Appropriated, but Unobligated: Impounding Climate Funds
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The Trump administration has undertaken a comprehensive effort to prevent the distribution of mandatory federal funding, including billions for climate programs. Attempts to cancel already-obligated federal funding awards have been among its most notable actions and have been met with a slew of lawsuits by aggrieved grantees, states, and other parties harmed by the cancellations. […]
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Ongoing failure to agree AR7 timeline is ‘unprecedented’ in IPCC history
Governments have, once again, failed to agree on a timeline for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seventh assessment cycle (AR7), two years into the process. Last week, more than 300 scientists and government officials from around the world met in Lima, Peru for the 63rd session of the IPCC (IPCC-63). According to the […]
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Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP30 climate summit
The centrepiece of every UN climate summit is for countries to negotiate the wording of a large number of legal agreements – and COP30 in the Brazilian city of Belém is no different. These texts are hashed out behind closed doors in the “blue zone” at the COP, where diplomats from nearly 200 nations haggle over […]
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Charting the future of AI, from safer answers to faster thinking
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Adoption of new tools and technologies occurs when users largely perceive them as reliable, accessible, and an improvement over the available methods and workflows for the cost. Five PhD students from the inaugural class of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab Summer Program are utilizing state-of-the-art resources, alleviating AI pain points, and creating new features and […]
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MIT researchers propose a new model for legible, modular software
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Coding with large language models (LLMs) holds huge promise, but it also exposes some long-standing flaws in software: code that’s messy, hard to change safely, and often opaque about what’s really happening under the hood. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are charting a more “modular” path ahead. Their new approach […]
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Climate Deception Cases Abound: They Aren’t All the Same
Around the world, companies face claims that they have misled or deceived the public regarding the climate impacts of their products. While these cases might all be characterized as “climate deception” cases, there are meaningful distinctions in the plaintiffs’ allegations and claims. This post draws on recent and upcoming developments to highlight some of the […]
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STAFF NEWS: Andrew Kieffer Joins the Sabin Center as Fellow for the Renewable Energy Legal Defense Initiative and Rebecca Lowy Joins as Climate Law Fellow
Andrew Kieffer joined the Sabin Center in September 2025 as a Fellow with the Renewable Energy Legal Defense Initiative, which uses legal research and engagement to support siting utility- and community-scale renewable energy facilities and associated transmission and storage equipment. His work focuses on identifying legal pathways to challenge land-use and siting barriers which impede the […]
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COP30: What does the ‘Baku to Belém roadmap’ mean for climate finance?
The Brazilian COP30 presidency has published a “Baku to Belém roadmap” on how climate finance could be scaled up to “at least $1.3tn” a year by 2035. The idea for the roadmap was a late addition to the outcome of COP29 last year, following disappointment over the formal $300bn-per-year climate-finance goal agreed in Baku. The […]
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Cropped 5 November 2025: Nature finance at COP30; Storms devastate crops; Brazilian deforestation decline
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight. This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. Key developments COP30 build-up FOREST FIX: In the run-up to COP30, Brazil announced that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon […]
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Teaching robots to map large environments
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A robot searching for workers trapped in a partially collapsed mine shaft must rapidly generate a map of the scene and identify its location within that scene as it navigates the treacherous terrain. Researchers have recently started building powerful machine-learning models to perform this complex task using only images from the robot’s onboard cameras, but […]
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COP30: Could Brazil’s ‘Tropical Forest Forever’ fund help tackle climate change?
Billed as the “Amazon COP”, the UN climate talks will see the debut of Brazil’s flagship fund to “reward” tropical countries for keeping their forests intact. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) will be launched at the COP30 leaders’ summit on 6 November. The fund aims to raise and invest $125bn from a range of […]
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Interactive: Who wants what at the COP30 climate change summit
Negotiators from around the world will soon descend on Brazil as it prepares to host the latest round of UN climate talks, on the banks of the Amazon river. COP30 in Belém will see them discuss issues including the best ways to track progress on adaptation and how to pursue a global “just transition”. Some […]
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Adler & Allan acquire Thomson Environmental Consultants and Atmos Consulting
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Jean Curran, Managing Director of Atmos Consulting, said the group were “excited to pursue growth as part of [Adler & Allan’s] Environmental Consultancy team while continuing to deliver the trusted, solutions-focused advice that defines our work.” Environmental services provider Adler & Allan has acquired the specialist consultancies, Thomson Environmental Consultants and Atmos Consulting from Mornington […]
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UNEP: New country climate plans ‘barely move needle’ on expected warming
The latest round of country climate plans ‘barely move the needle’ on future warming, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has warned. Executive director Inger Anderson made the comments as UNEP published its 16th annual assessment of the global “emissions gap”. The report sets out the gap between where global emissions are headed […]
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High-speed methanol engine for shipping now successfully tested, says Rolls-Royce
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The methanol engine is the product of six years of research, said the group. The world’s first high-speed marine engine running exclusively on methanol has been successfully tested, Rolls-Royce announced on 27 October, in what seems an important milestone for carbon-neutral shipping. While methanol engines in shipping have so far been demonstrated with the larger, […]
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Helping K-12 schools navigate the complex world of AI
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With the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence, teachers and school leaders are looking for answers to complicated questions about successfully integrating technology into lessons, while also ensuring students actually learn what they’re trying to teach. Justin Reich, an associate professor in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies/Writing program, hopes a new guidebook published by the MIT Teaching Systems […]
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3 Questions: How AI is helping us monitor and support vulnerable ecosystems
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A recent study from Oregon State University estimated that more than 3,500 animal species are at risk of extinction because of factors including habitat alterations, natural resources being overexploited, and climate change. To better understand these changes and protect vulnerable wildlife, conservationists like MIT PhD student and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researcher Justin […]
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Q&A: COP30 could – finally – agree how to track the ‘global goal on adaptation’
Nearly a decade on from the Paris Agreement, there is still not an agreed way to measure progress towards its “global goal on adaptation” (GGA). Yet climate impacts are increasingly being felt around the world, with the weather becoming more extreme and the risk to vulnerable populations growing. At COP30, which takes place next month, […]