ClientEarth

🐬📢 We're taking action against destructive bottom trawling in Italy📢🐬

Precious habitats and species including bottlenose dolphins are being harmed by fishing trawler nets, dragged along the seabed in Italian waters.

What’s worse – this is happening in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which should be safe havens for the marine life that live in them.

So, with Legambiente and support from Blue Marine Foundation, we’re urging the authorities in charge of these MPAs to take steps to avoid the destruction of these sites and protect vitally important marine habitats and species.

This is the latest in a series of actions we’ve taken on bottom trawling and other destructive fishing practices in Europe.

Our key goals are:

👉 Highlighting that the authorities in charge of these MPAs are obliged to effectively protect them.

👉 Making sure that authorities complete seabed habitat mapping and adopt effective management measures for MPAs to comply with EU nature laws.

👉 Requiring authorities to conduct the necessary risk assessments on the impacts of bottom trawling in these sites and adopt protective measures.

“Protected must mean protected. Our research shows that local authorities in Italy are ignoring their legal obligations to protect these ecologically significant sites. That’s simply not good enough. Our legal action is putting Italian authorities on notice: the critical issue of destructive bottom trawling must be addressed.” Francesco Maletto, ClientEarth lawyer

As UK MPs return after the summer recess, we’ve prepared them a short briefing ✍

This summer has seen extreme heat, wildfires, deaths and records broken in all the wrong ways. The Met Office says it’s on course to be the hottest UK summer ever. We’ve seen more wildfires this year so far than in the whole of 2025.

And we’re not happy about the government’s response. A new poll by Public First shows that 45% of a cross section of people in the UK think Andy Burnham has been too slow to act following these climate disasters. Only 20% think he acted effectively.

We’ve also spent this summer on tenterhooks, waiting for a decision on greenlighting two huge new oil and gas projects in the North Sea (one of which has already been ruled unlawful by a Scottish Court), and being misled by the false justification that doing so will bring down bills and make us more energy secure.

Plus, this is all happening as some UK parties threaten to get rid of climate targets entirely, targets essential for the country to avoid even hotter summers, more wildfires and many other disastrous climate impacts.

There have been some glimmers of hope - towards the end of August, researchers found that children in London whose lung growth had been stunted by pollution were showing big improvements in lung capacity thanks to the 2019 introduction of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone. As welcome as this news is, it contributes to the same picture 👇

🔬 The science could not be clearer: if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change on our health, livelihoods and environment, worse even than the ones we've experienced this summer already, we MUST phase out fossil fuels and minimise our carbon emissions.

We look to our leaders to forge a path towards a better future but are being let down. We need the UK government to urgently take action by:

🛢️Not allowing new oil and gas projects in the North Sea.

⚖️Recommitting to the legally binding climate targets already in place.

💡Showing strong climate leadership by being honest with the UK people about the crisis we are facing and how the country will adapt.

😭A major set-back for corporate accountability and climate justice😭

In a move we knew - but couldn't quite believe - was coming, New Zealand has now passed its Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, banning climate related tort claims against big polluters.

This includes the current landmark lawsuit being taken by activist and Māori elder Mike Smith against New Zealand mega-scale dairy company Fonterra, and which the NZ Supreme Court had said can proceed to trial.

The New Zealand Government’s Justice Committee recommended that the Bill be passed without amendment despite huge public opposition raised during the select committee process. Of the 623 submissions, 93% opposed the Bill and only 2.6% supported it.

"The effect of this legislation is clear: it would shield major greenhouse gas emitters while restricting the public's ability to seek justice for climate harm. This is a political choice to prioritise short-term private profit over fairness, accountability and the rule of law." Laura Clarke OBE, ClientEarth CEO

🏭 Big corporations are among the world’s most powerful actors – and too many are driving the climate, pollution and biodiversity crisis through destructive business models. Mechanisms to hold them to account are essential and MUST be protected.

🎉 A major win for the Gulf of California. 🎉 Earlier this year, tens of thousands of people joined ClientEarth, NRDC and our partners in calling on Santander and JPMorgan Chase to stop supporting the dangerous Saguaro LNG project.

Last month, more than 90,000 petition signatures were delivered directly to the banks’ offices in Mexico City.

Now, Santander has publicly distanced itself from the project.

Santander had been publicly identified as one of the financial advisers working with Saguaro’s developer as it sought financing for the project.

Saguaro threatens to turn the Gulf of California — one of the richest marine sanctuaries on Earth — into a shipping corridor for huge LNG tankers, putting whales and countless other animals at risk.

This win proves something bigger: when thousands of people raise their voices together, even a global banking giant can be pushed to change course.

But the fight isn’t over. JPMorgan Chase remains connected to Saguaro, and we’ll keep pushing financial institutions to stay away from this dangerous project.

Thank you to everyone who signed, shared and spoke up. This is your win too. 🐋

Poland’s solar panels are on a roll 😎

In June, photovoltaics generated more than 3 TWh of electricity – the highest monthly figure on record and almost a quarter of Poland’s electricity mix.

That’s good news, but it’s important to remember that producing more renewable energy is only half the job.

If we don’t use the electricity we produce right away, it has to be stored for later or used somewhere else. When renewable production is high and the system can't absorb it, installations may be told to reduce production.

So the challenge is not only how much clean energy we produce, but also how smart we are about it.

This is where energy communities can help, since they bring together households, tenants, small local businesses and public services with different patterns of energy use. They can also invest collectively in batteries, EV charging and other flexible solutions.

That gives people more control over their energy, while the electricity system gets something it badly needs: flexibility.

Two things need to be true, though:

1. Energy communities must work as they’re intended to: as community-driven projects. That means producing, sharing, and storing energy, balancing local production with local demand. In plain terms: using local energy when the sun is shining and electricity is abundant. Charging cars, heating water or running appliances when solar panels are producing the most, and storing surplus to use later in the day, when demand is higher and production is lower.

2. People must be able to establish and run them. EU law already gives them the right to create and benefit from energy communities, but complicated and ineffective rules in Poland and Hungary are still standing in their way.

That’s why ClientEarth has filed complaints with the European Commission.

Energy communities will not solve every grid problem, but they can help us use more renewable electricity when it’s available, instead of losing part of its potential. Lower bills, stronger communities, more resilient energy systems.

The clean power is growing, it’s time for the rules to catch up!

💡We're taking legal action against Poland and Hungary, because affordable, clean energy shouldn't be a privilege.

One thing that the energy crisis of the past few months taught us is that we should stop relying on the expensive, unpredictable fossil fuel market.

That's where Energy Communities can make a difference! They allow people living in apartment blocks, tenants, municipalities, and small businesses to get together to produce, use, and share renewable energy locally.

Picture this: by combining solar and wind you could save up to €930 a year.

In Policzna, a municipality in Poland, an energy cooperative helped cut the town hall's electricity bills by almost 90% and avoid increases in water and sewage prices.

EU countries were required to make it easier for people to participate in renewable energy communities. Yet five years after the deadline, Poland and Hungary still have national rules that make it too difficult, unclear and expensive to set one up.

That's why we have just filed complaints with the European Commission, asking it to investigate whether Poland and Hungary have breached EU law and require them to remove the barriers to accessing energy communities.


The law already exists. Now governments need to make it work in practice and put power in people's hands.

Read more: https://brnw.ch/21x4zQl

🌎Today is 2026's official 🌎

❓But what does that really mean?

Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year:

👣Carbon footprint

🏙️Built-up land

🌳Forest products

🐄Cropland and pastures

🐟Fisheries

Earth Overshoot Day has been trending earlier and earlier since it was first measured. We’re currently seeing the highest level of ecological overshoot ever recorded, with humanity using nature 73% faster than Earth’s ecosystems can regenerate.

We are demanding more and more from the Earth, but the amount it can regenerate stays the same: emitting more carbon than ecosystems can absorb, harvesting more resources than can be replenished, and placing more pressure on forests, fisheries, croplands and other natural systems.

☀️🔥This overshoot drives climate change and its intensification of extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, as well as deforestation and land degradation. It also fuels economic instability, food and energy insecurity, health crises, and conflict.

Although we measure one global Earth Overshoot Day, each country has its own too.

And, because climate change disproportionately affects lower-income people and countries, those who find themselves on the front lines of climate change’s catastrophic effects are often the ones who overshoot much later in the year, or not at all.

🏭The IPCC found that emissions from fossil fuels are the dominant cause of global warming – we know that phasing them out is a non-negotiable for avoiding climate catastrophe and keeping us as close to the 1.5C goal as possible.

👀We need to see bold and ambitious action rather than just promises from world leaders to turn this into a reality. This doesn't have to be our destiny .