Governments have, once again, failed to agree on a timeline for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seventh assessment cycle (AR7), two years into the process.
Last week, more than 300 scientists and government officials from around the world met in Lima, Peru for the 63rd session of the IPCC (IPCC-63).
According to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB), reporting exclusively from inside the four-day meeting, the closed-door talks were characterised by “fraught deliberations” where “once-routine” issues became “deeply controversial and time-consuming”.
Countries reached a compromise on the content of a methodology report on carbon dioxide removal technologies – a sticking point at the last IPCC meeting.
However, the meeting marked the fourth time in a row that delegates could not reach consensus on the timings of the IPCC’s influential three-part assessment report, after deadlocked talks in Hangzhou, China earlier this year and Sofia, Bulgaria and Istanbul, Turkey in 2024.
Observers told Carbon Brief of an atmosphere of “deepening mistrust” at the meeting, as emerging economies clashed with a coalition of small-island states and developed nations amid repeated accusations of “micromanagement”.
IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea reportedly lamented in his closing remarks that “as a category five hurricane [Hurricane Melissa] swept through the Carribean, IPCC-63 was deliberating on pronouns and footnotes”.
One former IPCC author tells Carbon Brief that certain countries’ opposition to agreeing a “deadline for AR7” was a “clear tactic for playing down the importance of IPCC climate science in decision-making on climate change”.
Historic splits
Each assessment cycle, the IPCC publishes three “working group” reports that focus on climate science (WG1), impacts and adaptation (WG2) and mitigation (WG3). It also publishes a small number of special reports and methodology reports.
The IPCC’s current assessment cycle has been underway since July 2023, with the authors for its three headline reports confirmed earlier this year.
It is atypical for the IPCC to have not yet agreed when these reports would be published so far into an assessment cycle. The workplans for AR5 and AR6 were “agreed with little difficulty”, the ENB notes in its summary of the event, adding:
“The debate about the timeline is unprecedented in the history of the IPCC.”
There are, broadly speaking, two camps in the debate around timelines for AR7.
The first wants a timeline that would align the publication of the IPCC’s three headline reports, plus special and methodology reports, with the second “global stocktake” (GST).
The GST is an appraisal of global progress on tackling climate change, which takes place every five years under the Paris Agreement. The second GST is scheduled to conclude at COP33 at the end of 2028, so that its findings can inform the fourth round of national climate pledges due a few years later.
Other countries, however, have advocated for a longer timeline. Among their concerns are the potential burden reviewing reports back-to-back could place on more resource-strapped countries, as well as whether the current schedule offers enough time for gaps in scientific literature to be filled.
As proceedings kicked off in Peru, the IPCC proposed a timeline for AR7 which would see all three of its headline reports published in 2028, with approval sessions earmarked for May, June and July of that year for the three working group reports.
WGI co-chair Dr Robert Vautard noted that the ongoing uncertainty on timelines was stressful for both the authors of reports, as well as for scientists wishing to submit research for the cycle, according to the ENB.
The delegation from Antigua and Barbuda, meanwhile, noted that agreement on the timeline is typically procedural and “not negotiated by governments”. It also said the proposed cycle length of around six-and-a-half years was consistent with the IPCC’s last two assessment cycles.
‘Compromise’ timeline
Throughout the four-day meeting, positions on both sides on the debate around AR7 remained “entrenched”, the ENB notes.
A “majority” of countries were in favour of a workplan which would align AR7 with the GST, the ENB says. However, this group was opposed by a “smaller, but growing” number of countries in favour of a less compressed timeline.
Early on in proceedings, for example, Kenya described a slower timeline as a “great equaliser” and said a more compressed timeline did not favour authors, nor the coordinating agencies, from developing countries, ENB says.
Meanwhile, India argued that the GST was “extraneous” to the IPCC and said there were no formal IPCC rules about aligning with the stocktaking exercise, according to ENB. Algeria, China, Libya, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa also reportedly voiced their opposition to the IPCC’s proposals.
Inclusivity concerns were also cited by countries in favour of the IPCC’s timeline. For example, the small-island state of Vanuatu reportedly said that delaying the reports would deprive countries of important scientific information ahead of key international meetings.
Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, France, the Gambia, Korea and Nepal were among the countries to speak up in favour of the IPCC’s proposed timeline, according to ENB.
Simon Steill, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), urged countries to agree on a timeline which aligned AR7 with the GST. In his opening address to the Lima meeting, he said:
“Taken together, the reports will be indispensable and I will continue to urge all countries to agree on timelines that ensure all three assessments inform the second global stocktake.
“Because the stocktake is not just a technical exercise. It is a crucial moment for the world to recognise the state of play, reaffirm its commitment to Paris and respond with action and support at the pace and scale that science demands.”
The ENB reports that a contact group was set up on Monday to work through the issue, co-chaired by Brazil and Denmark.
On Tuesday, a revised timeline for AR7 was presented by WG1 co-chair Dr Xiaoye Zhang and WG2 co-chair Dr Bart Van den Hurk, which took into account deliberations from the contact group, the ENB says. It set out a number of changes to the initial timeline, concentrated at the end of the cycle so as to address government concerns while limiting impacts on report authors.
This included spacing out approval sessions – where the final reports are signed off line by line – so that WG2 would be held in July 2028 (instead of June) and WG3 in September (instead of July). It also set out an extension of expert and government review periods for report drafts.
Discussion of the revised schedule was deferred until Wednesday at the request of Ghana, Kenya, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
As talks resumed, a number of emerging-economy countries spoke out against the updated timeline, including Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Zimbabwe, ENB notes.
Russia said that aligning the work of the IPCC with the UNFCCC would send a “negative signal”, ENB says, whereas China suggested that the timeline would put “pressure” on developing countries. South Africa similarly argued that the timeline would “harm” the inclusivity and geographic representativeness of the reports, according to ENB.
Among the countries in favour of the revised timeline were small-island developing states Haiti, Jamaica, Sao Tome and Principe and Vanuatu, as well developed economies Australia, Finland, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK, ENB says.
Grenada is quoted by ENB as describing the new timeline constituted a “compromise of a compromise”. The country also emphasised that it was supported by a majority of countries across regions and development levels, ENB says.
At the request of certain members of the contact group, WG1’s Vautard presented a visualisation of the new timeline for all three reports and the special report on cities on Wednesday evening. The graphic – seen by Carbon Brief – plots the timeline for “first-order” draft review (by experts), “second-order” draft review (by governments and experts), final government review and panel approval for each report.
Vautard noted that first-order draft reviews of the WG1 and WG2 reports overlapped “intentionally”, to allow experts to see both drafts at once.
(The request for a visualisation prompted accusations – not for the first time at the meeting – that certain countries were drawing the IPCC process into “micromanagement”, the ENB notes.)
The visualisation was followed by a new wave of objections from countries, who argued against a timeline where review periods for different reports overlapped with each other and UNFCCC meetings, according to ENB.
Among them were Russia and China, who argued that AR7 should be extended to 2029, ENB says. (Russia reportedly said it would “consider a plan” to deliver the overarching synthesis report by December 2029 – if its concerns were addressed.)
On the other hand, Antigua and Barbuda argued that avoiding any overlaps would not be feasible and expressed concerns that certain countries’ interventions seemed to be aimed “more at delay than progress”, the ENB notes.
Skea said he “struggled to see” why consecutive and overlapping reviews were a problem, according to the ENB. He noted that the IPCC rulebook states that panel and working group sessions should be scheduled to coordinate with, “to the extent possible, with other related international meetings”.
Lindsey Fielder-Cook, interim deputy director and the representative for climate change at the Quaker UN Office, was an observer to the talks. She tells Carbon Brief that “blocking” governments had “serious and genuine concerns” around the lack of equity inclusion in climate modelling and a failure of co-chairs to “sufficiently engage” with their proposals.
However, she says these countries also cited “structural” concerns around timing and capacity that “could be overcome” and speculated that these were “used to cover [for] what the countries do not say publicly”. She adds:
“For example, concerns include capacity and vacation times during [report] review times – which were not a concern raised by small-island developing states and many least-developed countries with even less capacity, [as well as concerns about] developing country scientific input, which the IPCC has made genuine efforts to improve.”
On Thursday evening, the facilitators of the contact group reported that no consensus had been reached, the ENB notes. Consequently, the IPCC agreed to – once again – defer decisions on the rest of the workplan to a future session.
Countries agreed that working groups should press on with activities and author meetings detailed in the 2026 budget.
(This outcome – where the IPCC plans in annual increments – had been described earlier in the week by Skea as the “worst option”. Nepal, meanwhile, said this result would “harm the IPCC’s legitimacy”.)
Routine issues ‘have become controversial’
This is now the fourth meeting in a row – following Istanbul, Sofia and Hangzhou – where the timeline for producing, reviewing and publishing the IPCC’s reports in AR7 has not been agreed.
In its analysis of the “fraught negotiations” in Lima, the ENB notes that “deep divisions” on the timeline and other procedural issues have “plagued the IPCC during the first two years of its seventh assessment cycle”. It added:
“Issues that were once routine have become deeply controversial and time-consuming.”
The failure to approve the timeline for AR7 was not the only issue on which countries were unable to agree. Approval of the official summaries of the two preceding IPCC meetings was also deferred, after certain countries said they could not sign off on the drafts.
After the previous IPCC meeting in Hangzhou, Skea told Carbon Brief that negotiations over just the outlines of the three AR7 working group reports “had some of the quality of an approval session”, where a finished report is scrutinised line by line.
In Lima, Skea “remarked that these disagreements [over the timeline] are unprecedented so early in an assessment cycle”, the ENB reports.
Throughout the meeting, the ENB records multiple instances of countries voicing their concerns about the implications for the work of the IPCC.
In its analysis of the meeting, the ENB says these concerns reflect “growing tensions within the panel, as “delegates expressed increasing frustration with what they see as inflexible positions”.
The ENB also notes:
“References made in this session to disrespectful interactions among delegates are atypical in the IPCC context and raise concerns that trust the basis for compromise and flexibility may be dwindling in some parts of the IPCC.”
(The IPCC has not responded to Carbon Brief’s multiple interview requests.)
In her observations, Fielder-Cook tells Carbon Brief that the meeting was “actually more relaxed” than recent IPCC sessions. This was “in part due to the gentle and generous hosting of Peru and in part to a sense of resignation on the timeline”.
Nonetheless, she says, the mood in the room was of “concern for the IPCC and its reputation, for its ability to protect science from intensifying political influence”, as well as “concern over the increasing political efforts to influence the scientific output”. She adds:
“While the work will continue, IPCC authors working voluntarily have no clear timeline on their voluntary commitment.”
Prof Lisa Schipper, a professor of development geography at the University of Bonn and IPCC AR6 author, tells Carbon Brief:
“Some countries refusing to set a deadline for the AR7 is a clear tactic for playing down the importance of IPCC climate science in decision-making on climate change. And this will be a problem if the report is done and cannot be approved and used by governments.”
Nonetheless, she adds, “there is plenty of good science being produced and governments are not in any way restricted from using this science in their decision-making”.
Ultimately, though, “we do need a decision on the AR7 timeline”, she says:
“No other single report provides the same evaluation and assessment of this collected knowledge or is able to give an authoritative overview of what we know, what we don’t know, and which future is more likely under different conditions.”
Consensus on CDR
Earlier this year in Hangzhou, governments failed to reach consensus on the outline for a methodology report on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, which is slated for publication in 2027.
This was largely due to disagreements around chapter seven in the proposed outline, a section that would focus on carbon removals from oceans, lakes and rivers.
On the first day in Lima, Takeshi Enoki – a co-chair of the IPCC task force on national greenhouse gas inventories (TFI), which is responsible for producing the report – introduced the outline and workplan for the methodology report.
Enoki explained that discussions about the report would focus on the table of contents and “particularly the proposed volume seven on the direct removal of CO2 from waterbodies”, according to ENB.
Fielder-Cook – the observer from the Quaker UN Office – tells Carbon Brief there was “significant concern” across a “range of developed and developing countries” over language in the initial methodology report outline that “could allow harmful marine geoengineering”.
Antigua and Barbuda, France and Germany were among the countries who opposed the inclusion of a seventh chapter. They cited concerns related to the “effectiveness, scalability, legality and environmental impacts” of marine CDR, the ENB notes.
Some of these countries suggested that the IPCC adopt the outline for “volumes one to six”, “with the possibility of adding to these volumes later”, the ENB says.
However, Saudi Arabia said that all “expert-recognised CDR and CCUS technologies, including marine-based technologies, must be considered”. It called for an outline that “encompasses the full spectrum of these technologies”.
ENB notes that the “point of contention” was whether the IPCC should develop methodologies for measuring and assessing the impacts of all CDR technologies. Some countries argued that the report should be limited to technologies that are “environmentally safe”, while others argued that it is “not the responsibility of a TFI methodology report to make that judgment”.
Skea set up a contact group on the first day of the meeting, facilitated by China and Turkey, to work on the outline of the report.
The following days saw “significant discussion” within the contact group, before delegates reconvened in plenary on Thursday to continue discussing the report, according to the ENB.
Delegates were eventually able to reach a compromise on the outline by agreeing to remove the chapter on direct removal of CO2 from waterbodies from the plan, the ENB reports.
Meanwhile, delegates agreed to hold an expert meeting on alkalinity enhancement – the addition of alkaline substances to seawater, which allows the ocean to take in more carbon from the atmosphere – and direct ocean capture. This meeting will be co-organised by the TFI and the three IPCC working groups.
Funding ‘shortfall’
At the Lima meeting, countries approved the IPCC’s budgets for 2025 and 2026, but also noted “with concern the significantly reduced cash balance” of the IPCC trust fund and the “accelerating decline” in the level of annual voluntary contributions from countries and other organisations, says the ENB.
The IPCC is funded by its parent organisations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UN Environment Programme (UNEP), along with voluntary contributions from member governments and the UNFCCC.
These contributions feed into the IPCC “trust fund”, which is used to pay for the work of the IPCC. In addition, member countries provide “in-kind” support, such as offering facilities for meetings and hosting the “technical support units” for each working group.
By the end of June, contributions in 2025 amounted to 1.2m Swiss francs (£1.1m) – significantly down compared to the annual totals of previous years. Compared to spending of 2.9m Swiss francs (£2.8m), this leaves a shortfall of around 1.7m Swiss francs (£1.6m) for 2025.
At the start of this year, the balance of the trust fund stood at 17.8m Swiss francs (£16.9m).
The chart below shows the direct contributions from countries and organisations throughout the IPCC’s history and up to the end of June this year.
Chart showing the largest direct contributors to the IPCC since its inception in 1988, with the US (red bars), European Union (dark blue) and UNFCCC/WMO/UNEP (mid blue) highlighted. Grey bars show all other contributors combined. Figures for 2025 are January to June inclusive. Figures for 1988-2003 are reported per two years, so these totals have been divided equally between each year. Source: IPCC (2025) and (2010). Contributions have been adjusted, as per IPCC footnotes, so they appear in the year they are received, rather than pledged.
The largest direct contributions to the IPCC trust fund so far this year have come from Norway (244,000 Swiss francs, or £230,000), the UNFCCC (230,000 Swiss francs, or £220,000), Canada (210,000 Swiss francs, or £200,000) and the WMO (125,000 Swiss francs, or £118,000).
Other countries to contribute this year include Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Peru, South Korea, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, and 213 Swiss francs (£200) from Cambodia.
The US – which has provided 30% of the IPCC’s direct contributions throughout its history – has not made a contribution so far this year.
In its final decision, the panel invited “member countries to make their annual voluntary contributions to the IPCC trust fund and, if possible, to increase [them]”, says the ENB.
Member countries also discussed a proposal from the WMO for the IPCC to pay 300,000 Swiss francs (£280,000) for administrative support that was previously provided as an in-kind contribution.
Given the “deteriorating financial situation” of the IPCC, the ENB reports that a decision on this proposal was deferred – not to the next meeting, but the one after that.
Progress reports and next steps
The Lima meeting was also an opportunity for each IPCC working group to update the rest of the delegates on progress since the last meeting.
All working groups discussed the process of selecting authors for the IPCC’s upcoming seventh assessment, highlighting their efforts to be “inclusive”.
For example, the WG3 co-chair said 52% of the selected WG3 authors are from developing countries, 40% are female and 59% are new to the IPCC.
A WG2 co-chair also reported that six chapter scientists had been selected from more than 1,320 applications for the special report on cities slated for publication in March 2027.
In addition, the WG1 co-chairs outlined their preparations for the first joint-lead author meeting for their assessment report, which will be held in December 2025.
They also laid out plans for a cross-working group “expert meeting” on “Earth system high impact events, tipping points and their consequences”, co-sponsored by the World Climate Research Programme (WCPR).
The meeting also granted “observer status” to 20 new organisations, allowing them to attend IPCC sessions and nominate experts as authors or workshop leads.
The IPCC confirmed that its next meeting will be held in Bangkok, Thailand over 24-27 March 2026.
Skea announced that workshops on “diverse knowledge systems and methods of assessment” will be held in February 2026 at the University of Reading in the UK.
Skea also proposed an expert meeting to “support the transition from conceptual design to technical implementation” of the AR7 WG1 and WG2 interactive atlases.
The atlases are interactive online tools that allow users to explore much of the data underpinning the working group reports.
The meeting was approved, subject to agreement on the budget. It is slated to take place between April and June 2026.
The post Ongoing failure to agree AR7 timeline is ‘unprecedented’ in IPCC history appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Ongoing failure to agree AR7 timeline is ‘unprecedented’ in IPCC history
Climate Change
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
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
Food inflation on the rise
DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.
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NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.
‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.
El Niño looms
NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”
WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”
CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.
News and views
- DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
- SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
- NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
- COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
- FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
- TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.
Spotlight
Nature talks inch forward
This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.
The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.
The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.
The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.
Money talks
Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.
Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.
Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.
Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:
“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”
Monitoring and reporting
Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.
Parties do so through the submission of national reports.
Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.
A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.
Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:
“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”
Watch, read, listen
NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.
COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.
HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.
‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.
New science
- Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
- Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food
In the diary
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean | Brasília
- 5 March: Nepal general elections
- 9-20 March: First part of the thirty-first session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) | Kingston, Jamaica
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 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
For millions of consumers, the sustainability scheme stickers found on everything from bananas to chocolate bars and wooden furniture are a way to choose products that are greener and more ethical than some of the alternatives.
Inga Petersen, executive director of the Global Battery Alliance (GBA), is on a mission to create a similar scheme for one of the building blocks of the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy systems: batteries.
“Right now, it’s a race to the bottom for whoever makes the cheapest battery,” Petersen told Climate Home News in an interview.
The GBA is working with industry, international organisations, NGOs and governments to establish a sustainable and transparent battery value chain by 2030.
“One of the things we’re trying to do is to create a marketplace where products can compete on elements other than price,” Petersen said.
Under the GBA’s plan, digital product passports and traceability would be used to issue product-level sustainability certifications, similar to those commonplace in other sectors such as forestry, Petersen said.
Managing battery boom’s risks
Over the past decade, battery deployment has increased 20-fold, driven by record-breaking electric vehicle (EV) sales and a booming market for batteries to store intermittent renewable energy.
Falling prices have been instrumental to the rapid expansion of the battery market. But the breakneck pace of growth has exposed the potential environmental and social harms associated with unregulated battery production.
From South America to Zimbabwe and Indonesia, mineral extraction and refining has led to social conflict, environmental damage, human rights violations and deforestation. In Indonesia, the nickel industry is powered by coal while in Europe, production plants have been met with strong local opposition over pollution concerns.
“We cannot manage these risks if we don’t have transparency,” Petersen said.
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China maximises battery recycling to shore up critical mineral supplies
Beijing is bracing for a tsunami of spent EV batteries by taking steps to boost recycling – a strategy that could also cut its reliance on imports of clean energy minerals -
Rush for critical minerals tests Europe’s resolve to protect nature
A Climate Home News investigation found that more than half of the EU’s “strategic” mineral projects lie on, or within a kilometre, of protected Natura 2000 sites -
West Africa’s first lithium mine awaits go-ahead as Ghana seeks better deal
Ghana wants to benefit from the scramble for lithium but its reliance on mining firms for revenue and expertise weakens its ability to negotiate preferential terms, experts say
The GBA was established in 2017 in response to concerns about the battery industry’s impact as demand was forecast to boom and reports of child labour in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo made headlines.
The alliance’s initial 19 members recognised that the industry needed to scale rapidly but with “social, environmental and governance guardrails”, said Petersen, who previously worked with the UN Environment Programme to develop guiding principles to minimise the environmental impact of mining.
Digital battery passport
Today, the alliance is working to develop a global certification scheme that will recognise batteries that meet minimum thresholds across a set of environmental, social and governance benchmarks it has defined along the entire value chain.
Participating mines, manufacturing plants and recycling facilities will have to provide data for their greenhouse gas emissions as well as how they perform against benchmarks for assessing biodiversity loss, pollution, child and forced labour, community impacts and respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples, for example.
The data will be independently verified, scored, aggregated and recorded on a battery passport – a digital record of the battery’s composition, which will include the origin of its raw materials and its performance against the GBA’s sustainability benchmarks.
The scheme is due to launch in 2027.
A carrot and a stick
Since the start of the year, some of the world’s largest battery companies have been voluntarily participating in the biggest pilot of the scheme to date.
More than 30 companies across the EV battery and stationary storage supply chains are involved, among them Chinese battery giants CATL and BYD subsidiary FinDreams Battery, miner Rio Tinto, battery producers Samsung SDI and Siemens, automotive supplier Denso and Tesla.
Petersen said she was “thrilled” about support for the scheme. Amid a growing pushback against sustainability rules and standards, “these companies are stepping up to send a public signal that they are still committed to a sustainable and responsible battery value chain,” she said.
There are other motivations for battery producers to know where components in their batteries have come from and whether they have been produced responsibly.
In 2023, the EU adopted a law regulating the batteries sold on its market.
From 2027, it mandates all batteries to meet environmental and safety criteria and to have a digital passport accessed via a QR code that contains information about the battery’s composition, its carbon footprint and its recycling content.
The GBA certification is not intended as a compliance instrument for the EU law but it will “add a carrot” by recognising manufacturers that go beyond meeting the bloc’s rules on nature and human rights, Petersen said.
Raising standards in complex supply chain
But challenges remain, in part due to the complexity of battery supply chains.
In the case of timber, “you have a single input material but then you have a very complex range of end products. For batteries, it’s almost the reverse,” Petersen said.
The GBA wants its certification scheme to cover all critical minerals present in batteries, covering dozens of different mining, processing and manufacturing processes and hundreds of facilities.
“One of the biggest impacts will be rewarding the leading performers through preferential access to capital, for example, with investors choosing companies that are managing their risk responsibly and transparently,” Petersen said.
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It could help influence public procurement and how companies, such as EV makers, choose their suppliers, she added. End consumers will also be able to access a summary of the GBA’s scores when deciding which product to buy.
US, Europe rush to build battery supply chain
Today, the GBA has more than 150 members across the battery value chain, including more than 50 companies, of which over a dozen are Chinese firms.
China produces over three-quarters of batteries sold globally and it dominates the world’s battery recycling capacity, leaving the US and Europe scrambling to reduce their dependence on Beijing by building their own battery supply chains.
Petersen hopes the alliance’s work can help build trust in the sector amid heightened geopolitical tensions. “People want to know where the materials are coming from and which actors are involved,” she said.
At the same time, companies increasingly recognise that failing to manage sustainability risks can threaten their operations. Protests over environmental concerns have shut down mines and battery factories across the world.
“Most companies know that and that’s why they’re making these efforts,” Petersen added.
The post Battery passport plan aims to clean up the industry powering clean energy appeared first on Climate Home News.
Battery passport plan aims to clean up the industry powering clean energy
Climate Change
Reheating plastic food containers: what science says about microplastics and chemicals in ready meals
How often do you eat takeaway food? What about pre-prepared ready meals? Or maybe just microwaving some leftovers you had in the fridge? In any of these cases, there’s a pretty good chance the container was made out of plastic. Considering that they can be an extremely affordable option, are there any potential downsides we need to be aware of? We decided to investigate.
Scientific research increasingly shows that heating food in plastic packaging can release microplastics and plastic chemicals into the food we eat. A new Greenpeace International review of peer-reviewed studies finds that microwaving plastic food containers significantly increases this release, raising concerns about long-term human health impacts. This article summarises what the science says, what remains uncertain, and what needs to change.
There’s no shortage of research showing how microplastics and nanoplastics have made their way throughout the environment, from snowy mountaintops and Arctic ice, into the beetles, slugs, snails and earthworms at the bottom of the food chain. It’s a similar story with humans, with microplastics found in blood, placenta, lungs, liver and plenty of other places. On top of this, there’s some 16,000 chemicals known to be either present or used in plastic, with a bit over a quarter of those chemicals already identified as being of concern. And there are already just under 1,400 chemicals that have been found in people.
Not just food packaging, but plenty of household items either contain or are made from plastic, meaning they potentially could be a source of exposure as well. So if microplastics and chemicals are everywhere (including inside us), how are they getting there? Should we be concerned that a lot of our food is packaged in plastic?
Greenpeace analysis of 24 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals found that the plastics we use to package our food are directly risking our health.
Heating food in plastic packaging dramatically increases the levels of microplastics and chemicals that leach into our food.
Plastic food packaging: the good, the bad, and the ugly
The growing trend towards ready meals, online shopping and restaurant delivery, and away from home-prepared meals and individual grocery shopping, is happening in every region of the world. Since the first microwaveable TV dinners were introduced in the US in the 1950s to sell off excess stock of turkey meat after Thanksgiving holidays, pre-packaged ready meals have grown hugely in sales. The global market is worth $190bn in 2025, and is expected to reach a total volume of 71.5 million tonnes by 2030. It’s also predicted that the top five global markets for convenience food (China, USA, Japan, Mexico and Russia) will remain relatively unchanged up to 2030, with the most revenue in 2019 generated by the North America region.
A new report from Greenpeace International set out to analyse articles in peer-reviewed, scientific journals to look at what exactly the research has to say about plastic food packaging and food contact plastics.
Here’s what we found.
Our review of 24 recent articles highlights a consistent picture that regulators, businesses and
consumers should be concerned about: when food is packaged in plastic and then microwaved, this significantly increases the risk of both microplastic and chemical release, and that these microplastics and chemicals will leach into the food inside the packaging.
And not just some, but a lot of microplastics and chemicals.
When polystyrene and polypropylene containers filled with water were microwaved after being stored in the fridge or freezer, one study found they released anywhere between 100,000-260,000 microplastic particles, and another found that five minutes of microwave heating could release between 326,000-534,000 particles into food.
Similarly there are a wide range of chemicals that can be and are released when plastic is heated. Across different plastic types, there are estimated to be around 16,000 different chemicals that can either be used or present in plastics, and of these around 4,200 are identified as being hazardous, whilst many others lack any form of identification (hazardous or otherwise) at all.
The research also showed that 1,396 food contact plastic chemicals have been found in humans, several of which are known to be hazardous to human health. At the same time, there are many chemicals for which no research into the long-term effects on human health exists.
Ultimately, we are left with evidence pointing towards increased release of microplastics and plastic chemicals into food from heating, the regular migration of microplastics and chemicals into food, and concerns around what long-term impacts these substances have on human health, which range from uncertain to identified harm.
The known unknowns of plastic chemicals and microplastics
The problem here (aside from the fact that plastic chemicals are routinely migrating into our food), is that often we don’t have any clear research or information on what long-term impacts these chemicals have on human health. This is true of both the chemicals deliberately used in plastic production (some of which are absolutely toxic, like antimony which is used to make PET plastic), as well as in what’s called non-intentionally added substances (NIAS).
NIAS refers to chemicals which have been found in plastic, and typically originate as impurities, reaction by-products, or can even form later when meals are heated. One study found that a UV stabiliser plastic additive reacted with potato starch when microwaved to create a previously unknown chemical compound.
We’ve been here before: lessons from tobacco, asbestos and lead
Although none of this sounds particularly great, this is not without precedence. Between what we do and don’t know, waiting for perfect evidence is costly both economically and in terms of human health. With tobacco, asbestos, and lead, a similar story to what we’re seeing now has played out before. After initial evidence suggesting problems and toxicity, lobbyists from these industries pushed back to sow doubt about the scientific validity of the findings, delaying meaningful action. And all the while, between 1950-2000, tobacco alone led to the deaths of around 60 million people. Whilst distinguishing between correlation and causation, and finding proper evidence is certainly important, it’s also important to take preventative action early, rather than wait for more people to be hurt in order to definitively prove the point.
Where to from here?
This is where adopting the precautionary principle comes in. This means shifting the burden of proof away from consumers and everyone else to prove that a product is definitely harmful (e.g. it’s definitely this particular plastic that caused this particular problem), and onto the manufacturer to prove that their product is definitely safe. This is not a new idea, and plenty of examples of this exist already, such as the EU’s REACH regulation, which is centred around the idea of “no data, no market” – manufacturers are obligated to provide data demonstrating the safety of their product in order to be sold.
Greenpeace analysis of 24 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals found that the plastics we use to package our food are directly risking our health.
Heating food in plastic packaging dramatically increases the levels of microplastics and chemicals that leach into our food.
But as it stands currently, the precautionary principle isn’t applied to plastics. For REACH in particular, plastics are assessed on a risk-based approach, which means that, as the plastic industry itself has pointed out, something can be identified as being extremely hazardous, but is still allowed to be used in production if the leached chemical stays below “safe” levels, despite that for some chemicals a “safe” low dose is either undefined, unknown, or doesn’t exist.
A better path forward
Governments aren’t acting fast enough to reduce our exposure and protect our health. There’s no shortage of things we can do to improve this situation. The most critical one is to make and consume less plastic. This is a global problem that requires a strong Global Plastics Treaty that reduces global plastic production by at least 75% by 2040 and eliminates harmful plastics and chemicals. And it’s time that corporations take this growing threat to their customers’ health seriously, starting with their food packaging and food contact products. Here are a number of specific actions policymakers and companies can take, and helpful hints for consumers.
Policymakers & companies
- Implement the precautionary principle:
- For policymakers – Stop the use of hazardous plastics and chemicals, on the basis of their intrinsic risk, rather than an assessment of “safe” levels of exposure.
- For companies – Commit to ensure that there is a “zero release” of microplastics and hazardous chemicals from packaging into food, alongside an Action Plan with milestones to achieve this by 2035
- Stop giving false assurances to consumers about “microwave safe” containers
- Stop the use of single-use and plastic packaging, and implement policies and incentives to foster the uptake of reuse systems and non-toxic packaging alternatives.
Consumers
- Encourage your local supermarkets and shops to shift away from plastic where possible
- Avoid using plastic containers when heating/reheating food
- Use non-plastic refill containers
Trying to dodge plastic can be exhausting. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re not alone. We can only do so much in this broken plastic-obsessed system. Plastic producers and polluters need to be held accountable, and governments need to act faster to protect the health of people and the planet. We urgently need global governments to accelerate a justice-centred transition to a healthier, reuse-based, zero-waste future. Ensure your government doesn’t waste this once-in-a-generation opportunity to end the age of plastic.
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