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We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.

Key developments

COP16 resumes in Rome

CALI CARRIES ON: The UN biodiversity summit, COP16, resumed in Rome yesterday after the countries failed to reach agreement on several key issues in Cali, Colombia last year. The latest round of talks “will focus on securing financial resources and developing a robust system to track biodiversity commitments”, DownToEarth said. Devex noted that the Rome meeting “won’t have the same pomp and circumstance” as the Colombia talks. On the first day of the resumed talks, the Cali fund for sharing the benefits derived from genetic data – seen as one of the big “wins” from the Colombia talks – was launched.

DEFORESTATION IS UP: Last week, COP16 president (and former environment minister of Colombia) Susana Muhamad announced that deforestation in the country was 35% higher in 2024 than 2023. According to Climate Home News, the increase was “fuelled by an uptick in the Amazon region”, which Muhamad attributed primarily to “the involvement of organised crime more than rural communities”. Despite the uptick, the deforestation rate in 2024 was still the second lowest in the last 23 years, after last year’s record low.

NATURE PLANS LACKING: Meanwhile, a joint investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that of the 137 countries that had submitted updated biodiversity plans to the UN by 21 February, fewer than half were committing to protecting 30% of their land and sea by 2030. The so-called “30 by 30” target was a key goal of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, agreed at COP15 in Montreal. Responding to Carbon Brief and the Guardian, several countries said that they are still finalising their targets. Indonesia pointed out that the target is meant to be a global one, with no contributions specified for each country. Brian O’Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, said: “This is troubling and action must be taken to put the world on track.”

Extreme weather driving up food prices

MAPPING DAMAGES: Carbon Brief published a new interactive map showing some of the impacts of extreme weather on global crops during 2023 and 2024. Using news reports in global media and other sources, the analysis identified 100 cases around the world where crops were damaged or destroyed by heat, drought, wildfires or other extreme events. According to the findings, Europe, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa were the regions most impacted by flooding, while Asia, Europe and Latin America were the most frequently hit by droughts.

HUGE IMPACT: Extreme weather is “expected to” drive up food prices throughout 2025, according to analysis covered by the Guardian. The research showed a “long-term trend towards more extreme weather events would continue to hit regional crop yields, causing price spikes”. Of the studied crops, coffee and cocoa had the highest price spikes last year due to surging rainfall and temperatures. Elsewhere, Mongabay covered a new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization pointing out that increasing droughts and floods, as well as rising temperatures in Latin America and the Caribbean, are leading to crop and livestock losses, interruption of supply chains and impoverishment among farmers. Those events are “highly frequent” in 74% of the countries in the region, the report said.

TOWARDS COP30: Warmer temperatures threaten wheat production in India, which has declined over the past three years, the New Indian Express reported. According to India’s Meteorological Department, north-western areas have seen temperatures fluctuate 2-6C above normal during that time. In Brazil, the inflation rate for food and beverage reached nearly 7.7% last year due to the impacts of climate change, according to COP30’s official webpage. The website quoted Guilherme Mello, secretary of economic policy at Brazil’s ministry of finance, who stressed the need to “adapt and create adequate instruments to guarantee food and water security”.

Spotlight

Biodiversity banking on a breakthrough

This week, Carbon Brief traces the history and future of the fight for a new biodiversity fund as COP16 restarts in Rome.

The fight for a new biodiversity fund – dominating the agenda at the resumed nature talks in Rome and led by “megadiverse” countries – is a fight that has come a long way in the last four years.

From a proposal in Nairobi to an overlooked objection that soured nature’s “Paris” moment in Montreal, the call for a COP-governed biodiversity fund that could match climate’s $100bn-promise failed to materialise at COP15

Instead, the final nature deal for this decade – gavelled through in a hurry – gave the world an interim fund with a mandate to operate only until 2030. It gave rich countries a scaled-down, collective bottom line of paying $20bn per year by 2025 and $30bn per year by 2030 in biodiversity finance, against a $700bn-a-year nature funding “gap” that is widening every year.

With only $250m collected in the interim fund and developed countries accused of failing to pay their “fair share” by the start of COP16, Zimbabwe revived the fight for the fund on the very first day in Cali.

The decision “to establish a dedicated global financing instrument” eventually made it to a 3:30am draft issued by Colombia’s Susana Muhamad. That “L document” published well into overtime and an inability to gather a quorum put the brakes on COP16. It is now at the heart of what brings countries again to Rome.

To Muhamad, the “polarisation” around resource mobilisation has a lot to do with the “changing landscape of power in geopolitics”, the economic cost of conflict and the need to “substantially address” biodiversity loss and climate change.

The Rome session follows what has been described as a “betrayal” of climate finance talks at COP29 in Baku. It also comes as a re-elected Donald Trump dismantles US climate policy and many European countries cut their aid budgets. 

Although the US is not a party to the UN Biodiversity Convention (CBD), Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and geopolitical trade wars have cast a cloud over global environmental cooperation and tempered hopes for more public funding for nature and climate.

At the opening of the resumed talks, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres warned in a statement that “[w]ith the world approaching dangerous tipping points, it is imperative that [countries] reach agreement here in Rome” on how biodiversity finance commitments will be honoured. He added:

“We share nature and we depend on nature. Multilateralism is our only hope.”

The Rome talks are already seeing countries bringing the same arguments to the table, even though $30bn is a 10th of the $300bn climate-finance goal.

In general, developed countries want to broaden and review the list of donor states contributing biodiversity finance to include other countries, such as China and Russia, as well as private sources, such as biodiversity credits. They also typically do not see the need for a new fund after 2030. In contrast, developing countries do not want to leave Rome without a new fund or to let countries escape their historical obligations to pay.

Muhamad, meanwhile, is hoping nations will agree on a roadmap somewhere in between and make progress towards reforming the complex, but shallow, pool of biodiversity finance.

After back-to-back regional consultations and bilateral meetings, her ambitious after-midnight draft has since been reformed into a “reflection note” attempting compromise. But, as she notes, “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”, including a monitoring framework that countries say is contingent on a strong finance outcome.

As a delegate from Panama pointed out on the first day of the Rome talks:

“Biodiversity financing beyond 2030 must reflect the urgency of the biodiversity crisis and align with the commitments under the framework. This is a matter of survival for ecosystems, economy and humanity. We cannot repeat the failures of climate finance. [The Rome talks] must deliver more than words. It must deliver funding.”

News and views

US AG DEPARTMENT CHAOS: Organic farmers have sued the US agriculture department over its deletion of climate-related information from its website, the New York Times reported. The now-missing pages contained “datasets, interactive tools and funding information that farmers and researchers relied on for planning and adaptation projects”, the newspaper wrote. The department also implemented a funding freeze on climate- and conservation-related programmes, although some freezes on the latter have been lifted, according to Civil Eats. Meanwhile, the department is “scrambling to rehire several workers who were involved in the government’s response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak” and had been fired on Elon Musk’s recommendation, according to the Associated Press.

RIVER RESTRICTIONS: Norway’s parliament has approved a bill that would “open up protected rivers to hydropower plants”, the Guardian reported. Nearly 400 of the country’s waterways are currently protected from such development. The Guardian noted that “companies seeking to build hydropower dams would still face strict assessments before being granted a permit”. However, one member of the Norwegian parliament said the bill was “a historic attack on Norwegian nature”. The newspaper added that as a result of Norway’s network of hydropower dams, “the Norwegian electricity grid is among the cleanest on the planet”.

CONGO CORRIDOR: A plan to create the “world’s largest protected area” in the Democratic Republic of Congo does not have the approval of Indigenous peoples and local communities, Climate Home News reported. In January, DRC president Felix Tshisekedi announced the creation of a 2,600km-long “green corridor” in the Congo basin forest, which he said would “strengthen agricultural value chains and sustainable development”. However, the outlet noted that Indigenous and local groups have not been consulted about the project and “fear it could impinge on their land”. Groups that oppose the project, including Greenpeace Africa, fear it could “perpetuate neo-colonialism”.

ET TU, EU?: The European Commission plans to pare back the number of companies facing the EU’s sustainability reporting requirements and delay a key due diligence law that would require companies to address environmental and human-rights issues in their supply chains, according to a draft seen by Reuters. Politico published a set of five takeaways on the EU’s long-term “vision” for agriculture, which includes “stronger support for carbon farming [and] bioenergy production”. Environmental campaigners told the Guardian that the new farming strategy “ignores vital green proposals” including a just transition fund, a “necessary increase in environmental payments” and “the case for eating less meat”. Separately, Scandinavia’s largest dairy producer told the Financial Times that uncertainty about the EU’s rules “is deterring investment in food production and pushing up prices”.

TENSION OVER CORN: Mexico lifted its ban on genetically modified corn imports from the US, after a ruling made under the US, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA), SciDevNet reported. In 2020, former Mexico’s former president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, had issued a decree to ban GM corn. After a recent ruling against such a ban, filed by a dispute settlement panel, current president Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration released a new decision on 5 February approving the use of GM corn for human consumption and calling off the plan to halt its use for animal feeding.

Watch, read, listen

PAYBACK TIME: The Straits Times’s Green Pulse podcast spoke to Dr Siva Thambisetty, who was closely involved in negotiations for the landmark Cali Fund that launched this week.

SEA TREASURES: A BBC Earth video showed the “top five whale scenes”, including everything from feeding techniques to the ongoing challenges they face.

BANANA BOOM: Mekong Eye explored how booming demand for bananas has driven large-scale soil depletion in Laos.

KEEPING CHAPARRAL ALIVE: NPR explained the importance of California’s native chaparral brush and how clearing it will not reduce the risk of wildfires.

New science

  • Research published in Bird Study found that solar farms contained greater numbers and diversity of birds, as compared to arable farmland. Researchers studied six solar farms in the UK, finding that these benefits could be magnified by managing the farms with biodiversity in mind.
  • UK peatland fires emitted around 800,000 tonnes of carbon between 2001 and 2021, according to a study published recently in Environmental Research Letters. By looking at climate projections, the researchers found that 2C of warming could increase peatland-fire emissions by more than 60%.
  • A new study, published in Nature Food, finds that 1.2 billion people globally are dependent on imported nitrogen fertilisers for food production. The authors suggest that shifting towards smaller-scale ammonia production could increase both food security and agricultural sustainability.

In the diary

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 26 February 2025: COP16 biodiversity talks resume; Farmers sue Trump; Mapping extreme weather’s ag impacts appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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Climate Change

Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change

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Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.

Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”

The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.

On beaches of Gaza and Tel Aviv, two tales of one heatwave

The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.

Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.

A displaced Palestinian child fills water containers on July 2, 2026 in Gaza City, Gaza. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.

Green reconstruction of Gaza

Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.

While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.

    The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.

    But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.

    With occupation, targets conditional

    In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

    Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.

    Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.

    That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.

    To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.

    In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.

    A bus rapid transit system in Sao Paulo (Flickr/EMBARQ BRASIL)

    To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.

    The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.

    The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.

    The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.

    The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

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    Climate Change

    Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026

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    Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.

    Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.

    Line chart showing that UK solar generation reached an all-time high during record-hot summer 2026

    Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.

    This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.

    Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.

    June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.

    It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.

    In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.

    According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.

    Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

    While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.

    June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.

    As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.

    The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.

    In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.

    (Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)

    According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.

    This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.

    In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.

    Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.

    Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:

    “[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.

    Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.

    * This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.

    The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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    Climate Change

    How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts

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    Farmers around Europe are dealing with the aftermath of a summer of extreme heat, drought and wildfires that were exacerbated by climate change.

    Human-caused climate change is increasing the severity and likelihood of many extreme weather events around the world, which is increasing volatility for food producers.

    This summer resulted in, for example, shrunken potatoes in the Netherlands, reduced carrot harvests in France, dried-up rice fields in Italy and scorched olive groves in parts of the Mediterranean region.

    Global food prices are currently at their highest level since early 2023 due to “heatwaves and energy price dynamics”, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

    Other factors such as blocked fertiliser supplies in the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel costs have also played a role in this year’s agricultural outputs.

    In the six charts below, Carbon Brief provides a snapshot of the impact this summer’s extremes are considered to have had on crop production and yields across Europe.

    1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year

    2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields

    3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave

    4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026

    5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low

    6. Declines in EU grains since 2025

    Article Contents

    1. Most EU countries expect to see declines in cereal production this year

    Bar chart showing that France is due to see the largest drops in cereal production in the EU in 2026. The bar chart shows that France's cereal production in 2026 has dropped -7.7 Mt of followed by Germany (-3.5 Mt), Poland (-3.2 Mt), Spain (-2.9 Mt), and Hungary (-2.6)
    Changes in cereal production in 26 EU countries between 2025 and 2026. Malta is excluded due to a lack of available data. Source: European Commission.

    France, in particular, will see heavy losses in the amount of cereals – such as wheat, barley and oats – it produces this year, according to European Commission data.

    French cereal production is expected to drop by almost 8 megatonnes (Mt) in 2026, compared to 2025.

    The chart above shows that most European countries, aside from Bulgaria, will also see production losses this year.

    Germany is due to see the second-largest losses in production, dropping by almost 4Mt compared to 2025.

    Prof Til Feike, a cropping systems expert at the Julius Kühn-Institut, says many areas in Germany and Austria, as with other parts of Europe, have been “hit hard by a long-lasting dry period in combination with record-high heatwaves”.

    This has resulted in dry grassland for animals and lower yields of maize, which is a “key fodder crop” for livestock. He tells Carbon Brief:

    “In the long run, farming must adapt better to more extreme weather conditions, not only heat and drought, but also prolonged wet periods. So, there is no one-fits-all solution for climate change adaptation.”

    2. Most countries are recording reduced crop yields

    Heat and a lack of water have “substantially worsened” crop expectations this summer in western and most of central Europe, according to a recent bulletin from the EU Joint Research Centre.

    Yields are expected to be “significantly reduced”, with local crop failures “likely” in areas such as France, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Hungary, it added.

    The chart below shows that yields of cereal grains – which, here, refers to the tonnes of a grain grown per hectare of land – are expected to fall in most EU countries in 2026.

    Bar chart showing that Slovakia and Austria are due to see the largest cereal yield declines in 2026. The bar chart shows that both Slovakia and Austria have seen their cereal yields drop -1.3 tonnes per hectare over 2025-26.
    Changes in cereal yields in 26 EU countries between 2025 and 2026. Malta is excluded due to a lack of available data. Source: European Commission.

    Slovakia, Austria and Hungary are expected to see the largest declines in cereal yields, reducing by more than one tonne per hectare in 2026 compared to 2025.

    The recent EU bulletin noted that irrigated crops performed well in Portugal this summer – the country with the largest yield increases. Other crops relying on rainfall showed growing signs of heat stress, it added.

    3. Around €2bn worth of cereal losses after June heatwave

    The record heatwave that hit many parts of Europe in June contributed to an estimated €2-2.3bn in cumulative grain production losses, as shown in the chart below.

    Bar chart showing that the June heatwave in 2026 led to around €2bn in cereal production losses in Europe. The bar chart shows that France is the EU country that lost the most revenue, with an estimated loss of €891 million, followed by Hungary (with an estimated loss of €444 million) and Spain (with an estimated loss of €276)
    Estimates of revenue lost due to changes in production forecasts between June and July 2026. Source: ECIU.

    The intense June heat in western Europe would have been “virtually impossible” just 50 years ago, according to a rapid climate attribution study. It was the region’s hottest June on record.

    The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) thinktank analysed June and July 2026 grain forecasts from Coceral, a European grain traders association.

    ECIU estimated lost supply by multiplying the change in tonnes of grains between these two months by prices for harvest delivery in 28 European countries.

    Major grain producers France, Germany, Hungary and Spain accounted for 86% of the lost revenue, according to the ECIU.

    Extreme heat is also expected to have a wider economic impact across the continent. Analysis from Triodos Bank found that this summer’s extreme weather could reduce the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) by around 1% this year, or around €180bn.

    4. UK yields of wheat, barley and oats are all due to drop in 2026

    If current trends continue, the average yields for cereals and oilseeds will result in the UK’s worst harvest since detailed records began in 1984, according to ECIU.

    Line chart showing that UK cereal yields could hit lowest levels since at least 1990 this year.
    Yields of cereals and oilseed rape in the UK over 1990-2026. Source: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board.

    Barley yields could fall by 15%, oats by 14% and wheat yields by 6% year-on-year, according to 2026 harvest surveys from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, a non-departmental public body that provides agricultural data to the UK government.

    ECIU said that, even if the situation improves, this year is still expected to be one of the five worst harvests on record. This means that four of the five worst harvests in the UK have occurred in the past decade.

    Consumers will likely see higher prices and/or smaller vegetables in supermarkets as a result, Tim O’Malley, chairman of UK company Nationwide Produce, told BBC News in August.

    Other crops, such as berries, have grown successfully in the extreme heat. But the Guardian noted fears this could dip later this year “as plants become exhausted from heavy cropping during the heatwave”.

    5. Maize production in France is due to hit a four-decade low

    France has been acutely affected by this summer’s extreme weather, with more than 7,300 excess deaths during heatwaves and a record number of weather stations recording temperatures of above 40C.

    The country is the EU’s largest agricultural producer, but heat, drought and wildfires have affected many crops.

    The chart below shows that maize production is set to drop by more than one-third (35%) year-on-year.

    Line chart showing that maize production in France is due to reach lowest levels since 1980
    Maize production in France over 1980-2026. Source: Agreste.

    This could result in France’s lowest maize production since 1980, according to data from Agreste, the country’s agriculture ministry’s statistics service.

    Due to the heat, “record-early” grape harvests have also been recorded in various parts of the nation since mid-July, reported Le Monde. In some cases, this means “smaller, less juicy grapes, which will yield less wine”, explained the newspaper.

    6. Declines in EU grains since 2025

    Chart showing that EU cereal production is set to reduce by 9% in 2026.
    Production of cereal crops in Europe over 1993-2026. The “other” category includes oats, rye, sorghum, millet and buckwheat. Source: European Commission.

    Overall in the EU, data and projections indicate declines in the output of cereal grains this year.

    Cereal production is set to fall by 9% compared to 2025, according to the European Commission.

    Just one year in the past decade – 2024 – recorded lower production levels.

    Maize production is set to be particularly affected, with projections indicating a 13% drop, to 52Mt – the lowest level in the EU since 2007.

    The post How this summer’s heat and drought impacted crops in Europe – in six charts appeared first on Carbon Brief.

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