Located in the heart of the Amazon, it has been billed as Brazil’s first sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) project, but the palm oil producer behind a planned biorefinery in Manaus is now grappling with a financial crisis triggered by concern over possible rights abuses.
Reporting in the region by Brazilian news outlet InfoAmazonia in partnership with Climate Home News, has also found that the company – São Paulo-based Brasil BioFuels (Grupo BBF) – is growing oil palm on three areas subject to sanctions by Brazil’s Ibama environmental agency over illegal deforestation.
The embargoed plots lie in São João da Baliza, a sparsely populated district strung along the highway where former grazing pasture and biodiversity-rich scrubland have steadily been replaced by neat rows of oil palms. Signs hanging on fences say the crop will be used to make SAF.
Aviation’s Green Dream: Read our investigative series on Sustainable Aviation Fuel
While many locals living in the district’s towns welcome the jobs and economic boost provided by BBF’s palm plantations, Indigenous people and environmentalists see them as a threat to nature, traditional ways of life and the rainforest.
“If these areas are completely replaced by crops for biofuel production, we will lose unique species, many of which are still little known to science,” said Lucas Ferrante, a researcher from the zoology postgraduate programme at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM).
BBF, which announced its plans for the Manaus SAF project back in 2022, makes much of the fact that – in line with Brazil’s strict environmental laws – it only grows oil palm on land that was degraded before 2007, rather than freshly deforested land.
Stressing the company’s green credentials in an interview with Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico last year, CEO Milton Steagall said the firm – which grows palm on about 75,000 hectares (185,000 acres) in the northern Amazon states of Pará and Roraima – “only cultivates the plant in the areas permitted by law”.
“Our sustainable palm cultivation recovers areas already degraded by deforestation and contributes to keeping the Amazon rainforest standing,” he said.
Illegally cleared land
BBF, which says it is the biggest palm oil producer in Brazil, makes palm-based biodiesel that fuels a network of power stations in the Amazon region, supplying some 140,000 customers.
The plan to produce SAF from the same feedstock would be its first foray into a new market that is set to take off in the coming years, as more countries – including Brazil – require their aviation sectors to start using greener fuel.
But InfoAmazonia’s investigation suggests that sourcing rising amounts of SAF from crops like palm that are grown in tropical forest countries – from Brazil to Malaysia – poses a threat to rainforests that are vital stores of climate-heating carbon.
Is the world’s big idea for greener air travel a flight of fancy?
InfoAmazonia identified the illegally deforested areas being used by BBF in southern parts of Roraima by analysing data from the Earth Index platform, which draws on artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite images to determine land use.
The data was then cross-referenced with maps of embargoed areas produced by the government’s Ibama agency. In April this year, the InfoAmazonia team visited the sites and confirmed the existence of the palm crops.
Their analysis found that a total area of 164 hectares (405 acres) close to São João da Baliza had been embargoed by Ibama, meaning the land cannot be used for agriculture.
While the area – roughly equivalent to 250 soccer pitches – represents a small fraction of BBF’s total plantations, the findings highlight the deforestation risks of large-scale oil palm cultivation in the Amazon.
None of the plots are officially registered in BBF’s name – something that is relatively common in Brazil’s land registry – but when InfoAmazonia visited them, the company’s logo could be seen displayed clearly on the fences of each.
Pictures taken with a drone of one of the areas show a field that appears to have been recently planted with palms cutting into a forested area that stretches toward the horizon. A few tall trees dot the newly planted area.
Asked about InfoAmazonia’s findings, BBF said it had never been informed about the issuance of environmental penalties on any of its land in Roraima.
“(The company) has (completed) the environmental licensing processes with the State Foundation for the Environment and Water Resources (FEMARH) in all of its areas, which are necessary for the sustainable cultivation of oil palm in the state of Roraima,” a BBF spokesperson told InfoAmazonia.
Pasture and bananas make way for palm
Palm oil production in Roraima as a whole rose nearly 40 times between 2019 and 2023, according to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Even when palm is planted only on degraded land, the spread of plantations puts “indirect pressure” on forested areas, said Eder Carvalho, chief inspector at Ibama’s Roraima branch.
“Old pasture is replaced by palm, with forested areas in turn being cleared to make way for new pasture and banana cultivation,” he said, explaining a process often referred to in climate and environmental risk assessments as “indirect land use change”, or ILUC.
It is because of the high risk of ILUC linked to palm oil cultivation – and the related carbon dioxide emitted when forests are destroyed – that virgin palm oil is not permitted as a feedstock for SAF in Europe.
Large plantations of a single crop, a practice called monoculture, cause other environmental problems, too, opponents say, taking a heavy toll on biodiversity, depleting water supplies and often involving substantial use of pesticides and other agrochemicals.
In the Amazon, researchers say monoculture also depletes the so-called flying rivers – moist air currents – that carry rain to other parts of Brazil.
“The forest stores a lot of water in the soil, and the trees have deep roots, which lead to evaporation that cools the air, keeping the temperature low,” said climatologist Carlos Nobre, from the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), one of the first scientists to study flying rivers.
Green fuel of the future?
Environmental campaigners warn that allowing the use of non-waste vegetable oils like virgin palm oil as a feedstock for SAF would both fuel forest loss and harm the global and local climate in big commodity-producing nations with important rainforest ecosystems such as Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia.
“We can’t go backwards and return to fuels made from plants, like palm,” said Cian Delaney, a campaign coordinator with the Belgium-based Transport & Environment organisation, adding that no agricultural crop should be used in SAF production.
“This is a fundamental point from an environmental point of view. This cannot open space for the expansion of first-generation crops,” he said.
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Due to such concerns, the EU and Britain require SAF to be made from waste products such as used cooking oil (UCO), as they began this year to mandate SAF blending into jet fuel as a way to reduce air travel’s hefty carbon emissions.
But a months-long investigation by Climate Home and its partner The Straits Times has uncovered an opaque global supply chain for UCO that exposes jet fuel providers and their aviation clients to fraud risks and raises doubts about the climate benefits of the sector’s main green hope for the years ahead.
The US takes a more lenient approach on SAF feedstocks, allowing crop-based SAF derived from corn or sugarcane.
‘Saudi Arabia of SAF’
Brazil, which is set to allow non-waste vegetable oils like palm to be used in SAF production, wants to position itself as a major global player in efforts to decarbonise transport – including flying.
Aviation currently accounts for about 2.5% of global carbon emissions.
The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has highlighted Brazil’s potential to become a leading producer of feedstocks for SAF, which it has dubbed the “fuel of the future”.
As part of the government’s plans, airlines operating in Brazil will have to meet emissions-cutting targets by using a SAF fuel blend, starting with a 1% emissions reduction in 2027 that will rise to 10% by 2037.
Since BBF unveiled its trailblazing SAF plan, several more such projects have been announced, with tallow – a byproduct of cattle ranching – soy oil and ethanol made from sugarcane among the planned feedstocks. Brazil unveiled $1 billion in public financing last year for SAF projects, and received more than 70 proposals.
Gilberto Peralta, CEO of Airbus Brazil, told an agricultural investment conference last year that Brazil could become “the Saudi Arabia of SAF”, with its potential production far exceeding domestic needs. Like other SAF advocates, he argues that ample areas of degraded land could be used, without causing further deforestation.
But the controversy over using non-waste feedstocks could be one of the “key challenges” facing Brazil’s nascent SAF industry in competing abroad, said Pedro Guedes, biofuels analyst at Brazilian think-tank E+ Energy Transition Institute.
Human rights warning
Despite the growing hype around green aviation fuel, BBF’s financial difficulties and ongoing debt negotiations with its creditors have clouded its target to launch SAF production at the 2 billion reais ($390 million) biorefinery this year or in 2026.
Asked whether the refinery was scheduled to launch as planned, the company told InfoAmazonia it “will not be able to comment on new business operations due to the complex debt restructuring process”, adding that BBF aimed to “continue its strategic plan and resume sustainable growth of its operations”.
In its first-quarter report this year, the company told investors it faced “difficulty in obtaining new lines of financing to complete long-term projects”, without directly mentioning the refinery.
The company’s financing troubles began in August 2023, when Brazil’s National Human Rights Council (CNDH) recommended that seven banks – among them state development bank BNDES, state-run Banco do Brasil and Banco da Amazônia – should halt loan deals with the company over suspected violations against Indigenous people and others in Acará and Tomé-Açu in Pará, related to land disputes.
For years, tension between some local communities and BBF has simmered in the Amazon region over land ownership and rights – sometimes erupting into violence. The CNDH’s recommendation to banks came months after state prosecutors sought the arrest of a BBF director and its security chief for offences including torture.
The company denies wrongdoing in the case and says it has “suffered continuous invasions” of its properties in Pará since 2021.
‘No hunting, no fishing’
Back in Roraima, beside a muddy unpaved road outside São João da Baliza, signs reading “Private property” and “Hunting and fishing prohibited” stand in front of a plantation of mature oil palms.
The protected Indigenous Territory (TI) of the WaiWái people lies only about 10 km (six miles) away, but local leader Alexandre Waiwai said community members had no interest in hunting on the palm plantations, preferring to search for animals in the forest beyond.
Standing in his wooden house, the walls decorated with bows and arrows, Waiwai said many people feared that animals grazing on the plantations might ingest agrochemicals – despite BBF’s assurance it does not use them on its palm crops.
“Some animals like boar eat palm fruit. We’re afraid of contamination through the meat we hunt and also our water,” Waiwai said.
Villagers also complain about fires in areas surrounding their territory and smoke billowing out of the chimneys of BBF’s industrial plant. Community health worker Vanilda Waiwai said locals report high levels of respiratory problems.
The challenges facing BBF could hold lessons for other firms hoping to launch SAF projects in Brazil.
Guedes, from the E+ Energy Transition Institute, said Brazilian SAF producers expect human rights to be key parameters for entering international markets, adding that the country’s recently created national SAF programme is likely to take into account rights as well as biodiversity safeguards.
“We know we’ll have to present our credentials on human rights. There’s a concern in general (about human rights impacts) and Brazil is aware of that concern,” he said.
This investigation was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
The post Brazilian firm behind SAF plan found growing oil palm on deforested Amazon land appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazilian firm behind SAF plan found growing oil palm on deforested Amazon land
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up around half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support conservation in the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge by 12 donors of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
Alongside the US and much of Europe, the UK has significantly cut its aid budget in recent years, leading to much of its Congo rainforest spending being cancelled or reappraised.
The government says it still plans to “prioritise” rainforest regions, including the Congo basin, but civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This was backed by more than 140 nations.
The UK also made various funding pledges, including £200m to protect the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
These commitments target the world’s three largest rainforests, all of which face major forest loss due to threats such as agriculture, logging and climate change.
The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink. Yet, its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both the Conservative and then Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was launched by the UK at COP27. It was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
CBFA set out to “empower central African nations”, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support for “community forests” and other measures to curb forest loss.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s recent aid cuts, intended to free up money for defence spending.
Its original £90m budget has now been reduced to £18.8m. Government data shows that £15m of this has already been spent.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to this latest round of aid cuts.
The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – championed by the previous government and worth at least £12.3m – has been closed, just two years into its seven-year schedule.
Government documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk as the UK scales back its aid budget, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region.
One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”. Officials working on the other, while more optimistic, reported that the project may be forced to operate in fewer countries as the cuts set in.
Documents also reveal the difficulties that come when operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior director of forests at WWF International tells Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a series of recent parliamentary responses, Chapman revealed that the UK had only spent £39.8m on Congo forest finance, as of 2024. (She declined to provide any information on the Indonesia and Amazon regional goals.)
Despite being presented as the UK’s “contribution” to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029.
Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution so far has been relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world for whom the environment is an existential issue.”
Future targets
The Labour government says it has met the five-year “climate finance” target of £11.6bn that expires this year.
Ministers also say the government has met “and exceeded” the £3bn and £1.5bn sub-goals for “preserving nature” and forests, respectively, within the £11.6bn. These are the funding streams that include support for the Congo basin and other rainforests.
The UK has funded a variety of projects in line with its forest goals, including mangrove restoration in Indonesia, support for carbon-offsetting projects in Brazil and promoting “forest stewardship” among farmers in Cameroon.
Chapman has stated that the UK will continue to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest, in line with its new plan for aid spending in Africa. The UK even helped to launch a new “call to action” for Congo basin funding at COP30 last year.
The UK government also says it supported the creation of Brazil’s flagship “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” (TFFF). However, so far it has not provided any funding for the facility.
When the government announced a new climate finance pledge for 2026 onwards, it stressed that nature would still be a “focus” and said it would also generate billions in “climate and nature positive investments”. Nevertheless, it dropped the “ring-fenced” amounts for nature and forests that had appeared in its previous pledge.
The UK, alongside other developed countries, has pledged to provide biodiversity finance to developing countries, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a non-binding global pact to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee of MPs, says “sub-pledges” for nature and forests are a “cost-effective and impactful” way to ensure this finance is provided, alongside climate finance. She tells Carbon Brief that she was “concerned” about the move away from this approach:
“When the minister recently appeared before the international development committee, I was concerned to hear her characterise this shift as a ‘gamble’.”
A government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:
“We remain committed to providing finance for forests, including in the Congo basin, as a core element of our overall climate funding.”
A shorter version of this article was first published in Cropped, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly newsletter that provides a digest of food, land and nature news, on 15 July 2026. Subscribe for free.
The post UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
Climate Change
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
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
Global drought and heat
DRY THEN WET: A recent heatwave and months of low rainfall has led to a prolonged drought for Uganda, resulting in at least 16 deaths from hunger and significant crop losses, reported BBC News. Bastille Post Global suggested that “a developing El Niño later this year could bring heavier rainfall to parts of the region, raising the risk of flooding in areas now struggling with drought”.
FUNDING FOOD: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed for $200m in funding to help African nations deal with the impact of El Niño, stated Deutsche Welle. This would target 22 high-risk countries with measures, including “cash transfers, climate-resilient seeds, livestock protection and flood control.” The Guardian explained how El Niño could still “cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028”.
FARMING FEARS: Extreme weather has devastated agriculture across the world. India saw its driest June in 12 years, reported BBC News, and France has had a “double-digit production” decline, according to Le Monde. The Financial Times reported that farmers in the UK are mitigating the impacts of extreme heat by eliminating “chemicals and intensive ploughing to improve soil quality so it retains water”.
EURO FIRES: Wildfires have spread across Europe, with Spain reporting at least 12 deaths so far, according to the Guardian, and France experiencing road closures, said Reuters. Wildfire Today reported that the most extreme conditions are “across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and south-east Ireland”. CNN explained how “the climate crisis is driving hotter, drier weather, which is setting the stage for fiercer fire seasons”.
Endangering species
REDEFINING HARM: The Trump administration “reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species…opening up sensitive habitats…to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development”, reported CNN. According to the story, the change “redefines what constitutes ‘harm’” to endangered species, which historically prohibited habitat modification or degradation. Agence France-Presse reported that US environmental groups sued the Trump government over the move, arguing that it had violated “common sense, biological science and federal law”.
OPEN SEASON: Reuters reported that the change “limits the reach of the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act” (ESA), which is a “key regulatory consideration” when granting permits for “oil and gas, mining, electric transmission and other operations on federal lands and water”. Legal scholars told the New York Times the US government “was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact” of the change, while the National Mining Association “applauded the announcement”.
News and views
- INTERNATIONAL WATERS: After a significant delay, the UK ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic detailed how this will allow for “marine protected areas across international waters for the first time”, but also stressed that the “hard part” starts now.
- SCOPE-FREE: The world’s largest meat supplier JBS “scrapped a key climate goal” in its net-zero plan that accounts for its suppliers’ emissions, “which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint”, reported the Financial Times. The company told the paper it was difficult to control these “indirect” emissions.
- DEEP TROUBLE: Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic die-off” as sea-ice loss threatens their food sources, said the Guardian. Separately, conservationists warned that more than half of all molluscs that “cluster around underwater vents” could face extinction from deep-sea mining, reported Reuters.
- ETHANOL PUSHBACK: India’s new rules to promote 100% ethanol fuel and make ethanol-blended fuel mandatory at pumps “triggered a political row”, reported the Times of India. While the Indian government defended the push to automobile owners, a Hindu editorial and an Indian Express comment warned against incentivising fuels made from “water-intensive” sugarcane and rice.
- AMAZON ACTION: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in a decade, but president Lula’s plans to “end illegal deforestation by 2030” could be hampered if he is not re-elected, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister warned of greater environmental and climate risk under the incoming government, said the Associated Press.
- WAR WORRIES: The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of the impact of the Iran war on Africa’s clean cooking efforts as disruption in the strait of Hormuz has stunted supplies and increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), explained Climate Home News.
Spotlight
UK ‘discards’ Congo rainforest funding
Amid worldwide cuts to aid spending, Carbon Brief explores how the UK is backtracking on funding for the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support forest conservation in the Congo basin.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030.
The UK also made various regional funding pledges, including £200m for the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
All of these rainforests face major forest loss. The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink, but its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both Conservative and Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s aid cuts. Its £90m budget has been “quietly reduced by 79% to £18.8m”, according to the Times.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to aid cuts. The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – worth at least £12.3m – has closed five years early.
Official documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”.
Documents also show the difficulties operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior forests director at WWF International told Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a parliamentary response, Chapman said that the UK had spent £39.8m towards its £200m Congo target, as of 2024.
Despite being described as the UK’s contribution to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution was relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, told Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world.”
The Labour government says it has met its overarching “climate finance” goals and still intends to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest.
However, civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
Watch, read, listen
TOXIC TROUBLES: DeSmog unpacked a new report that said Northern Ireland is being turned into a “toxic” pig and poultry farming “sacrifice zone” to satiate the UK’s meat appetite.
NEED TO NOAA: Laid-off scientists from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched Climate.Us – an independent, public-backed version of the climate information website shut down by Trump last year.
DRY FRUIT: A Dialogue Earth long read looked at how climate change is impacting apricot harvests in the “stark, high-altitude desert” region of Ladakh, India.
READING ALOUD: A London Review of Books podcast discussed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s influential book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, weighing its compelling themes and where it veers into “scientific overreach”.
New science
- Climate change could cause Indigenous peoples in the Amazon to lose 28-34% of their plant species and 18-23% of their associated services | Nature
- Biodiversity in forests can act as a “buffer” against compound extreme weather events | Nature Communications
- Zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia’s palm oil sector have had “no additional impacts” on reducing forest loss | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
In the diary
- 7-15 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development | New York City
- 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council | Kingston, Jamaica
- 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
- 27 July-1 August: Scientific and technical subsidiary body meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity | Nairobi, Kenya
This edition of Cropped was written by Jess Milligan, Josh Gabbatiss and Aruna Chandrasekhar. Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. This edition was edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
Climate Change
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
Climate and environment campaigners have urged the Kenyan government to halt plans for a proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery backed by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, warning the project threatens one of East Africa’s most ecologically sensitive coastlines.
The refinery, which is planned to be situated in Lamu County on Kenya’s northern coast, will be East Africa’s largest refining project and is expected to take up to three years to build. Once finished, it would supply refined petroleum products to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, among others, helping to reduce the region’s dependence on imported fuels.
Campaigners are questioning the viability of such a large refinery at a time when renewable energy and electric transportation are expanding rapidly.
Mohamed Adow, director of a Kenya-based climate and energy think-tank Power Shift Africa, said the decision to give Dangote the green light for the refinery is “an extraordinary act of environmental recklessness and economic short-sightedness”, arguing it would tie Kenya to “yesterday’s energy system” just as global demand for petroleum products faces increasing uncertainty.
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Since the multinational sold its assets in Nigeria’s oil hub, data analysis for Climate Home News shows flaring has risen, harming locals and the climate
Campaigners argue the refinery risks coming online just as transport – the largest market for petrol and diesel – is beginning to electrify across the continent.
Kenya launched a National Electric Mobility Policy earlier this year to speed up the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) and reduce the country’s roughly $5 billion annual fuel import bill. Ethiopia has already banned imports of non-electric vehicles and now has more than 100,000 EVs on its roads, while Rwanda is expanding its electric mobility programme with plans to convert its fleet of around 100,000 motorcycles to electric.
Adow said the project risks billions of dollars in investment in infrastructure that could become obsolete as the world moves away from oil.
“Building a refinery today assumes decades of robust demand for fuels that much of the world is actively trying to phase out,” he said in a statement.
Ecological concerns
Lamu – the proposed site for the project – is home to the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Lamu Old Town and an archipelago containing extensive mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds that support fisheries, tourism and coastal livelihoods.
Locating the refinery in Lamu would “place one of Africa’s largest fossil fuel developments in one of the continent’s most ecologically sensitive and culturally significant coastal regions,” Power Shift Africa said.
Major emitting countries knew of climate risks decades earlier than claimed
Sherelee Odayar, oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, warned that a refinery of this scale could increase the risk of habitat destruction, marine pollution, oil spills and air pollution in one of East Africa’s most fragile coastal ecosystems.
She said the risks stem not only from the refinery itself – including storage tanks, pipelines and fuel handling facilities – but also from the large volumes of crude oil that would need to be shipped into Lamu and refined products exported by sea. Increased tanker traffic and fuel transfers, she said, would raise the likelihood of accidents in ecologically sensitive coastal waters.
Odayar added that Lamu’s low-lying, flood-prone coastline could compound those risks by damaging infrastructure and carrying contaminants from storage facilities into nearby fishing grounds and marine ecosystems.
“Lamu’s mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds are not expendable; they support fisheries, livelihoods and coastal protection,” Odayar added.
She said Kenyan authorities should suspend any approvals until an independent environmental and social impact assessment is completed, with genuine public participation and transparent scrutiny of the long-term economic, health and ecological risks.
“Any review must assess cumulative impacts on Lamu’s mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass beds and fishing livelihoods, alongside the wider economic risk of locking Kenya into costly fossil fuel infrastructure as the global energy transition accelerates”.
Dangote Group declined to answer questions from Climate Home News when contacted by phone.
Technological change threaten project’s future
The Kenya refinery would replicate Dangote’s 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lagos, currently Africa’s largest, which has plans to more than double capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028.
Adow of Power Shift Africa said projects like this represent “a breathtaking failure to recognise where the global economy is heading”, pointing out that the East African refinery risks arriving when Africa is experiencing an unprecedented clean energy boom.
Referencing Africa’s solar boom, global electric vehicles uptake and the International Energy Agency’s projection that global oil demand is set to enter a decline later this decade, the think-tank founder said African governments risk anchoring the continent’s future to an industry facing mounting economic uncertainty.
Loss and damage fund delays first project approvals as needs dwarf resources
The organisation said the project faces a bigger threat aside from environmental opposition and that is technological change. “The danger is not simply that the refinery will pollute, it is that it will become obsolete long before it has paid for itself,” he added.
Kenyan President William Ruto said the project will create about 60,000 jobs for Kenyans and supply refined fuel to eight East and Central African countries.
GreenPeace Africa’s Odayar said the promise of ‘thousands of jobs’ cannot be used to hide the true cost of the investment which is that large fossil fuel projects often create temporary jobs while undermining existing livelihoods in fishing, tourism and small-scale local economies.
“The enormous capital required for a project of this scale could instead help accelerate Kenya’s renewable energy future through solar, wind, geothermal, storage and better energy access,” she added.
The post Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks appeared first on Climate Home News.
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
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