including respiratory disorders and cancer. Often, these pipelines are placed in marginalized neighborhoods, a product of systemic inequities that prioritize corporate profit over community safety. The cumulative effects of pollution exacerbate existing health disparities, leaving these communities more vulnerable to chronic illnesses."
"The dangers extend beyond immediate incidents," she continued. "The entire lifecycle of fossil fuel extraction and consumption contributes to environmental degradation and climate change, disproportionately impacting marginalized groups. Furthermore, the rise of energy-intensive data centers, often powered by fossil fuels, adds another layer of pollution, perpetuating a cycle of harm."
"They don't only export the gas, they export the profits too."
FISH also pointed to the lingering effects of fossil fuel pollution, and criticized the official line reported in local media that there were "no off-site impacts from the explosion," calling it "one of the most disturbing industry lies."
"The air, the water, and our wetlands are impacted far beyond their chain link fences," the group wrote. "The people are not protected by chain link fences and concrete barriers."
FISH executive director Robyn Thigpen also emphasized to The Advocate that Cameron Parish's hospital had not reopened since it was damaged by Hurricane Laura in 2020, increasing the potential danger of pipeline explosions.
"It's really important that people understand they never reopened a hospital," she said.
The worker who was injured was transported to a facility in Port Arthur, Texas.
The climate crisis increases the chances of powerful storms like Laura and Rita, a 2005 hurricane which devastated the area and started a trend of long-term population decline, providing an example of how the fossil fuel industry threatens the people of Cameron Parish in multiple ways. Yet while it increases risks, the LNG boom has not brought greater prosperity to ordinary citizens of the parish.
"We are the largest exporter of natural gas in the world, and to look around this place, you would not know the wealth," For a Better Bayou Director James Hiatt told The Advocate. "Because they don't only export the gas, they export the profits too."
Community activists called on local and national leaders to reassess their reliance on fossil fuel energy sources and move toward safer renewable alternatives.
“Before approving the next pipeline, LNG export terminal, or [carbon, capture, and storage] project, Gov. [Jeff] Landry and state regulators should remember today’s incident and what these projects cost our communities," Rolfe said.
Ozane concluded: "Each explosion not only results in loss of life and property but also inflicts lasting trauma on families and communities. It is imperative to advocate for the cessation of new fossil fuel projects and demand clean energy alternatives. We must address the systemic inequalities that put vulnerable populations at risk, ensuring that no community is sacrificed for corporate gain."
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