This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Kristi Noem faces intensifying public scrutiny over her leadership of the Department of Homeland Security. Criticism of the former South Dakota governor has focused on her handling of the killing of Alex Pretti by a federal immigration agent and her oversight of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The controversies have prompted calls from Democratic lawmakers—and a small but noteworthy group of Republicans—for her resignation or impeachment. The immediate flashpoint has been the January 24 killing of Pretti, which occurred during ongoing protests in Minneapolis. Noem initially described Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse, as a “domestic terrorist,” a narrative repeated by others in the Trump administration. Her account was almost immediately contradicted by numerous videos that showed Pretti was unarmed and restrained when federal agents shot him repeatedly. “She should be out of a job,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said after the videos emerged. While President Donald Trump has publicly said Noem’s position is secure, a number of potential successors have reportedly emerged, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Lee Zeldin, who leads the Environmental Protection Agency. > “It’s magic-wand policymaking, where you need a crisis in order for something > to happen.” Noem’s handling of the killing—which came two weeks after a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis fatally shot protestor Renée Good—follows sustained criticism of her management of FEMA. Lawmakers, disaster response experts, and disaster survivors say her policies have slowed emergency response and delayed recovery funding. Long before the crisis in Minnesota, concerns were building over her approach to FEMA preparedness and spending and its response to calamities like last year’s devastating floods in the Texas Hill Country. “It’s a policy of chaotic austerity,” said Sarah Labowitz, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who studies disasters and adaptation. “It’s magic-wand policymaking, where you need a crisis in order for something to happen.” FEMA helps coordinate the response to major disasters like last year’s Los Angeles wildfires, but the agency more often acts like a bank, reimbursing states and cities for their disaster preparedness and recovery spending. When Noem took office, she throttled that spending by, among other things, requiring her personal sign-off on all expenses over $100,000. The pace of disbursements has since slowed to a trickle. Those restrictions reportedly hindered the agency’s response to emergencies like July’s floods in Texas because officials could not pre-position search and rescue teams. The acting head of FEMA at the time, David Richardson, was reportedly unreachable for several hours, and the agency did not answer two-thirds of calls to its hotline. More than 130 people died in the floods.  On Thursday, a coalition of disaster survivors released a “report card” that gave Noem’s leadership an “F.” Brandy Gerstner, a member of that coalition, lost her home and belongings in the Texas flood. She and her family live in the rural community of Sandy Creek and spent three days without power or water waiting for federal assistance. “Official help was scarce,” she said. “Despite that, Kristi Noem and Texas Gov. [Greg] Abbott have described the response as exceptional, a lie that insults the memory of those lost in the floods.” Beyond floods in Texas and fires in Southern California, the United States experienced relatively few major disasters last year. Even so, Noem’s restrictions on FEMA spending has also slowed payments to local governments still recovering from past catastrophes. The reimbursement backlog has reached $17 billion, according to the New York Times—more than the agency spends on such things in a typical  year.  Delays have also affected FEMA’s efforts to reduce the impact of future catastrophes. A Grist analysis found that the agency’s net spending on resilience grants declined over the past three quarters, even as climate-driven disasters intensified nationwide. The nonprofit news outlet NOTUS identified a $1.3 billion backlog of such allocations, the primary source of federal funding for states and cities seeking to harden infrastructure. FEMA terminated another climate resilience program last year, though a court has ordered it to reinstate that program. Former FEMA chief of staff Michael Coen Jr. said Noem’s departure could ease the logjam. “I don’t see another secretary coming in that is going to want to review every single grant,” said Coen, who served in the Obama and Biden administrations. “I would think that most executive leaders…are gonna find that that is micromanagement.” > “There’s plenty of towns in Vermont that would still say they’re waiting.”   Beyond Noem’s leadership lie other questions about the agency’s direction. The Trump administration has yet to nominate a permanent administrator, leaving Karen Evans, a former cybersecurity official, in charge since Richardson departed in November. Agency leaders have suggested firing more than 11,000 employees, many of them contract workers involved in local response and recovery efforts.  The Trump administration’s touted “review council” was set to produce a report on FEMA’s future, but Noem reportedly pared the council’s final report to a fraction of its original length. The panel abruptly cancelled its plans to present the findings in December, and its deadline has been pushed to March. “I think whether she stays or goes, there are huge issues that have been created in the last year at FEMA that have to be resolved quickly ahead of hurricane season,” Labowitz, said, referring to the season to come. Noem appeared to soften her approach last week. The agency paused its planned terminations, and Noem hosted her first in-person briefing with agency employees, whom she attempted to rally ahead of Winter Storm Fern. She also appeared to respond to mounting criticism on Thursday when she announced the release of $2.2 billion in disaster response funds. The money will reimburse states and local governments for repair costs associated with events like Hurricane Helene, the 2023 floods in Vermont, and coastal erosion in Louisiana. A press release frames the allocation as “additional” recovery money, but recipients told Grist that FEMA is merely following standard procedure in granting reimbursements. “We were all quite surprised yesterday when we were informed that the payment was coming as quickly as it came,” said Joe Flynn, secretary of the Vermont Agency of Transportation. FEMA told his agency that it would provide $22 million to help rebuild a fleet garage destroyed in the 2023 floods. “There’s plenty of towns in Vermont that would still say they’re waiting.”   The offer was less than the state had requested, but Flynn accepted it given uncertainty about future funding. “With everything going on in the federal government, an adequately granted award is a bird in the hand,” he said.  The press release appeared to have been composed in haste. It contained multiple typos, including a misspelling of Louisiana as “Louisianna.” The director of the Greeneville Water Commission, after confirming that FEMA will reimburse the cost of rebuilding infrastructure lost to Helene, noted that her own town’s name was spelled wrong as well.  “By the way,” said commission director Laura White, “they spelled Greeneville wrong!”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Village of Sauget in St. Clair County, Illinois, was founded in order to be polluted. Incorporated in 1926 by a group of Monsanto Chemical Company executives (and initially named “Monsanto”) it was and is an industry town: with deliberately lax manufacturing and emissions laws, it has played host to companies like ExxonMobil, Clayton Chemical, Gavilon Fertilizer, Eastman Chemical, and Veolia North America.  The 134 residents of Sauget—and the 700,000 people in the greater East St. Louis metro area that surrounds it—have often seen their needs come second to those of their corporate neighbors. In the 1990s, according to the last longitudinal EPA study done in the area, they inhaled high levels of lead, volatile organic compounds, and sulfur dioxide compounds that can increase the risk of cancer and respiratory illness. “We were basically incorporated to be a sewer,” the town’s mayor, Rich Sauget, told the Wall Street Journal in 2006.  > Trump aimed to “eliminate funding for the globalist climate agenda while > unleashing American energy production,” the White House noted. Since 1999, one well-known local polluter has been Veolia Environmental Services, a subsidiary of a French company that runs an incinerator, which stores and burns hazardous waste. The company is certified to burn toxic substances like PFAS, and people in the area have long complained of acrid or sewage-like smells near the facility.  Darnell Tingle, who leads United Congregations of Metro-East (UCM)—a group of faith communities working to address environmental and social justice issues in the area—says congregants at the half-a-dozen Illinois churches within 10 miles of Veolia often wonder if the incinerator is what’s making them sick.  According to Lucas King, Veolia’s Sauget Facility Manager, “Veolia North America is committed to safe operations, ensuring our processes are in compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements, and protecting the health of the communities where we operate. We are proud of Veolia’s record of safety, compliance and community partnership-building.” But Tingle claims, “we have some of the worst air quality in the country.” Children in East St. Louis suffer from asthma at much higher rates than the national average. But it’s hard for the 878 people who live within a mile of Veolia’s incinerator to prove anything. So, in 2023, UCM proposed a solution: they would install air quality monitoring stations on half-a-dozen local churches, pay scientists to analyze that data, and finance the whole thing with $500,000 in Community Change Grant funding, a landmark program of Joe Biden’s EPA.  Soon, Tingle hoped, they’d have the answers they were looking for. But in early 2025, his promised grant money was abruptly withdrawn by the newly inaugurated Trump administration—along with 105 similar grants, totaling at least $1.6 billion, from Alaska to Florida. The EPA’s new administrator Lee Zeldin, declared the grants “unnecessary,” and with the help of Elon Musk’s now-decommissioned DOGE, froze the money and closed the Office of Environmental Justice, amounting to losses of at least $37 billion.  Only two of the six planned air-quality monitors were installed in East St. Louis before the grants were terminated, Tingle said—and Tingle’s organization doesn’t have the money to pay scientists to analyze the data those monitors generate. In May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention completed an air quality study in Sauget, the main conclusion of which was that, because the EPA has not done adequate data collection, the CDC could not say much about the incinerator’s health impacts. In particular, the agency said, they were unable to conclude whether or not the volatile organic compound levels in the air were hurting people. So the community is still left with poor health effects and lots of suspicions about where they come from—but without concrete proof. > “For many communities, they’ve been going through the stages of grief.” This Community Change Grant program was unique in the realm of federal funding, said Zealan Hoover, former senior advisor to Biden’s EPA administrator Michael Regan. “Most EPA funding flows through the states, and that is a model that works well,” Hoover said. “But at the same time, money that flows top down through states takes longer to reach communities and is not always as responsive as grants directly to the frontline communities that have a very clear, well-defined scope of what they need to do.”  Zeldin and Trump asserted that freezing these grants—which, organizers say, happened without any forewarning from the EPA, sometimes in the middle of grant disbursal and sometimes without communities seeing any money at all—was justified as a way to end the “green new scam” and “eliminate funding for the globalist climate agenda while unleashing American energy production,” according to a White House fact sheet.  A year later, many other communities beyond Sauget are also experiencing the grant terminations in starker terms. In Pocatello, Idaho, some of the town’s unsewered neighborhoods still face the unsanitary hardships of nitrate contamination from septic systems in their drinking water source. In the South Bronx, New York, one community remains vulnerable to extreme flooding, in part because their plan to revitalizing a dilapidated waterfront park has been defunded. And in South Dakota, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe’s plan to use $19.9 million in grant funding to (among other things) rebuild a long-unusable bridge, build resilience hubs, weatherize buildings, and install solar panels on the homes of community elders remains just a plan.  “For many communities, they’ve been going through the stages of grief,” said Hoover. “First was disbelief, because they know the merits of these projects. They know how badly it’s needed by the community. That has evolved over time into disappointment that the agency has been unwilling to reconsider, even after seeing cases like Kipnuk, Alaska, where EPA terminated a grant for flood prevention and then the town was washed away in a flood.”  The communities and organizations around the country who lost funding have responded in a variety of ways. Some, like UCM in East St. Louis, are hopeful that other forms of funding will turn up—and are refocusing on other projects. Other municipalities and nonprofits are still involved in litigation against the EPA, hoping to recoup some of the losses they’ve sustained in money and in time.  In South Dakota, rather than making an appeal, the town of Flandreau ended up closing its application for a grant to bring solar power to the homes of some Flandreau Santee Sioux Nation members, according to Rhonda Conn, the associate director of Native Sun Community Power Development, the nonprofit which hoped to work with the town and tribe.  Native Sun has pushed on to seek funding sources for its other work. The organization secured some local and private funding, but nothing at the scale of the EPA Community Change money has materialized, Conn said. In the process, Native Sun has been forced to work on a very lean budget—no permanent office space, few workers, and few plans to expand. These days, they’re spending more time working on renewable energy workforce development with the state of Minnesota, as opposed to taking big, costly swings at new infrastructure projects.  “For us, the infrastructure stuff is not going to go away,” Conn said. “It’s just about where we’re balancing our energy right now.”  In green energy and disaster resilience work, organizations are competing under higher pressure for less money. “There are still some grant and loan programs operating at lower levels across the government, there are still sources of state, local, and private funding,” Hoover said. “But there are not multibillion-dollar sources of funding commensurate with what the Trump administration terminated.” “It’s very stressful,” Conn said. “Because everybody now is scrambling for the same pot of money, and there isn’t enough of it.” 

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Double Island Volunteer Fire Department in Yancey County, North Carolina, is the beating heart of this remote community in the shadow of Mount Mitchell, about 50 miles northeast of Asheville. Once home to a schoolhouse that doubled as a church, the red-roofed building still hosts weddings, parties, and other events. “It was built to serve as a community center,” said Dan Buchanan, whose family has lived in the area since 1747 and whose mother attended the school as a young girl.  “A place to gather.” Sixteen months ago, when Hurricane Helene hit this rugged corner of countryside with catastrophic floods, Double Island’s fire department was where locals turned for help. “This is [our]  ‘downtown,’” said Buchanan, who serves as the assistant fire chief.  “In the wake of the storm, people were like,  ‘Let’s get to the fire station.’ That was the goal of everybody.” “We aren’t only preparing for a disaster; we’re also helping utility diversification, cost savings, and normalization of the technology.” Fresh out of retirement and living back in his hometown to care for his ailing mother, Buchanan drew on his long career in emergency response to spring into action. With the station, powered by generators, serving as their command center, he and his neighbors gathered and distributed food, water, and other provisions to those in need. They hacked through downed limbs and sent out search teams. “By the end of the fourth day, we had accounted for all the residents of the Double Island community,” Buchanan said. And while no one in the enclave died because of the hurricane, some suffered while they waited for medications like insulin. A lack of drinking water and limited forms of communication were also huge obstacles.  “When we finally got the roads cleared, and people could get in here, we were literally writing down our needs on a notepad and giving it to whomever, and then they would ferry supplies,” Buchanan said.  “A carrier pigeon would have been nice.” Helene was a  “once in 10 lifetimes” storm, Buchanan said, with devastation he and the community hope to never see again. But more extreme weather events are all but certain thanks to climate change, and today Double Island is better prepared. The station is equipped with a microgrid of 32 solar panels and a pair of four-hour batteries. The donated equipment will shave about $100 off the fire department’s monthly electric bill, meaningful savings for an organization with an annual operating budget of just $51,000. When storms inevitably hit, felling trees and downing power lines, the self-sustaining microgrid can provide some electricity and an internet signal. Dan Buchanan, the Double Island Volunteer Fire Department’s assistant fire chief, in front of the station’s new solar panels.Footprint Project “We’ll have at least a way to run our radio equipment, run our well and basic lighting and refrigeration,” Buchanan said, adding that the latter was vital for medication.  “It may not seem like much—but that’s the Willy Wonka golden ticket.” Communication, he stressed, was key.  “If you can’t communicate, you can’t get the help you need.” The microgrid project, called a resilience hub, was made possible by a network of government and nonprofit groups that came together after Helene to help fire departments like Double Island and other community centers with long-term recovery. Now, a state grant program is injecting a burst of funds into their efforts. Using both public and private time, know-how, and money, the program aims to create a model for resilience that can be replicated nationwide. “We aren’t only preparing for a disaster; we’re also helping utility diversification, cost savings, and normalization of the technology,” said Jamie Trowbridge, a senior program manager at Footprint Project, a leading nonprofit in the initiative. Those benefits aren’t unique to Yancey County, he said.  “We’d like to see this be a pilot for us on what scalable microgrid technology could be across all of western North Carolina—and maybe the country.” The Double Island experience was common in the immediate aftermath of Helene. Across the region, communities isolated by closed roads and mountainous terrain turned to their fire departments for help. That’s part of how Kristin Stroup got involved in the resilience hub effort. Based in Black Mountain, a popular tourist destination 15 miles east of Asheville, Stroup helped start a corps of volunteers who gathered at the town’s visitor center. In coordination with an emergency operations center based at Black Mountain’s main fire station, she led over 200 volunteers in doing whatever they could, from cooking and doling out food to making the country roads passable. “People [were] just driving around the town with chain saws,” said Stroup, today a senior manager in energy and climate resilience with the nonprofit Appalachian Voices. The weekend after Helene hit, she said,  “Footprint rolled into town with a bunch of solar panels. I became an instant part of their family.” With founders who cut their teeth in international aid, the New Orleans–based Footprint Project had teamed up with the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, Greentech Renewables Raleigh, and others to pool donations of batteries, solar panels, and other equipment to deploy microgrids to dozens of sites in the region before the end of 2024. From Lake Junaluska to Linville Falls, recipients included fire stations such as the one in Double Island and an art collective in West Asheville. By February 2025, Footprint had hired Trowbridge and another staff person to work in the area permanently. Footprint continued to cycle microgrid equipment throughout the region from its base of operations in Mars Hill, a tiny college town 20 miles north of Asheville that was virtually untouched by Helene. It launched the WNC Free Store, which donates solar panels and other supplies to residents still far from recovery—like those living out of RVs and school buses after losing their homes. From the outset, Footprint had a critical local ally in Sara Nichols, the energy and economic development manager at the Land of Sky Regional Council, a local government partnership encompassing four counties that stretch from Tennessee to South Carolina. “A lot of the other organizations we saw come through in the same way Footprint did, most of them did not stay. They leverage resources to do really important work, and when that work feels done, they go home,” Nichols said.  “The fact that Footprint is working thoughtfully to figure out how our recovery and resiliency can be taken care of—while also thinking about their own organizational strategic growth—means a lot to me. They’ve been incredible partners.” To be sure, assistance and rebuilding in the region are ongoing, and many systemic inequities exacerbated by the storm can’t be solved with a solar panel. But the power is back on. The cell towers are functioning. The roads are open. Piles of debris, from fallen limbs to moldy furniture, have been cleared. In relief parlance, western North Carolina is beginning to see  “blue skies.” That’s why it’s all the more important that Footprint, Appalachian Voices, and other local collaborators haven’t let up in their efforts. The web of organizations involved is thick and, seemingly, ever expanding. Last fall, the network announced it was deploying five resilience hubs around the region, including the Double Island project and a permanent microgrid at a community center in Yancey County. “These projects, driven by a small group of determined partners, have accelerated Appalachia’s long-term resilience and preparedness,” Invest Appalachia, another nonprofit partner, said in a news release. Now, the local public-private effort is getting a boost from the state of North Carolina. Under the administration of Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat who has made Helene recovery a centerpiece of his first-term agenda, the State Energy Office will deploy $5 million from the Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to install up to 24 microgrids across six western counties impacted by Helene. The money will also go to two mobile aid units for rural counties on either end of state—one in the east and one in the west. Dubbed  “Beehives” by Footprint, these solar-powered portable units will be full of equipment that can be deployed to purify water, set up temporary microgrids, and otherwise respond to storms and extreme weather. Expected recipients of the stationary microgrids could include first responders like the Double Island Fire Department and second responders like community centers. Peer-to-peer facilities and small businesses are also encouraged to apply. Land of Sky and other stakeholders are choosing grantees on a rolling basis through next summer. There’s already been an inundation of applicants, and six grantees have been selected, including a community center about a dozen miles up the road from Double Island in Mitchell County. But organizers say they need more interest from outside the Land of Sky region, especially in Avery County, north of Yancey on the Tennessee border; and Rutherford County, east of Asheville, which includes Chimney Rock, a village that was infamously devastated by Helene and is slowly rebuilding. Footprint Project’s Jamie Trowbridge, left, and Dave Wilson, of Atomic Solar Energy, discuss the microgrid installation at Double Island Volunteer Fire Department. Elizabeth Ouzts/Canary Media Geographic distribution isn’t the only problem organizers have faced. Some entities—while undoubtedly deserving of assistance—aren’t appropriate for the government grant because they are located in areas at risk of future flooding. “A battery underwater is not that useful,” Trowbridge said,  “so if your site is in a floodplain, maybe this isn’t the right fit for you. But we definitely want you to know about the Beehive.” Above all, organizers like Nichols, a passionate promoter of the Appalachian Region, are determined to ensure that the state’s effort is not the be-all and end-all of resilience. “What we’re being tasked with as recipients of this money is to try and figure out how we make this a much bigger project,” she said.  “That means we’ve brought in other partners like Invest Appalachia. We’ve been seeking other kinds of money. We’re using this state money to successfully build what could be a much more comprehensive resiliency hub model.” She added that communities across the country—even if they think they’re safe from extreme weather and climate disaster—could take cues from the western North Carolina example.  “We were a place that was not supposed to get a storm,” Nichols said.  “We were a climate haven.”

This story was originally published by Yale e360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Maurice Manishimwe runs a small garage beside a fuel station in Musango village, just outside the Rwandan capital of Kigali, in a nation known as the land of a thousand hills. Sandwiched between one of those hills and the Nyabugogo River, his workshop hums with activity as people arrive with cars and equipment to be tested and repaired. But this busy location comes at a cost: When rainstorms hit, water running off the hillsides and rising river levels flood the streets and spill into Manishimwe’s workplace. “Our shops were submerged and our goods were destroyed,” says the 30-year-old, speaking about a December 2023 storm that surrounded his garage with knee-high water. He says the flood cost him thousands of dollars in lost inventory and tools. Manishimwe built a higher step into his workshop to protect his brake pads and taillights, laid new tiles, and replaced his wooden shelves. Still, he worries that heavy rains could once again wreck his shop. > “The project represents a rare, citywide effort to rebuild nature-based > infrastructure. Kigali, a city of 1.7 million, has historically seen an average of nearly 40 inches of rain a year. But rainy seasons in Rwanda are becoming both “shorter and more intense,” according to the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA). Since 2017, East Africa’s spring rains have shown record-breaking extremes as warmer air and ocean surfaces load storms with more moisture. Forty years ago, Kigali was protected from stormwaters by extensive wetlands at the base of its many hills. The wetlands soaked up rain, slowed floods, and filtered runoff. But decades of degradation, including informal agriculture, sand mining, and industrial dumping in these areas have reduced the wetlands’ ability to perform these essential ecological functions. Rapid urban growth has placed additional pressure on the wetlands. The city’s population has risen by 4 percent each year since 2020, and open space continues to be replaced with impermeable concrete, which sends ever more runoff downhill. The flooding erodes soil, destroys buildings and infrastructure, and causes tens of millions of dollars’ worth of damage a year, according to Teddy Kaberuka, a Rwandan economist.  Eager to protect its citizens and property, create green space for communities and wildlife, and curb financial losses, Kigali began working nearly a decade ago to restore its natural defenses. In just a three-year period, the city converted a degraded swamp into a functioning wetland—featuring a series of ponds, a riverine forest, and a savanna—that stores carbon, controls floods, filters pollutants, and enhances biodiversity. Building on that success, the city is now reforesting hillsides and restoring an integrated wetland system that will eventually span more than 18,000 acres. The ambitious project will ultimately reshape one of Africa’s fastest growing capitals.  As wetland loss accelerates worldwide, few cities have the space, resources, or political will to restore nature at this scale. Kigali’s project cannot stop floods on its own or reverse climate change, but it represents a rare, citywide effort to rebuild nature-based infrastructure—offering one of the continent’s clearest models for urban areas seeking to boost their resilience.  Kigali sits within what was once an exceptionally soggy and verdant landscape, with 37 interconnected wetlands covering almost 23,000 acres, or 12.5 percent of the city’s land mass. These weren’t small urban ponds with patches of swampland but broad, saturated expanses teeming with vegetation that supported birds, reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals.  The city’s wetlands functioned as a vast natural sponge, soaking up excess water, reducing flooding, trapping sediment, and filtering pollutants before they reached streams and rivers. Wetlands also cool surrounding neighborhoods through moisture release and shading and, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, support a diverse array of wildlife in their reedbeds and grasslands, and store carbon in their soils and vegetation. But in Kigali, explained Gloriose Umuziranenge, a senior lecturer in the Department of Urban and Environmental Management at Protestant University Rwanda, urban expansion—including the construction of new roads, housing estates, commercial developments, and hillside settlements—as well as the pasturing of livestock and dumping of waste gradually degraded the city’s wetlands. At least 50 percent of Kigali’s wetlands have lost their ecological character, according to the World Bank, meaning these wetlands have lost their “capacity to absorb and store excess rainwater,” Umuziranenge said. This local trend reflects a global pattern: about 22 percent of the world’s wetlands, around 1 billion acres, have been lost since 1970, and 25 percent of the remainder are degraded.  Eastern Kigali’s Nyandungu wetland is a case in point. The formerly lush area had been despoiled by decades of sand mining, stony quarrying, and cattle grazing. It frequently flooded the nearby roadway, jamming up traffic and endangering lives. In response, REMA—with support from the World Bank, Global Environment Facility, and Rwanda Green Fund—began in 2016 to transform this wasteland, at a cost of $5 million, into a biologically productive landscape.  Today, the 400-acre Nyandungu Eco-Park is alive with marshes, ponds, and more than 200 species of birds. “From the time [the wetland] was restored,” said park manager Ildephonse Kambogo, “there was no more flooding.”  The success of the Nyandungu pilot project reshaped national thinking about other wetlands, said Richard Mind’je, an environmental studies lecturer at the University of Lay Adventists of Kigali. “After having this benefit, Rwanda said, ‘Why can’t we now restore other wetlands from Kigali so that we can keep benefiting from these services?’” Today, cranes and diggers are working amid the bustle of Kigali’s streets— crowded with buses, moto taxis, shops, and homes—to restore and reshape five more degraded wetlands, covering 1,200 acres. Hundreds of workers are reshaping the land, creating islands, lakes, and ponds, clearing water channels, planting indigenous species, removing invasives, and establishing reed beds. > “If you’re deforesting the catchment, no amount of wetland is going to make > much difference.” By mid-2026, according to the city’s restoration blueprint, the restored sites—Gikondo, Rwamperu, Kibumba, Nyabugogo, and Rugenge-Rwintare—will link up, forming a continuous ribbon of wildlife corridors, parks that contain 36 miles of walkways and bike lanes, and wetlands that guide stormwater safely downstream. With wetlands under threat across the continent, the project has the potential to serve as a model for other African cities, said Julie Mulonga, East Africa director for Wetlands International. Its design, financing, and community engagement are all elements “that can be replicated,” she said. Yet challenges remain as Kigali expands. The city must balance new green spaces for flood protection and climate resilience with residents’ need for agricultural land. Many of the areas now set aside for restoration have been used informally for generations—to grow food, graze cattle, and fish. According to a 2019 report by the Albertine Rift Conservation Society, 53 percent of Rwanda’s wetlands had, by 2015, been converted to agriculture. The land is government-owned, and its use has, so far, been tolerated, as these wetlands are clearly spaces that people have come to depend on.  The Kigali Master Plan 2050 aims to restore and protect 18,000 acres of wetlands that thread between the city’s hills, said Emma Claudine Ntirenganya, a spokesperson for the City of Kigali, but more than 14,000 farming households could lose access to these areas if the city’s restoration ambitions proceed as planned. Nyandungu, for example, no longer allows agricultural activity, its grounds are fenced, and entry now requires a fee.  Park manager Kambogo acknowledged that informal use has continued in Nyandungu, including illegal fishing and collecting grass for cattle. He said some breaches, such as fence cutting, incurred fines and that it was important to engage with and educate the local community until they “understand the importance of having the wetlands.”  Emphasizing conservation and tourism over agriculture, said Alan Dixon, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Worcester, in the UK, risks creating “spaces of exclusion.” Ultimately, he said, “people have just got to feed themselves. Everywhere else is drying up, the weather is becoming less predictable, so wetlands are the last place in the catchment that people can [use].” The dilemma for governments, planners, and conservationists, he added, is “how do you allow people to use these areas while also retaining the environmental integrity?” Christian Benimana, a Rwandan architect and the founding director of the African Design Centre, emphasized the importance of monitoring social impacts as Kigali restores its wetlands. So far, among the six wetlands restored to date, he said, displacement hasn’t yet occurred, “but it’s something that might happen.” Gentrification is also a concern. “Before, you were living close to makeshift car shops, and all of a sudden it’s a beautiful park,” he said. “Is it bad that it makes these people’s property more valuable? I don’t think so. Is it bad if it leads to some form of negative gentrification? I think so.” For some residents, relocating from the wetlands has been a relief rather than a loss. Athanase Segatsinzi, 60, head of Runyonza Village in Nyandungu, spent decades farming and grazing cattle in the flood-prone area.  “When heavy rains came, the wetland overflowed and destroyed our crops,” he recalled. “Even after the water receded, everything was ruined.” In 2019, he says, farmers and herders using the wetland were resettled in Rwanda’s Eastern Province, where the government gave his family 15 acres to farm. “Milk production increased because my cows now graze on a much larger area without the risk of losing pasture to floods,” he said.  But wetlands alone cannot protect the capital from flooding as temperatures rise, rainfall intensifies, and deforestation of the city’s slopes compounds the city’s challenges. “If you’re deforesting the catchment,” Dixon said, “no amount of wetland is going to make much difference.” In response, the City of Kigali last year launched a community campaign that aims to plant 3 million trees over five years, creating a continuous network of forest that links the restored wetlands.  Gatsata Hill, the steep slope that channels torrents of water into Maurice Manishimwe’s workplace, is currently being reforested, and the wetland in front of his garage is being restored. Together, these interventions will create a buffer that fills him with optimism. “Once the reforestation is complete and the trees take root, the water that used to rush downhill will slow,” he said. “And when the Nyabugogo wetland restoration is finished, the flooding problem will be solved for good.”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. One year on from the Eaton Fire, long after the vicious winds that sent embers cascading from the San Gabriel mountains and the flames that swallowed entire streets, a shadow still hangs over Altadena. Construction on new properties is under way, and families whose homes survived the fire have begun to return. But many are grappling with an urgent question: is it safe to be here? The fire upended life in this part of Los Angeles county. By the time firefighters brought it under control, 19 people were dead, tens of thousands displaced and nearly 9,500 structures destroyed, primarily in Altadena but also in Pasadena and Sierra Madre. Guardian graphic. Fire extent source: Cal Fire. Building damage source: analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. Using building data from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and fire perimeters from NIFC/FIRIS. All times are localGuardian graphic. Fire extent source: Cal Fire. Building damage source: analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University. Using building data from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and fire perimeters from NIFC/FIRIS. Note: all times are local The flames incinerated many older homes and businesses filled with lead paint and asbestos. They showered the community with toxins, leaving tall piles of ash and unseen traces of heavy metals in the soil and along and inside standing structures. Research has indicated some hazards remain even after properties have undergone remediation, the clean-up process that is supposed to restore homes and ensure they are safe to occupy. As Altadena fights to return, residents—some eager to stay in the community and others who simply can’t afford to go anywhere else—are facing immense challenges while trying to rebuild their lives and come back home. Official information about the health risks was limited early on and those returning often only learned about the dangers as they went. Some people have developed health concerns such as migraines and respiratory issues. Many are still battling their insurance companies to fully cover their costs, and make certain their homes are habitable. Their predicament highlights the increased dangers that come with urban fires, and shows how Altadena has come to serve as a sort of living laboratory with scientists and residents learning in real time. Nicole Maccalla, a data scientist, and her family moved back into their Altadena home over the summer after their property underwent an extensive cleanup process, but their air purifiers still register high levels of particulate matter, heavy sediment appears when they vacuum and when it rains the distinctive smell from the fire returns. “The toll of displacement was really high on my family. And I just had to move home and try [to] mitigate risk and keep fighting the good fight,” she said. “There’s always that back-of-your-mind concern: Did I make the right choice? But I also don’t have other choices.” Early on in those first careening hours of the fire, as thick smoke and ash fell like snow over her yard, Dawn Fanning was sure her home would not be spared. The wind was blowing from the fire straight to the Spanish bungalow the producer shared with her adult son, and it seemed there was no way to stop it. Dawn Fanning outside her home in Pasadena, California, on December 28 2025. The interior of her home has been found to have lead and asbestos after the Eaton Fire.Stella Kalinina/Guardian Fanning’s home, miraculously, escaped the flames. But, while the stucco structure was intact—clothes still hanging undisturbed in her closet and her son’s baby photos packed carefully in bins in the garage—it hadn’t been unscathed either. Virtually nothing in Altadena was. “It’s dusty and there’s piles of ash in the windowsills and on the floor. At first glance, it doesn’t look any different,” Fanning said. “Your house looks the same—but it’s not. There’s toxicity in your attic and in your crawlspace and on your mattresses and on all the things.” Confused and frustrated with the local government’s handling of health concerns, Maccalla and Fanning joined other fire survivors to form Eaton Fire Residents United in hopes of ensuring the impacted areas recover safely. The community group is developing testing and remediation guidelines, gathered hygienic testing reports of hundreds of homes, and advocated for fire survivors and workers. > “When she awoke at 3 a.m., the blaze had formed a horseshoe shape around her > house, and smoke filled the room.” “There [have been] huge threats to the health and safety of residents, children in schools, elderly and immunocompromised, workers that are coming into this area that are being exposed to hazards in the workplace,” Maccalla said. “We’re still trying to work on that and get the protections people need.” Barely 15 miles north-east of downtown Los Angeles, Altadena at the start of last year was home to some 43,000 people, many lured by the affordable home prices, proximity to the mountains and bucolic feel. It has long been one of the most diverse cities in the region with a thriving Black community that began to grow during the great migration. In the early evening on January 7 2025, Fanning, who had lived in her home in the area for two decades, had a feeling she couldn’t shake that something could go very wrong. There were treacherous winds that forecasters warned posed a serious fire risk. Already, a fire was spreading rapidly on the other side of the county in the Pacific Palisades, where frantic residents were trying to evacuate and firefighters were clearing the area. Some 35 miles away, Fanning and her son were watching coverage of the unfolding fire while readying their property. Then came an alert—not from officials—but from a local meteorologist who was telling his followers to get out now. Fanning spotted flames several blocks away and she and her son decided it was time to leave. A few miles to the east, Rosa Robles was evacuating with her grandchild in tow, leaving her husband and adult children. She wanted them to go—but they were protecting the home. Armed with garden hoses, they tried to save the residence and the other houses on their block. Sometimes the wind was so strong it blew the water back in their faces, Robles said. Maccalla’s power had gone out that morning, and she and her children were sitting around watching the TV drama Fire Country on an iPad in the dark when they got the call about the fire. It seemed far away at the time, Maccalla recalled, and she felt prepared as a member of a community emergency response team. They got out lamps and began packing in case they needed to leave. She set alarms hourly to monitor the progress of the fire while her children slept. When she awoke at three, the blaze had formed a horseshoe shape around her house, and smoke filled the room. The family evacuated with their two dogs and two cats. Tamara Artin had returned from work to see chaos on the street, with fierce winds and billowing smoke all around the house she rented with her husband. Artin, who is Armenian by way of Iran and has lived in Los Angeles for about six years, always loved the area. She enjoyed the history and sprawling green parks, and had been excited to live here. Now the pair was quickly abandoning the home they had moved into just three months earlier, heading toward a friend’s house with their bags and passports. Fanning and her son had gone to a friend’s home too. As they stayed up late listening to the police scanner, they heard emergency responders call out addresses where flames were spreading. These were friends’ homes. She waited to hear her own. > “We were worried, of course, because we were inhaling all those chemicals > without knowing what it is.” In the first days after the fire began, the risk remained and there was little help available with firefighting resources spread across Los Angeles. Maccalla and her son soon returned to their property to try to protect their home and those of their neighbors. “I was working on removing a bunch of debris that had flown into the yard and all these dry leaves. I didn’t know at the time that I shouldn’t touch any of that,” she said.” The devastation in Altadena, as in the Palisades, was staggering. Many of the 19 people who died were older adults who hadn’t received evacuation warnings for hours after people in other areas of town, if at all. Physically, parts of Altadena were almost unrecognizable. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, bright red flame retardant streaked the hillsides. Off Woodbury Road, not far from where Robles and Artin lived, seemingly unblemished homes stood next to blackened lots where nothing remained but fireplaces and charred rubble—scorched bicycles, collapsed beds and warped ovens. The pungent smell of smoke seemed to embed itself in the nose. Robles would sometimes get lost in the place she had lived her whole life as she tried to navigate streets that had been stripped of any identifiable landmarks. Fire scorched the beloved community garden, the country club, an 80-year-old hardware store, the Bunny Museum and numerous schools and houses of worship. Artin and her husband returned to their home, which still stood, after a single night. They had no family in the area and nowhere else to go—hotels were packed across the county. For nearly two weeks they lived without water or power as they tried to clean up, throwing away most of their furniture and belongings, even shoes, and all of the food in the fridge and freezer. “We were worried, of course, because we were inhaling all those chemicals without knowing what it is, but we didn’t have a choice,” Artin recalled. As fires burn through communities, they spread particulate matter far and wide, cause intense smoke damage in standing structures and cars, and release chemicals even miles beyond the burned area. > After one round of remediation, “six out of 10 homes were still coming back > with lead and or asbestos levels that exceeded EPA safety thresholds.” When Fanning saw her home for the first time, thick piles of ash covered the floors. She was eager to return, but as she tried to figure out her next steps, reading scientific articles and guides, and joining Zoom calls with other concerned residents, it was clear she needed to learn more about precisely what was in the ash. Asbestos was found in her home, meaning all porous items, clothing and furniture, were completely ruined. “You can’t wash lead and asbestos out of your clothing. I was like, OK, this is real and I need to gather as much evidence [as I can] to find out what’s in my house.” In Altadena, more than 90 percent of homes had been built before 1975 and likely had lead-based paint and toxic asbestos, both of which the EPA has since banned, according to a report from the California Institute of Technology. All sorts of things burned along with the houses, Fanning said: plastic, electric cars, lithium batteries. “The winds were shoving this into our homes,” she said. The roof on Maccalla’s home had to be rebuilt, and significant cleanup was required for the smoke damage and layers of ash that blanketed curtains and beds. Despite these concerns, residents grew increasingly frustrated about what they viewed as a lack of official information about the safety of returning to their homes. Many also encountered pushback from their insurance providers that said additional testing for hazards, or more intensive remediation efforts recommended by experts, were unnecessary and not covered under their policies. So earlier this year a group of residents, including Fanning and Maccalla, formed Eaton Fire Residents United (EFRU). The group includes scientists and people dedicated to educating and supporting the community, ensuring there is data collection to support legislation, and assembling an expert panel to establish protocols for future fires, Fanning said. They’ve published research based on testing reports from hundreds of properties across the affected area, and advocated that homes should receive a comprehensive clearance before residents return. Research released by EFRU and headed by Maccalla, who has a doctorate in education and specializes in research methodology, found that more than half of homes that had been remediated still had levels of lead and/or asbestos that rendered them uninhabitable. “There’s still widespread contamination and that one round of remediation was not sufficient, the majority of the time. Six out of 10 homes were still coming back with lead and or asbestos levels that exceeded EPA safety thresholds,” said Maccalla, who serves as EFRU’S director of data science and educational outreach. The interior of Dawn Fanning’s home has been found to have lead and asbestos after the Eaton Fire.Stella Kalinina/The Guardian Maccalla moved back home in June after what she viewed as a decent remediation process. But she hasn’t been able to get insurance coverage for additional testing, and worries about how many people are having similar experiences. “We’re putting people back in homes without confirming that they’re free of contamination,” she said. “It feels very unethical and a very dangerous game to be playing.” She couldn’t afford not to come home, and the family couldn’t keep commuting two hours a day each way from their temporary residence to work and school or their Altadena property where Maccalla was overseeing construction. But she’s experienced headaches, her daughter’s asthma is more severe, and her pets have become sick. “I don’t think anybody that hasn’t gone through it can really comprehend what [that is like],” she said. “For everything in your environment that was so beloved to now become a threat is mentally a really hard switch,” she said. Robles settled back to the home she’s lived in for years with a few new additions. Seven of her relatives lost their homes, including her daughter who now lives with her. “I thank God there’s a place for them. That’s all that matters to me.” Nicole Maccalla with her dog, Cami, outside her home in Altadena. Stella Kalinina/The Guardian After the fire, she threw away clothes, bed sheets and pillows. The family mopped and washed the walls. Her insurance was helpful, she said, and covered the cleanup work. Robles tries not to think about the toxic contamination and chemicals that spread during the fire. “You know that saying, what you don’t know?” she said, her voice trailing off. Artin said she received some assistance from her renter’s insurance, but that her landlord hadn’t yet undertaken more thorough remediation. She’s still trying to replace some of the furniture she had to throw away. The fire had come after an already difficult year in which her husband had been laid off, and their finances were stretched. > “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again.” She shudders when she recalls the early aftermath of the fire, a morning sky as dark as night. “It was hell, honestly.” Her rent was set to increase in the new year, and while she fears exposure to unseen dangers, moving isn’t an option. “We don’t have anywhere else to go. We can’t do anything,” Artin said. Fanning has been battling her insurance company to cover the work that is necessary to ensure her house is safely habitable, she said. Her provider is underplaying the amount of work that needs to be done and underbidding the costs, Fanning said. She and her son have been living in a short-term rental since late summer, and she expects they won’t be able to return home before the fall. Sometimes she wonders if she’ll be up to returning at all. Even now, when Fanning drives through the area to come get her mail or check on the house, she gets headaches. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe, no matter all the things that I know and all the things that I’m gonna do. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel safe again.” In between trying to restore her home, she’s focused on advocacy with EFRU, which has become her primary job, albeit unpaid. “There are so many people that don’t have enough insurance coverage, that don’t speak English, that are renters, that don’t have access like I do … I feel it’s my duty as a human.” There’s much work to do, Fanning said, and it has to be done at every single property. “It’s a long road to recovery. And if we don’t do it right, safely, it’s never gonna be what it was before.”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Wildfire smoke is an emerging nationwide crisis for the United States. Supercharged by climate change, blazes are swelling into monsters that consume vast landscapes and entire towns. A growing body of evidence reveals that these conflagrations are killing far more people than previously known, as smoke travels hundreds or even thousands of miles, aggravating conditions like asthma and heart disease. One study, for instance, estimated that last January’s infernos in Los Angeles didn’t kill 30 people, as the official tally reckons, but 440 or more once you factor in the smoke. Another recent study estimated that wildfire haze already kills 40,000 Americans a year, which could increase to 71,000 by 2050. Two additional studies published last month paint an even grimmer picture of the crisis in the US and elsewhere. The first finds that emissions of greenhouse gases and airborne particles from wildfires globally may be 70 percent higher than once believed. The second finds that Canada’s wildfires in 2023 significantly worsened childhood asthma across the border in Vermont. Taken together, they illustrate the desperate need to protect public health from the growing threat of wildfire smoke, like better monitoring of air quality with networks of sensors. The emissions study isn’t an indictment of previous estimates, but a revision of them based on new data. Satellites have spied on wildfires for decades, though in a somewhat limited way—they break up the landscape into squares measuring 500 meters by 500 meters, or about 1,600 feet by 1,600 feet. If a wildfire doesn’t fully fill that space, it’s not counted. This new study increases that resolution to 20 meters by 20 meters (roughly 66 feet by 66 feet) in several key fire regions, meaning it can capture multitudes of smaller fires.  Individually, tinier blazes are not producing as much smoke as the massive conflagrations that are leveling cities in the American West. But “they add up, and add up big time,” said Guido van der Werf, a wildfire researcher at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands and lead author of the paper. “They basically double the amount of burned area we have globally.” > Smaller fires may be less destructive then the behemoths, but they can still > be catastrophic, pouring smoke into populated areas. With the 500-meter satellite data, the previous estimate was around 400 million hectares charred each year. Adding the small fires bumps that up to 800 million hectares, roughly the size of Australia. In some parts of the world, such as Europe and Southeast Asia, burned area triples or even quadruples with this improved resolution. While scientists used to think annual wildfire emissions were around 2 gigatons of carbon, or about a fifth of what humanity produces from burning fossil fuels, that’s now more like 3.4 gigatons with this new estimate. The type of fire makes a huge difference in the emissions, too. A forest fire has a large amount of biomass to burn—brushes, grasses, trees, sometimes even part of the soil—and turn into carbon dioxide and methane and particulate matter, but a grass fire on a prairie has much less. Blazes also burn at dramatically different rates: Flames can race quickly through woodland, but carbon-rich ground known as peat can smolder for days or weeks. Peat fires are so persistent, in fact, that when they ignite in the Arctic, they can remain hidden as snow falls, then pop up again as temperatures rise and everything melts. Scientists call them zombie fires. “It really matters where you’re burning and also how intense the fire can become,” van der Werf said. But why would a fire stay small, when we’ve seen in recent years just how massive and destructive these blazes can get? It’s partly due to fragmentation of the landscape: Roads can prevent them from spreading, and firefighters stop them from reaching cities. And in general, a long history of fire suppression means they’re often quickly extinguished. (Ironically, this has also helped create some monsters, because vegetation builds up across the landscape, ready to burn. This shakes up the natural order of things, in which low-intensity fires from lightning strikes have cleared dead brush, resetting an ecosystem for new growth—which is why Indigenous tribes have long done prescribed burns.) Farmers, too, burn their waste biomass and obviously prevent the flames from getting out of hand.  Whereas in remote areas, like boreal forests in the far north, lightning strikes typically ignite fires, the study found that populated regions produce a lot of smaller fires. In general, the more people dotting the landscape, the more sources of ignition: cigarette butts, electrical equipment producing sparks, even chains dragging from trucks. Yes, these smaller fires are less destructive than the behemoths, but they can still be catastrophic in a more indirect way, by pouring smoke into populated areas. “Those small fires are not the ones that cause the most problems,” van der Werf said. “But of course they’re more frequent, close to places where people live, and that also has a health impact.” That is why the second study on asthma is so alarming. Researchers compared the extremely smoky year of 2023 in Vermont to 2022 and 2024, when skies were clearer. They were interested in PM 2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 millionths of a meter, from wildfire smoke pouring in from Quebec, Canada. “That can be especially challenging to dispel from lungs, and especially irritating to those airways,” said Anna Maassel, a doctoral student at the University of Vermont and lead author of the study. “There is research that shows that exposure to wildfire smoke can have much longer-term impacts, including development of asthma, especially for early exposure as a child.” This study, though, looked at the exacerbation of asthma symptoms in children already living with the condition. While pediatric asthma patients typically have fewer attacks in the summer because they’re not in school and constantly exposed to respiratory viruses and other indoor triggers, the data showed that their conditions were much less controlled during the summer of 2023 as huge wildfires burned. (Clinically, “asthma control” refers to milder symptoms like coughing and shortness of breath as well as severe problems like attacks. So during that summer, pediatric patients were reporting more symptoms.) At the same time, climate change is extending growing seasons, meaning plants produce more pollen, which also exacerbates that chronic disease. “All of those factors compound to really complicate what health care providers have previously understood to be a safe time of year for children with asthma,” Maassel said.  Researchers are also finding that as smoke travels through the atmosphere, it transforms. It tends to produce ozone, for instance, that irritates the lungs and triggers asthma. “There’s also the potential for increased formation of things like formaldehyde, which is also harmful to human health. It’s a hazardous air pollutant,” said Rebecca Hornbrook, who studies wildfire smoke at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, but wasn’t involved in either study, though a colleague was involved in the emissions one. (Last month, the Trump administration announced plans to dismantle NCAR, which experts say could have catastrophic effects.) As wildfires worsen, so too does the public health crisis of smoke, even in places that never had to deal with the haze before. Governments now have to work diligently to protect their people, like improving access to air purifiers, especially in schools. “This is no longer an isolated or geographically confined issue,” Maassel said. “It’s really spreading globally and to places that have never experienced it before.”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Flood, storm, and fire survivors gathered in Washington, DC, on Monday to express their alarm over a leaked report from the FEMA Review Council that proposes halving the agency’s workforce and scaling back federal disaster assistance.  Holding images of the devastation wrought by disasters in their communities, more than 80 survivors from 10 states and Puerto Rico gathered at a press conference in the historic Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. There, Brandy Gerstner tearfully recounted the flash floods that destroyed her home and family farm in Sandy Creek, Texas, in July. With little help from the county or state, Gerstner said she and her family were left to navigate the flood’s aftermath on their own. “From the very beginning, it was neighbors and volunteers who showed up. Official help was scarce,” she said. It took search and rescue three days to arrive in Sandy Creek. “By that time, it was search and recovery,” said Gerstner.” Weeks later, after being told that FEMA could help pay for costs not already covered by a small flood insurance payout, her application for federal assistance was denied.  > “‘Passing disaster management to the states’ is code-speak for letting people > suffer and die.” In DC, Gerstner was one of several survivors to condemn the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink FEMA’s scope. “We know what it feels like when emergency systems fall short. Proposals to weaken FEMA should further alarm every American,” said Gerstner. Trump has repeatedly expressed his intention to shift FEMA’s responsibilities to states. In June, he told reporters assembled in the Oval Office that the administration wanted to “wean off of FEMA,” and move many of the agency’s responsibilities to the state level, “so the governors can handle it.” Just weeks into his second term, Trump created the FEMA Review Council, calling for a “full-scale review” of the agency and citing “serious concerns of political bias in FEMA.” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth co-chair the council, which is composed almost entirely of Republican federal and state officials. After nearly a year of deliberation, the committee was poised to vote on its final recommendations for the agency’s future at a meeting on Thursday in DC. But the meeting was abruptly cancelled after a draft of the council’s report leaked to news outlets. The White House has not yet set a date for a rescheduled meeting, but the leaked report, which calls for sweeping reductions to FEMA’s staff and scope, sparked immediate backlash from advocacy groups, disaster survivors, and emergency management experts.  > “This is absolutely appalling, and it makes an already difficult disaster > process even more arduous.” In addition to shifting greater responsibility for disaster response and recovery to the states, the report’s recommendations include cutting the FEMA workforce by 50 percent and moving employees out of Washington, DC, over the next two to three years. The report also outlines a block grant system that would streamline the delivery of disaster aid to states within 30 days of a major federal disaster declaration, expediting cash flow while requiring a higher cost share from states. However, fewer disasters might qualify for such federal assistance in the reimagined FEMA. “Federal assistance should only be reserved for truly catastrophic events that exceed [State, Local, Tribal and Territorial] capacity and capability,” the report states, according to CNN. Restricting federal aid could have dire consequences to states already struggling to support disaster victims, said Amanda Devecka-Rinear, executive director of the New Jersey Organizing Project and senior at Organizing Resilience, which hosted the Monday press conference. “‘Passing disaster management to the states’ is code-speak for letting people suffer and die,” said Devecka-Rinear in a statement. This weekend, tens of thousands of residents in Washington state were ordered to evacuate their homes amidst historic rainfall and flooding. Gov. Bob Ferguson declared a statewide emergency and has announced meetings with FEMA to expedite a federal disaster designation and secure critical funding and resources.  If the current precedent holds, that may take weeks. On average, it’s taken more than a month to approve requests for federal disaster designations during Trump’s second term, the Associated Press found. Even once a federal disaster designation is granted, there’s no guarantee of rapid response under the current agency administration, said Abby McIlraith, an emergency management specialist at FEMA.  McIlraith has been on administrative leave since August, when she, along with current and former agency employees, signed the Katrina Declaration, condemning FEMA practices interfering with disaster recovery, including Secretary Noem’s policy of personally reviewing and approving all expenses over $100,000.  “This is absolutely appalling, and it makes an already difficult disaster process even more arduous for the people it serves,” said McIlraith at the Monday press conference. McIlraith, Gerstner and other survivors called for a fully independent FEMA not based within the Department of Homeland Security. “Disasters don’t discriminate, but disaster recovery does,” said Michael McLemore, a St. Louis-based electoral justice organizer and survivor of a deadly May 16 tornado. During the St. Louis tornado, sirens failed to sound across northern parts of the city. The tornado caused $1.6 billion in immediate damage, yet was not declared a major federal disaster until nearly a month later, said McLemore. “You’re here today because this building and this government have failed you,” said New Jersey senator Andy Kim, speaking to the assembled survivors. “There should be accountability, there should be change, there should be real effort. What is more important for our government than to be there for our people in their time of great need?”

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Every day when Rajaa Musleh wakes up and checks her phone, she fears she will see news that another member of her family has been killed in Gaza.  Musleh, a nurse and humanitarian worker who evacuated from Gaza to Cairo last year, works at the charity organization Human Concern International delivering food, medicine and other essential aid. Her 75-year-old mother and other family members are still in Gaza, where they face constant dangers: bombing, disease, starvation, medication shortages, and environmental devastation.  “I feel that I am divided into two parts,” Musleh said. “My body is here in Cairo and my soul inside Gaza.” Israeli forces have killed more than 70,000 Palestinians over the past two years and two months, according to official estimates. The United Nations estimates that 90 percent of Gaza’s population is displaced and that 1.5 million people are in urgent need of shelter.  Over the past two years, the UN and global medical and human rights authorities have continuously sounded the alarm on famine and forced starvation in Gaza, widespread environmental destruction, near-constant bombardment and violations of international law, deeming Israel’s assault a genocide. Israel has destroyed Gaza’s water, sewage, and hospital infrastructure and, the UN said, continues to restrict the entrance of food, tents, warm clothes, and life-saving medical supplies, leaving millions without basic necessities.  Now, as multiple reports show Israel violating the latest ceasefire, winter rains are flooding thousands of tents in Gaza amid plummeting temperatures. Escalating environmental destruction, from the impact of chemical weapons to heavily polluted water, make the scale of humanitarian devastation even more apocalyptic.  > “When they announced the ceasefire, it’s just [a] lie. They attack every day, > bombing the people in their tents.” “This war, I call it a climate war,” Musleh said. “It has created catastrophe, an environmental health crisis…and I think this will affect Gaza for generations.” The unusually heavy rains, strong winds, and floods Storm Byron brought to Israel and Gaza this week are making conditions for displaced families even more dire. One baby in Gaza died overnight last week in a cold and flooded tent. “The storm is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis amid the destruction of infrastructure and a lack of resources,” Gaza City Mayor Yahya Al-Sarraj told Al Jazeera.  According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 850,000 people in Gaza are sheltering in 761 displacement sites particularly vulnerable to flooding expected from the storm. Israeli officials have said they expect to see unprecedented rainfall and warned residents to stay inside and watch for signs of hypothermia. Thousands of children in Gaza are experiencing acute malnutrition, while lacking shelter, sanitation, and warm clothing. Flooding rains and lack of access to safe water for drinking and even basic hygiene interventions like handwashing accelerate the rapid spread of disease. Cold weather also increases the body’s energy needs, putting malnourished children with insufficient reserves of fat and muscle at severe risk of hypothermia, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund. Doctors Without Borders found that diseases linked to poor living conditions, including skin, eye, respiratory, and gastrointestinal diseases, make up 70 percent of outpatient consultations in the organization’s health care clinics in southern Gaza. As winter rains mix with sewage, winter exacerbates the spread of disease. “Without immediate improvements to water, sanitation, shelter and nutrition, more people will die from entirely preventable causes,” the organization wrote in a statement denouncing bloodshed after Israeli strikes on November 19.  In an emailed statement, the Israel Defense Forces said allegations of genocide are “not only unfounded but also ignore Hamas’ violations of international law.” The IDF denied claims it is limiting the number of humanitarian aid trucks entering Gaza.  “The IDF remains committed to conducting its operations in accordance with international law,” the statement read, contending that Hamas is not fulfilling its part of the ceasefire agreement, including by killing three Israeli soldiers and not returning all hostages by the deadline. “The IDF is acting in response to threats, violations, and terror infrastructure.” The BBC reported on November 11 that Israel has destroyed more than 1,500 buildings in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10, and Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces have killed at least 360 Palestinians and injured more than 900 over the same period. The UN Children’s Fund said on November 21 that at least 67 children had been killed in Gaza since October 10, an average of almost two children slain per day. Hamas has reportedly returned all but one deceased hostage, whose body has not yet been found. Hamas officials have said they have had difficulty locating the bodies of hostages under rubble following Israeli strikes. The UN adopted a resolution this month calling on Israel to comply with international law by ending its “unlawful” occupation in Palestine. The US government continues to funnel billions of dollars to Israel. US and Israeli officials reportedly expect the second phase of the US-brokered Gaza peace plan to begin as soon as this month, while Hamas officials are calling for international pressure on Israel to first fully implement the terms of the plan’s initial phase, including ceasing attacks and ending the aid blockade.  Hala Sabbah, co-founder of The Sameer Project—a mutual-aid organization supplying emergency shelter, food and medical aid in Gaza—is based in London and coordinates donations to colleagues on the ground bringing tents and warm clothes to displaced Gazans. The Sameer Project’s doctors are treating displaced patients with severe injuries and chronic diseases, doing so without basic medical supplies and while also living in hazardous conditions themselves.  “Unless borders open really, really, really soon, we’re just basically seeing a slow genocide where people are dying because of the lack of infrastructure and the lack of aid coming in,” Sabbah said. “If this lasts even longer, that means more and more and more deaths.” The Sameer Project is named after Sabbah’s uncle, who she said was killed in an Israeli bombing in 2024. The group is led by Gazans and members of the Palestinian diaspora, like Sabbah. The organization has about 100 team members on the ground, she said, but the scale of need far exceeds their capacity. “What we’re doing, really, is a drop in the ocean,” Sabbah said. “It’s really, really frustrating.” Lena Dajani, who coordinates The Sameer Project’s medical aid work while based in California, described the impact of the rain on displaced families living in makeshift shelters. “They’re drowning in their tents,” Dajani said. “There’s no drainage…There are just rivers of dirty water now, raw sewage, chemicals flooding into tents and destroying the very little that anyone owns.” The flooding with contaminated water is exacerbating gastrointestinal diseases, infections, and chronic coughs, and elevating hypothermia risks, which were already deadly last year. “This winter is going to be catastrophic,” Dajani said.  > View this post on Instagram After the latest ceasefire went into effect on October 10, The Sameer Project saw a drop in donations, Sabbah said, but the dire circumstances on the ground have remained largely unchanged. In late October, a Sameer Project staffer was killed along with 17 relatives in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building they were staying in, Dajani said.  Musleh, with Human Concern International, evacuated Gaza last year after spending 50 days trapped in Al-Shifa Hospital, where she worked as a nurse. Musleh is traumatized by the scenes of carnage she saw at Al-Shifa. When she evacuated in March 2024 she only planned to stay in Cairo for a month before returning to continue her work in Gaza, but she has not been able to get back in. She now coordinates aid to Gaza, including food, warm clothes and hygiene and medical supplies.  But aid is severely restricted. International human rights organizations and aid workers have criticized Israel for keeping healthy food, medical supplies and other essentials out of Gaza. This fall, Musleh said that Israeli authorities removed dates—high in nutrition desperately needed by malnourished children and adults—from Human Concern International’s food aid packages before letting them through. > “There is no electricity, no fans, no ACs, no cold water, no safe places.” Musleh’s mother, who is still in Gaza, suffers from kidney disease, but Musleh’s attempts to send her basic medication have been blocked, she said. She pays $2,000 each month to secure her mother a place in a two-bedroom apartment where 20 people are currently living, just to keep her out of the rain and floods. But there’s nowhere safe from violence, she said. “When they announced the ceasefire, it’s just [a] lie,” Musleh said. “They attack every day, bombing the people in their tents.” Even before October 2023, 97 percent of Gaza’s groundwater was already considered unfit for human consumption, due to a depleted coastal aquifer, over-extraction, nitrate pollution from sewage disposal, saltwater intrusion and the flushing of agricultural fertilizer, according to the UN Environment Programme. Palestinians have long lacked sufficient water access, and in 2012, the UN warned that the Gaza Strip could be unlivable by 2020 if no action was taken to secure clean drinking water as well as energy and sanitation access. Gaza has been under Israeli blockade for nearly two decades, with Israeli authorities significantly restricting residents’ freedom of movement, employment, and ability to access imported goods including food, medical supplies, and fuel. Israel has also restricted and undermined water access in Gaza for decades, including by restricting fuel used to operate desalination plants, overexploiting the coastal aquifer, and deliberately targeting and destroying water and sewage infrastructure, according to water and human rights organizations. Today, none of Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants are operational, according to the UN, and just a fraction of the aid needed to sustain its population is allowed through the blockade.  Climate change is making the crisis even more acute, aid workers said. The rain came late and heavy this year, Musleh said, following scorching summer heat. Palestine is in a region particularly vulnerable to climate change, and climate models predict increased temperature highs and lows, as well as exacerbated droughts and floods. Palestine is already seeing significant sea-level rise, which scientists have projected will cause coastal flooding and erosion and continued saltwater intrusion in groundwater aquifers.  In August, Gazan journalist Bisan Owda described the impact of brutal heat over 104 degrees. “There is no electricity, no fans, no ACs, no cold water, no safe places…because of climate issues and because of the intense bombings,” Owda said.  Groups like The Sameer Project are delivering truckloads of water, but once again, the need is far greater than their capacity. “Families have gotten used to drinking brackish water,” Dajani said. “We’re seeing a lot of problems with kidneys because they can’t identify the taste anymore of the salt water.”  Dajani added that her colleagues are seeing kidney inflammation, hepatitis, jaundice, and Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare and potentially life-threatening condition that can result in paralysis and breathing problems and most commonly follows a viral infection.  In a briefing published on November 27, Amnesty International detailed the extent of the ongoing human rights crisis. “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, in a statement. “The world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.” > “Gaza’s aquifer is contaminated, farmland has been decimated, and sewage seeps > into the soil.” Amidst staggering immediate needs, aid workers are seeing widespread trauma and medical complications that will impact Gaza’s population for generations to come.  Dajani described a child named Ahmed Al Homs, who was hit with tear gas last year, and suffered asphyxiation and brain damage. Now, he is paralyzed, Dajani said. The Sameer Project has been providing care and medications for Al Homs, who lives in the Refaat Alareer Camp, an emergency medical aid site the organization operates in central Gaza.  Doctors are also seeing severe birth complications likely tied to continuous exposure to highly toxic air and water, Dajani and Musleh both said. In a report from September, the UN Environment Programme found that 78 percent of Gaza’s buildings have been destroyed, generating about 67 million tons of debris, including rubble that could contain high-risk contaminants like asbestos, industrial waste and heavy metals that Gazans living among the rubble are exposed to. “That’s going to be a whole generation…that are not the proper size for their age, they’re not meeting cognitive milestones,” Dajani said. “An entire generation is going to be affected by this.” In September, the Israel-based Arava Institute for Environmental Studies released a report on the scope of environmental damage in Gaza, detailing the destruction of croplands, desalination plants and wastewater treatment infrastructure, increased air pollution from the burning of solid waste and building materials—including through bombing—and a buildup of hazardous medical waste. More than 80 percent of croplands have been damaged or destroyed, leaving more than 90 percent of Gaza’s population suffering crisis-level food insecurity, the report found.  Fuel shortages and a collapsed power grid further exacerbate water insecurity—experienced by at least 93 percent of households—and prohibit basic activities such as cooking and communication. “What we are witnessing is not just a humanitarian catastrophe but an ecological collapse that threatens the very possibility of recovery,” said David Lehrer, director of the institute’s Center for Applied Environmental Diplomacy, in a statement at the report’s release. “Gaza’s aquifer is contaminated, farmland has been decimated, and sewage seeps into the soil, polluting shared groundwater and setting the stage for outbreaks of waterborne disease that could spread beyond Gaza’s borders.” Masum Mahbub, CEO of Human Concern USA—the US affiliate of Human Concern International—emphasized that the depth of environmental devastation in Gaza will impact the humanitarian crisis for years to come. Mahbub described a cycle of harm: emissions from the war exacerbate the climate crisis, which impacts Gaza’s future livability, while the bombardment itself destroys its capacity for resilience. Any effort to rebuild Gaza’s infrastructure will have to prioritize the environment, he said. “The world cannot rebuild Gaza without restoring its land, which takes a long time,” Mahbub said. “The recovery must prioritize environmental remediations, renewable energy, and sustainable agriculture…It’s about restoring the ecological foundation of life and dignity.”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Zillow, the US’s largest real estate listing site, has removed a feature that allowed people to view a property’s exposure to the climate crisis, following complaints from the industry and some homeowners that it was hurting sales. In September last year, the online real estate marketplace introduced a tool showing the individual risk of wildfire, flood, extreme heat, wind, and poor air quality for 1 million properties it lists, explaining that “climate risks are now a critical factor in home-buying decisions” for many Americans. > “The risk doesn’t go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a > post-purchase liability.” But Zillow has now deleted this climate index after complaints from real estate agents and some homeowners that the rankings appeared arbitrary, could not be challenged, and harmed house sales. The complaints included those from the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, which oversees a database of property data that Zillow relies upon. Zillow said it remains committed to help Americans make informed decisions about properties, with listings now containing outbound links to the website of First Street, the nonprofit climate risk quantifier that had provided the on-site tool to Zillow. Matthew Eby, founder and chief executive of First Street, said that removing the climate risk information means that many buyers will be “flying blind” in an era when worsening impacts of extreme weather are warping the real estate market in the United States. “The risk doesn’t go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a post-purchase liability,” Eby said. “Families discover after a flood that they should have purchased flood insurance, or discover after the sale that wildfire insurance is unaffordable or unavailable in their area. “Access to accurate risk information before a purchase isn’t just helpful; it’s essential to protecting consumers and preventing lifelong financial consequences.” Eby claimed that the push to delist the First Street ratings from Zillow is linked to a challenging real estate environment, with a lack of affordable housing and repeated climate-driven disasters that are causing insurers to raise premiums or even flee states such as California. “All of that adds pressure to close sales however possible,” he said. “Climate risk data didn’t suddenly become inconvenient. It became harder to ignore in a stressed market.” > “Brokerage firms know they cannot stop the transmission of climate risk > information because climate impacts are already being felt far and wide.” As the US, along with the rest of the world, has heated up due to the burning of fossil fuels, worsening extreme weather events have taken their toll directly upon people’s homes, as well as other infrastructure. Last year, disasters probably amplified by the climate crisis caused $182 billion in damages, one of the highest on record, according to a government database since taken offline by the Trump administration. As a consequence of these mounting risks, the home insurance required for buyers to obtain a mortgage is becoming scarcer and more expensive across much of the US. These changes are running headlong into an opposing trend whereby more Americans are moving to places such as Florida and the Southwest, which are increasingly beset by threats such as ruinous hurricanes and punishing heatwaves. But assigning climate risks to individual properties has been controversial within the real estate industry, as well as some experts who have questioned whether such judgments can be made at such a granular level. Warnings of such perils deterred some buyers, especially if the home was particularly costly anyway. Last year, a sprawling Florida mansion was put on sale for $295 million, making it the most expensive property in the country and in a place also ranked as one of the most at-risk in the US for flooding. After several cuts to the asking price, the house has been taken off the market. Jesse Keenan, an author and expert in climate risk management at Tulane University, said many scientists and economists have argued that “proprietary risk models that provide highly uncertain assessments can have the perverse effect of undermining the public’s confidence in climate science. “There has been a growing bipartisan recognition that the government should play a more active role in supporting and standardizing risk assessment for properties,” Keenan said. “At the same time, the science is limited in its capacity to assess property-by-property assessments. “I do not believe that this is a sign that the brokerage industry is trying to hide climate risks,” he added. “Brokerage firms know they cannot stop the transmission of climate risk information because climate impacts are already being felt far and wide in the sector.” Eby defended First Street’s methods and accuracy, pointing out that the models used were built on peer-reviewed science and validated against real-world outcomes. “So when claims are made that our models are inaccurate, we ask for evidence,” he said. “To date, all the empirical validation shows our science is working as designed and providing better risk insight than the tools the industry has relied on historically.”

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As 2025 draws to a close, the departure of the beleaguered acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, David Richardson, caps a tumultuous year for FEMA. In January, President Donald Trump took office and vowed to abolish the department. Though the administration subsequently slow-walked that proposal, its government-wide staffing cuts have led to a nearly 10 percent reduction in FEMA’s workforce since January. Now it faces a long-awaited report issued by a review council, commissioned by the president and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, just as a new interim FEMA chief prepares to take the reins in December.  Although some expected the review council to recommend further cuts or try to fulfill the president’s suggestion of disbanding FEMA entirely, a leaked draft of the report, obtained by the New York Times, recommends preserving the agency. “There’s been a need for emergency management reform for a while,” said Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, a professor at the Columbia Climate School and the director of its National Center for Disaster Preparedness. “But the wrecking balls came in before there was a blueprint for what to do.” The Trump administration’s first pick to lead FEMA, Cameron Hamilton, was fired after telling Congress that the agency should not be eliminated. Richardson was tapped to replace him, despite a lack of emergency management experience; he reportedly told staff members he had been unaware the United States had a hurricane season, although he later claimed to be joking. “There’s been a lot of mistrust with expertise in this administration,” said Schlegelmilch, when asked why Richardson was chosen as FEMA administrator.  Richardson’s first test in the national spotlight came in early July, when devastating floods struck Central Texas, killing 135 people. A month earlier, Noem had instituted a new rule requiring her personal sign-off on any FEMA expenditures over $100,000. That meant that, in order to get aid to the region, FEMA officials needed Richardson to get Noem’s approval. But according to reporting from the Washington Post, Richardson made a habit of not checking his phone outside of traditional working hours. This made it a challenge to contact him when the floods hit over the July 4 holiday weekend. As a result, it took over three days for Noem to sign off on expenses for swiftwater rescue teams. It was also later reported that nearly two-thirds of calls to FEMA’s emergency assistance line went unanswered during the floods, because a critical call center was severely understaffed. A final recommendation on suggested FEMA reforms will arrive by the end of the year, but a leaked draft report supports preserving the agency and restoring it to a cabinet-level agency that reports directly to the president, rather than to the Department of Homeland Security, where it’s been housed since 2003. This has been a longtime goal pursued by emergency management experts, according to Schlegelmilch, because it would give the department more autonomy, reduce red tape, and hopefully improve the speed and efficacy of disaster response in general. A bipartisan bill called the FEMA Act of 2025, which would elevate the department to a cabinet-level agency, was introduced in Congress in July, but it’s stalled in committee. How the administration will receive the final report from the task force is uncertain, but FEMA’s new interim director, Karen Evans, may not bring much stability to the agency. Although Evans has some emergency management experience, it is largely in cybersecurity rather than disaster response, and the Trump administration’s disinterest in appointing a permanent director may bode poorly for the agency’s long-term future.  “This is the third acting FEMA administrator within a year,” said Shana Udvardy, senior climate resilience policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What the Trump administration is doing is sidestepping the Senate confirmation process for a FEMA administrator, someone we just desperately need in place, given how turbulent it’s been over the past year.”