Climate change, war and mismanagement are putting Iran’s water supply under major strain, experts have warned.
The Middle Eastern country has faced years of intense drought, which scientists have found was made more intense due to human-caused climate change.
In recent years, Iranian citizens have protested against the government’s management of water supplies, pointing the blame at decades of poor planning and shortsighted policies.
As water supplies run low, authorities warned last year that several of Iran’s major cities – including the capital, Tehran – could soon face “water day zero”, when a city’s water service is turned off and existing supplies rationed.
Meanwhile, recent air strikes on desalination plants in Iran and Bahrain are driving wider questions about how the war might exacerbate water insecurity across the Middle East.
One expert tells Carbon Brief the conflict is “straining an already-fragile [water] system” within Iran.
In this article, Carbon Brief looks at how conflict is combining with climate change and unsustainable use to place pressure on Iran’s water supplies.
- How close are Iran’s major cities to a ‘water day zero’?
- What role is climate change playing?
- What other factors are involved?
- How could attacks on desalination plants impact water supplies in the Middle East?
- What policies could help Iran avoid a ‘water day zero’?
How close are Iran’s major cities to a ‘water day zero’?
Iran is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world and is currently in the grips of an unprecedented, multi-year drought.
The country’s hot and dry climate means that freshwater is scarce. However, many Iranian citizens also blame decades of government mismanagement for the present-day water shortages.
In January, the Guardian explained that over multiple decades, Iranian officials abandoned the country’s “qanat aquifer system”, which consists of tens of thousands of tunnels dug into hillsides across the country that lead to underground water storage. This system has been “supplying [Iran’s] cities and agriculture with freshwater for millennia”, the newspaper said.
To replace the aquifer system, the government built dozens of dams over the second half of the 20th century, which together hold around a quarter of the country’s total water resource, according to the Guardian. However, it added:
“But by putting major dams on rivers too small to sustain them, the authorities brought short-term relief at the cost of longer-term water loss: evaporation from reservoirs increased while upland areas were deprived of water, now trapped behind the dams.”
Yale Environment 360 noted in December that “in the past half century, around half of Iran’s qanats have been rendered waterless through poor maintenance or as pumped wells have lowered water tables within hillsides”.
Agriculture is responsible for 90% of Iran’s water use. Over 2003-19, Iran lost around 211 cubic kilometres of groundwater – around twice the country’s annual water consumption – largely due to unregulated water pumping for farming.
The images below show how Lake Urmia in the north-west of the country – once the largest lake in the Middle East – has almost completely dried up since 2001 as water that feeds that lake has been diverted.
Towards the end of 2025, Iran’s Meteorological Organisation warned that the main dams supplying drinking water to major cities, such as Tehran, Tabriz and Mashhad, were close to “water day zero”.
The term “water day zero” has been used by academics, media and governments to describe the moment when a city or region’s municipal water supply becomes so depleted that authorities have to turn off taps and implement water rationing. It has been used to describe water crises in Cape Town, South Africa and Chennai, India.
In a televised national address in November, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian reportedly said the government had “no other choice” but to relocate the capital due to “extreme pressure” on water, land and infrastructure systems.
(This came after the government announced in January it would relocate its capital to the southern coastal region of Makran, citing Tehran’s enduring overpopulation, power shortages and water scarcity.)
Tehran is home to 10 million people and consumes nearly a quarter of Iran’s water supplies.
The water shortages have fuelled nation-wide protests, which have been often-violently suppressed by the government.
Prof Kaveh Madani, former deputy vice-president of Iran and the director of the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, tells Carbon Brief that recent rainfall means the threat of “water day zero” has subsided in Iran in recent months.
However, he stresses that a combination of climate change and “local human factors” mean “many, many places in Iran are in ‘water bankruptcy’ mode”.
“Water bankruptcy” is when water systems have been overused to the point they can no longer meet demand without causing irreversible damage to the environment, according to Madani’s own research.
What role is climate change playing?
Iran is currently facing its sixth year of consecutive drought conditions.
An update posted in November by the National Iranian American Council quoted Mohsen Ardakani – managing director of Tehran Water and Wastewater Company – as saying:
“We are entering our sixth consecutive drought year. Since the start of the 2025-26 water year (about a month ago), not a single drop of rain has fallen anywhere in the country.”
The country’s most recent “water year”, which ran from September 2024 to September 2025, was one of the driest on record. Over the 12-month period, the country recorded 81% less rainfall than the historical average.
Meanwhile, temperatures in Iran can soar above 50C in the hot season, pushing the limits of human survivability and exacerbating water loss through evaporations from reservoirs of water.
Multiple attribution studies have shown that climate change is making the country’s hot and dry conditions more intense and likely.
In 2023, the World Wealth Attribution service (WWA) carried out an analysis on the drought conditions in Iran over 2020-23.
This study investigated agricultural drought, which focuses on the difference between rainfall amounts and levels of evapotranspiration from soils and plants.
The study explored how often a drought of a similar intensity would have occurred in a world without warming and how often it could occur in the climate of 2023. The researchers found that the drought would have been a one-in-80 year event without global warming, but a one-in-five year event in 2023’s climate.
They added that if the planet continues to heat, reaching a warming level of 2C above pre-industrial temperatures, Iran could expect a drought of 2023’s severity, on average, every other year.
The graphic below illustrates these results, where a pink dot indicates the number of years in every 81 with an event like the 2020-23 drought over Iran.
The box on the left shows how often such a drought would be expected in a pre-industrial climate, in which there is no human-driven warming. The box in the centre shows 2023’s climate, which has warmed 1.2C as a result of human-caused climate change. The box on the right shows a world in which the climate is 2C warmer than in the pre-industrial period.
Two years later, WWA carried out another study on drought in Iran, this time focusing on the five-year drought over 2021-25. The authors found an “even stronger impact” of climate change than their previous analysis.
A range of other attribution studies for Iran over the past five years have concluded that climate change made heatwaves and droughts over the region more intense and likely.
Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO’s) “state of the climate in the Arab region 2024” report warned about the impact of climate change on water security across the region.
In a statement, WMO secretary general Prof Celeste Saulo warned that “droughts are becoming more frequent and severe in one of the world’s most water-stressed regions”.
What other factors are involved?
Climate change is not the only – or even the primary – driver of water scarcity in Iran.
Madani explains:
“We have both the human factors and the climatic factors…A lot of times, local human factors are much more important and significant than the global factors.”
For example, Madani says, the country has experienced large population growth, but its population is concentrated in “a very few large metropolitan” areas, meaning it can struggle to provide enough water to those places. He also points to inefficient agricultural practices and overreliance on technological solutions, including dams and desalination plants.
The vast majority of the country’s water stress comes from its agricultural sector, which accounts for more than 90% of Iran’s water use.
Dr Assem Mayar, an independent researcher focused on water resources and climate security, tells Carbon Brief that Iran’s arid climate means that it uses more water per unit area for cultivating crops than other countries. This issue is compounded by government policies promoting domestic agriculture, he says:
“[Iran’s] government tries to be self-reliant in [the] food sector, which consumes the most share of water in the country.”
Both of the country’s main water sources – surface water and groundwater – are overexploited, Mayar says.
A 2021 study on the drivers of groundwater depletion in Iran found that between 2002 and 2015, Iran’s aquifers were depleted by around 74 cubic kilometres – 1.6 times larger than the amount of water stored in Iran’s largest lake, Lake Urmia, at its highest recorded levels.
The study also found that some basins had experienced depletion rates of up to 2,600% in that timeframe.
Groundwater aquifers naturally “recharge” as water percolates down from the surface. However, a 2023 study also found that this rate of recharge has been declining since the early 2000s.
When groundwater or other resources are extracted from the ground in high quantities, the land above the aquifer can compact and the aquifers themselves can collapse, leading to “subsidence” as the land surface sinks. Iran is one of the countries with the largest subsidence rates in the world, according to a 2024 study.
In late 2025, BBC News reported that Iran had begun “cloud seeding” – injecting salt particles into clouds to promote condensation, in an effort to “combat the country’s worst drought in decades”.
The country has been employing the technique since 2008 and reports that rainfall increased by 15% in the targeted areas as a result.
However, this does little to address the root of the problem, experts tell Carbon Brief.
Prof Nima Shokri, director of the Institute of Geo-Hydroinformatics at Hamburg University of Technology, tells Carbon Brief:
“Iran’s water crisis stems primarily from decades of policy choices that prioritised ideological and geopolitical objectives over sustainable resource management. A costly foreign policy posture and prolonged international isolation have limited access to foreign investment, modern technology and diversified economic development.
“Domestically, this has translated into policies that encouraged groundwater-dependent agriculture, expanded irrigated land without enforceable extraction limits, maintained heavy energy and water subsidies and underinvested in wastewater reuse, leakage reduction and monitoring systems.”
How could attacks on desalination plants impact water supplies in the Middle East?
A pair of attacks on desalination plants has led to significant media speculation around how the conflict might exacerbate freshwater supplies, both in Iran and across the Middle East.
On Saturday 7 March, Iran accused the US of attacking a desalination plant on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.
Describing the attack on the critical water infrastructure as “blatant and desperate crime”, foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said water supply in 30 villages had been impacted.
The next day, Bahrain government said Iran had caused “material damage” to one of its desalination plants during a drone attack.
David Michel, senior fellow for water security at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told the Daily Mail that attacks on water plants in Gulf states by Iran could be designed to “impose costs” that push them to intervene or call for the end of the war.
There has been a boom in desalination across the Middle East in recent decades, as water-scarce countries have turned to the technology – which transforms seawater into freshwater – to boost freshwater supplies.
Collectively, the Middle East accounts for roughly 40% of global desalinated water production, producing 29m cubic metres of water every day, according to a 2026 review. This is shown in the chart below.
Iran has more than 163 desalination plants. However, it is less reliant on these plants than smaller countries in the region with fewer water reserves.
In a 2022 policy paper, the Institut Français des Relations Internationales noted Kuwait, Qatar and Oman sourced 90%, 90% and 86% of drinking water from desalination plants, respectively.
In contrast, an official from Iran’s state-run water company told the Tehran Times in 2022 that just 3% of the country’s drinking water came from desalination plants. (Iran’s water supply is sourced primarily from groundwater and rivers and reservoirs.)
Shrokri says the ongoing conflict is “hitting water security” in Iran through “direct and indirect” attacks on critical infrastructure – including desalination plants, power stations and water networks. He adds:
“The conflict is straining an already fragile system inside Iran. The country entered the war with severe drought, depleted groundwater and shrinking reservoirs, so any disruption to energy systems, industrial facilities or supply chains can quickly cascade into water shortages.”
Shokri also highlights that attacks on desalination plants in the Gulf could have serious consequences for major cities – including Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi – “rely heavily” on desalinated seawater for drinking water. He says:
“Without desalination plants, large parts of the region’s modern urban system will struggle to exist. The ripple effects would extend far beyond drinking water. Sanitation systems would begin to fail, public health risks would rise and economic activity could slow dramatically.”
Experts have pointed out that attacks on electricity infrastructure could also impact provision of drinking water, given desalination plants are energy-intensive and often co-located with power plants.
Dr Raha Hakimdavar, a hydrologist at Georgetown University, told Al Jazeera that attacks on desalination plants could also impact domestic food production in the long-term, if groundwater is diverted away from agriculture and towards households.
What policies could help Iran avoid a ‘water day zero’?
Experts tell Carbon Brief that the conflict could make chronic water shortages in Iran more likely – even if hostilities are unlikely to directly force a “water day zero”.
Shokri says:
“The war could accelerate the timeline, but it didn’t create the risk of day zero. Iran’s water system was already under extreme pressure from long-term mismanagement and distorted policy priorities. Conflict simply reduces the margin for error.”
Mayar says the war is “unlikely to force day zero nationwide”, but could bring forward “localised day‑zero conditions in already stressed regions”. These effects could be felt most acutely in Iran’s islands and cities that are already “facing chronic shortages”, he continues.
Since agriculture is such a large contributor to the country’s water usage, potential solutions must focus on that sector, experts say.
Mayar says the government should “phase out subsidy policies that encourage overuse”.
In 2018, researchers at Stanford University released a “national adaptation plan for water scarcity in Iran”, as part of a programme looking at the country’s long-term sustainable development.
That report lays out two sets of adaptation actions: those that work to improve the efficiency of water use and those that end water-intensive activities. Among the specific actions recommended by the report are reusing treated wastewater, reducing irrigated farming and enhancing crop-growing productivity through technological solutions.
The adaptation report concludes:
“The underlying solution to address Iran’s water problem is obvious: consumption should be regulated and reduced, water productivity should be improved and wastewater should be treated and reused in the system.”
Meanwhile, Shokri argues that the “main obstacle” to water reform in Iran is not technical capacity, but “government-set national priorities”. He explains:
“Significant public resources are directed toward non-civil spending and external commitments, leaving limited room for sustained investment in water management and environment…Real progress will require shifting attention and resources toward water security, environmental protection and long-term economic resilience.”
The post Q&A: How climate change and war threaten Iran’s water supplies appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: How climate change and war threaten Iran’s water supplies
Christopher Wright is the principal analyst at CarbonBridge, a decarbonisation consulting firm.
The Santa Marta Conference has rightly been hailed as a pivotal opportunity to re-imagine the world’s relationship with fossil fuels. However, the sixty-odd countries gathered this week represent only 15% of the world’s total fossil fuel production, and a small but critical handful of nations in attendance remain deeply committed to expanding their fossil fuel output.
While the discussions at Santa Marta have focused on overcoming economic dependency on fossil fuels, the reality on the ground for many of these countries is that fossil fuel production continues to rise. Despite the rapid global growth of renewable electrification, fossil fuel output has similarly increased.
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This trend is evident even among the countries gathered at Santa Marta, where according to a CarbonBridge analysis, net fossil fuel production has grown over the last five years, particularly driven by expansions in oil and gas output.
Across all countries gathered in Santa Marta, approximately 14 countries are responsible for the lion’s share of oil production, which has increased by 4% since 2020. Similarly, just eight countries account for 96% of the conference’s natural gas production, which has collectively grown by 5% over the past decade.
While coal production has seen a slight decline since 2020, recent production increases in Turkey and Pakistan, with renewed growth in Australia, could similarly see increased production in the near future.
However, most surprisingly, only six countries present at Santa Marta account for over 80% of fossil fuel production among all nations in attendance: Canada, Australia, Brasil, Mexico, Norway and Nigeria.
For these nations, the transition journey ahead is complex. All six countries are aiming to significantly expand renewable energy capacities, and Norway stands as a global leader in electric vehicle adoption.
However, fossil fuel production is not merely a domestic concern for these countries; it plays a central role in their international exports, and remains a foundational pillar of their economic utures. In fact, a deeper look into trends and regulatory frameworks across this suite of countries indicates that their current trajectories are geared toward continued fossil fuel expansion.
Canada
In Canada, oil and gas production continues to climb, with 2025 marking a year of record highs. Oil production rose by 4% to reach 5.34 million barrels per day (MMb/d), while natural gas production surged by 3.4%, reaching 8.2 billion gigajoules. And only yesterday, Shell made a $13.5 bln bet on Canada’s oil and gas future.
Led by Prime Minister Mark Carney, Canada is set to implement an industrial carbon pricing scheme and could double Canada’s clean energy capacity over the next two years. However, he has also been vocal about his support for new oil and gas expansions, new pipeline developments, and has even set a goal to transform Canada’s largely non-existent liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry over the next 15 years, with aspirations to rival the production capacity of the US by 2040.
Brazil
Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras has committed to a massive USD $109 billion expansion of their production to 2030. This hefty investment follows a record 11% production increase in 2025, with Petrobras pumping out 3.77 million barrels per day. Despite hosting the UN climate negotiations last year and generating 89% of the country’s electricity from low-carbon sources in 2025, Brazil’s drive for fossil fuel expansion highlights the gap between national climate transitions and critical export opportunities.
Australia
Australia, the world’s second-largest coal exporter, faces a similar dislocation between its domestic electricity transition and its export economy, as it prepares to assume a leadership role at COP31. Australia is home to the world’s highest solar power per capita and leads the world in home battery rollouts. However, it remains critically dependent on fossil fuel exports, even as questions arise over long-term demand. Currently, gas export volumes, which dipped in 2025, are projected to reach record levels by 2027; pending legal action against the Barossa, Scarborough, and Browse expansions. While thermal coal production is projected to decline slightly through 2030, increases in metallurgical coal are expected to offset these declines, in part due to recent pro-mining regulatory shifts in Queensland.
Mexico
Mexico is one of three major oil producers that make up over 60% of the conference’s annual oil production. However, its oil industry recorded the largest output declines of any major producer in Santa Marta over the last decade. The state-owned oil company Pemex, currently carries close to $100 billion in debt, and was granted $12bn in debt support from the government last year. When combined with import shifts from the US, and potential competition from Venezuela, there is a real chance that Mexico’s oil production could decline further going forward. However, the goal right now from Pemex and the Mexican government, is to increase current production by close to 10% by 2030.
Nigeria
Nigeria’s national oil company, NNPCL, has similarly seen declines over the last decade, but is now pursuing a $60 billion partnership to expand its oil and gas output and solidify its role as one of Africa’s largest fossil fuel producers. This comes even as the federal government was granted $800,000 to explore opportunities to transition away from oil expansion last year.
Norway
In contrast to these countries, Norway stands as one of the few major oil producers at the conference projected to decrease its fossil fuel output. With a forecasted 15% reduction in oil and gas production by 2030, Norway appears to be taking early steps toward a transition. However, the decline in production is more a reflection of the age of its existing oil fields than a proactive shift in government policy. Despite acknowledging the need to diversify its economy, the Norwegian government continues to explore new oil and gas fields, plans to launch new licensing rounds, and hopes to spur on further oil and gas investments, which have almost doubled since 2017.
For these nations, the road ahead is fraught with complexities. While the Santa Marta conference offers an opportunity for dialogue, and renewable energies will undoubtedly continue to expand, the largest fossil fuel producers gathered in Colombia remain structurally focused on growth, rather than phase-downs.
Dollars and cents continue to drive economic decisions, especially in the midst of a global energy crisis. Despite growing calls to utilise this opportunity to reshape development pathways, countries most economically embedded in existing energy markets will need far more convincing, before turning their backs on billions in fossil fuel revenues.
The post Six nations at Santa Marta could shape fossil fuel futures appeared first on Climate Home News.
A group of leading climate scientists has called on governments to develop roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels “anchored in science and justice”, alongside the launch of a separate panel of experts that will give scientific advice on how to navigate the energy transition.
Unveiled on Friday in Santa Marta, Colombia, a set of a dozen policy recommendations, summarising the Santa Marta Academic Dialogue, is intended to feed into ministerial discussions on equitable ways to reduce dependence on coal, oil and gas during next week’s “First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels”.
The policy insights urge countries to create “whole-of-government” plans to “dismantle legal, financial and political barriers” to the energy transition.
Sixty countries head to Santa Marta to cement coalition for fossil fuel transition
Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), said the push for a global transition away from fossil fuels offers “a light in the tunnel” during a “very dark moment” of geopolitical conflict and climate extremes.
“Science is here to serve,” Rockström told a packed Santa Marta Theatre. “We’re today launching the Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition (SPGET) as a service, as a global common good for all countries, all sectors, all regions to connect to the best science enabling a transition away from fossil fuels.”
Draft roadmap for Colombia
Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres said the new SPGET panel “addresses a longstanding shortcoming” in international climate science, by creating a scientific body dedicated solely to overcoming the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
“It’s a first-of-its-kind, designed to organise in the next five years the scientific evidence that allows cities, regions, countries and coalitions to take the big leap,” Vélez told the event in Santa Marta.
As an example of how countries can move forward – even when their economies are closely tied to the production and use of dirty energy – a group of European scientists presented a draft roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in Colombia, with inputs from the Colombian government. It will be used as a basis for further consultation in the Latin American nation to define the way forward.
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Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and co‑author of the roadmap, said it shows “a clear pathway to economic and societal benefit”, with average annual investment of $10.6 billion producing net economic benefits of $23 billion per year by 2050.
The document says fossil fuels in Colombia can be phased out through energy efficiency measures, coupling renewable generation with energy storage, and switching to electrified transport. But, it adds, the government will need to plan for reduced revenue from fossil fuel exports, which roughly half by the mid-2030s.
“What matters now is moving beyond headline targets to create credible, policy-relevant roadmaps, enabling a just and effective transition,” Forster said in a statement. Brazil is also working on a national roadmap for its own economy, as well as leading a voluntary process to produce a global roadmap.
IPCC hobbled by politics
Currently, the world’s top climate science body – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – requires countries to sign off on each “summary for policymakers” of its flagship science reports. This has led to a politically fraught process that has increasingly seen some oil-producing governments making efforts to weaken its recommendations.
In a bid to focus scientific debates on the phase-out of fossil fuels, the new SPGET was created based on a mandate from last year’s COP30. It is also meant to come up with scientific recommendations at a faster pace than the IPCC’s seven-year cycle.
Natalie Jones, senior policy advisor at the International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD), called the new scientific panel “historic”, as it will be “more specific, more targeted and potentially more agile” with its advice on phasing out coal, oil and gas than the IPCC’s exhaustive scientific synthesis reports.
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The panel will be co-chaired by Cameroonian economist Vera Songwe, PIK’s chief economist Ottmar Edenhofer and Gilberto M. Jannuzzi, professor of energy systems at Brazil’s Universidade Estadual de Campinas. It will be composed of between 50 and 100 scientists divided into four working groups: transition pathways, technological solutions, policies and finance.
Under the 12 insights for the Santa Marta process, the other group of scientists recommended banning new fossil fuel infrastructure, mandating “deep cuts” in methane emissions, implementing carbon levies on imports, and de-risking clean energy investments via interventions from central banks, among others.
Co-author Peter Newell, professor of international relations at the UK’s University of Sussex, said “there are many different challenges along the way – and not all of them have to do with lack of evidence”, but the phasing out of fossil fuels “is one part of the story and it’s important to address it”.
The original version of this story incorrectly reported that the new Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition had called on governments to develop roadmaps for phasing out fossil fuels “anchored in science and justice”. This appeal came from a separate group of scientists that worked on recommendations ahead of the Santa Marta conference. The article has now been amended.
The post Climate scientists call for fossil fuel transition roadmaps appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/04/25/climate-scientists-call-for-fossil-fuel-transition-roadmaps/
Forest destruction in the tropics eased by over a third in 2025, thanks in large part to Brazil’s stronger environmental protection which drove forest loss not caused by fires to a record low in the country, an annual survey showed.
In 2025, the world lost 4.3 million hectares of tropical primary rainforest – an area roughly the size of Denmark, according to data from the University of Maryland hosted on Global Forest Watch. That is 36% lower than in 2024 when climate-fuelled fires pushed forest disappearance to a record high.
Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of Global Forest Watch at the World Resources Institute (WRI), said the drop was “encouraging” and proved what “decisive” government action can achieve. But she cautioned that part of the decline reflected “a lull” after an extreme fire year and forest destruction remains far too high to meet international goals to protect forests and limit global warming to acceptable levels.
Deforestation was 70% higher than it needed to be in 2025 to meet a global pledge to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030, which 145 countries first committed to at COP26 nearly five years ago, the report said. Brazil, which holds the COP30 presidency, has promised to deliver a global roadmap guiding countries toward that goal before this year’s UN climate summit.
“Achieving this goal in the coming years will not be easy as forests become more vulnerable to climate change and as humanity’s growing demand for food, fuel and material sourced from forests in the land they stand on continues to grow,” Goldman told journalists.
Agriculture, fires cause most losses
Primary tropical forests – such as the Amazon in Latin America, the Congo Basin and rainforests in Southeast Asia – are critical carbon sinks that help regulate the global climate by absorbing vast amounts of planet-heating CO2. Their loss weakens one of the world’s most important defences against planetary heating.
Agricultural expansion, driven both by industrial agribusinesses and shifting cultivation for subsistence, returned to being the leading cause of forest destruction in the tropics last year, the Global Forest Watch analysis found. After hitting a record high in 2024, fires – which are usually started by humans – still contributed to around a third of forest destruction in those critical regions.
Climate change is increasing fire risk in the tropics by creating hotter, drier conditions that allow blazes to spread more easily.
Lula’s policies drive progress in Brazil
Trends in global forest destruction are significantly influenced by what happens in Brazil, home to the world’s largest remaining rainforest. In 2025, the South American nation recorded a 42% fall in primary forest loss and its lowest-ever rate of forest loss caused by reasons other than fire.
Analysts said Brazil’s progress in tackling forest loss is a result of the stronger environmental protection and enforcement actions introduced since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to office in 2023, after years of budget cuts and policy rollbacks under his pro-business predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula’s administration revived the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Legal Amazon (PPCDAm), an anti-deforestation framework that coordinates actions across federal agencies and promotes strengthened monitoring, commodities tracking and support for sustainable livelihoods.
The Brazilian government also beefed up the activities of the federal environmental agency Ibama, which between 2023 and 2025 issued 81% more infraction notices and 64% more fines than in the previous two-year period.
“Brazil’s progress shows what’s possible when forest protection is treated as a national priority,” said Mirela Sandrini, executive director of WRI Brasil, adding that the success is derived from building partnerships between the government, civil society, academia, local communities and the private sector.
Neighbouring Amazon country Bolivia recorded the second-highest amount of primary forest loss in the world last year, despite being home to a fraction of the forest held by other rainforest nations like Indonesia or the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Fires, likely started by humans, were the main cause of forest destruction in Bolivia, alongside the expansion of cattle ranching and crops such as soy and maize, the WRI analysis said.
Forest loss also remained high last year in countries including Peru, Laos and the DRC.
Malaysia and Indonesia showed stable and relatively low levels of forest loss compared to the highs reached in the mid-2010, although experts said Jakarta’s plans to massively expand food and energy production risk threatening the progress seen in the past decade.
Global policies and cash needed
Analysts said protecting the world’s remaining tropical forests will depend not only on national political leadership but also on global policy and financial developments.
Those include the creation of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), a major new rainforest protection fund launched by Brazil at COP30. The mechanism, which gives financial rewards to countries that keep trees standing, has been billed as an historic opportunity to finance forest production. But it is far from raising the $125 billion of public and private investment needed for it to reach a meaningful scale and is unlikely to start making payments until 2028.
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After failing to secure a negotiated agreement on forest protection at COP30, Brazil promised it would deliver this year a global roadmap charting a course to end deforestation by 2030.
The COP30 presidency said it has received 177 contributions from governments, UN agencies, business groups and civil society with suggestions on what the document should include.
What countries want in the roadmap
The Coalition of Rainforest Nations, which includes 50 countries, wants the roadmap to adopt a “global carbon budget” lens, mapping out region by region where CO2 emissions cuts are most urgent and where existing forest carbon stocks must be protected.
The negotiating bloc also wants finance, including from carbon markets, to be given a prominent space in the document, which will need to obtain broad support from governments to be effective. Without it, the roadmap “risks becoming yet another [plan] collecting dust on the shelves of posterity”, its submission said.
Colombia said interventions should focus on tackling the root causes of deforestation, pointing out that forest loss in the country is concentrated in regions afflicted by deep inequalities, high levels of poverty and the widespread presence of organised crime.
Indonesia wants the roadmap to function as a collaborative platform that “strengthens partnerships”, but warns that international initiatives should “avoid unilateral measures that may undermine trust and effective cooperation”, a thinly veiled rebuke of the European Union’s deforestation regulation.
In its submission, the United Kingdom said the roadmap should focus on a small number of “critical interventions” that can unlock the greatest progress, such as securing legal land rights for Indigenous communities, encouraging sustainable land use and introducing demand-side measures to promote deforestation-free products.
Meanwhile, Russia voiced its opposition to the creation of a “universal roadmap” to end deforestation, saying it instead wants to see a “dedicated dialogue” on forests where countries just exchange best practices.
The post Brazil leads “encouraging” decline in global rainforest destruction in 2025 appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/04/29/brazil-leads-encouraging-decline-in-global-rainforest-destruction-in-2025/
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