A lengthy drought that caused widespread disruption to commercial ships passing through the Panama Canal in 2023 would have been “unlikely” without the influence of El Niño, according to a rapid attribution study.
Last year was Panama’s third driest on record. The low rainfall caused water levels in Gatún Lake – a crucial part of the country’s internationally important canal and key fresh water supply for millions of people – to drop to record-low levels.
Authorities reduced shipping through the canal to conserve the lake’s fresh water, resulting in queues of ships waiting for weeks to cross the canal. As shipments of everything from fruit to gas were delayed and rerouted, knock-on effects rippled across the globe.
The new study, by the World Weather Attribution service, did not find a significant long-term drying trend in rainfall over Panama. However, it noted that since 1900, four of the five driest years in the region have occurred in El Niño years,
El Niño reduced last year’s rainfall by about 8%, the authors find.
With the canal’s water use expected to more than double by 2050, the study warns that authorities “may need to re-introduce shipping restrictions to safeguard drinking water supplies, particularly in El Niño years”.
Shipping backlog
Opened in 1914, the Panama Canal – an engineered waterway connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans – is a cornerstone for global marine shipping. Around 14,000 ships pass through the canal every year, accounting for 5% of all global maritime trade.
Using the canal, rather than travelling around the southern tip of South America, ships can cut some 13,000km off their journey. Ships pay a toll for using the canal, which adds more than $2.5bn to Panama’s economy every year.
Gatún Lake is pivotal for the canal’s operation. This artificial, rain-fed lake sits near the centre of the canal, around 26 metres above sea level. Ships travelling into the canal pass through a series of locks, each of which fills with water to raise the ship up to the level of the lake. After travelling through the lake, another series of locks lower the ships back down to sea level.
For every ship that moves through the canal – a process which takes between eight and 10 hours – around 200m litres of fresh lake water is used, most of which is flushed out to sea.
Panama is the fifth wettest country in the world and sees most of its rainfall in its May-December rainy season.
However, total rainfall in 2023 was 30% lower than average. October was especially dry, recording 41% less rainfall than usual.
As a result, water levels in the rainfall-fed Gatún Lake reached a record low in the second half of 2023.
The map below shows water levels in Gatún Lake since 1965, where each line represents one year. The solid black line indicates 2023-24, while the dashed line shows projected lake water levels until mid-June 2024.
Under normal circumstances, the Panama Canal allows 36 “transits” every day. However, as lake levels dropped, the Panama Canal Authority (APC) began taking measures to conserve water. It reduced the number of daily crossings first to 32, then 31. And finally in November 2023 it announced that only 25 crossings would be allowed per day.
Ships began waiting in line for weeks to cross the canal, often paying millions of dollars to jump the queue if another ship with a booked reservation dropped out. By late August, around 135 ships were waiting to cross – 50% more than normal.
Around the world, shipments of everything from food to fuel were delayed.
Rainfall trends
The Panama Canal watershed is a series of natural and artificial rivers, sub-basins and lakes covering some 3,000 square kilometres on either side of Gatún Lake. According to the WWA study, all of the water used by the Panama Canal comes from this area.
The study authors say a network of around 65 weather stations operate in and around the watershed, providing some of the best rainfall records across the entirety of central America and the Caribbean.
To put Panama’s drought into its historical context and determine how unlikely it was, the authors analysed a timeseries of rainfall around the catchment of Gatún Lake in the 2023 rainy season, between May and December.
The map below shows the 2023 rainy season compared to the 1990-2020 average. Brown indicates that 2023 was drier than average and green that it was wetter. Gatún Lake is shaded grey and the study area is outlined in red.
Dr Clair Barnes – a researcher at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute and author on the study – told a press briefing that there was some evidence of an overall drying trend in some of the stations, while others saw a wetting trend.
Overall, she said the study finds a slight drying trend, but notes the high uncertainty in this finding. She adds:
“We’re not sure exactly what is causing that drying trend or if it is an anomaly. Future trends in a warming climate are also uncertain.”
The authors investigated the impact of El Niño – a global weather phenomenon that originates in the Pacific Ocean – on rainfall in Panama.
During El Niño years, a weakening in the trade winds across the equatorial Pacific brings warm ocean temperatures to the eastern Pacific, off the coast of South America. In Panama, El Niño years are linked with below-average rainfall.
During La Niña years, the opposite effects are seen. Both phases together are known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Steven Paton is the director of the physical monitoring programme at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and an author on the study.
He told a press briefing that 2023 was “the third driest year ever recorded [in Panama] in the 143 years that we have data”. He noted that all of the three driest years on record were recorded during an El Niño event.
The researchers find that in today’s climate, during an El Niño year, Panama has a 5% chance of seeing rainfall levels as low as those in 2023. Given the current frequency of El Niño events, this means that similar events would be expected to occur around once every 40 years in the present climate, they say.
The authors find that El Niño reduced the volume of rainfall that fell in 2023 by about 8%, compared to an ENSO-neutral year, adding that it “is unlikely that Panama could experience such a low rainy season without the influence of El Niño”.
The researchers also assess whether human-caused climate change played a role in Panama’s very low rainfall levels.
To conduct attribution studies, scientists use models to compare the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without climate change. This study aimed to identify any potential “signal” of climate change in Panama’s rainfall pattern.
However, only one of the climate models used in this study was able to capture rainfall patterns over the study region accurately, and the authors were unable to determine whether any trend in rainfall over the region was due to climate change.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Compounding impacts
The Panama drought shows how changes in weather conditions, such as rainfall patterns, can interact with other hazards.
Maja Vahlberg is a risk consultant at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and author on the study. She told the press briefing that disruptions to the Panama Canal interacted with those in the Suez Canal – caused by Yemen’s Houthi group attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea – to drive “compounding and cascading impacts” on global shipping patterns.
This also exacerbated the existing disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Covid pandemic.
As a backlog of ships in the Panama Canal grew, delays lengthened from days to weeks. Al Jazeera described the affected shipments:
“Bananas from Ecuador to Florida. Poultry from Chile to northern Europe. Liquid Natural Gas from the US to Asia. And virtually anything under the sun out of China.”
Around December, newspapers began to warn that shipments of Christmas goods may fail to reach retailers in time for the festive season.
Europe typically imports fresh produce from South and Central America during the winter months, with food and drink making up 77% of container shipments between the west coast of South America and Europe in 2022.
For example, Peru supplies the UK with £2bn worth of goods every year, including more than £350m of “fresh produce”. However, many ships carrying fruits, vegetables and meat from South America to Europe were stuck in the backlog, resulting in “excessive delays”.
The drought also impacted shipments of oil and gas. The US uses the canal as a major trade route for carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Gulf coast to Asia. However, average waiting times for tankers carrying LNG north through the canal rose from eight days in July to 18 days in August.
Meanwhile, Gatún Lake also supplies drinking water for more than half of Panama’s 4.3 million people. As a result, the government was required to balance the demands of international shipping with the water usage needs of the locals.
Vahlberg told the press briefing that “Indigenous, Afro-Panamanian and some rural communities have very water-dependent livelihoods”. She explained that these communities often have “higher rates of poverty and limited access to basic services”, meaning that “even small changes in precipitation can bring disproportionate impacts on their livelihoods”.
She added that urban expansion and population growth, combined with ageing infrastructure that loses water through leaks, are putting increasing pressure on the country’s water supplies.
The study notes that by 2050, the canal’s water use is expected to be more than double 2015 levels. It warns that, in future, authorities “may need to re-introduce shipping restrictions to safeguard drinking water supplies, particularly in El Niño years”.
The post Drought behind Panama Canal’s 2023 shipping disruption ‘unlikely’ without El Niño appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Drought behind Panama Canal’s 2023 shipping disruption ‘unlikely’ without El Niño
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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