An aerial view of a 33 megawatt data center with closed-loop cooling system, amid warehouses on October 20, 2025 in Vernon, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
“It’s hard to see utility bills coming down in this decade,” said one industry analyst.
Although the rising cost of groceries has gotten a lot of attention in recent weeks, US consumers are also increasingly under pressure from the rising cost of electricity.
A new report from researchers at The Century Foundation and financial abuse watchdog Protect Borrowers has found that the average overdue balance on utility bills has surged by 32% over the last three years, going from $597 in 2022 to $789 in 2025. What’s more, the report estimates that roughly 1 out of every 20 US households has utility debt that is “so severe it was sent to collections or in arrears.”
The increase in overdue utility bill debt has come at a time when electricity costs have been growing significantly faster than the overall rate of inflation, the organizations found.
“Comparing twelve-month moving averages from March 2022 to June 2025 (to adjust for seasonality), monthly energy costs… nationwide rose from $196 to $265—a 35% jump, or nearly three times overall inflation during that period,” noted the report.
The organizations said that the reasons for these price increases are complicated, although factors include “poorly regulated monopolies overcharging customers to the tune of $5 billion a year,” as well as the explosion in the construction of energy-devouring artificial intelligence data centers and the Trump administration’s attacks on renewable energy projects that began under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
AI data center construction has become a major controversy in communities across the US, and a CNBC analysis published late last week found that “in at least three states with high concentrations of data centers,” electric bills have grown “much faster than the national average” over the last year.
Virginia, which has the highest concentration of AI data centers in the country, saw electricity prices surge by 13% over the last year, while data center-heavy states such as Illinois and Ohio saw electricity costs go up by 16% and 12%, respectively.
Rob Gramlich, president of power sector consulting firm Grid Strategies, told CNBC that the massive growth in data centers means that “it’s hard to see utility bills coming down in this decade.”
The Century Foundation and Protect Borrowers conclude that their report paints “a grim picture” of “increasing energy prices, rising overdue balances, and squeezed household budgets that together are pushing families deeper and deeper into debt.”
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Protesters gather at First Ward Park for the ‘No Border Patrol In Charlotte’ rally to raise their voices for the immigrant community and against US Border Patrol activity in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 15, 2025. (Photo by Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“In a scenario where this administration is trying to sow division,” said one local organizer, “we see an organic movement of community members trying to provide support and assistance.”
In Charlotte, North Carolina, the Trump administration’s latest anti-immigration crackdown garnered headlines over the weekend both for “how inhumane and aggressive” the operations by US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were, as one journalist said, and the action that local residents immediately took to protect their neighbors from arrests and raids.
“I just started recording them,” said Rheba Hamilton after federal agents pulled up to her house in a vehicle and intimidated two Latino men who were decorating the trees in her yard. “They left.”
As the agents pulled away, she yelled, “Get the hell out of my yard, you assholes!”
Hamilton, who toldThe New York Timesshe had tried to warn the workers against hanging the Christmas lights due to the deportation operations, said it was “terrifying” to see Border Patrol agents on her property.
“I was concerned about this happening,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got great people here… Nobody’s going to regret moving here if you come here with the right kind of heart, and that includes our immigrants.”
Hamilton filmed the Border Patrol agents after North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, called on Charlotte residents to “bear witness” to ICE arrests and raids at businesses and homes as the Trump administration launched “Operation Charlotte’s Web”—the latest stop on its nationwide attack on immigrant and Latino communities, which has also unfolded in Chicago and other cities.
“If you see any inappropriate behavior, use your phones to record and notify local law enforcement, who will continue to keep our communities safe long after these federal agents leave,” said Stein last week.
Operation Charlotte’s Web began as the administration released the names of more than 600 people detained in the Chicago area whose arrests may have violated a court order, and revealed that just 16 of them had an alleged criminal history.
More than 3,000 people in all have been arrested in the Chicago area since ICE and other federal agencies began “Operation Midway Blitz” in September.
Border Patrol Commander-at-large Gregory Bovino reported that at least 81 people were arrested in Charlotte by the end of the weekend, with the mass arrests completed in about five hours, and claimed that those who were taken into custody had “significant criminal and immigration history”—similar claims that have been made about the operations in Chicago.
The local advocacy group Siembra NC said “the most immigrants were arrested in a single day in state history” on Saturday.
The community development group CharlotteEast told the Guardianon Sunday that it had received an “overwhelming” number of reports from residents about Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in the area, including at places that were previously protected under the Biden administration from immigration enforcement.
“The past two hours we’ve received countless reports of CBP activity at churches, apartment complexes, and a hardware store,” executive director Greg Asciutto told the outlet.
The Charlotte Observerreported that congregants at a church in east Charlotte “scattered into the woods” after masked federal agents arrived and detained a member while the church community was doing yard work.
“The agents asked no questions and showed no identification before taking one man away, whose wife and child were inside at the time,” the newspaper reported. “Inside the church, women and children sobbed as they wondered whether their loved ones had been taken.”
Sam Stein of the Bulwarknoted that community members “got the heads up and ran to the woods to confront ICE agents with, among other things, deafening whistles. ICE responded by threatening to throw gas canisters at them.”
Advocates handed out whistles—like those used by many in Chicago in recent weeks—to local residents on Sunday, and hundreds of people packed a training session on Friday night where Carolina Migrant Network advised them on banding together to stop ICE from raiding their communities.
Charlotte NC: Activists are handing out whistles to community members to alert their neighbors to the presence of ICE and Federal Agents pic.twitter.com/0lranCzuip
A grocery store, Compare Foods, also announced it would be offering free delivery to keep people from having to venture out while federal agents are in the city.
“For all those customers who don’t feel comfortable coming to the store in person, they can shop online, and then we will have it delivered through our delivery service to their home,” said Omar Jorge, owner of the local chain.
Manolo’s Bakery, meanwhile, closed over the weekend for the first time in its 28-year history, with owner Manolo Betancur telling the Observer, “We need to protect our families [from] family separation.”
Stefania Arteaga of the Carolina Migrant Network told the Guardian that the grassroots weekend efforts show “allies are learning how to help their neighbors” in the city.
“In a scenario where this administration is trying to sow division,” she said, “we see an organic movement of community members trying to provide support and assistance.”
Daniel Nichanian of Bolts magazine said Charlotte—which is not near a US border—likely was chosen as President Donald Trump’s latest target because of a “war” between ICE and Mecklenburg County Sheriff Gary McFadden, going back to 2018 when McFadden was among five Black Democrats who won sheriff elections in the state on the promise of ending cooperation with ICE.
The agency targeted Charlotte two years later, posting billboards that showed mugshots of immigrants arrested in the area.
As with other cities Trump has targeted for mass deportation operations this year, crime has been falling in Charlotte, with an 8% decrease in overall crime last month compared to a year prior, and a 20% reduction in violent crimes.
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British political commentator Sami Hamdi speaks to the media in London, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, on his return to the U.K. after he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 26 while on a speaking tour in the U.S
A BRITISH journalist and vocal advocate for Palestinian rights touched down at Heathrow airport today after being detained for more than two weeks by US immigration authorities.
Sami Hamdi was held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers at San Francisco International Airport on October 26.
He had been in the middle of a speaking tour discussing Israel’s genocide in Gaza when the government revoked his visa.
The State Department did not specify what triggered the revocation. But the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA), whose lawyers challenged Mr Hamdi’s detention in federal court, said he was detained over his support for Palestine and “punished for criticising Israel.”
After arriving back in Britain today, Mr Samdi told the press: “This wasn’t just an attack on me, it was an attack on the freedoms of ordinary Americans and citizens worldwide.
“ It was an attack on their freedom to speak the truth in the face of hatred.
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Left, Bjorn Lomborg speaks at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference in 2023. Credit: ARC Forum, C0 Right, billionaire Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates. Credit: DOE/Ken Shipp, C0
Tax records reveal that the billionaire’s foundation has donated for years to Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center.
Bill Gates’ charity has donated more than $3.5 million to a think tank run by the Danish academic and climate crisis denier Bjørn Lomborg, according to U.S. tax records reviewed by DeSmog.
The donations, which were made between 2017 and 2022, were listed on IRS 990 Forms filed by the Gates Foundation. Those donations went to the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which describes itself as a “think tank that researches the smartest solutions for the world’s biggest problems, advising policy-makers and philanthropists how to spend their money most effectively.”
The center was created by Lomborg, who for years has argued in op-eds, lectures, and broadcast media that there are more important global issues to prioritize than climate change, writing in April that “it is not the existential threat that some would have us believe.”
Those views align closely with a controversial memo Gates recently published during the lead-up to the United Nations COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, in which the philanthropist, who is worth an estimated $118 billion, argued that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise.”
The Microsoft founder and longtime public health philanthropist claimed that a “doomsday outlook” about the future of the climate is “causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals” and that is “diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.”
Gates’ “tough truths” post came on the heels of the United Nations Secretary General António Guterres noting that it is now “inevitable” that the world is on track to at least temporarily burst past the 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) warming target of the Paris Agreement, with “dramatic consequences.”
Gates’ arguments have drawn outcries of dismay from some of the world’s top climate scientists, who have pointed out that “this memo is already being championed by those seeking to misinform and sow doubt about climate change and delay climate progress–up to and including the executive branch of the United States government.”
But Lomborg is full of praise for the billionaire who has frequently donated to his think tank.
“Revolutionary climate truth: @BillGates nails it,” he posted on X.
Bjorn Lomborg praises Bill Gates’ climate memo in a tweet: “Revolutionary climate truth: @BillGates nails it for Brazil #COP30”
The Gates Foundation and the Copenhagen Consensus Center didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“He’s read some of my stuff”
In total, the Gates Foundation (formerly known as the The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) has donated $3,519,491 to Lomborg’s think tank. The most recent tax filing on record includes a 2022 donation to the Copenhagen Consensus Center worth $1.25 million, which went to support “community engagement grantmaking.”
Lomborg’s center credits the Gates Foundation with providing “financial support” for a 2021 report identifying development priorities for Africa. That report ranked climate solutions such as “resilience to drought” and “solar energy for unreliable grids” in the bottom third of a list of investment opportunities for the continent.
The report ranked objectives such as “family planning,” “R&D for agricultural yield increase,” and “tobacco control” at the top of the list. “All other things equal, the policies producing high returns should be funded before the ones with low return,” it noted.
The relationship between Lomborg and Gates goes back at least as far as 2014.
That year, DeSmog reported that Gates had published a blog post promoting Lomborg’s views. In the post, Gates argued that as rich countries “push to get serious about confronting climate change,” telling poorer countries not to rely on fossil fuels is wrong.
“For one thing, poor countries represent a small part of the carbon-emissions problem. And they desperately need cheap sources of energy now to fuel the economic growth that lifts families out of poverty. They can’t afford today’s expensive clean energy solutions, and we can’t expect them wait for the technology to get cheaper,” Gates wrote.
In the video, Lomborg can be seen climbing a staircase with the words “Fighting poverty with fossil fuels” painted behind him.
Bill Gates was featuring the work of climate crisis denier Bjorn Lomborg at least as far back as 2014. This GatesNotes video shows Lomborg against a backdrop with the words “Fighting poverty with fossil fuels.”
As recently as 2023, Lomborg co-authored a GatesNotes post with Gates arguing that the UN Sustainable Development Goals are “too much of a good thing” because they say the world is not “stepping up to fund all of them.”
In response to the October 28 Gates climate memo, Lomborg told Newsweek that “I’ve met with Mr. Gates himself several times. He’s read some of my stuff.” However, Lomborg did not directly take credit with influencing Gates’ views in the “Three Tough Truths about Climate” memo.
Deniers Celebrate Gates
Shortly after the memo’s release, U.S. President Donald Trumpdeclared on his social media platform Truth Social: “I (WE!) just won the War on the Climate Change Hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely WRONG on the issue. It took courage to do so, and for that we are all grateful. MAGA!!!”
Trump is not alone in his celebration. Several long-time climate crisis deniers are cheering the statement from Gates, including Robert Bradley of the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit that attacks renewables and criticizes decarbonization plans.
Alex Epstein, who himself has cited Lomborg as an influence, said last week that “we should celebrate that Bill Gates has seen the light.” Epstein, the “fossil fuel philosopher” who helped shape the clean energy cuts in Trump’s domestic policy bill, claimed that Gates’ memo is in part a response to a Trump administration that “that is pro-fossil fuel and very anti-climate catastrophist.”
Gates’ backsliding on climate is not just words, it’s money and resources. For instance, in March, he made deep cuts to the climate policy staff of Breakthrough Energy, the “clean energy” organization he founded in 2015 and whose work he touted in his October 28 memo.
Explaining his “pivot” on climate change during an interview on CNBC, Gates said, “I’ll let the temperature go up 0.1 degree to get rid of malaria. People don’t understand the suffering that exists today.” Afterwards, Lomborg took to X to praise Gates, writing, “Exactly right!”
Arguments like this have garnered sharp criticism from climate leaders.
Gates is wrong to frame climate change and human well-being as disconnected, zero-sum issues, argues climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. “We are nowhere near maxing out investment in & implementation of [solutions] that benefit people, health, climate and nature at the same time,” the Texas Tech professor and chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy posted on Bluesky. “[The climate, pollution, and nature crises] are already actively amplifying poverty, hunger, and division.”
“There is no greater threat to developing nations than the climate crisis,” Michael Mann, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist, told CNN in response to the Gates memo. “He’s got this all backwards.”
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Fossil fuel lobbyists in the Canadian delegation include representatives of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), a lobby group that represents Canada’s oil and natural gas producers. Credit: C2C Journal
Delegation’s composition consistent with new KBPO report revealing this year’s U.N. climate talks have the largest number of fossil fuel lobbyists to date.
Lobbyists and representatives of Canada’s oil and gas industry are part of Canada’s official delegation to this year’s U.N. climate talks in Brazil, in keeping with the high number of fossil fuel representatives in attendance at the summit.
About a dozen individuals representing fossil fuel interests were part of the 240-person Canadian delegation, according to documents reviewed by DeSmog as well as a Nov. 12 Canadian Press article.
“Fossil fuel lobbyists have no place at the U.N. climate negotiations,” Emilia Belliveau, program manager of energy transition with Environmental Defence, said in a statement to DeSmog.
“Their presence here with official badges from Canada undermines the work of Canadians attending COP30 who are genuinely working to advance climate action,” she said.
This year’s U.N. climate talks have the single largest share of fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance to date. Some 1,600 people — or one out of every 25 attendees — are fossil industry or related lobbyists, according to an analysis by Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO), an alliance of climate and justice organizations that push to remove fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists from influencing climate negotiations and policymaking.
The presence of so many Canadian fossil fuel sector representatives exemplifies the report’s findings.
“It demonstrates the extent by which the current government is aligned with oil industry interests,” Patrick Bonin, the Bloc Québécois’ environment and climate change critic, said in a statement to DeSmog.
“The oil and gas industry is the biggest lobby in Canada,” Bonin continued, “so it’s like inviting the fox into the henhouse … Giving them access to the delegation gives them far greater influence than regular participants.”
Fossil fuel lobbyists in the Canadian delegation include representatives of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), a lobby group that represents Canada’s oil and natural gas producers; Tourmaline Oil, Canada’s largest natural gas producer; CarbonAi; the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), the Global CCS Institute; and the gas industry advocacy group Energy for a Secure Future.
Huge Industry Presence
KBPO’s analysis reveals that fossil fuel lobbyists at COP30 outnumber every national delegation except for Brazil, the host country. The number of lobbyists also represents a 12 percent increase over last year’s COP conference held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Fossil fuel lobbyists received two-thirds more passes to COP30 than the total number of delegates from the 10 most climate-affected nations on Earth, the KBPO report said. This highlights “how industry presence continues to dwarf that of those on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” KBPO said in a statement that accompanied the report’s release.
The influence of major trade associations at COP30 is palpable, with the IETA bringing 60 representatives, including delegates from oil and gas giants ExxonMobil, BP, and TotalEnergies. These associations are “a primary vehicle for fossil fuel influence, according to a KBPO statement.
Kathleen Sullivan, global managing director with IETA, is in the COP30 Canadian delegation. It also includes Jay Averill, assistant vice president of communications with CAPP; Scott Volk and Tim Shaw of Tourmaline Oil; and Todd Smith, Ontario’s former energy minister who advocated for an expansion of nuclear power. Smith left office in August 2024 to become vice president of marketing and business development with CANDU Energy Inc., a manufacturer of nuclear reactors.
The Canadian delegation also includes several representatives from Energy for a Secure Future, a lobby group that advocates for continued fossil fuel use to ensure “energy affordability.” The group states on their website that “our gas energy can respond to the needs of our friends around the world who are facing punishing energy costs and are left with options that drive up global emissions.”
Canadian “Carbon Bombs”
However, Canada’s natural gas industry is a major contributor of rising global emissions. The nation’s natural gas resources have been described as “carbon bombs” for their potential to release billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, according to a 2024 DeSmog article.
“The spectacle of Canada’s COP delegation [serving as] a Trojan horse for fossil fuel interests like Tourmaline and the CAPP is shocking,” said James Browning, executive director of F Minus, a climate accountability group. F Minus recently issued a report detailing numerous conflicts of interest that have resulted from Canadian environmental organization sharing lobbyists who also serve major polluters.
“Lobbying decisionmakers in secret is really just another day at the office for these climate denialists, given the failure of Canada’s lobbyist disclosure system to fully capture the extent of their dealings with Canadian officials,” Browning said in a statement to DeSmog.
“COP may be 5,000 kilometres away, but the deeper scandal here is that Tourmaline’s and CAPP’s lobbyists enjoy a similar, extraordinary level of secrecy in their meetings with government officials every day in Ottawa,” he said.
CAPP has misled the public about emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector, and has campaigned against anti-greenwashing laws. Heather Feldbusch, one of Pierre Poilievre’s campaign’s inner circle, was formerly a lobbyist with Alberta Counsel Inc., which represents Tourmaline.
“At the COP negotiations two years ago, governments took a historic step by committing to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable manner,” Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, said in a statement to DeSmog. “By including fossil fuel lobbyists in our official delegation, Canada is undermining that global effort and risks being seen as negotiating in bad faith.”
“CAPP has been fighting against effective climate action for decades and should be shown the door, not the red carpet,” he added.
Another organization with a stake in fossil fuels included in the Canadian delegation is the Global CCS Institute, a carbon capture advocacy group based in Australia. Critics have long argued that carbon capture is an expensive false solution designed to give fossil fuel production an air of social acceptability. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has used the term “low carbon oil” in reference to carbon capture, despite experts arguing that the term is nonsense.
“Inviting fossil fuel lobbyists into global climate negotiations is as misguided as letting the tobacco industry write health policy, and Canada is compounding the problem by weakening its own greenwashing rules” Sabaa Khan, director general, Quebec and Atlantic Canada, with the David Suzuki Foundation, said in a statement to DeSmog.
DeSmog reached out to Keean Nembhard, press secretary for Canadian environment minister Julie Dabrusin, but did not receive a statement by press time.
British political commentator Sami Hamdi speaks to the media in London, Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025, on his return to the U.K. after he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 26 while on a speaking tour in the U.S
