Today’s ESG Updates
- Drought Deepens in Central Europe: The Netherlands has declared a water shortage, and Poland has issued 61 drought warnings, as the Vistula and Rhine fall toward historic lows and strain farms and shipping.
- TotalEnergies Approves Cyprus’s First Gas Field: TotalEnergies and Eni have greenlit the Cronos field to supply Europe with LNG through Egypt, with production due in 2028.
- ECB Makes Carbon-Heavy Lending More Costly for Banks: The European Central Bank has widened its climate risk factor, cutting the value of carbon-intensive loans used as collateral.
- NYC Expands Coastal Defenses as Storms Worsen: Mayor Zohran Mamdani is adding nearly 70 staff and $43.2 million in funding to the city’s Bureau of Coastal Resilience.
Central Europe’s drought deepens as rivers hit historic lows
A severe drought is affecting Central and Eastern Europe, straining farms, shipping and drinking water supplies during one of the region’s driest years on record. The Netherlands has declared an official water shortage, and Poland’s meteorological service has issued 61 drought warnings covering roughly half the country, with the Vistula River nearing historic lows.
Shipping is already affected: on the Rhine, vessels south of Duisburg are limited to about a fifth of normal capacity, and freight rates on the Rotterdam–Mannheim route have risen 40 to 60 percent. Farmers in Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and France are facing irrigation restrictions and failing crops, with France expecting its smallest maize harvest in 50 years. A study by World Weather Attribution found the soil-moisture deficits behind this year’s drought are about 11 times more likely due to human-driven climate change.
“Everything I grow in my garden has dried up this year,” said one resident near Mikulov, in southern Moravia. “You can water all you want, and it still won’t help.”
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Further reading: Left High and Dry: Drought Exposes Central Europe’s Water Crisis
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TotalEnergies approves new gas field off Cyprus
TotalEnergies and Eni have taken the final investment decision to develop the Cronos gas field off Cyprus, the island’s first gas project. Discovered in 2022, the field will be developed through four subsea wells in deep offshore waters.
Gas will be piped to Egypt, liquefied at the Damietta LNG terminal, and shipped on to Europe. Production is due to start in 2028, reaching about 2.8 million tonnes of LNG a year, half of which TotalEnergies will market directly.
CEO Patrick Pouyanné said the project would help build a new gas hub in the Eastern Mediterranean and strengthen Europe’s energy security by diversifying its LNG supply, while using Egypt’s existing infrastructure to keep costs and emissions down. It’s part of TotalEnergies’ plan to grow its LNG portfolio to 60 million tonnes a year by 2030.
The decision comes as energy majors face growing scrutiny over how new gas projects square with climate commitments. Critics say continued expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure sits uneasily with the pace of the energy transition, however the projects are framed.
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Further reading: Cyprus: TotalEnergies Approves the Development of the Cronos Gas Field to Supply
Related Articles
Here is a list of articles selected by our Editorial Board that have gained significant interest from the public:
Frankfurt tightens the screws on carbon-heavy lending
The move builds on the bank’s earlier work folding climate risk into its collateral framework, part of a wider push by European regulators to treat climate exposure as a financial stability issue rather than a side concern. By changing how it values riskier loans, the ECB is telling commercial banks that financing high-emission, slow-to-transition industries now carries a real cost, not just a theoretical one.
The change comes as European lenders face growing pressure to align their portfolios with climate goals, even as some governments push back against the pace of green regulation. Analysts say it could prompt banks to reprice climate risk in their own lending decisions, rather than waiting for it to become a problem later.
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Further reading: ECB expands its climate factor to shield the EU from climate-related shocks
NYC ramps coastal defenses ahead of the next big storm
Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced a major expansion of New York City’s Bureau of Coastal Resilience, adding nearly 70 positions (engineers, city planners, field inspectors) to strengthen the city’s defenses against rising seas and worsening coastal storms.
The bureau handles planning, operations and maintenance for the city’s coastal flood-protection infrastructure. Until now, it ran on just six staff plus borrowed workers from other departments. The expansion brings $43.2 million in new funding, including $10.6 million this fiscal year, and pays for several long-term studies on protecting the city’s 520 miles of coastline.
It adds to other flood spending already underway: $108 million for citywide sewer improvements and $95 million for flooding hotspots in Brooklyn. Together, the measures suggest the city is starting to treat climate resilience as permanent infrastructure, not a one-off project as coastal storms and inland flooding both become more frequent.
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Further reading: Mamdani Commits $43 Million to Jump-Start Effort to Stop NYC Flooding
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — Cover Photo Credit: Carlett Badenhorst.
