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As is the case in many other countries, the low fertility rate in the United States reflects a combination of economic, social, and cultural factors. Credit: Shutterstock

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, USA, Nov 5 2026 (IPS)

Approximately 110 countries, including the United States, have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman.

In 2025, the U.S. fertility rate fell to a historic low of approximately 1.6 births per woman, extending a long-term downward trend that began in 2007 when the rate was still well above the replacement level of 2.1 births per woman (Figure 1).

Source: U.S. National Vital Statistics Report.

The decline in U.S. fertility to well below the replacement level has raised serious concerns among government officials, economic advisors, and business leaders. It has prompted two key questions: What is causing the low fertility rate in the United States, and what can be done to increase fertility?

As is the case in many other countries, the low fertility rate in the United States reflects a combination of economic, social, and cultural factors. These include rising living costs, financial uncertainty, declining marriage rates, greater control over pregnancy, a shortage of suitable partners for starting families, delayed childbearing, increasing childlessness, and fewer teenage pregnancies.

The historic low fertility rate in the United States of approximately 1.6 births per woman is unlikely to return to the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman any time soon. As deaths are expected to outnumber births around 2040, immigration will play an increasingly important role in shaping the country’s demographic future. Without immigration, the U.S. population could experience a substantial decline by the end of the century

Given the strength and complexity of these factors, the U.S. fertility rate is unlikely to return to the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman anytime soon.

Another contributing factor to the low fertility level is the high cost and limited availability of child care, which often makes it difficult for many parents to balance work and family responsibilities. In 2023, two-thirds of U.S. parents with young children spent at least 20% of their household income on child care.

The decline in teenage childbearing has also contributed to lower fertility. Since 1991, the teenage fertility rate has declined by 81 percent, reflecting factors that include improved access to long-acting, reversible contraception and expanded public health education. Whereas in 1991 teenage childbearing accounted for 13% of U.S. births, by 2025 the proportion had declined to approximately 3%.

Another possible factor is the widening educational and social gap between young U.S. men and women. Boys are falling behind girls in educational achievement and some measures of the transition to adulthood. For example, approximately 47% of U.S. women ages 25 to 34 have a bachelor’s degree, compared with 37% of U.S. men. These differences may affect relationship formation, making it more difficult for some women to find compatible partners and potentially delaying marriage and childbearing.

As young women surpass men in educational attainment in the U.S., some report difficulty finding partners with similar educational backgrounds and values. Other concerns include emotional compatibility, a limited pool of similarly educated men, and a dating culture that places less emphasis on long-term commitment.

Greater financial independence has also given women more freedom to decide whether and when to marry and have children. At the same time, some men struggle to establish careers and achieve financial stability, potentially creating mismatched expectations among prospective partners. Many women are also prioritizing education and careers and are less willing to enter relationships they do not consider suitable for long-term partnership and parenthood.

Women in the United States are also having children later in life. In 2023, the average age at which women had their first child reached a record high of nearly 28 years, reflecting a steady multi-decade climb from 22 years in 1960.

This shift reflects several factors, including higher educational attainment, career development, and greater access to contraception. First births among women aged 35 and older have increased, while births to women under 25 have declined, reflecting a growing tendency to delay motherhood.

Childlessness among U.S. women has increased across nearly all reproductive age groups, particularly among women in their 20s and early 30s. Approximately 40% of 30-year-old women in the United States are now childless, compared with around 18% in 1976 (Figure 2).

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

The current U.S. administration’s efforts to raise the country’s low fertility rate are unlikely to reverse the downward trend. Relatively small financial incentives alone are unlikely to overcome the broader economic, social, and personal factors influencing decisions about childbearing.

The administration’s efforts are modest compared with the pronatalist programs adopted by many other low-fertility countries, which have had limited success in raising birth rates. Moreover, the underlying factors keeping U.S. fertility well below the replacement level are unlikely to be adequately addressed by the country’s current administration and will probably persist for years to come.

With fertility remaining low, deaths in the United States are projected to outnumber births around 2040, with the gap widening thereafter. By 2080, the Census Bureau projects that annual deaths will exceed births by approximately one million (Figure 3).

Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Immigration, however, is expected to sustain population growth, bringing the U.S. population to nearly 370 million by 2080. Without immigration, the Census Bureau projects that the country’s current population of 343 million would begin declining in about 15 years and fall to roughly 226 million by 2100.

In conclusion, the historic low fertility rate in the United States of approximately 1.6 births per woman is unlikely to return to the replacement level of about 2.1 births per woman any time soon. As deaths are expected to outnumber births around 2040, immigration will play an increasingly important role in shaping the country’s demographic future. Without immigration, the U.S. population could experience a substantial decline by the end of the century.

Joseph Chamie is a U.S. consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, and the author of numerous publications on population issues.

Houses damaged by the flood in Trishuli Bazaar, Nuwakot. Credit: Sharada Bashyal/Oxfam

By Umar Manzoor Shah
NAIROBI & SRINAGAR, India, Nov 5 2026 (IPS)

The world’s wealthiest people are driving a disproportionate share of climate pollution while poorer communities bear the heaviest costs of floods, heatwaves, food insecurity and other climate disasters, according to a new report by Oxfam International.

The report, Disaster Divide: How Climate Chaos Deepens Inequality and Enriches the Few, published on October 27, 2026, argues that climate change is not simply an environmental crisis. It is also deepening existing economic and social inequalities, leaving people with the fewest resources struggling to survive and recover from increasingly destructive events.

The report highlights a widening divide between those who contribute most to global emissions and those who are most exposed to their consequences. Wealthy households can often afford safer homes, insurance, private transport and alternative accommodation when disasters strike. Poorer families, meanwhile, may lose their homes, livelihoods and savings, sometimes without the means to rebuild them.

“The richest 0.1% of people generate more consumption-based emissions than the poorest 3.5 billion combined,” says the report, highlighting the enormous gap between the environmental footprints of the wealthiest and the world’s poorest populations.

Oxfam argues that addressing the climate crisis requires more than cutting emissions. Governments must also confront the concentration of wealth, improve access to climate finance and ensure that disaster recovery policies protect vulnerable communities rather than disproportionately benefiting those who are already wealthy.

Mateo Adarve Zuluaga, Global Research and Advocacy Lead at Oxfam GB. Credit: Oxfam

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Mateo Adarve Zuluaga, Global Research and Advocacy Lead at Oxfam GB, said that the report shows that wealth can buy protection from the climate crisis. He said that the richest can purchase safer homes in better-protected communities and easily absorb rising food and water costs, while billionaires go as far as buying islands and building underground bunkers.

“California’s wildfires illustrate this starkly. Early warning systems alert wealthy residents, who hire private firefighters and evacuate by helicopter to five-star hotels, often with bills prepaid by their insurers. Those insurers charge up to six-figure annual premiums, and such policies are typically available only for properties valued above US$1 million.”

According to Zuluaga, poorer communities cannot cope in the same way, and in Altadena, a historically Black and brown middle-class community with a legacy of generational home ownership, many homeowners had no insurance or only partial cover.

He said that when the 2025 wildfires struck, countless families lost their homes, and with them, the main source of wealth built over decades. Desperate, many sold their ruined properties at discounted rates to predatory real estate companies, giving up both financial security and community ties.

“More broadly, for people already living in poverty, every flood, drought, wildfire or heatwave strips away scarce resources, destroying livelihoods and homes and pushing many into debt, displacement or homelessness. Hit by successive shocks, they struggle to recover and fall deeper into poverty. The report calls climate disasters “inequality machines”: a vicious cycle in which inequality creates the conditions for disaster, and disaster in turn deepens inequality. This is the disaster divide.”

When asked if the report estimates that the richest 1% have been responsible for around 20% of global warming since 1990 and that what policy measures should governments introduce to ensure that the wealthiest individuals and major polluters bear a fairer share of the costs of climate change? Zuluaga said  that the emissions of the super-rich and major corporations are driving the climate crisis, and together with historically high-emitting rich countries, they carry a responsibility to cut emissions first and fastest.

He added that they must also help redress the damage they have caused, including its impact on low-income countries and people living in poverty.

According to Zuluaga, governments should begin by adopting ambitious national climate plans aligned with the Paris Agreement and the fair share principle, cutting emissions fast enough to keep warming to 1.5°C.

He said that under this principle, the richest countries and the richest individuals, whose emissions far exceed everyone else’s, must lead the way with rapid, deep reductions.

“Taxation is the second key tool. Governments should impose permanent progressive taxes on the wealth and income of the richest 1% and introduce a permanent rich polluter tax on fossil fuel corporations so that profits above a low benchmark face a higher rate. Wealth and income from polluting investments should be taxed at additional higher rates, alongside windfall taxes on excess profits gained through market control. Punitive taxes on high-emitting luxury items and activities, such as private jets, would further discourage the most extreme emissions,” Zuluaga said, adding that finally, governments should regulate corporations and investors to cut emissions radically and fairly.

This means compelling them to disclose their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions across operations and supply chains, report regularly on progress, and set ambitious science-based targets with clear pathways for reducing emissions across all scopes in line with the Paris Agreement.

When asked if the research done in the report highlights the role of billionaire investments in high-emission industries and that how governments can hold wealthy investors accountable for climate damage without allowing corporations to shift the costs onto workers and low-income consumers?

Zuluaga termed it part of the just transition dilemma, and it can be addressed by making the wealthiest and most polluting actors pay for their pollution.

“Governments should introduce a polluter profits tax on fossil fuel companies, ensuring renewables become more profitable than fossil fuels, with revenues funding climate action in the Global South. Since the richest 1% have seen their wealth surge by US$33.9 trillion since 2015 while billionaires pay only around 0.3% in real taxes, taxing the super-rich is both feasible and fair. Governments should also end tax abuse by multinationals through effective global tax reforms,” he said.

To protect workers and consumers, energy should be treated as a human right and public good, with public and community ownership, transparency and community oversight guarding against elite capture. Finally, governments should shift away from the “Wall Street Consensus”, which socialises risk and privatises profit, so costs do not fall on ordinary people.

Activists at COP30. Credit: Karelia Pallan/Oxfam America

Speaking about the safeguards governments should introduce to ensure that public disaster-relief funds reach vulnerable people rather than reinforcing existing inequalities,

Resilience, according to Zuluaga, should not be measured by how much hardship people can endure but by how well societies look after one another. For too long, he said, the burden has fallen on the poor while the wealthy escape responsibility. To change this, governments must curb corporate power and ensure that climate response serves human needs rather than shareholder profit.

“First, governments should regulate corporate conduct in emergencies through enforceable codes and standards. Profit ceilings or excess profits taxes can prevent firms from profiteering on emergency contracts, while permanent windfall taxes on crisis profiteers, including a polluter profit tax, can fund climate action and be reactivated whenever disaster strikes. Temporary caps on prices and margins for essential goods during declared disasters would protect people at their most vulnerable. Insurance markets also need oversight to prevent excessive premiums or withdrawal of coverage, supported by tools such as government-backed reinsurance, catastrophe pools and affordability programmes.”

Second, he said, food systems require particular attention, and that the governments should stop further market concentration in agricultural inputs and commodities through windfall taxes, ban or tightly regulate speculative trading in food during crises, and cap the prices of essential food and farming inputs in emergencies.

“Finally, the public sector must be strengthened to lead disaster response and recovery, reducing reliance on private contractors. Public finance should take priority over private finance and be delivered as grants rather than loans, so relief does not deepen the debt of affected communities.”

Pubudini Wickramaratne, Land Rights Policy Lead at Oxfam International. Credit: Oxfam

Pubudini Wickramaratne, Land Rights Policy Lead at Oxfam International, in an interview with IPS said that Nepal is a powerful example of one of the greatest injustices of the climate crisis: those who have done the least to cause it are often suffering its worst consequences.

She said that despite contributing less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Nepal is experiencing increasingly severe climate impacts, from glacier melt and flooding to extreme heat and landslides.

“This reflects a much wider pattern across South Asia and the world. The people and countries most exposed to climate disasters are often those with the smallest carbon footprints. Meanwhile, a relatively small, wealthy segment of the global population is responsible for a disproportionate share of emissions. Our report sh

ows that the richest 1% account for around 17% of global emissions, while the richest 0.1% have contributed nearly 400 times more than the poorest half of humanity to the increased likelihood of the extreme heat events we are experiencing today,” Wickramaratne said.

Meanwhile, Oxfam argues that funding should prioritise vulnerable populations and not create additional debt burdens for countries already struggling with climate-related losses.

The report also challenges governments to examine the role of public policy in determining who benefits from economic growth and who bears its environmental costs.

Reducing emissions, it argues, must be accompanied by measures that make societies fairer and better prepared for climate shocks.

The report does not present climate disasters as isolated events that affect everyone equally. Instead, it describes a cycle in which inequality increases exposure to harm, disasters deepen poverty, and the resulting economic losses make future recovery more difficult.

It says that breaking that cycle will require both climate action and policies that address the distribution of wealth and resources.

With climate-related disasters becoming an increasingly pressing challenge for governments worldwide, Oxfam argues that the measure of an effective response should not be limited to the amount of money spent or infrastructure rebuilt.

It should, as per the report, also consider whether people who have contributed least to global warming can access the protection and support they need  and whether they are able to recover without being pushed further into poverty.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

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Shared memories of nuclear suffering in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk are helping drive new cooperation between Japan and Kazakhstan, linking nuclear disarmament, interfaith dialogue and peace education for future generations. Credit: INPS Japan

By Katsuhiro Asagiri
ASTANA / TOKYO, Nov 5 2026 (IPS)

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and decades of nuclear testing at Semipalatinsk left Japan and Kazakhstan with different histories of nuclear suffering. Those experiences have helped sustain a partnership that is now finding new avenues through interfaith dialogue.

Soka Gakkai International, or SGI, has worked with Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry, its United Nations mission and civil society organizations to explain the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and bring governments and activists together to discuss disarmament.

The Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions is providing another setting in which that cooperation can develop. On June 30, Soka Gakkai and Kazakhstan’s International Center for Interfaith and Interreligious Dialogue, known as ICIID, signed a memorandum of understanding in Tokyo. They are now discussing practical initiatives, including preserving the memory of nuclear suffering and educating young people about peace.

“The priority is not to create another programme on paper, but to identify two or three areas where we can do something together and demonstrate real results,” Gulsana Kozhabay, the center’s board chair, said in written responses to INPS Japan.

Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, executive director of Soka Gakkai’s Office of Public Affairs, who represented the organization at last year’s eighth congress, said in a separate written interview that the memorandum had brought their cooperation into “a new stage.”

Their responses point to an effort to build on existing disarmament partnerships by bringing survivors’ testimony and peace education more fully into the interfaith forum’s work.

With the MoU: Bakhytzhan Suyundikov, chargé d’affaires ad interim of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Japan (second left); Gulsana Kozhabay, chair of the board of the ICIID (center left); Shigeo Hasegawa, general director of Soka Gakkai in Japan (center right) and Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, executive director of Soka Gakkai’s Office of Public Affairs (extreme right). Credit: Seikyo Shimbun

A Partnership Rooted in Nuclear Experience

For Kazakhstan, disarmament is inseparable from national history.

The Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk between 1949 and 1989. Kazakhstan closed the site in August 1991, shortly before independence, and subsequently relinquished the nuclear weapons left on its territory after the Soviet collapse.

The first USSR nuclear test “Joe 1” at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, 29 August 1949. Credit: CTBTO

The circumstances of the atomic bombings in Japan and the nuclear tests in Kazakhstan were different, as were the patterns of harm. But the two countries share a responsibility to convey the enduring consequences for health, communities and the environment — and to prevent others from suffering them.

Kozhabay said the humanitarian dimension was particularly important at a time when nuclear weapons were increasingly discussed in terms of deterrence and strategic balance.

“These histories give both our countries a particular responsibility to keep the human consequences of nuclear weapons visible,” she wrote.

Soka Gakkai representatives began participating in the Congress at Kazakhstan’s invitation in 2018. The following year, an SGI delegation visited Semey and the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.

Soka Gakkai emphasized the significance of its delegation having witnessed the realities of the site firsthand and said it hoped to explore opportunities for more people to visit and deepen their commitment to peace and nuclear abolition.

Those exchanges have also helped produce a tangible record of suffering: I Want to Live On: The Untold Stories of the Polygon, a documentary made through cooperation between SGI and Kazakhstan’s nongovernmental Center for International Security and Policy, or CISP.

SGI described the film as a project developed with an NGO through exchanges dating back to 2018. It brings the experiences of people affected by nuclear testing into the debate over nuclear weapons.

Building on Diplomatic Cooperation

SGI’s partnership with Kazakhstan has also developed in settings where governments and civil society meet.

Documentary “I want to Live on” produced by CISP supported by SGI. Credit:CISP

SGI and Kazakhstan’s U.N. mission have co-hosted side events at Meetings of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and during Preparatory Committee sessions for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conferences. These gatherings, he said, have brought together government officials and civil society representatives to help build international support for nuclear abolition.

In 2023, SGI worked with Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, CISP and other partners to support a regional conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and the Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone. Representatives of all five Central Asian states participated.

In March 2025, Kazakhstan’s U.N. mission, CISP and SGI co-hosted a screening of the documentary at the United Nations alongside a nuclear-ban treaty meeting, connecting communities’ experiences with international policy discussions.

“What matters, I believe, is that these efforts continue, rather than remain one-off initiatives,” Nagaoka said.

He expressed a determination to deepen exchanges with Kazakhstan and build further examples of cooperation between civil society and intergovernmental diplomacy.

The memorandum with ICIID does not replace those relationships with the Foreign Ministry, the U.N. mission or nongovernmental organizations. Rather, the interviews suggest an effort to draw on their accumulated experience for new educational and exchange programs within an interfaith framework.

A Group photo of participants of the regional conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and nuclear-free-zone in Central Asia held on August 29, 2023. Credit: Jibek Joly TV Channel

From Religious Dialogue to Peace Education

Founded in 2003, the Congress has established a continuing forum for representatives of different faiths. At its 24th Secretariat meeting in Astana on Oct. 7, participants repeatedly asked what the trust built through those encounters should now produce.

Mohamed Abdelsalam, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Elders. Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

“The opportunity is to walk together and not just talk together,” Bishop Jo Bailey Wells of the Anglican Communion told delegates.

Mohamed Abdelsalam, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Elders, warned that “a declaration that is not implemented loses its functionality.” He called for clear responsibilities and follow-through that could be assessed against results.

Kozhabay sees youth peace education as a starting point for cooperation with Soka Gakkai. She proposed connecting the experiences of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk through youth exchanges, educational programs and public dialogue.

Drawing on the experience of Soka educational institutions in peace education and nuclear abolition education, Soka Gakkai is also exploring the possibility of sharing educational programs for young people through cooperation with Kazakhstan.

One project already under discussion is a Kazakh-language edition of six essays on peace by the late Daisaku Ikeda, former president of SGI. Editions already existed in English, Russian and Uzbek, with publication in Kazakh planned for 2027.

The book is not the partnership’s overarching objective. It is one initial undertaking intended to encourage young people to think about peace.

Kozhabay said she did not want cooperation confined to a predetermined list of projects. She welcomed Soka Gakkai’s proposals for joint publications, educational materials and cultural exchanges, as well as opportunities for her center to participate in the organization’s international initiatives.

“For me, a genuine partnership should work in both directions,” she said.

Yoshiyuki Nagaoka, executive director of Soka Gakkai’s Office of Public Affairs. Credit: Soka Gakkai

Putting Shared Ethics Into Practice

The potential areas of cooperation extend beyond nuclear abolition and peace education.

At the October meeting, the Secretariat adopted a document on religions’ role in addressing climate change and an ethical code for artificial intelligence in religious contexts.

Kozhabay similarly proposed bringing religious leaders, researchers, technology specialists and young people together to discuss digital manipulation, reliable religious information and human responsibility.

Japan’s Association of Shinto Shrines, Jinja Honcho, also contributed to the climate document. Its involvement illustrates how cooperation with Japan draws on more than one religious tradition.

Both documents are advisory, however. Further discussions are also needed before proposals for educational use of the documentary, environmental cooperation or AI-related exchanges become new joint programs. Existing achievements and prospective projects must be distinguished.

The meeting also supported a Kazakhstan–Holy See initiative concerning the rights of children with incurable diseases. The common thread connecting these different subjects is an effort to translate shared ethical convictions into cooperation that protects human dignity.

Religious leaders, representatives of international organizations and Kazakh officials gather for the 24th Secretariat meeting of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions at the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation in Astana on October 7, 2026. The gathering reflected Kazakhstan’s longstanding efforts to turn interfaith dialogue into practical international cooperation. Credit: The press service of the congress.

Erlan Karin,Vice President of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Left). Photo Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

Turning Trust Into Results

Vice President Erlan Karin, who chaired the meeting, emphasized the need to turn decisions into action. He asked the Secretariat and its partners to prepare a concept and phased plan for a proposed Global Movement for Peace, with initial results in 2027, ahead of the ninth congress in 2028.

Kozhabay was explicit about the limits of the Congress’s authority.

“The Congress cannot negotiate arms-control treaties, and it should not pretend to replace governments, diplomats or international legal mechanisms,” she wrote.

Its contribution, she said, was to preserve awareness of nuclear weapons’ humanitarian consequences, engage younger generations and maintain dialogue across political divides. Even without negotiating agreements, it could help build the public, ethical and humanitarian support needed to sustain them.

That is where the two interviewees’ views converge: remembering nuclear suffering should not be confined to looking backward. Education and international cooperation can carry that memory into decisions about the future.

Paolo S. Affatato of Agenzia Fides(Left) and Bishop Bailey Wells(Right). Credit: Katsuhiro Asagiri/INPS Japan

After the Oct. 7 meeting, Paolo S. Affatato of the Catholic news agency Agenzia Fides asked Bishop Bailey Wells whether spiritual diplomacy actually influenced politics. This correspondent audio-recorded the exchange.

“Certainly, I think it does have impact,” she replied, while expressing a wish for greater influence at government level.

“There’s nothing like meeting in person to build those relationships,” she said.

What those relationships produce is the next question. Cooperation developed over years between SGI and Kazakhstan’s diplomatic institutions and civil society is now informing discussions of new projects with ICIID.

For Kozhabay, success over the next decade should be measured not simply by the number of meetings held, but by what was “actually created, implemented or changed” because people came together.

For those seeking to preserve the memories of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk, that is more than a question about the future of interfaith dialogue. It is a question of what can be done now to prevent nuclear suffering from being repeated.

This article is brought to you by INPS Japan in collaboration with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with UN ECOSOC.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

Drawing on the experiences of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Semipalatinsk, SGI has worked with Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry and United Nations mission to advance nuclear abolition. That cooperation is now extending into youth peace education and other initiatives through an institution supporting the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.

By CIVICUS
Nov 5 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses India’s Gen Z-led protest movement and civic space restrictions with Avinash Kumar, National Co-convenor of Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, a network that works on government accountability. Avinash is also a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Equity Studies.

Avinash Kumar

In India, the cockroach movement, a Gen Z mobilisation born out of satire, has grown to become a nationwide challenge to the government. Protests first arose in response to anger over a leaked medical entrance exam and have since targeted a revision of electoral rolls that threatens to strip many people of their vote. Authorities have responded with mass detentions and new limits on where people can protest. This latest crackdown follows years of tightening restrictions on Indian civil society, with activists jailed and organisations starved of funds.

How did the cockroach movement emerge?

It started with this year’s national medical entrance exam, which was held on 3 May and cancelled on 12 May after a paper leak. The re-exam took place on 21 June, and in the meantime several students died by suicide. This was the latest failure of a highly centralised education system, in which engineering, humanities and medical entrance exams are all run centrally. The government has also pushed curriculum changes to suit its Hindu nationalist agenda.

Students’ anger needed an outlet. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a movement born out of satire, channelled it by demanding Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation. It could do so because the education crisis was only the tip of the iceberg. India is among the youngest countries in the world, with around two-thirds of its people under 35, yet young people face high unemployment and growing reliance on informal work. They make up about 83 per cent of unemployed people, while close to 90 per cent of all workers are in informal jobs. On top of this come a divisive communal agenda and failures on security and women’s safety.

The CJP captured the imagination of largely unorganised young people. Left-wing student organisations gave it organisational muscle, climate activist Sonam Wangchuk lent it wider legitimacy among everyday people and opposition parties led by Rahul Gandhi helped spread it. Pradhan resigned on 25 July. Although other protest movements had challenged the government before, this was the government’s first major retreat, and it resonated widely.

How did protests evolve after the minister’s resignation?

Within months, the protests widened to target the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, a nationwide review of voter lists. Civil society had been raising concerns about it for a while. But when The Indian Express and other media reported leaked disagreements within the Election Commission, the issue spread across the country and across sectors. Roughly 130 million names have been dropped from the rolls, about an eighth of the electorate. The Election Commission says it is only removing dead, duplicate and ineligible voters, but many fear it’s targeting Muslims.

The CJP became one of several organisations calling for a full rollback of the SIR, a review of recent state elections whose results are in doubt and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Over 300 civil society organisations have joined this campaign. In this phase, opposition parties and left-wing student groups have taken the lead, with figures such as Neha Bora of the All India Students’ Association and Aishe Ghosh of the Students’ Federation of India at the forefront. The CJP still mobilises people on the streets.

This gives the movement a much broader base than earlier ones. Past protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens, led by students and Muslims, as well as the 2020–2021 farmers’ protest movement, were largely seen as serving specific sections of the population. This one began with education and has expanded to the SIR, which people fear is a conspiracy to take away their votes and their basic rights as citizens. Because that threat concerns everyone, the movement cuts across classes, regions and religions.

How has the state responded?

The government has responded with massive force. In Delhi on 10 October, authorities deployed over 30,000 police and paramilitary personnel, detained more than 7,000 people and stopped many others before they could reach Jantar Mantar, the city’s designated protest site near Parliament. They shut metro stations, suspended internet services and used a sports stadium to hold detainees. Two days later, Delhi Police removed Jantar Mantar from the list of approved protest locations.

The government has turned the police into a partisan, brutal force and let pro-government mobs target protesters and independent media. Right-wing mobs have turned up at protests, and members of a group calling itself the Hindu Raksha Dal were arrested for allegedly assaulting students and manhandling women at one of them.

Women and girls have been repeatedly beaten and detained, yet they keep coming back. That resilience owes much to the anger over sexual assaults in Delhi and elsewhere, and women had already been mobilising in towns including Patna, Prayagraj and Varanasi.

How do these reactions fit into a wider pattern of civic space restrictions, and how is civil society responding?

They’re part of a longer trend. Civic space keeps worsening, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term has aggravated patterns set in the first two. The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), which governs international funding, is choking civil society’s resources. By March 2026, over 21,900 organisations had lost their FCRA licences. A bill to amend the law would go further. If passed, it would allow the state to seize the assets of civil society organisations whose licences have lapsed or been cancelled, and require the central government’s approval before any agency investigates FCRA complaints.

Human rights defenders are jailed for years without trial. Student activists Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid have spent over six years in prison. They were arrested in 2020, accused of conspiring to incite riots in Delhi during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. In January, the Supreme Court denied them bail, ruling that delay is no ground for bail under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and in July a Delhi court rejected fresh pleas. Sonam Wangchuk was held under the National Security Act, 1980, for around six months before the central government revoked the order.

Protests are crushed across the country, in mining areas and on the streets of Delhi and Mumbai. In July, police detained over 150 people who protested against the Ken–Betwa river-linking project in central India, including their leader, Amit Bhatnagar. Authorities routinely ban gatherings under section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, India’s criminal procedure code, and internet shutdowns and surveillance add to the pressure. A compromised judiciary and a largely pliant media make all this possible.

Human rights organisations have adapted to these restrictions in different ways. Some have taken to the streets alongside student groups and political organisations. Others have turned to building international support, mobilising global opinion and working with diaspora groups. They also support communities fighting on specific issues in different parts of India, challenge government decisions in the courts and build wider alliances.

How can civil society in other countries, international bodies and states support Indian protesters and civil society?

Governments, institutions and civil society abroad must name and shame the regime in all international forums and challenge its attempts to paint a glorious picture of itself. They should use the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council and its Universal Periodic Review process, treaty-body reviews and the UN Special Procedures, whose experts have formally raised the demolition of Muslim homes with the Indian government. They should also draw on reports from Amnesty International, CIVICUS and Human Rights Watch, and press freedom rankings such as those of Reporters Without Borders.

In November, the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions will review the accreditation of India’s National Human Rights Commission. This is another opportunity, and it should be backed by international political pressure through bilateral dialogues and parliamentary resolutions.

Funders and partners should protect human rights defenders through legal support, trial observation and visible solidarity with those in jail. Beyond that, human rights groups and social movements need to reconfigure their alliances with progressive student groups, and the international community can help create spaces for these conversations. Relying on diaspora groups is not enough.

What has the movement achieved so far, and what are your hopes?

Despite its aggressive stance, the government is already on the back foot, even if it government won’t admit it, and has announced measures to reinstate people removed from the voter rolls. But the revelations keep coming, people remain on the streets, and the movement refuses to die down.

People now openly distrust how elections are run, and many will not accept more elections under this government. But the Indian state is mighty and may try to wait until people’s energy runs out. The home minister boasts that his party will rule for another 30 or 50 years, but it is now clear that ideological hegemony alone won’t achieve that. Whatever happens next, the government’s legitimacy is now in doubt.

My hope rests on the student movement. It builds on the legacy of earlier movements and those still under way across India, and it’s part of a global wave of student protests. If it holds, as it seems to be doing, it could follow the path of neighbouring countries. The challenge is to rebuild a truly democratic state and the institutions that have been compromised and decimated. We must also restore a democratic culture and the values of the Indian Constitution, which are those of a secular, diverse and federal country.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Nov 4 2026 (IPS)

I have stood on the corniche of Abu Dhabi at many moments over more than thirty years. Each time, I reflect on the distance this city has travelled: from a shoreline shaped by modest commercial buildings and dwellings to a capital whose architecture, institutions and ambitions look far beyond the horizon. Glass towers catch the Gulf light. The dome of the Louvre Abu Dhabi scatters sunlight across the water. Yet the transformation that interests me most is not the skyline itself. It is the thinking behind it.

What does it take to build a city of the future? Wealth, certainly. Technology, increasingly. But neither is sufficient without a vision of the society that city should serve. As a frequent visitor, a resident and a longstanding friend of the United Arab Emirates, I have watched that vision take shape. What I see is not a finished model, but a remarkable, evolving example of a country turning resources into possibilities.

That vision did not begin with glass and steel. Some leaders build institutions. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan built a nation, and gave it a soul. With wisdom, patience and an open heart, he brought the emirates together in 1971 and planted the seeds of unity, tolerance and generosity that still shape the UAE today. He believed in his people, cared for the land and the sea, and reached out to the world with kindness. The newly declared Zayed the Founder Day, to be observed each year on 7 January, is a beautiful way to honour a man whose vision lives on in every corner of this country. May Allah bless his soul.

No honest account of the UAE’s rise can overlook hydrocarbons. Oil provided the means for an extraordinary transformation. But natural wealth does not automatically produce lasting prosperity. Resources alone cannot build the institutions, skills and economic diversity needed to sustain development. What distinguishes the UAE, in my view, is its determination to treat oil revenue not simply as income to be spent, but as capital with which to prepare for a different future.

Trade, tourism, finance, manufacturing and technology have broadened its economy. Investment in education, healthcare and research reflects an understanding that the most enduring national resource is human capability. For small island states such as Seychelles, the lesson resonates. Our circumstances differ greatly, but the question is familiar: how do we use today’s opportunities to strengthen tomorrow’s resilience? The answer cannot be to wait until vulnerability becomes crisis.

One of the most revealing aspects of Abu Dhabi’s transformation is its investment in culture. The Louvre Abu Dhabi and the wider Saadiyat Cultural District express an ambition extending beyond tourism. They place art, history and encounters between civilisations within the country’s vision of development. The preservation of Qasr Al Hosn and other heritage sites provides an important counterpoint. A city moving rapidly towards the future must also maintain a conversation with its past. Modernity is too often measured in height, speed and scale. Museums, libraries and places of learning offer something less easily measured: space for reflection, creativity and understanding.

The same principle applies to education and healthcare. Institutions such as NYU Abu Dhabi, Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi illustrate the effort to make knowledge and specialised care part of the country’s foundations. Here, the city of the future acquires its deeper meaning: not only in what it displays, but in what it enables people to become.

Artificial intelligence has become central to the UAE’s ambitions. Its digital investments and the establishment of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence signal a determination to help shape technological change. The value of that ambition lies in its human purpose: improving services, healthcare and education, and helping communities manage resources more intelligently. That responsiveness is also felt in ordinary moments.

I have often been struck by Abu Dhabi’s maintained public spaces, walkways and the sense of ease I experience walking its streets. The UAE ranks among the world’s safest places by residents’ perceptions of nighttime safety. Gallup’s 2025 Global Safety Report found that 90 percent of people surveyed in the country felt safe walking alone at night. For me, this is more than a statistic. That quiet freedom from fear is a precious part of daily well-being.

So, too, is the greening of a desert city. Trees, gardens and flowering verges soften the urban landscape. Abu Dhabi’s continuing tree-planting programmes, including native ghaf trees, seek to expand shade and improve the environment along walking and cycling routes. These are not merely decorative touches. They express care for how people experience the places they inhabit. As an islander and an advocate for ocean conservation, I am particularly interested in how urban ambition connects with environmental responsibility.

The UAE’s investment in solar power and other low-carbon energy sources, together with its net-zero commitment, reflects an effort to prepare for a changing energy future. Its continuing dependence on hydrocarbons also makes clear the complexity of that transition. The journey requires sustained implementation: cleaner energy, responsible water use, reduced emissions and habitat protection. The UAE’s mangrove restoration and marine conservation efforts are especially meaningful to me. Mangroves protect coastlines, shelter marine life and store carbon. Coral reefs sustain biodiversity and coastal livelihoods, even as warming seas place them under pressure. For Seychelles and other island nations, these are not abstract concerns. They are questions of security, identity and survival. A city’s relationship with the natural world does not end at its waterfront.

Another defining feature of the UAE is the diversity of those who live and work there. People from across the world contribute to its economy and daily life. Such diversity calls for more than mutual respect. It calls for belonging—and the assurance that every person’s safety matters, whatever their nationality. During the regional conflict, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan gave powerful expression to that responsibility, placing the protection of citizens, residents and visitors at the top of the UAE’s priorities. “In the UAE,” he said, “everyone is Emirati through their love for this land and their contributions to it.” I find those words deeply meaningful. They speak of belonging not simply as something felt, but as a responsibility embraced by leadership. The Abrahamic Family House, bringing a mosque, a church and a synagogue together within one complex, offers another expression of coexistence. That spirit must also be lived beyond symbolic spaces. Workers’ dignity, fair treatment and opportunities across different backgrounds remain essential measures of progress. Recognising achievements need not mean overlooking the work that remains.

My perspective is also deeply personal. Over decades, I have witnessed the friendship between the UAE and Seychelles develop into practical cooperation. During my years in public office, I saw that partnership support water and electricity infrastructure, renewable energy, healthcare, housing and education. For a small island country, such cooperation is felt in families’ lives: access to treatment, reliable water, a home, or better opportunities for children. I remember with gratitude the late Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. I also deeply value my longstanding friendship with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whose visionary leadership and commitment to his country’s development I have had the privilege of observing at close quarters. That friendship informs my account. It reinforces my belief that national achievement acquires greater meaning when it helps others strengthen their resilience.

The UAE’s experience cannot simply be replicated. Its resources, scale and circumstances are distinctive. The lesson here is not to imitate its skyline, but to draw inspiration from its willingness to imagine beyond present constraints—and to translate that imagination into action. Perhaps that is the deepest meaning of the UAE’s great leap. What I see taking shape is more than a skyline: it is a vision of prosperity that brings knowledge, culture, human well-being and care for the natural world into the same frame. Still evolving, still confronting the challenges that accompany rapid change, the UAE offers a beautiful example of what becomes possible when imagination is matched by the resolve to act.

Along Abu Dhabi’s corniche, the towers catch the light, but it is the horizon that holds my gaze. As someone who has returned to these shores over many years, and whose friendship with this country has deepened along the way, I find both beauty and inspiration in its unfolding story. I leave each walk with a feeling that reaches far beyond this waterfront: that the future need not simply be something we await. It can be something we have the courage to imagine—and the determination to build.

James Alix Michel is Former President of the Republic of Seychelles.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

Ship transits through the Strait of Hormuz have dropped by over 90 per cent since the crisis escalated in late February 2026. Credit: Unsplash/Angus Gray

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 4 2026 (IPS)

On November 2, the United States launched a series of limited, defensive strikes on Iranian targets on Qeshm Island and strategic areas along the Strait of Hormuz. Fired in response to earlier strikes from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on U.S. aircraft and drones over the Strait, U.S. President Trump noted that the operation does not signal a broader escalation of hostilities and that a diplomatic solution could still be reached.

“I’m not looking to, you know, kill lots of people, but if we have to, we’ll have to. But I’m not looking to do that. And we’re very strong right now,” Trump told Fox News on November 3. “Every ship is at the bottom of the sea. They had 288 airplanes. Every airplane is laying on small little pieces, tiny little pieces all over the runways of Iran. They have no airplanes.”

“They have no anti-aircraft. We took some out last night. It’s just a minor attack. It wasn’t war. They built an anti-aircraft facility. It took them about two months. We watched it get built; as soon as it was completed, we hit it last night very nicely,” he continued.

Occurring on the eve of the U.S. midterm elections, the strikes contradict Trump’s previous statement that the U.S. would not strike Iran ahead of the vote. The U.S.’s role in the Iran War has proven to be increasingly unpopular domestically, largely due to rising fuel prices and economic shocks resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This has created significant headwinds for the Republican Party as it aims to consolidate control over Congress.

The strikes, launched with no warning, came as Iran announced a two-day plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume nuclear talks with Washington. Iranian officials previously stated that the plan could be enacted within one week if the U.S. met seven of its core conditions. This includes lifting the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports and coastal areas, establishing a shipping route for the reopened Strait agreed upon by Iran and Oman, removing U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil, and agreeing to a ceasefire that extends to Lebanon.

On November 3, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament and chief negotiator, declared that Iran had “delivered a firm and rational response” to Washington, adding that “the ball is now in America’s court” to accept its conditions and prevent further escalation. He warned that Iran’s military is readily prepared to retaliate against future attacks from the U.S.

“If Washington makes another strategic miscalculation, it should know that this time, it will face a new battlefield and will find itself even more desperate than it is today,” he cautioned.

Regional officials in the Middle East reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Trump to intensify military strikes, citing concerns over Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and the need to establish absolute deterrence before Iran can rebuild its capabilities. Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, rejected these claims, stating that the U.S. is making its own foreign policy decisions without Israeli influence.

Before the strikes, U.S. Vice President JD Vance told reporters on November 2 that both he and the president felt “pretty good” about the prospects of reaching a negotiated settlement with Tehran.

“The Iranians are always a little unpredictable, and as the president always says, he retains kinetic options. He retains non-kinetic options, but we’ve certainly made some progress. We’ll see if we can make some more,” said Vance. “Having destroyed their nuclear program, we want to make sure they don’t rebuild it or try to rebuild it. That’s what matters most to the United States. We do think that there is a pathway there, but it really does require a firm commitment and a verifiable commitment that they don’t rebuild that nuclear program,” he added.

Hours earlier, Trump told reporters at the reopening of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington that Iran reportedly “want(s) to make a deal, and that could happen.” He added that Tehran previously requested Washington stop targeting its leaders, with Trump affirming that the U.S. would comply.

On November 3, Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, stated that Washington’s response to Iran’s demands was unsatisfactory, casting doubts that mediation efforts from Pakistan and Qatar have been effective.

“America’s response to Iran’s rights and demands was not convincing,” Rezaei wrote in a statement shared to X (formerly known as Twitter). “They must fully and explicitly address Iran’s seven conditions and act upon them; only in this case will the Strait of Hormuz be reopened.”

On November 2, Iranian authorities announced plans to train a paramilitary force of over 1 million volunteers amid fears of renewed hostilities. Ali Kowsari, deputy head of training for the Basij—a paramilitary force affiliated with the IRGC—announced that starting this week, 1,5000 training bases across the country will aim to train 1 million “sacrificial volunteers.” This follows the previous openings of similar facilities in Tehran in August and September.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

Dr Lindon Havimana from Solomon Islands National University (SINU) and Dr Christopher Cornwall from Victoria University of Wellington collect intertidal samples from the rocky shore for incubation experiments during PIOAC training in Wellington.

By Sera Sefeti
SUVA, Fiji, Nov 4 2026 (IPS)

The Pacific Ocean connects thousands of islands, and understanding how ocean acidification is unfolding across the region requires more than individual research projects or monitoring stations.

Scientists need observations from different island environments, collected over time, to understand how seawater chemistry is changing and what those changes could mean for marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.

The work is being strengthened through regional collaboration, with Pacific scientists sharing data, technical knowledge and research experience to build a more complete picture of a changing ocean.

Dr Katy Soapi, Pacific Community (SPC) Coordinator for the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science and a Pacific scientist, says the broader scientific community is aware that ocean chemistry is changing. The priority is now building local evidence to understand how those changes may affect different island environments.

“What Pacific scientists are now doing is building the local evidence needed to understand how those changes may impact our different island environments,” Soapi said.

“At many of our monitoring sites, we are seeing considerable natural variability in pH over days, months and seasons, which is normal,” she said. “It is important to capture this data over time because coastal waters are influenced by temperature, rainfall, freshwater inputs, biological activity, land-based pollution and local oceanographic conditions.”

PIOAC members with Salesa Nihmei from SPREP and a representative from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at the 6th International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO₂ World, Tākina Wellington. Credit: SPC

Monitoring programmes are at different stages across the region. Fiji has an established programme, with monitoring in the Suva area since 2023 and data that contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 14.3.1 reporting.

Samoa has received support through access to monitoring equipment, training and technical advice, while the Solomon Islands programme is newer, with scientists from Solomon Islands National University receiving regional and in-country training as they establish the technical capacity for long-term monitoring. Kiribati and Papua New Guinea also have their own monitoring histories and research priorities.

These differences matter when comparing observations across the Pacific.

“This variation is important; a harbour in Fiji, a lagoon in Kiribati, coastal waters in Samoa or reef environments in Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea can experience very different combinations of temperature, rainfall, freshwater input, current, biological activity and human pressure,” Soapi said.

“The Pacific is connected, but it is not environmentally uniform.

“This is why local monitoring is important and why we cannot rely solely on regional or global averages.”

Manibua Rota from the Ministry of Fisheries and Ocean Resources (MFOR), Kiribati, presents on ocean acidification monitoring in Kiribati at the 6th International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO₂ World, Tākina, Wellington. Credit: SPC

Connecting the Science Across the Pacific

The Pacific Islands Ocean Acidification Centre (PIOAC), established in 2021, supports efforts to connect national monitoring programmes and strengthen scientific capacity across the region.

The Centre brings together the SPC, the University of the South Pacific, the University of Otago and Earth Sciences New Zealand, formerly NIWA.

PIOAC’s work spans the Pacific, through joint work and ongoing discussions with nine Pacific Island countries and territories: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Tokelau and New Caledonia.

Its work includes providing monitoring equipment, technical advice, training, sensor troubleshooting, data management and quality assurance. It also connects Pacific researchers with international monitoring networks and supports countries in contributing data to regional and global reporting processes.

For scientists working in small teams across geographically dispersed islands, this support helps build the technical capacity needed to maintain monitoring programmes and generate reliable data over time.

Azaria Pickering, an ocean monitoring and technical officer at SPC in Fiji, says regional cooperation has changed how scientists approach monitoring.

“We’ve moved from monitoring our waters as individual countries to building a collective understanding of what’s happening across our Pacific Ocean,” she said.

“Through the Pacific Islands Ocean Acidification Centre and regional partnerships, we’ve created a community where knowledge is shared and challenges are solved together.”

She said the use of common equipment, methods and training was helping countries strengthen their monitoring programmes at home.

“We’re beginning to close critical data gaps across the region and use that evidence to engage our governments, shape national priorities and bring the Pacific’s experience of ocean acidification into global conversations, including at COP.”

For Dr Aleluia Taise of the National University of Samoa, the research is closely connected to the future of Pacific communities.

“As Pacific Islander marine scientists, we believe it is our responsibility as citizens and custodians of the Pacific Ocean to address priority issues affecting our livelihoods and wellbeing,” she said.

Taise says there remains a critical lack of scientific evidence needed to understand the effects of ocean acidification on coral reefs and coastal ecosystems.

“Research must be supported by stronger institutional backing, policy alignment and collaboration with regional and international partners to ensure it can continue.”

Azaria Pickering from SPC selects macroalgae from the holding tank for the biological incubation tests during PIOAC training at the Victoria University of Wellington Coastal Ecology Lab (VUCEL). Credit: SPC

From Measuring Seawater to Understanding Marine Life

While monitoring seawater chemistry provides information about changing ocean conditions, scientists also need to understand how these changes affect marine organisms.

This is the next area of research being developed by Pacific scientists.

In Wellington, scientists from Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati took part in biological experiments training from 5 to 9 October, gaining practical experience in studying how marine organisms respond to ocean acidification and higher temperatures.

The training is intended to strengthen research connecting changes in seawater chemistry with their potential effects on corals, shellfish and other marine organisms.

Soapi said biological research would help scientists develop studies around locally important species and better understand the implications for reefs, fisheries and livelihoods.

“Monitoring seawater chemistry tells us how conditions are changing, while biological research helps us understand what those changes could mean for the organisms that support our reefs, fisheries and livelihoods,” she said.

For Dr Lindon Havimana of Solomon Islands National University, the research is also about ensuring scientific knowledge reaches communities before the impacts become more pronounced.

His interest in ocean acidification research stems from a responsibility to understand, anticipate and communicate changes taking place in the ocean and to consider how communities can prepare for a threat whose impacts may not yet be fully visible.

“I believe that the greatest value of science lies not only in understanding environmental change but also in ensuring that knowledge reaches people early enough to make a difference,” Havimana said.

“As scientists, we have a responsibility to bridge the gap between scientific discovery and community preparedness, transforming evidence into awareness, awareness into action, and action into resilience.”

He said the implications extended beyond ocean chemistry to the health of marine ecosystems, coastal fisheries, food security and the continuation of traditional practices.

Participants from Samoa, Kiribati and Solomon Islands remove their monitored species after a 30-minute incubation at different pH and temperature conditions on Day 1 of the experiment during PIOAC training. Credit: SPC

Taking Pacific Research to the International Stage

These regional efforts were represented at the sixth International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO₂ World, held in Wellington, New Zealand, from 13 to 16 October.

The symposium brought together the international scientific community under the theme Moving from Understanding to Action using Multiple Knowledge Systems.

Discussions examined ocean acidification alongside ocean warming, deoxygenation and other pressures affecting marine ecosystems, with a focus on strengthening scientific understanding and connecting research with action.

For Pacific scientists, participation provided an opportunity to present regional research, exchange knowledge and strengthen relationships with the international scientific community.

It also highlighted the challenges facing island countries, including limited monitoring coverage, equipment maintenance, technical expertise and sustained funding.

Dr Kim Currie, an ocean acidification consultant working with SPC, said access to scientific resources differed across Pacific countries.

“Some countries like Fiji, Samoa and the Solomon Islands have the resources to do the careful measurements that are needed, but other countries do not yet have the scientist and equipment necessary to do this work,” she said.

“Working with regional and overseas partners to share knowledge and skills is one important step towards understanding how the Pacific Ocean will cope in the future.”

For Soapi, the importance of that support is also shaped by her own experience as a researcher.

Reflecting on her early work in ocean acidification, she recalled the challenges of deploying monitoring equipment and working in a field where regional scientific support was limited.

“I had received training, but I was nervous about deploying equipment – this was all part and partial of being isolated and being new in a field,” she said.

That experience has stayed with her and influenced her commitment to supporting other Pacific scientists, particularly those working in small teams across large distances.

“For me, coming together means building a Pacific community of scientists who can support each other, share knowledge and collectively understand the changes taking place across our ocean.”

The work underway across the region is still developing. More monitoring, biological research, technical training and sustained support are needed to strengthen the evidence available to Pacific countries.

But by connecting national research programmes and bringing scientists together, the region is building a stronger foundation for understanding ocean acidification.

The aim is not to produce one picture of the entire Pacific but to bring together the different observations and experiences that explain how a changing ocean is affecting individual islands, ecosystems and communities.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 

 

 

 

Related Articles

• Beyond the Horizon: Raising a Generation to Protect the Blue Pacific
• Pacific Ocean Under Pressure — Now a Region Finally Armed With Evidence
• Bridging Knowledge Systems: How Pacific Communities Are Reclaiming Climate Solutions Through Nature

Excerpt:

From Fiji and Samoa to the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea, Pacific scientists are connecting research, monitoring and expertise to better understand how changing ocean chemistry is affecting the region's marine environments.

By Anis Chowdhury
SYDNEY, Nov 4 2026 (IPS)

As in previous elections, the latest Israeli national election offered people no real choice. They had to choose between bad Zionists and good Zionists. Thus, unsurprisingly, there is no clear winner – both major blocs are neck and neck as usual. The only difference this time is the Arab voting power. By uniting and turning out in record numbers, the Arab coalition secured 19 seats (nearly double the 10 it won in 2022), against the Netanyahu-led bloc’s 53 and the Gadi Eisenkot-led bloc’s 48. Neither bloc has a governable majority, so many are looking to the Arab bloc as a kingmaker, either joining formally or supporting one of the blocs on the no-confidence and supply bills. But they are on the horns of a dilemma, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Anis Chowdhury

Bad Zionist and Good Zionist

The Gaza genocide and state-sponsored unprecedented settler violence have made Benjamin Netanyahu and his extreme rightist coalition partners bad Zionists. They have become indefensible to the so-called liberal Zionist friends of apartheid Israel. So, they have pinned their hope on a good Zionist retired General Gadi Eisenkot. To them, General Gadi Eisenkot is a good Zionist, not because he will stop Gaza genocide or ethnic cleansing of the occupied West Bank, but because he will apparently manage it better or make Zionism’s ugly face less visible to the world. So, in the lead-up to Israel’s 27 October election, the liberal Zionists declared this would be “the most consequential” in Israel’s history.

However, there is no good Zionist for the Palestinians or Arabs. The so-called good Zionist Eisenkot served in Netanyahu’s government for eight months during the Gaza genocide. He resigned not because he opposed the Gaza genocide; he differed with Netanyahu only on strategies. So, he is responsible for a long list of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eisenkot was the Israeli military’s chief of staff when Israeli soldiers massacred nearly 200 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in 2018. He is credited with being the mastermind of the Israeli’s army’s “Dahiya Doctrine”, which calls for disproportionate force against civilians. Eisenkot opposes Palestinian statehood, wants to perpetuate Israel’s apartheid system, and supports Israel’s illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Eisenkot’s coalition partner, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, entered politics as Netanyahu’s chief of staff. He served in the Sayeret Matkal and Maglan special forces units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and was accused of involvement in the massacre of more than one hundred Lebanese civilians in Qana in 1996. Bennett has openly called for the extrajudicial killing of Palestinians, while he reportedly told a national security advisor, “If you catch terrorists (i.e., a Palestinian), you simply have to kill them”.

Eisenkot’s other coalition partner, Avigdor Liberman, a former Netanyahu minister, has advocated that Israel’s citizens should sign a loyalty oath or lose their right to vote.

Lieberman justified the killing of at least 189 unarmed Palestinian protesters during the great March of Return in April 2018 by declaring that there are “no innocents in Gaza”.

Another Eisenkot coalition partner, General Yair Golan, considered the most “left-wing”, was previously the army’s deputy chief of staff. He has been one of the most strident advocates of genocidal crimes against Palestinians in Gaza. On 13 October 2023, Golan said in an interview with Ynet: “First of all, close all the electricity switches to Gaza. I think that in this battle, it is forbidden to allow a humanitarian effort. We need to say to them: listen, until the [captives] are released, from our side, you can die from starvation. It’s totally legitimate”. Thus, Golan echoed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s infamous statement that Gaza would receive “no power, no food, no gas” because Israel is “fighting human animals, and will act accordingly.”

Therefore, the Eisenkot-led coalition cannot offer any hope to the Palestinians. If bad Zionist Netanyahu is a rock, Eisenkot-led anti-Netanyahu is a hard place for them.

No good Zionist

There is simply no good Zionist. As the UK Green Party’s recently adopted motion says, Zionism is a form of racism. Pulitzer Prize winner Benjamin Moser, a Jewish child of Holocaust survivors, exposed the ugly truth about Zionism in his rigorously researched book, Anti-Zionism: A Jewish History.

Another child of Holocaust survivors, political scientist Norman Finkelstein has been more critical of the Zionist project, as contained in his several books, the most recent being Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry Into Corruption in High Places. His research has exposed the darkest side of the Zionist project, the apartheid state of Israel.

The Devil you know and the Devil you don’t know

The newly found Arab power will be most effective by accelerating the downfall of the apartheid state. This can only happen if the known Devil Netanyahu remains in power and the delusion of good Zionism is buried. Netanyahu is not the problem as the so-called liberal Zionists are trying to present; the problem is the Zionist project itself.

The New York Times insists “Israel has always been two things: a Jewish state and a liberal democracy”. One should not be misled by such nice slogans. An apartheid state cannot be a liberal democracy. It is an oxymoron.

Anis Chowdhury, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu.au

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

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• Frankenstein in Charge: Netanyahu Rejects Trump’s Gaza Plan
• Gaza Massacre and Western Hypocrisy
• ‘Unbounded’ Impunity Emboldens Israel
• The West’s Frankenstein Moment

Credit: metamorworks / Shutterstock

By Jordan Ryan
Nov 3 2026 (IPS)

 
Article 109 of the UN Charter provides a mechanism for reviewing the Charter itself. It allows a General Conference of all UN members to be convened by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and a vote of any nine members of the Security Council. As the Article provides, “Each Member of the United Nations shall have one vote in the conference.”

Even if the prospect of amending the Charter is bleak, a review conference could matter. It would give the wider membership a formal forum to set out the changes it seeks and put the five permanent members of the Security Council under public pressure to respond. That political value is reason enough for member states to begin the diplomatic groundwork, despite the formidable obstacles.

Paragraph 3 of Article 109 set a separate, lower threshold for consideration at the General Assembly’s tenth session. If no conference had been held before then, the proposal to call one was to be placed on the Assembly’s agenda, and the conference was to be held if a majority of Assembly members and any seven Security Council members so decided. Acting under that provision in November 1955, the Assembly decided that a review conference “shall be held at an appropriate time,” and the Security Council concurred the following month despite a Soviet vote against. Seventy-one years later, no conference has been held.

The idea has now returned to the diplomatic mainstream. In November 2024 the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa called for “a wide-ranging reform of the UN Charter, including the convening of a review conference” under Article 109. At the General Assembly this September, Japan’s Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, told the hall that the Charter, “which is now 81 years old, should also be reviewed.” Advocates grouped in the Article 109 Coalition now present a review conference as the most promising route to structural change.

Recent work published by the Toda Peace Institute and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation on reinventing the United Nations has reached a similar diagnosis. Several of the changes the organisation needs would require Charter amendment: a more representative Security Council, limits on the veto, and a Human Rights Council with the standing of a principal organ. That makes the case for Article 109 worth testing against the strongest objection to it.

That objection sits in the second paragraph of Article 109. Any change the conference recommends takes effect only when two-thirds of members ratify it, “including all the permanent members of the Security Council.” With 193 members, that means 129 ratifications, and every one of the five must be among them. The privilege that reform seeks to constrain thus returns at the moment of decision. Any permanent member could take part in years of negotiation and then decline to ratify the result. Sceptics conclude that a conference would raise expectations it cannot meet and leave multilateralism weaker than before.

That is an exacting rule, and some advocates of review pass over it too quickly. No procedural device removes it. Yet Article 108, which governs ordinary amendments, also requires ratification by two-thirds of members, including all five permanent members. The incremental path sceptics prefer offers no escape from the veto; it meets it one proposal at a time.

History suggests that permanent members can change position. In December 1963 the General Assembly adopted amendments that enlarged the Security Council from eleven to fifteen members and the Economic and Social Council from eighteen to twenty-seven. France and the Soviet Union voted against, while the United Kingdom and the United States abstained. All five nevertheless ratified, and the amendments entered into force on 31 August 1965. The weight of a membership transformed by decolonisation appears to have altered their calculation. The lesson has limits. Enlarging the Council left the veto untouched, and asking powerful states to surrender privilege is harder than asking them to share a table.

A realistic case for Article 109 therefore has to rest on what a conference can achieve whatever the permanent members decide at the end of the process.

The convening decision itself does not require all five permanent members to assent. Under Article 109(1), a two-thirds majority in the Assembly and votes from any nine Council members can call a conference. The 1955 vote, taken under paragraph 3’s lower thresholds, showed that Soviet opposition did not prevent the Council from concurring. More than 140 of today’s 193 members were not among the 51 states that founded the organisation. A conference would give them a formal voice in reviewing its founding text.

A conference could also generate political commitments that need no Charter ratification. Governments might adopt declarations or agree on interpretations of existing provisions. They could reaffirm Article 27(3), which requires a party to a dispute to abstain from voting on decisions under Chapter VI or paragraph 3 of Article 52, a provision rarely applied in practice. They could build on the General Assembly’s 2022 decision requiring a debate within ten working days after a veto. Such steps would not amend the Charter, but could raise the political cost of obstruction.

The risks run in both directions. Some governments fear that a conference could reopen existing commitments on human rights and gender equality, giving others an opportunity to dilute them. A Charter alteration would require a two-thirds vote in the conference and ratification by two-thirds of UN members, including all five permanent members. Those thresholds would make a regressive amendment difficult to secure, though they would not by themselves prevent non-binding declarations. A careful modalities resolution could define the proposed scope and open the conference by reaffirming the purposes and principles in Articles 1 and 2. Such preparation would take years, which argues for beginning the diplomatic groundwork now.

The strongest argument for Article 109 lies in the alternatives. Security Council reform negotiations have continued since 2009 without agreement on a reform package. Voluntary restraint has not prevented vetoes in the gravest crises. A conference cannot guarantee a revised Charter, but it would give the great majority of states a lawful forum to set out their terms and put each permanent member under pressure to explain its position publicly. The Charter provides this mechanism for review. Member states should decide whether to use it.

Related articles:

Reinventing the United Nations policy brief series
At Hammarskjöld’s Grave, Sixty-Five Years After Ndola
Governing the Ungovernable

Jordan Ryan is a Senior Consultant to the Folke Bernadotte Academy and Senior Counsel (Social Impact) for Hamilton Advisors. He is also a former Vice President for Peace Programs at The Carter Center, where he led strategic planning and implementation of peacebuilding initiatives worldwide from 2015-2018.

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from the original with their permission.

IPS UN Bureau

 

 

 

 

A view of the roof of the data centre operated by the Mexican company KIO Networks, in the state of Querétaro, in central Mexico, showing the facility’s ventilation system, which is necessary to keep the interior temperature low due to the enormous amount of heat generated by the servers operating inside. Credit: KIO

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Nov 3 2026 (IPS)

At first glance, a data centre in Mexico draws little attention, as it is usually housed in an industrial park, out of public view. But, in addition to emitting greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides, its cooling and fire suppression systems contain substances with strong environmental and health impacts: the so-called “forever chemicals”.

IPS found that at least five data centres operating in Mexico use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of synthetic gases with a global warming potential up to 7,000 times higher than that of CO2, the human-induced gas responsible for global warming. These gases also have an atmospheric lifetime of 15 years, according to data from ATMOsphere, an independent global accelerator for the air conditioning market.

Mexico hosts at least 144 data centres run by 44 providers in 69 cities, but most of the companies do not disclose whether their cooling and fire suppression systems use forever chemicals

Research published by U.S. government institutions has concluded that these gases accumulate in air, water and soil, and can be absorbed by animals and plants through ingestion or contact. They are also highly mobile, to the point of being present in the Arctic and the Himalayas, according to a 2023 study.

Forever chemicals, also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a large family of over 15,000 synthetic chemicals. They are needed to cool the hundreds of servers housed in data centres, which is key to prevent overheating and interruptions to their operations. However, the extent of their use in Mexico is unknown.

Mexico hosts at least 144 data centres run by 44 providers in 69 cities, but most of the companies do not disclose whether their cooling and fire suppression systems use forever chemicals.

Although Mexico is a party to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international agreement that entered into force in 2004 and aims to eliminate and restrict the production and use of dangerous chemicals, these substances are not regulated under national law, there is no inventory of contaminated sites and there is no systematic monitoring.

Teresa Roldán, member of the environmental advocacy group Vocer@s de la Madre Tierra in Querétaro, Mexico’s data centre hub in central Mexico, denounces the lack of oversight by the authorities and of transparency by the companies.

“Since they (the data centres) arrived, there has been no clear information, and as a result (the government) has let them operate without any supervision. We know nothing about the chemical substances. (…) They leave us in uncertainty about the substances and the discharges of liquid waste. There is no way they are not contaminating”, she said to IPS.

Roldán and her group have showered state and federal authorities with requests for information on issues such as water use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste management, but the authorities say they do not have the information or refuse to provide it.

Air conditioning system at the data centre of the U.S.-based company HostDime in the western city of Guadalajara. Credit: HostDime

Widespread use

Most of the data centres operating in the country do not have Environmental Impact Assessments describing the type of cooling and fire suppression systems they use. Only a few companies have made the information available on their websites.

For example, the MEX3 data centre of the Mexican corporation KIO Networks, located in Mexico City, explains the operation of a very early smoke detection apparatus (VESDA) that automatically detects smoke even before it is visible and proceeds to extinguish it. It works with the gaseous hydrofluorocarbon FM-200, also known as HFC-227ea or heptafluoropropane.

The KIO MEX5 data centre, in the municipality of Tultitlán, in the state of Mexico, which borders Mexico City, also says it uses a clean agent suppression system. Most clean agents are hydrofluorocarbons, although the company does not specify which one it uses. The same is true of the KIO MTY1 centre, located in the municipality of San Pedro Garza García, next to Monterrey in the state of Nuevo León, northern Mexico.

Clean agent fire suppression systems are normally used instead of water-based systems because of their non-conductive, residue-free properties, while the latter can damage servers.

Novec, an evaporative fluid, has become the popular choice for high-capacity data centres. The substance boils on contact with electronic components and thus absorbs a large amount of latent heat of vaporisation.

The Mx1 Querétaro facility, owned by U.S.-based Equinix Inc., uses Novec 1230 gas in its fire suppression system, which contains PFAS. The U.S.-based 3M, its manufacturer, has announced the discontinuation of Novec to comply with international regulations to eliminate the use of forever chemicals.

The data centre of the binational NGX Networks in Nogales, in the northern state of Sonora, also uses a refrigerant gas containing forever chemicals.

Various scientific studies have found PFAS at the poles and in the oceans. Multiple studies in the United States and Europe link them to cancers of the kidney, pancreas, testicles, uterus and endometrium, as well as to multiple myeloma. They are also considered endocrine disruptors. Their useful life exceeds 20 years. In the PFAS life cycle, the usage stage is the critical one because of its high emissions to the environment.

Hydrofluorocarbons emerged under the Montreal Protocol, which came into force in 1989, to replace gases containing chlorine and bromine that deplete the ozone layer and to meet growing demand for industrial, commercial and residential refrigeration. But these gases are very powerful climate pollutants, which is why they are the target of global reduction, as happened with the halogens covered by the Montreal Protocol.

The risk of chemical contamination clashes with the Mexican government’s promotion of data centres as part of its drive for industrialisation under the National Strategy for Industrialisation and Shared Prosperity, known as Plan México, a mix of energy, technology, pharmaceutical and even food projects.

It also adds to the centres’ high energy and water consumption in places already suffering water stress, such as Mexico City and Querétaro.

The data centre operated by the Mexican company KIO Networks in the central state of Querétaro is located in a populated area, near homes and schools, where air, soil and water pollution can spread. Credit: KIO

Forever chemicals in cooling systems

Recent research by Leonard Siegel, the California-based non-governmental organisation Center for Public Environmental Oversight executive director, shows that the data centre industry uses PFAS as an alternative to reduce the use of water, the liquid most commonly used in cooling systems.

Like Roldán in Querétaro, Siegel questions the lack of information on the forever chemicals consumed in data centres in the United States.

“The companies are not sharing the information. And we are now more concerned about the planned ones than the ones under construction”, he said to IPS, citing their size, the scale of their operations and, consequently, the type and quantity of equipment required.

In both Mexico and the United States, data centre companies do not disclose the volume of refrigerant they replace each year, the chemical releases during the normal operation of the centres, or the losses during the installation and maintenance of equipment.

Nor is it clear whether forever chemicals contaminate the wastewater discharged by data centres.

PFAS are used in data centres mainly as refrigerant gases and in immersion cooling fluids. The most common cooling method consists of using PFAS gases in a compressor system, like a refrigerator, to cool air or water for the computers.

The problem grows when the degradation of PFAS leads to the formation of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), which has appeared in rain, beer, tea and fruit crops, according to a 2024 study by five experts from scientific institutions in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. TFA alters levels of thyroxine, a thyroid gland hormone that is vital for regulating human metabolism, according to a 2025 study by 11 specialists from Austria.

Racks of servers in the data centre of U.S.-based company Equinix in the state of Querétaro, in central Mexico. Credit: Equinix

Traditional data centres use heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that include a condenser, whose main function is to convert vapour into liquid or release heat to the external environment. Most air conditioners contain forever chemicals. In the HVAC case, these liquids can be recycled or become part of the liquid waste the facility discharges.

A more advanced setup is the computer room air conditioner (CRAC), which regulates temperature, humidity and airflow using a compressor, an evaporator and a condenser, and is designed for small and medium-sized data centres.

Larger facilities operate computer room air handlers (CRAH), using chilled water from a central chiller plant. These require greater investment in infrastructure but are more efficient, which results in long-term savings, as explained by Exposiciones Industriales de México, organiser of the largest air conditioning trade fair in the country.

Historically, data centre chillers and CRAC and CRAH systems have used the refrigerant gas R-134a, which contains PFAS.

Data centres of companies such as Equinix, KIO and Scala use CRAC or CRAH systems, according to their public reports. The facility of the U.S.-based HostDime, planned to operate in Guadalajara, will have an HVAC system.

The density of a data centre relates to the amount of computing capacity installed in a given area. Data centres currently being built to support the development and operation of artificial intelligence systems can concentrate tens of kilowatts in a single structure.

This gives an idea of the volume of heat to be generated and of the forever chemicals or water needed to cool the servers.

For example, Ascenty-01, Microsoft’s data centre, plans a first phase of four data rooms, out of a total of 10, with a total of 2,992 electronic equipment racks, according to the environmental impact assessment obtained by the Latin American Observatory of Data Centers. Each data room, with a capacity of 2 MW, will have 13 CRAH units, 11 in operation and two on standby.

KIO and Ascenty did not respond to the reporter’s request for comment. The Mexican Association of Data Centres initially replied to the reporter but declined to answer the query on the subject. Nor the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources answered the question about the lack of PFAS regulation in the country.

According to Noemí Quiroz, senior consultant for non-governmental organisation Centro de Estudios e Investigación en Asuntos Públicos (CEIAP), installing data centres without a regulatory framework to identify their positive and negative consequences has been a bad idea.

“There is no regulatory framework for environmental issues or for placement, and there is no standardisation of procedures. The states do not have regulation either. International evidence was not considered. The situation now calls for regulation”, she told IPS.

In an upcoming study, CEIAP assessed all the country’s towns to identify the most suitable ones for building data centres, based on the availability of resources such as water, land, labour and security.

It also analysed the digital policy of the country’s 32 states against 79 standards, seven of them on data centres.

Racks of servers operated by the Mexican company KIO Networks in the central state of Querétaro, which require intensive cooling systems to dissipate the heat generated by the computer equipment. Credit: KIO

Suspensions in the face of risk

In a document submitted to federal authorities, activist Roldán requested a suspension of the operations of all data centres in Querétaro, as well as a moratorium on the approval of new projects, until water, environmental and risk information on substances such as forever chemicals is made public. “What problem are they going to leave us with? We must prevent them before they keep granting more land concessions and electricity”, she warned.

For Siegel, the prospect of facilities with greater computing capacity opens a window to curb further chemical pollution, as he believes that “we are in a situation where we have an opportunity to stop the use of PFAS in cooling before its use begins, but powerful companies are waiting for authorisation for their commercialisation” in the United States.

Specialist Quiroz suggests a national policy that identifies and fills existing regulatory gaps and addresses territorial and energy planning, as well as encouraging the disclosure of information.

“A regulation determined by size (of the facility), with specific criteria and municipal and federal jurisdictions, that establishes comparable indicators for energy, water and resource-use efficiency, through which regulators can learn the characteristics of data centres” she proposed.

While data centres process poisons, answers must emerge from the depths of their powerful systems, as Roldán and Siegel demand: which substances, and in what quantities, they use to cool their computing systems; how much they release into the environment; what they do to prevent these releases; what they do to replace hazardous substances and polluting gases; and whether they will be liable for the environmental damage.

*This investigation was supported by the grant ‘Un Polo a Tierra’ escuela de periodismo para la industrialización verde en México’, sponsored by Periodistas por el Planeta.