A major ocean conference has ended in Mombasa, Kenya, with just a handful of countries committing to high-level political declarations on banning deep-sea mining, protecting climate-resilient coral reefs and combatting illegal fishing.
The Our Ocean Conference (OOC) brought together more than 5,000 delegates to discuss marine issues and make voluntary commitments to advance ocean sustainability.
It was the first time in the conference’s 11 editions that it had been held on African soil.
African countries played an “important leadership role” at the talks, observers told Carbon Brief, helping to drive ambition on fisheries transparency, a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining and developing proposals for marine protected areas on the high seas.
Across the three-day conference, attendees also made 320 separate commitments, including new funding for scientific research, improving waste-management programmes to reduce marine pollution and mapping Indigenous groups’ customary waters.
Some of these commitments were accompanied by announcements of new funding, with a total of $6.4bn “mobilised” across all pledges.
Several non-governmental organisations also released new reports during the conference, on topics ranging from the implementation of marine protected areas to “climate-resilient” coral reefs.
Observers told Carbon Brief that the commitments and discussions at the conference were “positive steps”, but added that these pledges must now be backed up by action.
During the opening ceremony, former US secretary of state John Kerry urged delegates to move “from commitments to implementation”.
Here, Carbon Brief outlines the key takeaways from the OOC across five major climate-related topics.
Background
The OOC was first held in Washington DC in 2014, where it was championed by Kerry.
The conference aims to “identify action-based solutions and make tangible commitments” towards addressing key issues facing the ocean, such as climate change and overfishing. It does so through voluntary commitments made by governments, non-governmental organisations, civil society groups and others.
These commitments align with the six “pillars” of the conference:
- The ocean-climate nexus
- Marine pollution
- Marine protected areas
- Maritime security
- Sustainable blue economy
- Sustainable fisheries
Since then, the conference has been held annually (with the exceptions of 2020 and 2021 during the Covid pandemic), with the host city changing every year.
Each edition of the conference is very different, attendees told Carbon Brief, and the host country plays a large role in setting the conference’s priorities.
For example, at the 2024 conference, held in Athens, Greece, shipping and sustainable tourism were discussed at length alongside the six existing pillars.
At this year’s summit, extra attention was paid to the roles of local communities in achieving a “healthy” ocean.
Since 2025, the conference has had its own dedicated secretariat, hosted at the research organisation, the World Resources Institute (WRI). (Prior to that, the US Department of State acted as the de-facto secretariat.)
Conference participants told Carbon Brief that the OOC has been “highly successful” in achieving its aims over the past decade.
An analysis of the first 10 years of the conference, published by WRI in 2025, found that of a total 2,618 commitments made at the OOC, around 1,130 had been completed and a further 1,005 were in progress.
In Mombasa this year, 104 countries and organisations made a total of 320 voluntary commitments. More than one-quarter of these commitments were made in the “sustainable blue economy” action area.
According to the preliminary report released by the secretariat at the conclusion of the OOC, the commitments made at the conference represent $6.4bn in “mobilised” finance. However, it is unclear from the report how much of this figure is new committed funding.
Marine protected areas
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are one of the six key action areas of the Our Ocean Conference.
A June 2026 independent assessment of the MPA-related commitments at previous editions of the OOC found that the conference has “made an outsized contribution to global marine conservation efforts”.
According to the analysis, more than one-third of the Earth’s MPAs stemmed from announcements made at the OOC – a total area of more than 10m square kilometres (km2).
This progress is the result of nearly two-thirds of MPA-related OOC commitments already fully implemented, the assessment says, while most of the remaining commitments “show evidence of progress”.
If all pledged MPAs were to be implemented, it would represent protection for around 14.4m km2 or 4% of the ocean.
The chart below shows the number of pledged actions related to MPAs and other area-based conservation methods that were pledged at the OOC between 2014 and 2025, coloured by the progress made on each commitment.
Several groups announced new MPAs – or the completion of previously announced MPA designations – at the OOC.
These included the establishment this year of two new MPAs in the Juan Fernández region of Chile, protecting a total of around 337,000km2 of ocean, and the approval of the Azores Marine Park, which will span 287,000km2 – making it the largest network of protected areas in the north Atlantic Ocean.
However, despite the progress made in designating MPAs, further work is needed to ensure that these areas are truly protected, experts told Carbon Brief in Mombasa.
A report released by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) at the summit detailed the “implementation gap” facing MPAs. It noted that “at least half of existing MPAs remain unimplemented or operationally ineffective”, while just 3.5% of the global ocean is “fully and highly” protected.
Closing this gap will require “inclusive, sustained and context-sensitive design, management and funding approaches”, continued the report.
Dr Ana Spalding, the director of STRI’s Adrienne Arsht community-based resilience solutions initiative, told Carbon Brief that, while MPAs are typically evaluated based on their biodiversity outcomes, the communities that rely on ocean ecosystems are also very important to consider. Focusing on just one aspect or the other will result in an MPA that is not effective, she added:
“There’s going to be a sweet spot between the two.”
High Seas Treaty
The Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction – also known as the BBNJ Agreement or the High Seas Treaty – entered into force on 17 January 2026.
This followed the treaty, achieving the necessary 60 state ratifications on 19 September 2025. The week before the OOC, the east African nation of Comoros became the 90th party to ratify the agreement.
The first Conference of the Parties for the High Seas Treaty will be held in January 2027 in New York City. At that meeting, parties will be tasked with creating the rules of procedure, establishing the subsidiary bodies and carrying out other foundational work.
Because so many key decisions will be made at this COP1, it is “imperative” to have as many ratifications as possible before the conference begins, said Rebecca Hubbard, director of the High Seas Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organisations that advocates for protection of the high seas. She added:
“We hope that well over 100 countries will be party to the agreement by COP1, so that they can be at the decision-making table.”
One of the key provisions of the High Seas Treaty is that it creates a mechanism for countries to establish MPAs in international waters. This will be key to achieving the “30 by 30” target of protecting 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, Hubbard told Carbon Brief.
However, establishing a high-seas MPA under the agreement requires a thorough process, including a review by a scientific and technical subsidiary body, a consultation with parties and a vote by the COP. Thus, in order to achieve the “30 by 30” target, parties will need to act swiftly to begin the process of establishing high-seas MPAs, according to Hubbard. She said:
“It will be very, very tight. It’s definitely possible, but it requires really strong government leadership and prioritisation.”
She added that it is “essential” that governments begin forming proposals for high-seas MPAs before the COP meets in January, noting that some countries are already doing so.
At a side event on 16 June, representatives from South Africa and the EU detailed plans to propose a high-seas MPA that would link two existing protected areas in the sub-Antarctic – one South African and one French. Hubbard told Carbon Brief:
“That’s a really great example of what we can do with the High Seas Treaty – having developed and developing countries working together, sharing knowledge [and] developing scientific approaches together. I think that’s the hopeful future, collaboration [and] cooperation, that the High Seas Treaty really provides.”
Also at the summit, Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau committed to creating “at least two” transboundary west African MPAs.
Deep-sea mining
Although deep-sea mining was not a major focus of the Mombasa talks, it did feature at several side events.
At a reception held by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), Prof Rashid Sumaila of the University of British Columbia said the “wrong question is being asked” about deep-sea mining. He continued:
“It’s not whether they have the minerals, it’s whether extracting them gives a net-positive impact.”
Sumaila added that evaluating the risk of deep-sea mining will require a cost-benefit analysis that is as “broad and inclusive as possible”.
At the same reception, the foreign-affairs minister of Malawi, Dr George Chaponda, announced the country’s support of a “precautionary pause” on seabed mining in international waters. This would prohibit mineral exploration in such areas until there is robust scientific evidence showing limited environmental harm.
In doing so, Malawi became the first African country to support such a pause – and the 41st country overall to support a precautionary pause or moratorium on the activity.
Chaponda told the assembled guests that Malawi’s existence as a landlocked country did not preclude its involvement in the deep-sea debates, urging:
“To my fellow landlocked states: geography does not diminish our stake in the ocean.”
Later in the week, Kenya and Madagascar also announced their support for such a pause.
In a statement, David Willima, the Africa lead at DSCC, said:
“The leadership shown by Malawi, Kenya and Madagascar sends a vital signal that African nations are stepping forward to defend the deep ocean and are unwilling to accept the risks of deep-sea mining.”
Coral reefs
At the third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC), held in Nice, France, in June 2025, 11 countries and several partner organisations launched the high-level commitment to protect “climate-resilient” coral reefs.
These are reefs that, according to scientists, have the “best chance of long-term survival in the face of climate change”.
(UNOC occurs every three years and is specifically focused on achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal on sustainable ocean use. Unlike the OOC, UNOC results in a negotiated political declaration.)
A further four countries signed the commitment in Mombasa: Comoros, the Dominican Republic, Kenya and the UK. According to a representative at the launch event, the goal is to reach 31 signatories – representing 80% of the world’s coral cover – by COP31 in Turkey in November this year.
Signatory governments pledged their commitment to:
- Identifying climate-resilient reefs and prioritising their protection.
- Integrating coral-reef protection into national strategies and plans.
- Enacting policies to reduce the local pressures facing coral reefs, such as overfishing, pollution and overdevelopment.
- Implementing national reef monitoring programmes and action plans.
- Ensuring equity and working with local communities in protecting reefs.
The Mombasa conference also coincided with the presentation of a new study on climate-resilient reefs, covered in the 17 June edition of Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter. (The study is currently in the final stages of peer review.)
Building on a 2018 project that identified the 50 coral reefs that “form an optimal portfolio of reefs that are most likely to survive climate change”, the new work mapped more than 165,000km2 of coral reefs across 70 countries. These were found to have the best chances of persisting in the face of climate change and a warming, acidifying ocean.
Dr Emily Darling, director of coral-reef conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society and a co-author of the study, told Carbon Brief that “one of the key things countries can do that have these important reefs is elevate them into national policy” across multiple government sectors.
She added that learning from these reefs will become vital over the coming months as El Niño warms the world’s oceans even further.
Darling told Carbon Brief:
“Climate change is not a single blanket on the world’s oceans. There are a lot of pockets of resilience, there are pockets of revolution for corals, and it’s all about finding those places, and how do we support them through the other local pressures that they experience that we know we can manage.”
Although few monetary coral-related commitments were made at the summit, Norway pledged to allocate NOK 20m ($2m) to the Global Fund for Coral Reefs.
Fisheries
One of the major achievements of the summit was the adoption of the Mombasa Declaration to advance fisheries transparency and combat illegal fishing.
The declaration “recognise[s]” that illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major factor driving the unsustainable use of ocean resources and the degradation of marine ecosystems.
The declaration, which was signed by 16 national governments – eight of them from Africa – commits parties to follow a set of principles laid out in the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency. This was developed and promoted by a group of civil society organisations known as the Coalition for Fisheries Transparency.
The commitments in the Mombasa Declaration fall within four broad categories:
- Supporting transparency and accountability in the fishing industry.
- Strengthening monitoring of fishing activities and cooperating with enforcement actions.
- Building capacity and supporting implementation of transparency reforms.
- Strengthening ocean-observing systems and promoting the use of open-access data.
The declaration notes that these principles should “apply to and benefit both small-scale and industrial fisheries” and support “broader ocean-management efforts”.
At a press conference announcing the launch of the declaration, Ghanaian fisheries and aquaculture minister Emelia Arthur called it a “global testament of our collective commitment to transparent fisheries”. She emphasised the importance of the sector to all aspects of life, saying:
“Fisheries is nutrition. Fisheries is food security. Fisheries is livelihoods. Fisheries is national security.”
Several civil society organisations, philanthropies, community groups and governments also made separate fisheries-related commitments at the summit.
The EU committed €46m ($52m) through its Horizon Europe research programme to fisheries work, including €32m ($36m) for “adaptive co-management strategies” and €14m ($16m) for research on conservation and sustainable management of migratory fishes.
The EU and Italy both also announced contributions to the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund.
The government of Kenya made nine fisheries-related pledges at the summit, including committing to train compliance officers dedicated to combatting IUU fishing, developing management plans for all of its commercial fisheries and establishing bycatch mitigation measures.
At the summit, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization launched its biannual “state of world fisheries and aquaculture” report.
According to the report, the world set a new record for fisheries and aquaculture in 2024 – producing a total of 235m tonnes of fish and algae. This total consisted of nearly 92m tonnes of fish from capture fisheries, 103m tonnes of farmed fish and 40m tonnes of algae production.
The amount of fish produced by capture fisheries has remained largely stable since 2000, while aquaculture production has increased by an average annual percentage rate of just under 5%, according to the report.
While the largest growth has occurred in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the vast majority of aquaculture production – 89% – occurs in Asia.
The report also says that more than one-third of the world’s marine fish stocks are overfished, with significant variation based on region and species. It adds that climate change may play an increasing role in driving the unsustainability of fisheries in the future:
“Despite the uncertainty of climate risks in the short, medium and long term, studies on the impacts of climate change on aquatic food systems around the world increasingly document the relevance and potential success of adaptation measures, urging decision-makers to integrate climate change considerations into fisheries and aquaculture planning and management.”
The post Mombasa: Key outcomes from the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Mombasa: Key outcomes from the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya
New Zealand’s parliament has adopted a controversial new law blocking a whole avenue of climate litigation and shutting down its most advanced corporate lawsuit, which has been blamed by the government for shaking business confidence and investment.
The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill, expected to take effect in the coming days after it is formally signed by the Governor-General, prevents all current and future civil claims for climate loss or harm under tort law.
Justice minister Paul Goldsmith said last week that the aim was to give businesses “certainty around their climate change obligations”, noting it would not alter the government’s responsibilities under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 nor business obligations under the Emissions Trading Scheme.
“Our response to climate change is best managed by the Government at a national level and not through piece-meal litigation in the courts,” he added in a statement.
Such litigation, he said, “risks developing a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted” to tackle climate change.
South Africa’s top court blocks Shell’s offshore oil exploration right
Constitutional Court rules that Shell and its partners failed to consult affected communities and did not properly consider environmental risksPeruvian farmer loses climate case against RWE – but paves way for future action
Experts say that despite dismissing the lawsuit, the ruling sets a precedent by confirming that climate science can establish legal liability for the damage caused by emissions
Goldsmith singled out a key domestic climate lawsuit brought by Northland iwi leader and activist Mike Smith against six big companies: dairy firms Fonterra and Dairy Holdings, energy firms Genesis Energy and Z Energy, New Zealand Steel and coal mining firm BT Mining. A seventh original defendant, Channel Infrastructure, was dropped after it permanently decommissioned its Marsden Point oil refinery.
Smith argued that these companies had caused him harm under public nuisance and negligence law, as well as a third breach of a duty to cease contributing to climate change that has yet to be tested domestically. He did not seek financial compensation, instead asking for the companies to immediately stop emitting or contributing to net greenhouse gas emissions.
In one of the most advanced corporate climate accountability lawsuits in the world, a trial had been scheduled for April 2027 after the Supreme Court unanimously allowed the case to continue.
Corporate lobbying in the shadows
Smith described the passing of the bill as “deeply concerning”, particularly as it coincided with the Supreme Court hearing another of his climate lawsuits. In that case, Smith v Attorney-General, he argues that the government’s response to climate change and its impacts on Māori communities in particular breaches rights to life and culture.
“That timing raises profound questions about the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Smith. “Whatever one’s view of the merits of these cases, it is deeply troubling when parliament intervenes to remove a legal pathway while the courts are actively considering fundamental questions about climate responsibility, rights and the crown’s obligations.”
The bill – which says that no person (including the government) can be found liable in tort for emissions-related climate change effects – followed major lobbying efforts by the companies defending themselves in Smith’s lawsuit. They outlined a proposed legal amendment in a briefing note to the government in 2024.
The centre-right government has been fiercely criticised over its lack of transparency in relation to this lobbying activity. The national ombudsman recently found that the Prime Minister’s Office effectively withheld information requested by the Environmental Law Initiative about meetings, discussions and conversations regarding Smith’s case.
Green groups fail to stop bill
The bill sparked huge concern among environmental campaigners in New Zealand and elsewhere. Greenpeace Aotearoa called it a “shocking abuse of executive power” and the vast majority of submissions to a parliamentary inquiry said it should be rejected.
But in the end, it was adopted with little resistance, moving relatively smoothly through parliament, passing its third reading by 67 votes to 53. Sam Bookman, climate law lecturer at Melbourne Law School, told Climate Home News he was not surprised by this, given that the coalition government has a secure majority.
A complaint has been made to the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights by Smith, the National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga and youth coalition Climate Clinic Aotearoa over what they see as the government’s heavy-handed approach. Smith is also challenging the new law in yet another lawsuit.
“Pathetic”: New Zealand plans to barely cut emissions between 2030 and 2035
Bookman thinks it “very unlikely” that such a challenge will succeed, noting that New Zealand’s constitution is firmly anchored in parliamentary sovereignty.
But the expert in climate law does not see the bill as the end of legal action in the country, noting that New Zealand has a “sophisticated climate litigation landscape with a growing number of specialist and experienced lawyers and NGOs”.
The country is also approaching its next general election in November, and some opposition parties have pledged to restore access to the courts if elected.
Amanda Larsson, global project lead on agriculture for Greenpeace International, said: “This law deserves to be tested, and I strongly encourage the international climate litigation community to unite and help defend New Zealanders’ fundamental right to hold polluters accountable before this becomes a global blueprint.”
Copycat legislation on the rise
New Zealand’s move is part of a small but growing legislative effort to shut down climate litigation around the world.
In the US, Republican politicians introduced legislation in the House and Senate in April that would shield fossil fuel firms from climate liability lawsuits. Similar laws have already been passed at state level in Tennessee, Utah, Iowa and Louisiana.
The German state of Bavaria has put forward a similar proposal to the Federal Council, aiming to block private climate claims as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments imposing such liability. There are also proposals to limit available remedies and actions in the Netherlands and Belgium.
UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court
Bookman said he expects more efforts to counter climate damages litigation and advised plaintiffs to think about how to respond, including drawing on broader support in opposing them.
“Even though it’s very hard for plaintiffs to win these types of cases, companies are very eager to avoid the expense, embarrassment and political accountability that come even with unsuccessful lawsuits,” he said.
The post New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation appeared first on Climate Home News.
New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation
Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is the Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), an Indonesia-based economic think tank. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia desk at CELIOS.
Indonesia produces around 60% of the world’s nickel, a metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) – more than any other country in the world. But in 2026, the government sharply reduced how much of its nickel can be extracted from the ground.
Production quotas were reduced by around 40% this year compared to 2025. Weda Bay, the largest nickel mine on Earth, had its allowance cut by more than 70% and exhausted its full-year quota by the end of May, halting mining entirely; it cannot resume large-scale extraction until next year unless regulators grant an extension.
The policy has sparked a vivid debate in Indonesian policy circles: how can the country shift its strategy from a decade of mining vast quantities of cheap nickel to producing a high-value and low-carbon material that the rest of the world wants for EV batteries.
The cuts aren’t a silver bullet to clean up Indonesia’s nickel industry, whose smelters are powered by coal – the most polluting fossil fuels. But alongside stricter enforcement of environmental rules, it is one side of efforts to produce more sustainable nickel for a premium.
Restricting Indonesia’s nickel output
Production quotas were introduced to stop the collapse of nickel prices because of oversupply in the market. Prices had fallen more than 40% in 2023 alone and kept sliding as Indonesian supply kept growing, hitting a four-year low of around $13,900 a ton in late 2025.
Critics called the recent tightening of production quotas proof that Indonesia’s nickel strategy has failed, arguing that the industry shouldn’t need to throttle its own output to survive. But when assessed against what the policy was supposed to do – push up nickel prices – it has worked. Prices jumped to $20,000 a ton in May, the highest since 2024.
-
Big banks’ lending to coal backers undermines Indonesia’s green plans
Foreign banks involved in Indonesia’s $20-billion Just Energy Transition Partnership have also funded companies working on coal power expansion, a TBIJ and Climate Home News investigation reveals -
Southeast Asia’s fragile grids threaten billions in clean energy investment
Renewables developers need reliable electricity infrastructure and stable policies to help the region meet climate goals and surging demand for power
Chinese industry groups representing companies that have invested billions to mine and refine the country’s nickel were furious, warning Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto that the cuts put $50 billion worth of investment at risk. But much of that Chinese capital is sunk into smelters and processing plants built specifically to run on Indonesian ore, and cannot simply be moved elsewhere. That gives Jakarta more room to hold its ground than the warning suggests.
Stronger environmental enforcement
Since the start of the year, Indonesia’s forestry task force has seized more than four million hectares of land from mines and plantations operating illegally in protected forests, collecting over two trillion rupiah ($113 million) in fines.
This included 148 hectares seized from Weda Bay for lacking a forestry permit. The share of nickel produced from illegal small-scale mining also fell from about a quarter in 2022 to roughly 10% by 2024.
The crackdown responds to serious environmental damages in the nickel industry. On Obi Island, a waste pond collapsed after heavy rain in June 2025, flooding three villages and killing a resident. Internal company tests found chromium-6 – a carcinogen – in the water, in quantities far above the legal limit. The footprint of another mine near Raja Ampat, which is home to some of the world’s richest coral reefs, grew 60-fold in just eight years.
The market is responding to early cleanup efforts. Low-carbon nickel now sells for a real premium, roughly $18,800 to $19,300 a ton compared with $17,900 to $18,300 otherwise, as carmakers seek to source cleaner materials to comply with the European Union’s new emissions rules for imports.
In turn, this is incentivising the industry to do more to green its operations. Vale Indonesia’s smelter in South Sulawesi now runs almost entirely on hydropower, for example.
None of this addresses coal use, however. Major Indonesian nickel producers still emitted an estimated 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2023. Indonesia may be cracking down on illegal mining and rewarding cleaner producers but it is still running its mines on the dirtiest fuel available.
Unequal benefits
For Indonesia to truly benefit from producing cleaner and high-value nickel, it needs to reap the economic benefits too. Although the industry has boosted the country’s economic growth, the reality on the ground tells a different story.
Konawe in Southeast Sulawesi is home to a major smelting complex. Growth in the district jumped from 6% to 22% between 2015 and 2023, driven almost entirely by the nickel industry, according to a study by the Lowy Institute study. At the same time, poverty levels increased slightly and unemployment remained unchanged.
-
Nickel mining for electric vehicles is destroying lives in Indonesia
Indonesia’s abundant nickel reserves are crucial for a low carbon world. But extracting them is ruining local peoples’ lives and causing rampant deforestation -
Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone
Indonesia supplies the EV industry with critical battery materials but the sector’s rapid expansion is infringing the rights of Indigenous peoples -
Indonesia’s failing Just Energy Transition Partnership is a cautionary tale
The government has abandoned its plan to shut down a major coal plant, which was a key part of the deal, raising doubts about the donor-backed approach
In Halmahera, another epicentre of the nickel industry, spending by the poorest fifth grew just 5% between 2019 and 2022, compared with 28% for the wealthiest fifth, according to a separate study.
Part of the reason for this inequality is the system for transferring mining royalties to district authorities where the mines are located. In theory, they are entitled to the largest share. But in practice, payments are delayed, companies routinely dispute what they owe and royalties are pooled and distributed across a larger area.
The Natural Resource Governance Institute has found that decentralisation handed local governments power to approve new mines faster than they could build their capacity to manage them. Higher output raises national income on paper, but local governments remain constrained by fiscal rules and infrastructure costs that scale with mining.
None of this makes the 2026 quota cuts a mistake. Indonesia has every right to defend its pricing power over a resource it controls. But limiting extraction isn’t going to fix underlying issues around environmental enforcement and revenue-sharing. That requires rules that are consistently enforced, royalties that reach communities living by the mines, and a plan to wean smelters off coal.
The post Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry appeared first on Climate Home News.
Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry
Climate Change
Risk of “catastrophic” oil spill reaching Kimberley coast found in Woodside’s Scott Reef gas drilling plans
SYDNEY, Monday 24 August 2026 – New analysis of Woodside modelling released by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley has revealed the oil and gas corporation’s plans to drill at Scott Reef could cause an oil spill up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara disaster, impacting the Kimberley coastline and reaching as far as Indonesia.
The new analysis details the “catastrophic” oil spill risk put to environmental regulators for approval by Woodside in its Browse to North West Shelf Project (Browse) plans, the worst-case scenario being a blowout directly below Scott Reef, polluting whale migratory pathways and covering isolated turtle nesting ground with oil condensate.
An FOI application (F348) revealed the federal environment department (DCCEEW) asked offshore oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA to look into the oil spill risk in 2025. NOPSEMA’s response to the application refused access to its report, and one document shows DCCEEW sought further advice this year.
Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley are calling on the Federal Government to publicly release the NOPSEMA report given the risk of an uncontrolled release of oil condensate from directly below Scott Reef.
Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Woodside is aware that drilling at Scott Reef risks a massive oil spill that would have severe, far-reaching consequences. It appears environmental regulators are aware too.
“The state and federal governments need to take this risk from Woodside’s drilling plans seriously, as they could end up allowing the worst oil spill in Australian history.
“The pygmy blue whales that migrate up and down the WA coast with their newborns each year could be swimming and feeding in toxic, oil-slicked water. Woodside’s proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and the WA and federal governments have one surefire way to prevent catastrophe — reject Browse.”
Martin Prichard, Executive Director at Environs Kimberley, said: “A catastrophic oil spill by Woodside would be disastrous not just for marine life in the area but also for the Kimberley’s $500 million tourism industry.
“The state and federal governments will see five marine parks on the Kimberley coast included in the risk area of a catastrophic Woodside oil spill.
“The Montara oil spill was disastrous for West Timor with the toxic oil destroying seaweed farmers’ livelihoods. The Kimberley dodged a bullet with Montara, we were lucky the spill didn’t head our way. Myself and a crew flew over the Montara oil spill and followed it as far as we could. It was like a scene from a disaster movie.”
After the WA Environmental Protection Authority deemed Browse “unacceptable” due, in part, to oil spill risk, Woodside submitted a mitigation plan based on technology that has never been used “in anger”, a weakness stated in an independent expert review of the plan.
Professor Richard Steiner, independent oil spill expert, said: “A large offshore spill is impossible to effectively contain or recover. Historically, only 2-6% of total spill volume is recovered and the ecological injury from the release of toxic hydrocarbons in the sea can be severe, extensive, and long-term.
“Here in Alaska, government research concludes that several marine populations injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, including whales, fish, and seabirds, are still not recovering today, 37 years later. We should expect similar long-term ecological impacts in Western Australia if there were to be a major oil spill. The only sure way to avoid the risk of a catastrophic marine oil spill is to not develop oil and gas projects in marine environments.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Emma Sangalli on emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org or 0431 513 465
-
Climate Change1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy10 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits