At New York Climate Week in September, opinion leaders voiced concern that high-profile events often gloss over the deep inequalities exposed by climate change, especially how poorer populations suffer disproportionately and struggle to access mitigation or adaptation resources. The message was clear: climate policies should better reflect social justice concerns, ensuring they are inclusive and do not unintentionally favor those already privileged.  We believe access to food sits at the heart of this call for inclusion, because everything starts with food: it is a fundamental human right and a foundation for health, education and opportunity. It is also a lever for climate, economic and social resilience.  > We believe access to food sits at the heart of this call for inclusion, > because everything starts with food This makes the global conversation around food systems transformation more urgent than ever. Food systems are under unprecedented strain. Without urgent, coordinated action, billions of people face heightened risks of malnutrition, displacement and social unrest.   Delivering systemic transformation requires coordinated cross-sector action, not fragmented solutions. Food systems are deeply interconnected, and isolated interventions cannot solve systemic problems. The Food and Agriculture Organization’s recent Transforming Food and Agriculture Through a Systems Approach report calls for systems thinking and collaboration across the value chain to address overlapping food, health and environmental challenges.   Now, with COP30 on the horizon, unified and equitable solutions are needed to benefit entire value chains and communities. This is where a systems approach becomes essential.  A systems approach to transforming food and agriculture  Food systems transformation must serve both people and planet. We must ensure everyone has access to safe, nutritious food while protecting human rights and supporting a just transition.   At Tetra Pak, we support food and beverage companies throughout the journey of food production, from processing raw ingredients like milk and fruit to packaging and distribution. This end-to-end perspective gives us a unique view into the interconnected challenges within the food system, and how an integrated approach can help manufacturers reduce food loss and waste, improve energy and water efficiency, and deliver food where it is needed most.   Meaningful reductions to emissions require expanding the use of renewable and carbon-free energy sources. As outlined in our Food Systems 2040 whitepaper,1 the integration of low-carbon fuels like biofuels and green hydrogen, alongside electrification supported by advanced energy storage technologies, will be critical to driving the transition in factories, farms and food production and processing facilities.   Digitalization also plays a key role. Through advanced automation and data-driven insights, solutions like Tetra Pak® PlantMaster enable food and beverage companies to run fully automated plants with a single point of control for their production, helping them improve operational efficiency, minimize production downtime and reduce their environmental footprint.  The “hidden middle”: A critical gap in food systems policy  Today, much of the focus on transforming food systems is placed on farming and on promoting healthy diets. Both are important, but they risk overlooking the many and varied processes that get food from the farmer to the end consumer. In 2015 Dr Thomas Reardon coined the term the “hidden middle” to describe this midstream segment of global agricultural value chains.2   This hidden middle includes processing, logistics, storage, packaging and handling, and it is pivotal. It accounts for approximately 22 percent of food-based emissions and between 40-60 percent of the total costs and value added in food systems.3 Yet despite its huge economic value, it receives only 2.5 to 4 percent of climate finance.4  Policymakers need to recognize the full journey from farm to fork as a lynchpin priority. Strategic enablers such as packaging that protects perishable food and extends shelf life, along with climate-resilient processing technologies, can maximize yield and minimize loss and waste across the value chain. In addition, they demonstrate how sustainability and competitiveness can go hand in hand.  Alongside this, climate and development finance must be redirected to increase investment in the hidden middle, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, which make up most of the sector.   Collaboration in action  Investment is just the start. Change depends on collaboration between stakeholders across the value chain: farmers, food manufacturers, brands, retailers, governments, financiers and civil society.  In practice, a systems approach means joining up actors and incentives at every stage.5 The dairy sector provides a perfect example of the possibilities of connecting. We work with our customers and with development partners to establish dairy hubs in countries around the world. These hubs connect smallholder farmers with local processors, providing chilling infrastructure, veterinary support, training and reliable routes to market.6 This helps drive higher milk quality, more stable incomes and safer nutrition for local communities.  Our strategic partnership with UNIDO* is a powerful example of this collaboration in action. Together, we are scaling Dairy Hub projects in Kenya, building on the success of earlier initiatives with our customer Githunguri Dairy. UNIDO plays a key role in securing donor funding and aligning public-private efforts to expand local dairy production and improve livelihoods. This model demonstrates how collaborations can unlock changes in food systems.  COP30 and beyond  Strategic investment can strengthen local supply chains, extend social protections and open economic opportunity, particularly in vulnerable regions. Lasting progress will require a systems approach, with policymakers helping to mitigate transition costs and backing sustainable business models that build resilience across global food systems for generations to come.   As COP30 approaches, we urge policymakers to consider food systems as part of all decision-making, to prevent unintended trade-offs between climate and nutrition goals. We also recommend that COP30 negotiators ensure the Global Goal on Adaptation include priorities indicators that enable countries to collect, monitor and report data on the adoption of climate-resilient technologies and practices by food processors. This would reinforce the importance of the hidden middle and help unlock targeted adaptation finance across the food value chain.  When every actor plays their part, from policymakers to producers, and from farmers to financiers, the whole system moves forward. Only then can food systems be truly equitable, resilient and sustainable, protecting what matters most: food, people and the planet.  * UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization)  Disclaimer POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT * The sponsor is Tetra Pak * The ultimate controlling entity is Brands2Life Ltd * The advertisement is linked to policy advocacy regarding food systems and climate policy More information here. https://www.politico.eu/7449678-2

Alcohol has been enjoyed in societies for thousands of years, playing a role in celebrations and gatherings across the world. While misuse continues to cause harm, it’s encouraging to see that, according to World Health Organization data, trends are moving in the right direction. Consumers are better informed and increasingly aware of the benefits of moderation.   While Diageo is only relatively young — founded in 1997 — our roots run deep. Many of our brands date back centuries, some as far back as the 1600s. From iconic names such as Guinness and Johnnie Walker to modern innovations like Tanqueray 0.0, we are proud to continue that legacy by building and sustaining exceptional brands that resonate across generations and geographies. We want to be one of the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world — grounded in a strong sense of responsibility.  That means being transparent about the challenges, proactive in promoting responsible drinking, and collaborative in shaping the future of alcohol policy. We are proud of the progress made, but we know there is more to do. Lasting change requires a whole-of-society approach, bringing together governments, health experts, civil society and the private sector.   We believe a more balanced, evidence-based dialogue is crucial; one that recognizes both the risks of harmful drinking and the opportunities to drive positive change. Our brands are woven into cultural and social traditions around the world, and the industry contributes significantly to employment, local economies and public revenues. Recognizing this broader context is essential to shaping effective, proportionate and collaborative alcohol policies. Public-private collaboration brings together the strengths of different sectors, and these partnerships help scale impactful programs.  > We believe a more balanced, evidence-based dialogue is crucial; one that > recognizes both the risks of harmful drinking and the opportunities to drive > positive change. Across markets, consumers are increasingly choosing to drink more mindfully. Moderation is a long-term trend — whether it’s choosing a non-alcoholic alternative, enjoying fewer drinks of higher quality, or exploring the choice ready-to-drink formats offer, people are drinking better, not more, something Diageo has long advocated. Moderation is not a limitation; it’s a mindset. One of the ways we’re leading in this space is through our expanding non-alcoholic portfolio, including the acquisition of Ritual Beverage Company in the US and our investment in Guinness 0.0. This growing diversity of options empowers individuals to choose what’s right for them, in the moment. Moderation is about choice, and spirits can also offer creative ways to moderate, such as mixing alcoholic and non-alcoholic ingredients to craft serves like the ‘lo-groni’, or opting for a smaller measure in your gin and tonic.  Governments are increasingly taking proportionate approaches to alcohol regulation, recognizing the value of collaboration and evidence-based policy. There’s growing interest in public-private partnerships and regulatory rationality, working together to achieve our shared goal to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. In the UK, underage drinking is at its lowest since records began, thanks in part to initiatives like Challenge 25, a successful public-private collaboration that demonstrates the impact of collective, targeted action.  > Moderation is not a limitation; it’s a mindset. Diageo has long championed responsible drinking through campaigns and programs that are measurable and scalable. Like our responsible drinking campaign, The Magic of Moderate Drinking, which is rolled out across Europe, and our programs such as Sober vs Drink Driving, and Wrong Side of the Road, which are designed to shift behaviors, not just raise awareness. In Ireland, we brought this commitment to life at the All Together Now music, art, food and wellness festival with the launch of the TO.0UCAN pub in 2024, the country’s first-ever non-alcoholic bar at a music festival. Serving Guinness 0.0 on draught, it reimagined the traditional Irish pub experience, offering a fresh and inclusive way for festival-goers to enjoy the full energy and atmosphere of the event without alcohol.  Another example comes from our initiative Smashed. This theatre-based education program, developed by Collingwood Learning and delivered by a network of non-government organizations, educates young people and helps them understand the dangers of underage drinking, while equipping them with the knowledge and confidence to resist peer pressure. Diageo sponsors and enables Smashed to reach millions of young people, teachers and parents across the globe, while ensuring that no  alcohol brands of any kind are mentioned. In 2008, we launched DRINKiQ, a first-of-its-kind platform to help people understand and be informed about alcohol, its effects, and how to enjoy it responsibly. Today, DRINKiQ is a dynamic, mobile-first platform, localized in over 40 markets. It remains a cornerstone of our strategy.  > Diageo has long championed responsible drinking through campaigns and programs > that are measurable and scalable. In the UK, our partnership with the Men’s Sheds Association supports older men’s wellbeing through DRINKiQ. Most recently, this collaboration expanded with Mission: Shoulder to Shoulder, a nationwide initiative where Shedders are building 100 buddy benches to spark over 200,000 conversations annually. The campaign promotes moderation and connection among older men, a cohort most likely to drink at increasing or higher risk levels. Across all our partnerships, we focus on the right message, in the right place, at the right time. They also reflect our belief that reducing harmful drinking requires collective action.  Our message is simple: Diageo is ready to be a proactive partner. Let’s build on the progress made and stay focused on the shared goal: reducing harm. With evidence-based policies, strong partnerships and public engagement, we can foster a drinking culture that is balanced, responsible and sustainable. Together, we can make real progress — for individuals, communities and society as a whole. 

Production of hard liquor has collapsed in Russia — even as data shows that citizens are drinking more strong alcohol than ever before. Russia’s Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulation reported this week that manufacturing of spirits declined by more than 16 percent in the first half of 2025. Official data shows that vodka production is down by 10.9 percent year on year, from 33.40 million decaliters in 2024 to 31.38 million decaliters in the corresponding period in 2025. The legendary Russian beverage was, for a time in the 1990s, used as a national currency and remains a celebrated part of the country’s culture to this day. However, while production is down, consumption is up. Russians drunk more in 2024 than at similar stages in the last eight years. And more and more people prefer rum, whiskey, brandy and tequila, a Russian financial auditing firm, Finexpertisa, reported in May. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russians are starting to drink less, claiming more of them prefer sports. “Quit drinking and start skiing,” he joked. The sales of those products grew by 10.2 percent to 3.2 liters a year per capita person, surpassing vodka consumption in some regions. But vodka is still the top drink of choice throughout the country, holding 60 percent of sales annually. The decline in vodka production in Russia was triggered by rising alcohol prices and the ban on the export of alcoholic beverages to the EU, the U.S. and other countries, due to Western sanctions. This ban has significantly reduced export revenue for Russian vodka producers, a state product quality control service in the Rostov region reported in June, citing data from the Strategy Partners consulting agency.

Vast amounts of valuable thermal energy are slipping through the fingers of Europe’s critical industries and institutions every day, as the heat escapes from their operations or remains untapped from natural ambient sources like nearby land, air or water. Today, some businesses and communities are harnessing this heat using innovative heat pump technologies to dramatically cut costs and CO2 emissions. As Europe races to revitalize key industries and accelerate growth, deploying heat pumps at scale is a key strategy for success. Consider this: in 2024 alone, Johnson Controls’ heat pumps cut energy costs for customers by 53 percent and emissions by 60 percent. > in 2024 alone, Johnson Controls’ heat pumps cut energy costs for customers by > 53 percent and emissions by 60 percent. Sound too good to be true? Let’s look at organizations realizing this powerful win-win every day. A hospital in Germany put a heat pump to work to tap heat energy 200 meters below the facility and realized a 30 percent cut in energy costs while producing enough heat to cover 80 percent of the hospital’s demand. The Aalborg hospital in Denmark is close to zeroing out carbon emissions, achieving an 80-90 percent cut while driving energy costs down by 80 percent. And in the UK, Hounslow Council transitioned from gas boilers to air source heat pumps, cutting its energy costs and CO2 emissions by 50 percent across more than 60 schools and public buildings. Natural and waste heat energy resources can be put to work for industry as well. Take, for example, a leading food company in Spain. Installing heat pumps at two of their manufacturing facilities enabled them to save €1.5 million per year and reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 2,000 tons, the equivalent annual emissions of around 400 homes. Nestle’s Biessenhofen plant in Germany also significantly cut energy costs for hot water production while lowering CO2 emissions by 10 percent.   The heat pumps powering these successes? Made by Johnson Controls here in Europe. So, the opportunity at hand is magnified as Europe can lead in cutting-edge energy technologies while putting the machines to work to boost core, centuries-old and critical legacy industries. To put the potential of industry heating needs and excess industrial heat in context, heat accounts for more than 60 percent of energy use in European industries, according to the European Heat Pump Association. Meanwhile, a leading European industrial company estimates that wasted heat in the European Union would just about meet the bloc’s entire energy demands for central heating and hot water. > To put the potential of industry heating needs and excess industrial heat in > context, heat accounts for more than 60 percent of energy use in European > industries, The fact is that untapped heat energy is everywhere. It’s critical that we put it to work now.  A catalyst for a competitive, energy-secure and sustainable Europe   Today EU companies pay 2-3 times more for their electricity than competitors in the United States and China — a disparity that puts a constraint on the competitiveness of European industries, according to analysis by the Draghi Report on the future of Europe’s competitiveness. The report calls for immediate action to lower energy costs and emissions as a combined competition and climate strategy.  With the visionary Clean Industrial Deal, European leaders are moving to do just that. Heat pumps can be front and center in this agenda. Heat pumps quickly bolster the bottom line: they are state-of-the-art, so they ensure the reliability and uptime of critical operations; and they are essential in driving every euro to growth and innovation instead of going out the door in excess energy bills. As leaders turn the Clean Industrial Deal into legislation this year, they can ensure essential industries and organizations prosper by including incentives for heat pumps, while also reforming electricity pricing so the full magnitude of savings can be realized. It is estimated that in Germany in 2024, for example, extraneous taxes on the electric bill represented 30 percent of cost — artificially increasing the cost of electricity and narrowing instead of increasing choices to meet critical energy needs with clean electricity.  Expansive troves of natural and wasted energy represent a huge opportunity for growth and competitiveness. Heat pump technologies are the enablers. They tap into this ‘free energy’ and transform it into the fuel that drives industrial processes, heats spaces, and delivers the higher temperature water and energy that’s essential for processing, pasteurizing, bulking and sterilizing. Natural and waste heat: a natural resource for companies   Seen at scale, our natural and escaping industrial heat are a new natural energy resource to be put to work, and a powerful economic catalyst to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness.   Visualization of the Hamburg Dradenau site where four 15-MW heat pumps will tap into treated wastewater to supply green heat to around 39,000 homes from 2026. Natural and waste energy is all around us. Recovering heat from a city’s wastewater treatment plant represents a powerful example. In Utrecht, the Netherlands, for example, a heat pump extracts residual heat from treated wastewater to provide heat to around 20,000 homes. And from 2026 in Hamburg, Germany, four large-scale heat pumps will extract heat from treated wastewater and feed it into the central district heating network, heating around 39,000 homes. Pharmaceutical companies, chemical facilities, and food and beverage enterprises are among the industries that can tap into energy they generate as a byproduct of the processes that produce the medicines and products we rely on every day.  In our modern data and information technology economy, data centers are among the biggest new sources of excess heat. The International Energy Agency notes that reused heat from data centers could meet around 300 TWh of heating demand by 2030, equivalent to 10 percent of European space heating needs. As artificial intelligence leads to increasingly more computing power in data centers, those numbers will grow significantly. The fact that up to half of the energy consumed by a data center is needed for cooling demonstrates how much heat is available. With heat pumps, we can capture that heat and put it to productive use. A trifecta for competitiveness, energy security and carbon neutrality Heat pump systems are key for Europe’s competitiveness, its energy security and tackling climate change. Tapping into the vast energy resources that are available everywhere and right now, heat pumps have the potential to become one of the continent’s next biggest industrial success stories. Let’s seize the moment for a future of economic strength and security, environmental health, and having pride in them being made right here. > Heat pump systems are key for Europe’s competitiveness, its energy security > and tackling climate change.

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump may not drink beer, but this week he messed up a lot of people’s pints. Beer was quietly added Wednesday to a list of aluminum-linked products now subject to a 25 percent U.S. import duty. The move, buried in a bureaucratic annex and part of a broader trade war unleashed by the Trump administration, has left European brewers fizzing with confusion — and drinkers foaming with rage. The uncertainty goes beyond cans. The customs code used — “beer made from malt” — appears to cover all beer, no matter how it’s packaged: cans, bottles or kegs. That’s been especially frustrating for brewers, given that most other European food and drink exports were hit with a lower 20 percent tariff — making beer one of the hardest-hit agri-food categories. “ The way it is phrased, it is all beer that is in, regardless of the container, but we are seeking clarifications,” said one industry insider. “It’s not as if beer is the only product that comes in cans.” European beer exports to the U.S. topped €1.1 billion last year, with Guinness, Heineken and Stella Artois among the bestsellers. About a fifth of that trade, by value, is shipped in cans. The customs code applies globally — so even top exporters like Mexico, which supplies over 60 percent of U.S. beer imports, are hit. The tariff’s scope has left companies uncertain whether to ship — or sit tight and hope for clarification. Belgian brewers, already operating on tight margins, fear a prolonged standoff. “We don’t know how long the measure will be in effect, and that uncertainty is already damaging,” Raf De Jonghe, head of Belgian brewers’ group BEER, told Belgian daily Nieuwsblad. Trump, who has long abstained from alcohol due to his late brother Fred’s battle with addiction, once launched his own vodka brand — “Success Distilled,” as the tagline put it. The European Commission estimates his sweeping new tariffs — including a 20 percent blanket levy and separate 25 percent duties on cars, steel and aluminum — will affect up to 70 percent of all EU exports to the U.S., worth some €380 billion. While Brussels is preparing to respond, officials say they’re deliberately delaying action to avoid appearing panicked — and to buy time for a possible negotiated off-ramp. The fallout is domestic, too. Much of the aluminum used in U.S. can production comes from Canada, and American smelters aren’t equipped to produce enough of the alloy used for beverage packaging. Beer lovers haven’t exactly waited quietly. On Reddit’s r/beer, a forum of nearly half a million brewing nerds, the mood was bleak. One of the most upvoted reactions simply read: “A massive sales tax on beer? What a fucking asshole.” From the industry side, the tone was more diplomatic. “Beer, like wine, is a product loved on both sides of the Atlantic, and has been part of our culture for thousands of years,” said Julia Leferman, secretary general of The Brewers of Europe, a trade group representing thousands of brewers across the EU.  “We struggle to understand why it appears to have been downgraded to merely a ‘derivative product of aluminum.’ ”

BRUSSELS — In the end, it’s always about the booze. Europe’s trade war with Washington has barely started, but some EU leaders are already dropping their weapons and fleeing the battlefield in a bid to escape Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught against their exporters.  In the week since the EU executive announced it would retaliate against the U.S. president’s steel and aluminum duties, the leaders of France, Italy and Ireland have publicly criticized its strategy, which includes reinstating tariffs on bourbon whiskey that date back to 2018 from the start of April.  In a one-two punch, Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission wants to add a second round of tariffs worth €18 billion on U.S. exports by April 13.  Trump has been quick to escalate, threatening to slap an eye-watering 200 percent tariff on all wines, champagne and alcoholic products coming from the EU.   Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is now warning against a “vicious circle” of trade escalation. Her French counterpart, François Bayrou, has accused the Commission of “hitting the wrong targets.” And Ireland’s leader Micheál Martin has criticized the executive for resorting to its retaliation playbook from a similar trade fight in Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021.  It’s no coincidence that these countries are exposed to the tariffs Trump has threatened on alcohol: France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland are the EU countries that export the most booze to the U.S. IT GETS WORSE Clearly, the EU’s initial unity on trade is crumbling before it has even agreed on a second, larger tariff package planned for mid-April to respond to Trump’s new (and broader) steel and aluminum tariffs. In his first term, Trump set U.S. tariffs on steel at 25 percent and on aluminum at 10 percent. This time he has fixed both at 25 percent — and has expanded their scope. Brussels calculates the total damage at €26 billion, and wants its retaliation to “mirror” that figure. It is seeking public feedback on a 99-page list spanning food, beverages, household goods and industrial gear.  “It was always to be expected that there would be cracks in European unity when it comes to trade, because not all European countries are exposed in the same way to [a] potential trade war or U.S. tariffs,” said Agathe Demarais, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.  “Every country will be very happy to have retaliatory measures against the U.S. until they realize that they harm their domestic economy. That is going to be the challenge for the EU Commission, to go for the toughest possible measures while keeping everyone on board,” she added.  GOOD COP, BAD COP The Commission has been here before.  “In trying to be smart about hitting the U.S., not hitting ourselves, we are also making sure that we sort of spread the pain and spread the impact as much as we look to minimize it,” said a senior EU official last week when the Commission unveiled its expanded tariff list. “To be clear, we’re also spreading them across various member states in a very fair manner,” they added.  As often when it comes to navigating prickly trade tensions with the likes of China and the United States, the Commission, which calls the shots on behalf of the EU’s 27 countries, is the one waving the big stick, launching investigations and imposing duties.  And so it happens, even as their diplomats back the Commission’s retaliation strategy behind closed doors in Brussels, that national leaders sound off — as Meloni did to Italian lawmakers on Tuesday — in an attempt to avoid the wrath of an antagonistic Trump. “There’s the necessity also to have messages that are politically palatable for domestic audiences,” Demarais explained. “Some countries are playing this game masterfully; of the divergence between declarations, which may be for domestic political reasons, and the reality of what is going to happen.”  The same dynamic played out last year as trade tensions escalated with Beijing over electric vehicles — and a decade ago over solar panels.  Responding to the imposition of EU duties on made-in-China electric vehicles in October, Beijing retaliated against premium European distilled alcohol. Everyone realized that the real target was French cognac, and that China was punishing Paris for nudging the Commission to launch an investigation that found evidence of unfair state aid to Chinese EV-makers. “The French are the most vocal. They’re the most offensive in defending their interests, which is why they get more retaliation. This is a classic example which we’ve also seen with China,” said one EU diplomat, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. Germany, Spain and Belgium, meanwhile, rushed to send high-level officials to Beijing to showcase their friendly ties with China. They often returned home touting symbolic concessions from President Xi Jinping — on visas, for example, or pork.  “It’s a classic case of defending your economic interests,” a second diplomat observed.  Giovanna Coi contributed reporting.

Jimmy Carter’s death marks both the passing of a peacemaker and the demise of a distinguished strain of religious life in America: progressive evangelicalism. This tradition, with roots in the Second Great Awakening at the turn of the 19th century, set the social and political agenda of much of the 19th century as evangelicals sought to reform American society according to the norms of godliness, paying particular attention to the admonition of Jesus to care for “the least of these.” Carter’s life and career, not to mention his probity, cannot be understood without reference to progressive evangelicalism. But his electoral defeat in 1980, at the hands of Ronald Reagan and the Religious Right, dealt a crippling blow to this tradition, which has been reeling ever since. That election led to the melding of white evangelicals with the far-right reaches of the Republican Party, culminating in overwhelming support for Donald Trump, hardly an avatar of the “family values” that evangelicals claimed lay at the heart of their activism. Over the decades the Religious Right has become the most reliable component of the Republican Party, much the way that labor unions once served as the backbone of the Democratic Party. Carter’s successful presidential run in 1976 was propelled by popular distrust of politicians generally, and Washington specifically, in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Wearied of Richard Nixon’s endless prevarications, Americans were prepared to consider someone from outside the Beltway, someone with a moral compass. Carter, the one-term governor of Georgia and a Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher from the tiny town of Plains, fit the bill. Carter’s election was also abetted by the brief resurgence in the 1970s of progressive evangelicalism, the particular stripe of the Christian faith that he embodied. Others have tried to keep the tradition alive — people like Jim Wallis and William Barber II and institutions such as Sojourners and the Black church — but progressive evangelicals have never been able to match the media megaphones of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or Franklin Graham. Part of what made the voices of the Religious Right so effective was their canny use of the rhetoric of victimization. Even though evangelicals, by virtue of their numbers and their mobilization, exercise outsized influence in American society, they claim that their values are under siege, that they represent an embattled minority. That rhetoric has proven very effective — and it’s one of the reasons white evangelicals gravitated to Trump, who speaks this language more fluently than anyone I’ve seen. The demise of progressive evangelicalism has opened the way for compromise on other evangelical principles, including the separation of church and state. Even though evangelicals have benefited perhaps more than any other religious group from the free marketplace of religion set up by the First Amendment, many are now perpetrating the falsehood that the United States is and always has been a Christian nation and that our laws should conform to “Christian” mores. The Religious Right’s opposition to abortion, an attempt to camouflage the real origins of evangelical mobilization, nevertheless proved effective, despite the fact that the Dobbs decision entails government intervention in matters of gestation. With Carter’s passing, the far-right shift of political evangelicalism is complete — but history will note the massive impact that progressive Christians like Carter have had on American life. Progressive evangelicalism traces its roots to the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament and to a much earlier era in American history. Jesus enjoined his followers to be peacemakers and to care for those on the margins of society. Throughout American history, progressive evangelicals have sought to take those commands seriously. Especially in the antebellum period, evangelicals worked to promote peace and to end slavery, even though many Southern evangelicals continued to defend it. Evangelicals also advocated equality for women, including the right to vote, and supported the expansion of public education so that children on the lower rungs of the economic ladder might be able to improve their lives. Although the fight against slavery arguably represented the zenith of progressive evangelicals’ influence, their presence continued into the early decades of the 20th century. William Jennings Bryan, for example, the “Great Commoner” and three-time Democratic nominee for president, continued to advocate for women’s equality and also for the rights of workers to organize. Following the Scopes trial of 1925 — which was not Bryan’s finest moment, as he argued against teaching human evolution in state-funded schools — evangelicals largely abandoned the political arena. Bryan might have won the trial (John T. Scopes was convicted), but he, and by extension evangelicals, lost decisively in the larger courtroom of public opinion. Humiliated by the coverage of the trial and by Bryan’s poor performance, evangelicals chose to turn away from politics. Many, expecting the imminent return of Jesus, refused even to vote in the middle decades of the 20th century. This world, they believed, was transitory, corrupt and corrupting, and their time was better spent securing individual regeneration rather than working for social amelioration. What evangelical political advocacy existed in the middle decades of the 20th century listed toward the right of the political spectrum. Evangelicals’ suspicions of “godless communism” helped to push them in a conservative direction, and evangelist Billy Graham’s very public friendships with a succession of Republican politicians reinforced that predilection. In the early 1970s, however, progressive evangelicalism mounted a comeback. In the throes of the Vietnam War, progressive evangelicals sought to reclaim Jesus’ command that his followers be peacemakers. They gravitated to the 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern, a Wesleyan Methodist preacher’s son and himself a former seminary student. A year after McGovern’s landslide loss to Nixon, a small group of progressive evangelicals gathered at the Chicago YMCA hoping to keep the tradition of progressive evangelicalism alive. The document that emerged out of that November 1973 meeting was called the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern, a remarkable reprise of evangelical concerns from a century earlier. The signatories — 55 initially, but many more signed later — called the powerful to account and decried the persistence of racism and rampant militarism in American life. They lamented the persistence of poverty and hunger in an affluent society. At the insistence of an English professor from Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois (where I was then an undergraduate), the Declaration also reaffirmed evangelicals’ historic commitment to women’s equality. Not quite six months later, Carter echoed many of these themes in his famous remarks at the University of Georgia Law School, though he did so in far more strident terms. One of the venerable traditions at the University of Georgia Law School is Law Day, an occasion to honor student achievements, as well as to invite distinguished guests, including Supreme Court justices, senators, attorneys general and, on this day, the governor. On a warm spring day in May 1974, Carter unleashed a blistering extemporaneous critique of the legal and legislative process. His own sense of justice, he said, derived from two sources. The first was theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and his oft-quoted lament that the “sad duty of politics was to establish justice in a sinful world.” The second was Bob Dylan. It wasn’t until Carter heard Dylan’s “I Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More,” he said, that he began to appreciate the plight of the poor, especially tenant farmers. Carter lamented that “the powerful and the influential in our society shape the laws and have a great influence on the legislature or the Congress.” He lit into lobbyists and decried the incestuous relationship between corporations and the agencies regulating them. The governor also noted that the prison population consisted overwhelmingly of poor people. Part of the problem, he suggested, is that “we assign punishment to fit the criminal and not the crime.” He concluded his remarks by sounding the populist theme that he was already honing for his presidential bid. Any hope for the future, Carter said, lay in “the combined wisdom and courage and commitment and discernment of the common ordinary people.” Carter’s address captured the attention of Hunter S. Thompson of Rolling Stone magazine. During the course of his speech, Carter noticed that Thompson had briefly left the room; he surmised that the self-proclaimed “gonzo journalist” had simply exited to refresh whatever adult beverage he was consuming that day. Thompson, however, scurried to the parking lot to retrieve a tape recorder so he could record what he believed was an extraordinary moment: a politician who dared to speak the truth. “I have heard hundreds of speeches by all sorts of candidates and politicians,” Thompson later wrote, “but I have never heard a sustained piece of political oratory that impressed me any more than the speech Jimmy Carter made at Law Day at the University of Georgia on that Saturday afternoon in May 1974.” Carter’s campaign for the presidency would emphasize many of the themes articulated by progressive evangelicals in Chicago: racial, economic and gender equality; justice; care for those less fortunate. (Although he didn’t describe himself as a progressive evangelical at the time, he eventually embraced the term.) By no means were progressive evangelicals decisive in Carter’s 1976 victory, but many evangelicals supported him either for his policies or simply for the novelty of voting for one of their own at a time when evangelicals themselves were largely apolitical. His share of the evangelical vote would have been even greater were it not for the misbegotten Playboy interview that appeared a few weeks before Election Day; Carter’s approval dropped 15 points, and by Election Day evangelicals split their vote evenly between Carter and Gerald Ford, the Republican incumbent. Carter was not the only politician in the 1970s to advocate progressive evangelicalism. Harold Hughes, Democratic senator from Iowa, and Mark Hatfield, Republican senator of Oregon, were among the most prominent. John B. Anderson, a Republican member of Congress from Illinois, was a member of the Evangelical Free Church, an evangelical denomination with Scandinavian roots, and could also be counted in that cohort. Still, Carter was the most prominent among them. As president, Carter sought, with mixed success, to act on the principles of fairness and equality that he articulated. Early in his presidency, he recognized that if the United States were to have a meaningful relationship with Third World nations, especially in Latin America, it would need to renegotiate the Panama Canal treaties; he expended a great deal of political capital to do so. He sought to move American foreign policy away from the reflexive dualism of the Cold War and toward an emphasis on human rights, even though it angered many U.S. allies. He worked tirelessly for peace, especially in the Middle East, and one of his proudest accomplishments was that no American soldier died in military conflict during his presidency. Although he was not averse to defense spending — and succeeded in restoring the cuts enacted by his Republican predecessors — Carter often said the best and the most effective military armaments are the ones never used. He worked for racial and gender equality, and many environmentalists consider Carter the greatest environmental president ever. Leaders of the Religious Right routinely claim that opposition to abortion led them to mobilize politically in the 1970s. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Evangelicals considered abortion a “Catholic issue” for most of the decade. The Southern Baptist Convention, hardly a redoubt of liberalism, passed a resolution calling for the legalization of abortion in 1971, a resolution they reaffirmed in 1974 and again in 1976. Several evangelical leaders applauded the Roe v. Wade decision when it was handed down in 1973, and Reverend Jerry Falwell, by his own admission, didn’t preach his first anti-abortion sermon until 1978. Despite the durability of this “abortion myth,” the genesis of the Religious Right is rather less edifying. As the Internal Revenue Service began to scrutinize the racial policies of evangelical institutions, including church-related “segregation academies,” evangelical leaders rushed to defend the tax-exempt status of their schools, arguing that they should be able to retain both their racially segregated policies and their tax exemptions. Falwell, who had described civil rights as “civil wrongs” and who had his own segregation academy in Lynchburg, Virginia, led the charge, disingenuously asserting that Carter was responsible for endangering their tax status. Falwell, together with other leaders of the Religious Right, effectively turned evangelicals into hard-right conservatives. Carter’s reelection campaign in 1980 was bedeviled by a sour economy, the taking of the American hostages in Iran and a challenge from within his own party with the candidacy of Edward M. Kennedy. The formation of Falwell’s Moral Majority, together with the efforts of other Religious Right leaders, undermined the president further; by the end of the race, the Reagan-Bush campaign had begun to emphasize opposition to abortion, ignoring the fact that Carter had a much longer and more consistent record of working to limit the incidence of abortions. Carter’s loss to Reagan in 1980, and the defection of evangelicals from one of their own, were devastating to him personally. But his defeat also signaled the eclipse of progressive evangelicalism in American politics and the stampede of evangelicals toward the far-right precincts of the Republican Party. Only Hatfield, the senator from Oregon, remained as a national politician who advocated principles consistent with progressive evangelicalism; he retired from the Senate in 1997. The Carters, Jimmy and Rosalynn, returned to Plains in January 1981, four years earlier than they had planned. Carter told me that one of the reasons he rebounded so quickly from his defeat was that he had to keep reassuring his wife that they still had a life ahead of them and could continue to do good work. Eventually, he said, he began to believe his own rhetoric. Forced into political retirement, he set about making plans for his presidential library, and here, freed from political constraints, Carter would be able to act most fully on his religious principles. As James Laney, former president of Emory University, memorably remarked, Carter is the only person in history for whom the presidency was a steppingstone. He conceived the Carter Center as a working institution, not merely a celebratory one, and it has been extraordinarily effective in the eradication of disease, the monitoring of free and fair elections, and the pursuit of peace, justice and care for those on the margins. These are the principles of progressive evangelicalism that Carter sought to advocate throughout his political career. These are the principles he was able to advance even more fully once he left Washington. As a progressive evangelical, someone who took seriously the command of Jesus to care for “the least of these,” Carter might have been the last of his kind. He was also surely among the best of his kind.