Climate reporting has not had a good 2026 so far, with specialist teams at Washington Post, CBS News and NPR either drastically cut or folded into the rest of the newsroom. As long-time reporter and commentator Sammy Roth says, there's no conspiracy here. Instead climate is getting the short-end of the stick over and over again when it comes to budget worries and (in my opinion short-sighted) editorial strategy.

That doesn't mean there's no climate focused journalism going on. In fact I'm always a little overwhelmed with stories to share here. But the list of places where reporters specifically focus on the drivers and impacts of climate change for a broad, non-specialist audience is increasingly short one.

Here's a few stories that stood out to me this week:

Coal, at any cost

Last week, the Trump administration announced $700 million in funding through the Defense Production Act for projects intended to prop up or modernize coal plants in more than a dozen states.

The money to build new coal plants is coming from funds that Congress originally approved for carbon capture technology, which sucks carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of polluting facilities and stores it deep underground. Last year, the Energy Department issued a notice telling companies they could use the money for “reliability upgrades” in the near term and install carbon capture later.

It's another move trying to backstop coal power in the US even as it becomes economically less relevant than renewables or gas. Before this, Trump has cut back on water quality protections and air quality controls on toxins like mercury near plants. They have also forced several coal plants to keep operating past their planned closure date.

One of the plants required to stay open, ostensibly under the rationale of electrical grid reliability, is not even operating because it needs repairs (it was supposed to close for good in December). I recently fact-checked this feature story by Kari Lydersen at Canary Media, which describes how this Indiana plant, and its neighbors around it, finds itself caught between the Trump's administration backing coal and a new push for data centers (and gas fired power) in the Midwest.

The Indiana community caught between coal and the data… | Canary Media

In rural Jasper County, two defining energy trends of the Trump era — reviving coal and building gas-powered data centers — are converging.

May be time to rename Climate Pledge Arena

The Bezos Earth Fund has pledged to fund $10 billion in climate projects by 2030. So far they have given away just under $3 billion, well off pace, with a particularly underwhelming 2025. This is somewhat representative of climate philanthropy at large: I've heard of and read about several large funders pulling back. But it's the size of the Bezos Fund that means the gap is even more notable.

This article identifies that its not entirely an issue of making new grants; some of the projects are even getting interrupted or slowed midstream:

Early on, for example, the fund committed more than $37 million to help electrify every school bus in the US by 2030. At the time, the grant dovetailed with federal incentives to boost electric school buses. But the US government has since delayed or halted its support, and subsequent grants by the Earth Fund have amounted to $6 million. The proportion of electric school buses in the nation’s fleet now barely exceeds 1%.

I've never tried to give away $10 billion, so I'm honestly interested in what the hold up is. The fund has gone through a leadership change and is clearly being cautious about its process:

“We take the time before getting into an area to understand it and make sure we’re having the greatest impact that we possibly can,” said Kelly Levin, chief of science, data and systems change at Bezos Earth Fund. “Are we supporting the right organizations at the right time? Can we measure the impacts in terms of the benefits to nature and the climate?”

It’s an approach fund officials described as prioritizing long-term impact rather than dollars deployed. It doesn’t encompass new strategies for accelerating spending, which is now at roughly half the pace needed to meet the Earth Fund’s 2030 target.

Not every climate-focused philanthropist is having trouble spending though, Ben Elgin and Sophie Alexander write, citing increased giving from funds from Sergey Brin and Steve Ballmer, and $1 billion in one year from Bezos' ex-wife Mackenzie Scott.

A bigger question is what the money is paying for. Late last year, major climate donors launched a $300 million fund, but it is explicitly focused on reducing health impacts of climate change, not emissions cuts.

Climate governors races

There are 36 state governor elections this year; two I think will have the biggest impact on climate policy is California and Michigan.

Arguably the most climate-forward candidate (and also a billionaire) in California, Tom Steyer, is currently running third in the state's all-party primary, making it unlikely he will be on the general election ballot in November, and frankly, less likely that the candidates will spend time arguing about climate as a priority. Sammy Roth has a column on the opportunity and frustration of the state's climate leadership and backtracking that's showing up in the governor's race.

In Michigan, term limits means the governor's race has no incumbent. Bridge Michigan has asked the eight candidates running in the Democratic and Republican primaries their plans about data centers and clean energy, and about the environment broadly.

Michigan's primaries are August 4.

The war with Iran, at home and abroad

The strait of Hormuz is still closed, cutting off a key transit point for both oil and natural gas to the rest of the world. In the U.S. this has mostly meant higher gas prices and prices overall. A recent Bloomberg Cities story indicates this may be shifting some people to transit in cities like Los Angeles and Boston, which have seen increased ridership from the beginning of the year.

While gas costs seem to increase pressure overtime, it's not a sure thing to move people to transit, especially in cities with limited or struggling transit agencies.

With the Iran war at a stalemate, gas prices are expected to remain high throughout 2026. Even so, Iseki said drivers are loath to give up their wheels. After the oil shocks of 2008 and 2022, drivers largely returned to old habits when gas prices declined, according to researchers.

In Asia, the story is different. Unable to pay much higher prices for imported liquid fossil fuels, some countries have turned to as many alternatives as possible, including a loan guarantee in the Philippines for rooftop solar:

In mid-April, Serrano had solar panels and batteries installed on his property. At around $9,700, the price of the system is equivalent to his annual pay, but he was able to take advantage of a new program by the Philippine government, which offers low interest loans of up to 500,000 pesos ($8,100) for residential clean energy. Now his monthly electricity charge from the power utility will be about $16 — one-eighth of his previous bills. “I will still have to face the loan,” he said. “But at least it’s a fixed amount.”
The loan scheme is part of a package of measures that Manila has implemented to try to cushion the blow from the energy shock. With citizens and businesses facing rising petrol and diesel prices, the government has cut fuel taxes and offered free bus rides to the public. To reduce pressure on the grid, they have asked the public and government offices to cut their energy use, and told coal power plants to burn more to replace natural gas.

Other stories I'm reading

• An Indian Billionaire Was Targeted by Trump. Then He Poured Money Into a Startup Secretly Backed by Donald Trump Jr. (ProPublica) (there's a climate angle here too)

• A local's guide to America's 250 in Washington (CityCast)

• Check your deed records folks or that land you donated might turn into a data center (404 Media)

• This US neighborhood is full of hazardous air pollution. Can a network of sensors make ‘the invisible visible’? (The Guardian)