Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
Key developments
Wildfires resurfaced
PANTANAL FIRES: Climate change made the wildfires that scorched the Pantanal wetlands earlier this summer 40% more intense, according to a new rapid attribution study covered by Carbon Brief. Around 2,500 fires occurred in Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands in June 2024. The World Weather Attribution service found that “the month was the hottest, driest and windiest year in the 45-year record”, creating conditions that were highly conducive to wildfires. Separately, Reuters reported on a new study that found that fires, logging and “other forms of human-caused degradation, along with natural disturbances to the Amazon ecosystem, are releasing more climate-warming CO2 than clear-cut deforestation”.
EXTENDED IMPACT: In North America, 90 large fires burned nearly 4.5m acres across the US during the first days of August, the New York Times reported. The “devastating wildfires” spread ash and smoke “over large swathes of the continent…destroyed homes and charred through thousands of acres of farms and forests”, the outlet added. Particularly dry, hot weather affected the western US and caused four wildfires across Colorado, leaving one person dead and forcing hundreds of people to evacuate, according to the Washington Post.
BEYOND AMERICAN CONTINENT: On the other side of the ocean, wildfires swept Athens, where thousands of residents were evacuated as fires crossed into suburbs and flames rose up to 25 metres, BBC News reported. According to the outlet, June and July were “the hottest on record” for the European country, while Greece’s civil protection minister has “warned that extremely dangerous weather would continue”. Meanwhile, Algeria’s north-eastern Kabylie region has experienced blazes since last Friday, Agence France-Presse reported. The newswire added that homes, olive groves, hen coops and beehives were engulfed by flames. Most of the wildfires are now under control, a civil defence official said.
Offsets up in smoke
UP IN SMOKE: The Park fire – one of the “largest wildfires in California’s history” and is still blazing – destroyed around 45,000 acres of trees enrolled in the state’s carbon-offsetting programme, the Financial Times reported. According to analysis by the not-for-profit research firm Carbon Plan, cited in the story, buyers of credits included oil refining, power and lumber companies. The story also pointed to an unsold “buffer pool” of credits meant to replace losses to “credited trees” from wildfires, drought or pests. California authorities told the FT that the buffer was “quite sound”. But Carbon Plan scientist Dr Grayson Badgley said that the pool needed updating to “reflect the realities of fire risk” and that the state “should stop approving carbon credit projects in risky wildfire regions”.
STOLEN CREDIT: Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva, warned international buyers of carbon credits to be “vigilant” after police uncovered “allegedly fraudulent emissions-offset schemes on stolen land in the Amazon”, the Financial Times wrote. Silva said the issue was a “serious problem” and “could damage the credibility [and] integrity of this mechanism”, the story added. Separately, Bloomberg reported that a key oversight body is set to review carbon offsets generated from forestry projects “in the coming months”, after it found methods to assess renewable energy credits to be “insufficiently rigorous”.
FOREST THINNING: Meanwhile, scientists writing in the Conversation cautioned against the Australian forest industry’s plans “to remove trees from native forests, potentially including national parks, and claim carbon credits in the process”. They pointed to Forestry Australia’s “problematic proposal” that “purports to reduce environmental impacts, but still produce wood products”. It does so through a method known as “adaptive harvesting”, which involves forest thinning, or practices such as delaying logging until trees are older. The group’s acting president, William Jackson, responded to the piece, saying that forest thinning would be “conducted for ecological reasons, cultural values or fire management or other reasons” and that he “disagrees with the view that thinning makes forests more fire prone”.
Spotlight
Joshua trees are flowering more frequently due to climate change
This week, Carbon Brief explores a new study, published in Ecology Letters, looking at the impacts of climate change on the Joshua tree, a type of yucca plant that is native to California and other parts of the south-western US.
Climate change is causing Joshua trees – the iconic plant that dots the landscape of the south-western US – to flower more frequently, a new study has found.
Despite the plant’s importance as a keystone species in the Mojave Desert and other parts of the south-west, many studies of climate impacts on Joshua trees lack nuance – in part due to the resources needed to collect field data.
Using a machine-learning model trained on crowdsourced images from the biodiversity platform iNaturalist, researchers were able to examine the impacts of climate change on the trees since 1900.
The lead author of the study told Carbon Brief that “there’s a lot of potential” to use the team’s newly developed methods to study the impacts of climate change on other flora.
Beyond binary
Much of the existing work looking at climate change impacts on Joshua trees is based on so-called “distribution models”, Prof Jeremy Yoder, an evolutionary biologist at California State University, Northridge, told Carbon Brief.
These models are based on identifying the climatic factors that are closely associated with the presence or absence of a particular species. Then, he explained, researchers can “take a future climate projection and ask where conditions will look like places where we know Joshua trees are today”.
In the new study, instead of simply looking at the distribution of the species, the researchers modelled the flowering of the trees – using specific weather data to draw connections between a flowering year and the climatic conditions leading up to it.
Using this model, they were then able to “hindcast” previous instances of Joshua tree flowering. They matched up their predicted flowering with historical botanical collections, field notes and even newspaper reports and found that they “line up pretty well”.
By taking the hindcast as a whole, the team could then explore how climate change has affected Joshua tree flowering over the past century and a quarter. Yoder told Carbon Brief:
“That’s concretely new information that we did not have about Joshua trees before.”
Flowering frequency
Overall, the researchers found a “slightly rising frequency” in the flowering of Joshua trees over the past 123 years. The flowering was most closely related to year-to-year variability in rainfall.
But increased flowering on its own might not necessarily be beneficial to the trees. “Flowering is just the first step in regenerating Joshua tree woodland,” Yoder said – meaning that more frequent blooms will not necessarily result in a growing population. While a flowering Joshua tree may produce thousands of seeds in a year, those seeds will result in just a few seedlings.
Then, it’s “an even smaller subset of seedlings that start to get to something closer to an established tree over a couple of years”, he said. And some of the conditions that seem to be influencing the flowering frequency – such as contrasts in year-to-year rainfall – are “probably not good for seedling survival”.
Beyond the scientific result, Yoder is excited by the potential for further applications of the hindcast modelling. He told Carbon Brief:
“Hopefully this is something that folks can use to start to get that richer view of what climate change is doing to natural populations.”
News and views
SKYROCKETING: Researchers have warned that the current H5N1 bird flu outbreak “could reach Australia this spring”, according to the Guardian. Australia has thus far remained bird-flu-free since the strain emerged in 2020. Although some researchers think the island’s virus risk “is low” due to the country being outside the “flyways of migratory ducks and geese, [which are] the main hosts of bird flu viruses over long distances”, others say “there is still a risk, and we need to be ready for it”. Mongabay also covered the bird flu transmission, highlighting that it is the “fastest-spreading, largest-ever outbreak” and has infected “hundreds of species pole-to-pole”. The outlet reported that the virus has spread to at least 485 bird species and 48 mammals and that “the risk to humans [is] rising”.
WHEAT STOCKS: Iraq’s wheat harvest surged more than 20% this year due to a combination of “extraordinary” rainfall and improved irrigation, Bloomberg reported. The outlet added that the harvest “marked a second year of self-sufficiency in the grain” for Iraq. Meanwhile, France is facing “one of the worst harvests in the last 40 years”, according to the French agriculture ministry, as reported by Politico. The country – which is the EU’s largest producer of soft wheat – “experienced a very wet planting season last year and not enough sun in the spring and early summer”. Farmers’ unions in France are seeking governmental assistance, the outlet said.
SEABED SHAKE-UP: Leticia Carvalho was elected the new head of the International Seabed Authority, Australia’s ABC News reported, where she “will be the first woman, first oceanographer and the first representative from Latin America to serve in this position”. Carvalho unseated the incumbent secretary-general, Michael Lodge, who has presided over the ISA since 2016. The New York Times noted that Lodge “has been a polarising figure at the seabed authority” and has faced accusations that he “was too closely aligned with the mining industry”. Prior to the election, Foreign Policy Magazine profiled Carvalho and her proposed approach to the ISA.
COCA PROBLEM: Colombia’s programme for substituting coca crops in favour of legal alternatives “is failing to achieve its goals due to design, implementation and security issues”, Mongabay reported. The outlet pointed out that coca leaf growers and pickers “haven’t received the agreed technical or financial support from the government”, resulting in lower incomes and forcing them to engage in other activities, such as illegal mining, to survive. The programme was created one year after the 2016 peace deal between Colombia’s government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the outlet said. It added that a recent UN assessment of the programme found that coca production has actually increased 13% between December 2021 and December 2022.
NEW SEEDS ON THE BLOCK: On 9 August, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi launched 109 “high-yielding, climate-resilient” seed varieties at three experimental plots in New Delhi, Livemint reported. Among these was a rice variety “ideal for coastal saline areas” and a wheat variety “tolerant to terminal heat”, it added. Another Livemint long-read looked at the impact of climate change on tur dal – India’s second most consumed legume – finding that dal prices soared “by a staggering 60% between July 2022 and July 2024”. Meanwhile, an Economic Times analysis found that food inflation in India “has remained above 6% since July 2023, driven mostly by vegetables”. Overall inflation climbed to 5.1% in June this year with “most of the pressure…coming from rising food prices”, Bloomberg reported.
Watch, read, listen
‘DEFORESTATION MAFIA’: Inside Climate News delved into the legal battle to save Argentina’s Gran Chaco forest from corruption and deforestation.
‘THINKING LIKE BEARS’: NPR’s Short Wave podcast addressed what scientists are doing to conserve grizzly bears in the US – including “thinking like bears”.
VULNERABLE SCIENTISTS: A Nature career feature explored the mental health issues that rainforest scientists experience while watching “the ongoing destruction of the forest[s]”.
REASONS TO WINE: In his Bloomberg column, David Fickling wrote about how a warming climate “could play havoc” with grape vines and imperil future wine production.
New science
Summer monsoon drying accelerates India’s groundwater depletion under climate change
Earth’s Future
New research found that changes in India’s summer monsoon, alongside warmer winters and increased demand, are driving “rapid depletion” of groundwater. Using satellite data, on-the-ground observations and a hydrological model, scientists observed that India’s groundwater declined substantially over 2002-21. They attributed the reduction in groundwater to “reduced groundwater recharge and enhanced pumping to meet irrigation demands” amid lower rainfall. They concluded: “Groundwater sustainability measures including reducing groundwater abstraction and enhancing the groundwater recharge during the summer monsoon seasons are needed to ensure future agricultural production.”
Highest ocean heat in four centuries places Great Barrier Reef in danger
Nature
Heat extremes in the sea containing the Great Barrier Reef over January-March in 2024, 2017 and 2020 were the “warmest in 400 years”, according to a new study. Using a multi-century reconstruction of sea surface temperature data on the Coral Sea on the Australian coast along with climate model analysis, the researchers highlighted the “existential threat” that human-caused climate change poses to the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem. Without “urgent intervention”, the researchers wrote that the reef risks “experiencing temperatures conducive to near-annual coral bleaching” in future. They noted: “In the absence of rapid, coordinated and ambitious global action to combat climate change, we will likely be witness to the demise of one of Earth’s great natural wonders.”
Global Change Biology
The 2022 marine heatwave in Fiordland, New Zealand – the “strongest and longest” to occur there – killed more than half of the marine sponges living there, a new study revealed. The researchers analysed the impacts of the marine heatwave – which had a maximum temperature of 4.4C above average and lasted for 259 days – on a particular photosynthetic sponge. They suggested that what killed marine sponges was not bleaching – which affected more than 90% of the sponges – but the high temperatures killing their tissues directly. The research concluded that the remaining sponges “had mostly recovered from earlier bleaching”, probably due to a microbial community shift as an “adaptive response”.
In the diary
- 12-16 August: Meeting of the working group on benefit-sharing from digital sequence information | Montreal
- 26-30 August: Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting | Tonga
- 28-29 August: EU Dialogue on national biodiversity strategies and action plans | Brussels
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 14 August 2024: Worldwide wildfires; Offsets up in smoke; Joshua tree spotting appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 14 August 2024: Worldwide wildfires; Offsets up in smoke; Joshua tree spotting
A new independent study by Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka (Centro Universitário de Brasília) and Dr Ben Tippet (King’s College London), commissioned by Greenpeace International, reveals that current International Seabed Authority revenue-sharing proposals would return virtually nothing to developing countries — despite the requirement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that deep sea mining must benefit humankind as a whole.
Instead, the analysis shows that the overwhelming economic value would flow to a handful of private corporations, primarily headquartered in the Global North.
Download the report:
Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area
Executive Summary: Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/greenpeace-reports/equity-benefit-sharing-and-financial-architecture-in-the-international-seabed-area/
Climate Change
Pacific nations would be paid only thousands for deep sea mining, while mining companies set to make billions, new research reveals
SYDNEY/FIJI, Thursday 26 February 2026 — New independent research commissioned by Greenpeace International has revealed that Pacific Island states would receive mere thousands of dollars in payment from deep sea mining per year, placing the region as one of the most affected but worst-off beneficiaries in the world.
The research by legal professor Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka and development economist Dr Ben Tippet reveals that mechanisms proposed by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for sharing any future revenues from deep sea mining would leave developing nations with meagre, token payments. Pacific Island nations would receive only USD $46,000 per year in the short term, then USD $241,000 per year in the medium term, averaging out to barely USD $382,000 per year for 28 years – an entire annual income for a nation that is less than some individual CEOs’ salaries. Mining companies would rake in over USD $13.5 billion per year, taking up to 98% of the revenues.
The analysis shows that under a scenario where six deep sea mining sites begin operating in the early 2030s, the revenues that states would actually receive are extraordinarily small. This is in contrast to the clear mandate of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which requires mining to be carried out for the benefit of humankind as a whole.[1] The real beneficiaries, the research shows, would be, yet again, a handful of corporations in the Global North.
Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific Shiva Gounden, said:
“What the Pacific is being promised amounts to little more than scraps. The people of the Pacific would sacrifice the most and receive the least if deep sea mining goes ahead. We are being asked to trade in our spiritual and cultural connection to our oceans, and risk our livelihoods and food sources, for almost nothing in return.
“The deep sea mining industry has manipulated the Pacific and has lied to our people for too long, promising prosperity and jobs that simply do not exist. The wealthy CEOs and deep sea mining companies will pocket the cash while the people of the Pacific see no material benefits. The Pacific will not benefit from deep sea mining, and our sacrifice is too big to allow it to go ahead. The Pacific Ocean is not a commodity, and it is not for sale.”
Using proposals submitted by the ISA’s Finance Committee between 2022 and 2025, the returns to states barely register in national accounts. After administrative costs, institutional expenses, and compensation funds are deducted, little, if anything, remains to distribute [3].
Author Dr Harvey Mpoto Bombaka of the Centro Universitário de Brasília said:
“What’s described as global benefit-sharing based on equity and intergenerational justice increasingly looks like a framework for managing scarcity that would deliver almost no real benefits to anyone other than the deep sea mining industry. The structural limitations of the proposed mechanism would offer little more than symbolic returns to the rest of the world, particularly developing countries lacking technological and financial capacity.”
The ISA will meet in March for its first session of the year. Currently, 40 countries back a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep sea mining.
Gounden added: “The deep sea belongs to all humankind, and our people take great pride in being the custodians of our Pacific Ocean. Protecting this with everything we have is not only fair and responsible but what we see as our ancestral duty. The only equitable path is to leave the minerals where they are and stop deep sea mining before it starts.
“The decision on the future of the ocean must be a process that centres the rights and voices of Pacific communities as the traditional custodians. Clearly, deep sea mining will not benefit the Pacific, and the only sensible way forward is a moratorium.”
—ENDS—
Notes
[1] A key condition for governments to permit deep sea mining to start in the international seabed is that it ‘be carried out for the benefit of mankind as a whole’, particularly developing nations, according to international law (Article 136-140, 148, 150, and 160(2)(g), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea).
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Kimberley Bernard on +61407 581 404 or kbernard@greenpeace.org
Climate Change
North Carolina Regulators Nix $1.2 Billion Federal Proposal to Dredge Wilmington Harbor
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to explain how it would mitigate environmental harms, including PFAS contamination.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can’t dredge 28 miles of the Wilmington Harbor as planned, after North Carolina environmental regulators determined the billion-dollar proposal would be inconsistent with the state’s coastal management policies.
North Carolina Regulators Nix $1.2 Billion Federal Proposal to Dredge Wilmington Harbor
Bravery Meets Tragedy: An Unending Story
Equity, Benefit-Sharing and Financial Architecture in the International Seabed Area
Pacific nations would be paid only thousands for deep sea mining, while mining companies set to make billions, new research reveals
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