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Photo: Zachary Hurwitz via International Rivers
From the flood-prone coastline of Bangladesh to East Africa's drought-stricken farm lands, climate change hits people hardest who have least contributed to it. World governments have agreed to mobilize $100 billion a year for climate mitigation and adaptation projects by 2020, most directly through the new Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The People's Climate March will hopefully set some official pants on fire and speed up the capitalization of the new fund. At the same time, we need to be vigilant that the powers that be don't abuse the GCF as honey pots from which they can fund business-as-usual or outright destructive projects. Using large dams as an example, governments need to heed the following lessons of experience with climate finance as they commit new funding to the GCF:
Take a holistic view of ecological threats: Large dams have helped turn freshwater ecosystems into the ecosystem type most threatened by species extinction. Tropical reservoirs are also a major source of greenhouse emissions in the form of methane produced from decomposing organic matter. In spite of this, the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism has registered more than a thousand hydropower projects for selling carbon credits. The projects that are already benefiting from CDM credits include the Rampur Dam in India, which diverts the Satluj River into a tunnel, leaving behind a dry river bed, and is based on a flawed environmental assessment. Coming up in the CDM pipeline are projects such as the proposed Teles Pires Dam in the Amazon, which would destroy important ecosystems and generate massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
The ultimate goal of climate finance is to protect the ecosystems that make our planet livable. Just as we would not sacrifice our arteries to save our lungs, we should not be forced to choose between the world's remaining rivers and the atmosphere. The member governments of the GCF need to take a holistic view of the environmental sustainability of their projects.
Take climate resilience into account: Climate finance projects not only need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they need to strengthen societies' resilience to deal with the climatic change that is inevitably occurring. Dams are vulnerable both to the floods and the droughts that are becoming more extreme under global warming. A diverse portfolio of wind, solar and micro-hydropower projects is more climate-resilient than putting all eggs into the basket of a large dam. The GCF needs to consider climate resilience in all the projects it funds.
Human rights are part of the deal: It goes without saying that UN-sponsored financing mechanisms should not condone human rights abuses. Yet the Clean Development Mechanism lacks any kind of human rights filter. As a consequence, the CDM board approved several projects with serious human rights abuses, including the Barro Blanco Dam in Panama and the Santa Rita Dam in Guatemala. In each of these projects, three indigenous activists were killed and scores were injured when they tried to defend their ancestral lands. Projects that violate human rights should have no place in the GCF.
Will the Green Climate Fund heed these lessons of experience? According to its initial investment framework, the new fund "will finance projects and programmes that demonstrate the maximum potential for a paradigm shift towards low-carbon and climate-resilient sustainable development," taking into account what it calls "social, economic and environmental co-benefits" of such a shift. In the energy sector, solar, wind, geothermal and micro-hydropower projects fit this bill. They are affordable, widely available, resilient, and effective at expanding energy access and creating jobs.
While the GCF language is encouraging, climate finance can easily be diverted into business-as-usual projects by powerful interests. The new fund will after all have to work with the same governments, corporations and banks that have created the existing energy infrastructure. Already, the governments of Southern Africa have suggested that the giant Inga dams on the Congo River and the Mphanda Nkuwa Dam on the Zambezi should be considered for support by the GCF.
The Green Climate Fund is currently our best hope at supporting poor countries as they struggle to adapt to a changing climate and funding climate-smart projects at a massive scale. World governments should capitalize it quickly. At the same time, they should be explicit in excluding dirty energy projects - particularly large dams, coal, oil and gas projects - from support by the new fund.
Erica Carvell of Mount Holyoke College contributed research to this blog post.
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From the flood-prone coastline of Bangladesh to East Africa's drought-stricken farm lands, climate change hits people hardest who have least contributed to it. World governments have agreed to mobilize $100 billion a year for climate mitigation and adaptation projects by 2020, most directly through the new Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The People's Climate March will hopefully set some official pants on fire and speed up the capitalization of the new fund. At the same time, we need to be vigilant that the powers that be don't abuse the GCF as honey pots from which they can fund business-as-usual or outright destructive projects. Using large dams as an example, governments need to heed the following lessons of experience with climate finance as they commit new funding to the GCF:
Take a holistic view of ecological threats: Large dams have helped turn freshwater ecosystems into the ecosystem type most threatened by species extinction. Tropical reservoirs are also a major source of greenhouse emissions in the form of methane produced from decomposing organic matter. In spite of this, the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism has registered more than a thousand hydropower projects for selling carbon credits. The projects that are already benefiting from CDM credits include the Rampur Dam in India, which diverts the Satluj River into a tunnel, leaving behind a dry river bed, and is based on a flawed environmental assessment. Coming up in the CDM pipeline are projects such as the proposed Teles Pires Dam in the Amazon, which would destroy important ecosystems and generate massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
The ultimate goal of climate finance is to protect the ecosystems that make our planet livable. Just as we would not sacrifice our arteries to save our lungs, we should not be forced to choose between the world's remaining rivers and the atmosphere. The member governments of the GCF need to take a holistic view of the environmental sustainability of their projects.
Take climate resilience into account: Climate finance projects not only need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they need to strengthen societies' resilience to deal with the climatic change that is inevitably occurring. Dams are vulnerable both to the floods and the droughts that are becoming more extreme under global warming. A diverse portfolio of wind, solar and micro-hydropower projects is more climate-resilient than putting all eggs into the basket of a large dam. The GCF needs to consider climate resilience in all the projects it funds.
Human rights are part of the deal: It goes without saying that UN-sponsored financing mechanisms should not condone human rights abuses. Yet the Clean Development Mechanism lacks any kind of human rights filter. As a consequence, the CDM board approved several projects with serious human rights abuses, including the Barro Blanco Dam in Panama and the Santa Rita Dam in Guatemala. In each of these projects, three indigenous activists were killed and scores were injured when they tried to defend their ancestral lands. Projects that violate human rights should have no place in the GCF.
Will the Green Climate Fund heed these lessons of experience? According to its initial investment framework, the new fund "will finance projects and programmes that demonstrate the maximum potential for a paradigm shift towards low-carbon and climate-resilient sustainable development," taking into account what it calls "social, economic and environmental co-benefits" of such a shift. In the energy sector, solar, wind, geothermal and micro-hydropower projects fit this bill. They are affordable, widely available, resilient, and effective at expanding energy access and creating jobs.
While the GCF language is encouraging, climate finance can easily be diverted into business-as-usual projects by powerful interests. The new fund will after all have to work with the same governments, corporations and banks that have created the existing energy infrastructure. Already, the governments of Southern Africa have suggested that the giant Inga dams on the Congo River and the Mphanda Nkuwa Dam on the Zambezi should be considered for support by the GCF.
The Green Climate Fund is currently our best hope at supporting poor countries as they struggle to adapt to a changing climate and funding climate-smart projects at a massive scale. World governments should capitalize it quickly. At the same time, they should be explicit in excluding dirty energy projects - particularly large dams, coal, oil and gas projects - from support by the new fund.
Erica Carvell of Mount Holyoke College contributed research to this blog post.
From the flood-prone coastline of Bangladesh to East Africa's drought-stricken farm lands, climate change hits people hardest who have least contributed to it. World governments have agreed to mobilize $100 billion a year for climate mitigation and adaptation projects by 2020, most directly through the new Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The People's Climate March will hopefully set some official pants on fire and speed up the capitalization of the new fund. At the same time, we need to be vigilant that the powers that be don't abuse the GCF as honey pots from which they can fund business-as-usual or outright destructive projects. Using large dams as an example, governments need to heed the following lessons of experience with climate finance as they commit new funding to the GCF:
Take a holistic view of ecological threats: Large dams have helped turn freshwater ecosystems into the ecosystem type most threatened by species extinction. Tropical reservoirs are also a major source of greenhouse emissions in the form of methane produced from decomposing organic matter. In spite of this, the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism has registered more than a thousand hydropower projects for selling carbon credits. The projects that are already benefiting from CDM credits include the Rampur Dam in India, which diverts the Satluj River into a tunnel, leaving behind a dry river bed, and is based on a flawed environmental assessment. Coming up in the CDM pipeline are projects such as the proposed Teles Pires Dam in the Amazon, which would destroy important ecosystems and generate massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
The ultimate goal of climate finance is to protect the ecosystems that make our planet livable. Just as we would not sacrifice our arteries to save our lungs, we should not be forced to choose between the world's remaining rivers and the atmosphere. The member governments of the GCF need to take a holistic view of the environmental sustainability of their projects.
Take climate resilience into account: Climate finance projects not only need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they need to strengthen societies' resilience to deal with the climatic change that is inevitably occurring. Dams are vulnerable both to the floods and the droughts that are becoming more extreme under global warming. A diverse portfolio of wind, solar and micro-hydropower projects is more climate-resilient than putting all eggs into the basket of a large dam. The GCF needs to consider climate resilience in all the projects it funds.
Human rights are part of the deal: It goes without saying that UN-sponsored financing mechanisms should not condone human rights abuses. Yet the Clean Development Mechanism lacks any kind of human rights filter. As a consequence, the CDM board approved several projects with serious human rights abuses, including the Barro Blanco Dam in Panama and the Santa Rita Dam in Guatemala. In each of these projects, three indigenous activists were killed and scores were injured when they tried to defend their ancestral lands. Projects that violate human rights should have no place in the GCF.
Will the Green Climate Fund heed these lessons of experience? According to its initial investment framework, the new fund "will finance projects and programmes that demonstrate the maximum potential for a paradigm shift towards low-carbon and climate-resilient sustainable development," taking into account what it calls "social, economic and environmental co-benefits" of such a shift. In the energy sector, solar, wind, geothermal and micro-hydropower projects fit this bill. They are affordable, widely available, resilient, and effective at expanding energy access and creating jobs.
While the GCF language is encouraging, climate finance can easily be diverted into business-as-usual projects by powerful interests. The new fund will after all have to work with the same governments, corporations and banks that have created the existing energy infrastructure. Already, the governments of Southern Africa have suggested that the giant Inga dams on the Congo River and the Mphanda Nkuwa Dam on the Zambezi should be considered for support by the GCF.
The Green Climate Fund is currently our best hope at supporting poor countries as they struggle to adapt to a changing climate and funding climate-smart projects at a massive scale. World governments should capitalize it quickly. At the same time, they should be explicit in excluding dirty energy projects - particularly large dams, coal, oil and gas projects - from support by the new fund.
Erica Carvell of Mount Holyoke College contributed research to this blog post.
"Bureau of Labor Statistics data is what determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits," said Rep. John Larson. "It should alarm everyone when a yes-man determined to end Social Security is installed in this position."
U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to replace the top labor statistics official he fired earlier this month has called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" that needs to be "sunset," comments that critics said further disqualify the nominee for the key government role.
During a December 2024 radio interview, Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni said it is a "mathematical fiction" that Social Security "can go on forever" and called for "some kind of transition program where unfortunately you'll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes, but never actually receive any of those benefits."
"That's the price to pay for unwinding a Ponzi scheme that was foisted on the American people by the Democrats in the 1930s," Antoni continued. "You're not going to be able to sustain a Ponzi scheme like Social Security. Eventually, you need to sunset the program."
Trump's choice for the Commissioner of the Bureau Labor Statistics called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" in an interview:
" What you need to do is have some kind of transition program where unfortunately you'll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes, but… pic.twitter.com/MXL7k1C644
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) August 12, 2025
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), one of Social Security's most vocal defenders in Congress, said Antoni's position on the program matters because "Bureau of Labor Statistics data is what determines the annual cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits."
"It should alarm everyone when a yes-man determined to end Social Security is installed in this position," Larson said in a statement. "I call on every Senate Republican to stand with Democrats and reject this extreme nominee—before our seniors are denied the benefits they earned through a lifetime of hard work."
Trump announced Antoni's nomination to serve as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) less than two weeks after the president fired the agency's former head, Erika McEntarfer, following the release of abysmal jobs figures. The firing sparked concerns that future BLS data will be manipulated to suit Trump's political interests.
Antoni was a contributor to the far-right Project 2025 agenda that the Trump administration appears to have drawn from repeatedly this year, and his position on Social Security echoes that of far-right billionaire Elon Musk, who has also falsely characterized the program as a Ponzi scheme.
During his time in the Trump administration, Musk spearheaded an assault on the Social Security Administration that continues in the present, causing widespread chaos at the agency and increasing wait times for beneficiaries.
"President Trump fired the commissioner of Labor Statistics to cover up a weak jobs report—and now he is replacing her with a Project 2025 lackey who wants to shut down Social Security," said Larson. "E.J. Antoni agrees with Elon Musk that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and said that middle-class seniors would be better off if it was eliminated."
"This sends a chilling message that the U.S. is willing to overlook some abuses, signaling that people experiencing human rights violations may be left to fend for themselves," said one Amnesty campaigner.
After leaked drafts exposed the Trump administration's plans to downplay human rights abuses in some allied countries, including Israel, the U.S. Department of State released the final edition of an annual report on Tuesday, sparking fresh condemnation.
"Breaking with precedent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not provide a written introduction to the report nor did he make remarks about it," CNN reported. Still, Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA's national director of government relations and advocacy, called him out by name in a Tuesday statement.
"With the release of the U.S. State Department's human rights report, it is clear that the Trump administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries," Klasing said. "In addition to eliminating entire sections for certain countries—for example discrimination against LGBTQ+ people—there are also arbitrary omissions within existing sections of the report based on the country."
Klasing explained that "we have criticized past reports when warranted, but have never seen reports quite like this. Never before have the reports gone this far in prioritizing an administration's political agenda over a consistent and truthful accounting of human rights violations around the world—softening criticism in some countries while ignoring violations in others. The State Department has said in relation to the reports less is more. However, for the victims and human rights defenders who rely on these reports to shine light on abuses and violations, less is just less."
"Secretary Rubio knows full well from his time in the Senate how vital these reports are in informing policy decisions and shaping diplomatic conversations, yet he has made the dangerous and short-sighted decision to put out a truncated version that doesn't tell the whole story of human rights violations," she continued. "This sends a chilling message that the U.S. is willing to overlook some abuses, signaling that people experiencing human rights violations may be left to fend for themselves."
"Failing to adequately report on human rights violations further damages the credibility of the U.S. on human rights issues," she added. "It's shameful that the Trump administration and Secretary Rubio are putting politics above human lives."
The overarching report—which includes over 100 individual country reports—covers 2024, the last full calendar year of the Biden administration. The appendix says that in March, the report was "streamlined for better utility and accessibility in the field and by partners, and to be more responsive to the underlying legislative mandate and aligned to the administration's executive orders."
As CNN detailed:
The latest report was stripped of many of the specific sections included in past reports, including reporting on alleged abuses based on sexual orientation, violence toward women, corruption in government, systemic racial or ethnic violence, or denial of a fair public trial. Some country reports, including for Afghanistan, do address human rights abuses against women.
"We were asked to edit down the human rights reports to the bare minimum of what was statutorily required," said Michael Honigstein, the former director of African Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor. He and his office helped compile the initial reports.
Over the past week, since the draft country reports leaked to the press, the Trump administration has come under fire for its portrayals of El Salvador, Israel, and Russia.
The report on Israel—and the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank—is just nine pages. The brevity even drew the attention of Israeli media. The Times of Israel highlighted that it "is much shorter than last year's edition compiled under the Biden administration and contained no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza."
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have slaughtered over 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local officials—though experts warn the true toll is likely far higher. As Israel has restricted humanitarian aid in recent months, over 200 people have starved to death, including 103 children.
The U.S. report on Israel does not mention the genocide case that Israel faces at the International Court of Justice over the assault on Gaza, or the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The section on war crimes and genocide only says that "terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah continue to engage in the
indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians in violation of the law of armed conflict."
As the world mourns the killing of six more Palestinian media professionals in Gaza this week—which prompted calls for the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting—the report's section on press freedom is also short and makes no mention of the hundreds of journalists killed in Israel's annihilation of the strip:
The law generally provided for freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, and the government generally respected this right for most Israelis. NGOs and journalists reported authorities restricted press coverage and limited certain forms of expression, especially in the context of criticism against the war or sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza.
Noting that "the human rights reports have been among the U.S. government's most-read documents," DAWN senior adviser and 32-year State Department official Charles Blaha said the "significant omissions" in this year's report on Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank render it "functionally useless for Congress and the public as nothing more than a pro-Israel document."
Like Klasing at Amnesty, Sarah Leah Whitson, DAWN's executive director, specifically called out the U.S. secretary of state.
"Secretary Rubio has revamped the State Department reports for one principal purpose: to whitewash Israeli crimes, including its horrific genocide and starvation in Gaza. The report shockingly includes not a word about the overwhelming evidence of genocide, mass starvation, and the deliberate bombardment of civilians in Gaza," she said. "Rubio has defied the letter and intent of U.S. laws requiring the State Department to report truthfully and comprehensively about every country's human rights abuses, instead offering up anodyne cover for his murderous friends in Tel Aviv."
The Tuesday release came after a coalition of LGBTQ+ and human rights organizations on Monday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department over its refusal to release the congressionally mandated report.
This article has been updated with comment from DAWN.
"We will not sit idly by while political leaders manipulate voting maps to entrench their power and subvert our democracy," said the head of Common Cause.
As Republicans try to rig congressional maps in several states and Democrats threaten retaliatory measures, a pro-democracy watchdog on Tuesday unveiled new fairness standards underscoring that "independent redistricting commissions remain the gold standard for ending partisan gerrymandering."
Common Cause will hold an online media briefing Wednesday at noon Eastern time "to walk reporters though the six pieces of criteria the organization will use to evaluate any proposed maps."
The Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group said that "it will closely evaluate, but not automatically condemn, countermeasures" to Republican gerrymandering efforts—especially mid-decade redistricting not based on decennial censuses.
Amid the gerrymandering wars, we just launched 6 fairness criteria to hold all actors to the same principled standard: people first—not parties. Read our criteria here: www.commoncause.org/resources/po...
[image or embed]
— Common Cause (@commoncause.org) August 12, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Common Cause's six fairness criteria for mid-decade redistricting are:
"We will not sit idly by while political leaders manipulate voting maps to entrench their power and subvert our democracy," Common Cause president and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón said in a statement. "But neither will we call for unilateral political disarmament in the face of authoritarian tactics that undermine fair representation."
"We have established a fairness criteria that we will use to evaluate all countermeasures so we can respond to the most urgent threats to fair representation while holding all actors to the same principled standard: people—not parties—first," she added.
Common Cause's fairness criteria come amid the ongoing standoff between Republicans trying to gerrymander Texas' congressional map and Democratic lawmakers who fled the state in a bid to stymie a vote on the measure. Texas state senators on Tuesday approved the proposed map despite a walkout by most of their Democratic colleagues.
Leaders of several Democrat-controlled states, most notably California, have threatened retaliatory redistricting.
"This moment is about more than responding to a single threat—it's about building the movement for lasting reform," Kase Solomón asserted. "This is not an isolated political tactic; it is part of a broader march toward authoritarianism, dismantling people-powered democracy, and stripping away the people's ability to have a political voice and say in how they are governed."