Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Key developments
Latin America news roundup
TREE FELLING FALLS: Political shifts in Brazil and Colombia have “had a significant impact on tree felling”, with large reductions in deforestation occurring in both countries over 2023, according to analysis from the University of Maryland and the World Resources Institute that was covered by BBC News. Tree loss in the Brazilian Amazon decreased by 39%, although in the Cerrado – an important savannah in Brazil – it increased by 6%. In Colombia, primary forest loss decreased by nearly 50%, compared to last year. But, the outlet added, “increased tree felling and fires in Bolivia, Laos and Nicaragua wiped out many of these gains”.
WHERE THERE’S SMOKE: According to satellite data released last week, Venezuela “is battling a record number of wildfires”, fuelled in part by intense drought in the region, Reuters reported. More than 30,000 “fire points” were recorded in the country during the first three months of the year. The newswire wrote: “Man-made fires that are often set to clear land for agriculture are spreading out of control thanks to high temperatures and low rainfall in northern South America, as well as a lack of prevention planning, researchers say.” A University of Oxford fire researcher said that the fires “could be a worrying sign for what’s ahead” when Brazil enters its dry season.
COMMISSION CHANGE: The scientific community must “speak out strongly” against proposed changes to Mexico’s National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO), two academics wrote in an editorial in the journal Science. They explained that the government intends to “reduce CONABIO from a multi-ministry federal government agency to a branch within the environment ministry” and argued that this change would “strip CONABIO of its independent voice, credibility and influence on national and international policy”. The government is expected to make a final decision by the end of this month.
DENGUE ‘SURGE’: The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned of a “surge in dengue cases in the Americas”, with more than 3.5m cases recorded to date – “three times more cases than those reported for the same period in 2023”, which was itself a record year, PAHO director Jarbas Barbosa said. According to PAHO: “Several environmental and social factors contribute to the spread of dengue, including rising temperatures, extreme weather events and the El Niño phenomenon.” Urbanisation and population growth also play a role, the organisation added.
Africa drought ‘disaster’
NATIONAL EMERGENCIES: More than 24 million people in southern Africa face hunger, malnutrition and water scarcity due to the combined impact of drought and floods, according to a warning from the charity Oxfam, CNN reported. It comes after Zimbabwe joined Zambia and Malawi in declaring a state of disaster over the drought, according to Sky News. Zimbabwe president Emmerson Mnangagwa made the emergency declaration in a speech on 3 April, where he called for $2bn (£1.6bn) in humanitarian aid, the broadcaster said. The Associated Press (AP) spoke to a mother affected by the drought in Zimbabwe.
CLIMATE ROLE: The “erratic” weather in southern Africa, which has lurched between drought and floods in recent months, is likely “spurred” by human-caused climate change, which is making extreme events more unpredictable, the AP said. It added that conditions have been worsened by El Niño, the naturally occurring climate phenomenon that periodically affects much of the globe. In southern Africa, El Niño “means below-average rainfall” and “sometimes drought”, the newswire reported.
EXTREME CONTINENT: Many other parts of the continent continued to face severe – and, in many cases, record-breaking – extreme weather. Much of northern Africa continued to face extreme heat, with the Moroccan city of Oujda recording a “minimum temperature” for April that was 7C higher than the previous record, according to a Twitter account tracking extreme temperatures. That temperature was close to the all-time record, logged in the month of July. (“Minimum temperature” refers to the coolest temperature in a 24-hour period, with high minimum temperatures indicating dangerously hot nights.) West Africa also continued to face record heat. Carbon Brief reported on how Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, was coping with the extreme temperatures.
Spotlight
The ‘grave threat’ of ghost roads
In this spotlight, Carbon Brief reports on a new study detailing the impact of “ghost roads” on deforestation rates in the Asia Pacific region.
“Ghost roads” – illegal or informal roads that do not appear on any map – are fast expanding in biodiversity-rich tropical nations.
Carved out by farmers, miners, loggers, land grabbers and drug traffickers, these illicit roads give more direct access to pristine tropical forests – and help extractors carry out their activities while evading detection by authorities or NGOs.
The absence of ghost roads from official records or international datasets makes understanding the scale of their impact on tropical forests extremely difficult.
A new study published in Nature this week aimed to reverse this.
“I think we all knew that ghost roads were a serious problem, but they hadn’t been studied in a concerted way,” study author Prof Bill Laurance, a conservation biologist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, told Carbon Brief.
Volunteer army
The research team focused on three tropical islands in the Asia Pacific: Borneo, Sumatra and New Guinea.
To try to understand the extent of ghost roads on the islands, the researchers deployed an army of more than 200 trained volunteers.
These volunteers walked over 1.42m plots, each one square kilometre in area, noting down the existence of roads that were missing from leading global datasets.
Study lead author Jayden Engert, a conservation ecologist and PhD student at James Cook University, told Carbon Brief that a broad range of people volunteered to help out with the mapping effort:
“We found volunteers through many different avenues, chiefly by advertising within our university and at other universities. We also ran a volunteer Map-athon with the Facebook group ‘Wild Green Memes for Ecological Fiends’, which brought in a decent amount of volunteers and also helped to raise awareness of the issue.”
Ghosts detected
The mapping effort revealed 1.37m km of ghost roads – 3-6.6 times more roads than were present in leading road datasets.
“I was blown away by how many unmapped roads there were,” Engert told Carbon Brief.
To understand how the ghost roads could be affecting deforestation rates, the scientists developed a map of their study area and quantified the percentage of forest loss in each plot.
They then used modelling to determine how the forest loss correlated with 38 biological and socioeconomic factors related to tree cover, including population density, distance to the nearest city and protected-land status – as well as ghost-road density and distance from ghost roads.
The research found that ghost-road density had by far the strongest link with forest loss out of all of the 38 factors studied.
Furthermore, ghost-road building “almost always preceded local forest loss”, the researchers wrote in their study.
They also found that the relationship between road density and forest was nonlinear, “with deforestation peaking soon after roads penetrate a landscape and then declining as roads multiply and remaining accessible forests largely disappear”.
They concluded by saying:
“Collectively, our findings suggest that burgeoning, poorly studied ghost roads are among the gravest of all direct threats to tropical forests.”
Laurance told Carbon Brief that their findings are likely to apply to other parts of the tropics:
“There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that other developing tropical nations are facing similar challenges with ghost roads. We also have been working in the Amazon and central Africa for the past several decades, and there we see many similar and equally daunting realities on the ground.”
News and views
FARM FLU: The US Department of Agriculture has confirmed cases of the “highly pathogenic” avian influenza in dairy cows in Idaho, bringing the number of confirmed outbreaks to 12 herds across five states, with other tests ongoing in presumptive positive cases. The country’s largest fresh egg producer also reported an outbreak, leading to “rising concern” despite assurances that the “risk to the public remains low”, the Associated Press reported. The detection of the virus in cattle raises “critical questions about whether the country is equipped to handle an influenza outbreak after the coronavirus pandemic…exposed the weaknesses in the nation’s public health infrastructure and decimated the public’s trust in key federal agencies”, the Washington Post reported.
INDIGENOUS INDONESIANS: Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto must prioritise ratifying the country’s Indigenous Peoples bill, two Indigenous-rights activists argued in China Dialogue. The bill was first proposed in 2009, but president Joko Widodo failed to ratify it despite “repeated promises to do so”, the writers noted, adding: “Prabowo’s new government appears set to continue expanding Indonesia’s domestic resource-processing capabilities…signal[ling] the continued, unjust plunder of Indigenous territory.” Indonesia is home to around 22 million Indigenous people and more than 2,500 Indigenous communities. They face “deforestation, agricultural crises, marginalisation and discrimination and the usurpation of customary rights”, as well as voter disenfranchisement, the activists said.
NEW BIODIVERSITY CHIEF: BusinessGreen reported that German diplomat and environmental-policy expert Astrid Schomaker has been appointed the next executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the UN body that oversees negotiations on biodiversity loss. According to the publication, Schomaker has spent the last seven years overseeing environmental diplomacy and global sustainable development at the European Commission. She replaces the acting executive secretary, British CBD veteran Dr David Cooper. Carbon Brief published an in-depth interview with the last permanent executive secretary, Tanzanian lawyer and diplomat Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, in 2022.
WHALE OF A TIME: Māori king Tuheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII and other Indigenous leaders in the Pacific have “urged the legal recognition of whales as persons with inherent rights”, according to the Pacific Islands News Association. The leaders are endorsing the He Whakaputanga Moana, or the Declaration for the Ocean, which “outlines a comprehensive plan” for protecting whales from “unsustainable practices, pollution and climate change”, the outlet explained. It will do so through establishing protected areas and integrating Indigenous knowledge with other science. Travel Tou Ariki, a high chief from the Cook Islands, said: “Whales play a vital role in the health of our entire ocean ecosystem…We must act with urgency to protect these magnificent creatures before it’s too late.”
BIG MEAT COP: Lobbyists from the world’s largest meat companies have celebrated a “positive outcome” from the last global climate summit, COP28, according to a DeSmog investigation. Speaking on a virtual panel organised by the trade outlet FeedStuffs, three representatives for US livestock firms said they were left “excited” and “enthusiastic” for their industry’s prospects after the summit, which saw countries commit to a series of voluntary pledges for tackling agricultural emissions without addressing meat consumption. Constance Cullman, the president of the US lobby group the Animal Feed Industry Association (AFIA) said COP28 left her organisation with “a far more positive outcome than we had anticipated”, according to DeSmog.
STANDING TOGETHER: Advocacy groups in Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Kenya, Liberia and Mexico have launched a new initiative to protect environmental defenders, Liberia’s Daily Observer reported. The initiative will provide “partnerships, financial support and training” for civil-society organisations to protect them against the risks that environmental defenders face, such as threats, violence and smear campaigns, the newspaper said. Three environmental defenders were recently killed during protests in Kinjor, Liberia.
Watch, read, listen
WASTED WETLANDS: An investigation by Ireland’s Noteworthy found that the planting of non-native trees on peatlands could put some of the country’s “cleanest” rivers and streams at risk.
SALINE INHABITANTS: Hakai Magazine wrote about how Utah’s shrinking Great Salt Lake is imperilling the strange creatures found in its waters.
TREE SMUGGLING: A four-part investigation by the Africa Report, in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network, examined timber trafficking from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH: A feature in High Country News explored how drones can be used in service of conservation of predators in the Rocky Mountains.
New science
Threat of mining to African great apes
Science Advances
Up to one-third of Africa’s great apes face risks from mining projects, new research found. The study looked at the overlap between industrial mining projects and great ape distribution in 15 African countries, excluding the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to a lack of available data. The research found that industrial mining projects overlap with the habitat of nearly 180,000 apes. It also found that the overlap was largest in west African nations, including Senegal and Sierra Leone. In the paper, the authors noted that the “rapid growth of clean energy technologies is driving a rising demand for critical minerals”, which are increasingly being mined in Africa.
The asymmetric impacts of international agricultural trade on water use scarcity, inequality and inequity
Nature Water
A new study found that the water “embedded” in agricultural trading “disproportionately benefits the rich and widens both the water scarcity and inequity gap between the poor and the rich”. Researchers used a global model of crop water requirements to simulate the amount of water used for irrigation for 26 different crops, then analysed how international trade affects water scarcity and inequity in eight countries. They found that the poorest people in developing countries “suffer[ed] from both increased water scarcity and inequity”, but poor populations in developed countries were more likely to benefit. They also identified the trade of staple crops as “the major driving factor” affecting these in most countries, due to the large volumes of staple crops traded.
Significant shifts in latitudinal optima of North American birds
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
The optimal location for North American birds has shifted northward by an average rate of 1.5km each year in response to climate change, a new study found, representing a total distance moved of 82.5km over the past 55 years. The research uses modelling to estimate the “latitudinal optima” of 209 American bird species, drawing on bird population abundance data over the past half-century. It found that one-third of the species studied showed a “significant shift of their optimum” over the study period, with birds in western North America experiencing the biggest shifts. The results “directly implicate climate-induced increases in temperature as the primary driver” of bird abundance shifts, the researchers said.
In the diary
- 10-12 April: 2024 Ocean Decade conference | Barcelona
- 16-19 April: Scoping meeting for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on cities | Riga
- 19 April: Start of India’s general election
- 23-29 April: Fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment | Ottawa
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 10 April 2024: ‘Ghost roads’ deforestation; Record wildfires; Southern Africa drought appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 10 April 2024: ‘Ghost roads’ deforestation; Record wildfires; Southern Africa drought
Antarctic sea ice has recorded its third-smallest winter peak extent since satellite records began 48 years ago, new data reveals.
Provisional data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that Antarctic sea ice hit its annual winter peak on 14 September, with an extent of 17.59m square kilometres (km2).
The organisation notes that the data is still preliminary, adding that “large fluctuations in extent are typical of Antarctic sea ice near the seasonal maximum”.
One expert tells Carbon Brief that it is “concerning to see these low values persisting”, but says that scientists need more time to determine whether this represents a “structural shift” in Antarctic sea ice extent.
Meanwhile, at the Earth’s other pole, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum on 12 September, ranking as the joint-10th lowest in the satellite record.
The NSIDC notes that the last 20 years have seen the lowest 20 Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record.
Antarctic peak
Dr Lettie Roach, a polar climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, tells Carbon Brief that this year’s Antarctic sea ice maximum was “well below average for the season”. She warns that, “after several decades of stable or increasing winter Antarctic sea ice conditions, it is concerning to see these low values persisting”.
She adds:
“Compared with the Arctic, it’s less clear how recent changes in Antarctic sea ice are attributable to human-caused warming vs natural variability. We need more years of observations to better understand whether this is truly a structural shift.”
Dr Clare Eayrs, a postdoctoral researcher at the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI), tells Carbon Brief that, since recording a “near-average February minimum” extent, Antarctic sea ice has “returned to unusually low winter coverage”.
She notes that Antarctic sea ice extent in July and August this year were the fifth and fourth lowest on record, respectively, adding that “all five of the lowest July extents have occurred since 2022 and all four of the lowest August extents since 2023”.
The chart below shows Antarctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2023 (mid blue), the year of the smallest winter sea-ice maximum on record.
Eayrs tells Carbon Brief that the regional pattern of Antarctic sea ice cover “changed substantially during the growth season”.
For example, she says that “in April, the Bellingshausen Sea remained almost entirely ice-free, while the neighbouring Amundsen Sea had more ice than usual”.
However, by late August, changes in atmospheric pressure and wind meant that “the Bellingshausen deficit had largely recovered, while ice was unusually scarce in the Amundsen Sea and across much of East Antarctica”.
Arctic minimum
Meanwhile, the Arctic recorded its minimum summer sea ice extent on 12 September. At 4.60m km2, this year ties with 2025, 2010 and 2008 as the 10th-lowest sea ice extent on record.
The chart below shows Arctic sea ice extent in 2025 (dark blue) and 2026 (red) so far. For comparison, the chart shows decadal averages (dotted lines) as well as 2012 (mid blue), the year of the smallest summer sea-ice minimum on record.
Roach tells Carbon Brief that although this minimum is not “record setting”, it is still “lower than any sea ice minimum before 2007”. She adds:
“Human-caused climate change has reduced Arctic sea ice cover and thickness, so the region is fundamentally different compared to a few decades ago.”
Scientists have been tracking Arctic sea ice thickness using a reanalysis produced called the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) since 1979.
In March 2026, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) terminated a global dataset of air pressure that scientists relied upon to produce PIOMAS, forcing both datasets to stop publishing updates.
The PIOMAS website says it will take “considerable effort and time” to find alternative data to use in their reanalysis. It adds that “we don’t yet have a good sense if that’s possible with available funds and if so, when we will be able to resume production of a new PIOMAS timeseries”.
Roach also notes that August saw record-breaking heat sweep across much of the world, explaining that high temperatures “extended into Arctic coastal regions, close to regions with substantial sea ice loss – particularly the Barents-Kara and East Siberian seas”.
Dr Zack Labe, a scientist at Climate Central, tells Carbon Brief that the absence of a new record does not mean that ice cover is becoming more “resilient”. He says:
“Local weather patterns across the Arctic play a really important role in year-to-year sea-ice extent, even as the long-term trend is clearly downward.”
Labe tells Carbon Brief that weather in the Arctic this summer was “influenced mainly by lower pressure toward the central Arctic, which brought cloudier and cooler conditions that limited surface melt and delayed the start of the melt season”.
He explains that this “was most obvious across parts of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, where the melt season didn’t really kick off until after early July, which was more than two weeks later than normal”.
In contrast, he says, the Atlantic side of the Arctic “had a much more extreme summer”, with sea ice in the Barents Sea recording its “earliest melt-out on record”.
This was partly due to “unusually warm air and ocean temperatures”, Labe says. He notes, for example, that parts of western Siberia saw unusually persistent temperatures more than 5C above the 1981-2010 average for much of the summer, which extended out over the Kara Sea and contributed to substantial ice melt in this area”.
Labe tells Carbon Brief that, going forward, scientists need “more data and observations of other sea-ice metrics, like ice thickness, which may give us better insight into the overall condition of the ice pack, especially during years like 2026 when it is very fragmented”.
(In March 2026, Arctic sea ice reached its peak extent for this winter, clocking in as the joint-smallest in a satellite record going back almost half a century.)
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The post ‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak appeared first on Carbon Brief.
‘Concerning’ low sea ice persists as Antarctic hits third-lowest winter peak
Participants at COP31 in Antalya will have a “duty” not to interfere in Türkiye’s internal affairs under the country’s hosting deal with the UN, reviving a clause dropped for last year’s climate summit in Brazil that human rights groups warn could put activists at risk.
Türkiye has faced growing criticism from human rights groups over the jailing of opposition figures, journalists and activists and imposed a blanket protest ban around July’s summit of the NATO military alliance in Ankara.
The contested provision is included in the binding agreement between the UN climate secretariat and the Turkish government that sets out responsibilities over logistical arrangements and details participants’ rights and obligations.
The document, signed in June but only made public on Wednesday, gives accredited COP31 attendees immunity from legal action over what they say, write or do in connection with the conference. Climate Home News understands that this safeguard can be applied to what takes place both inside and, in certain circumstances, outside of the UN-controlled COP “Blue Zone”. For the first time, this protection explicitly continues after the summit ends.
But participants enjoying these “privileges and immunities” also have a duty to respect Türkiye’s laws and regulations and not to interfere in its internal affairs, the agreement states. Rights groups fear its wide-ranging formulation could be used to discourage criticism of the host government.
Climate Home News understands that whether an action is covered by the immunity or infringes on the host’s internal affairs would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, with close coordination between the country’s authorities and the UN climate change body.
A separate provision states that immunity shall be waived where the UN believes it would “impede the course of justice”.
‘Chilling effect’
Those same provisions featured in the host country agreements for COP28 in the United Arab Emirates and COP29 in Azerbaijan, both regarded as authoritarian regimes, before being dropped for COP30 in Brazil.
Ann Harrison, climate justice policy advisor at Amnesty International, said it is “extremely disappointing” that the COP31 agreement re-introduced clauses that could “hinder the ability of human rights defenders and civil society organisations to conduct their work safely”.
COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment
She added the provisions could have a “wider chilling effect” on rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, given concerns over the human rights situation in Türkiye, including laws that “have shrunk civic space” and their “abusive” implementation by authorities.
The UN climate change body declined to comment.
Rights groups have documented blanket protest bans, unlawful use of force by the police and prosecutions of journalists, human rights defenders and lawyers across Türkiye in the last year.
Arrests and protest bans
Last July, environmental activist Esra Işık was sentenced to more than two years for “resisting” a public official over what Amnesty International described as a peaceful protest against an urgent expropriation order linked to the expansion of coal mining in south-western Türkiye. She is appealing the conviction.
Ahead of a summit of the NATO alliance in the capital Ankara in July, authorities put in place a 13-day blanket ban on demonstrations, citing “national security”, and arrested over 200 people. Human Rights Watch said the crackdown showed Türkiye’s “ruthless intolerance of freedom of speech and assembly”.
Earlier this month, Turkish police detained dozens of people as part of what rights groups described as the government’s widening crackdown on LGBTQ+ activists and venues.
Questioned by media as to how he would guarantee the right to protest at COP31, Kurum said earlier in September that his team would “try to meet” any request they receive from civil society and give them “a free space to express themselves”.
“Don’t worry, thinking you will not be able to voice your opinions or really share your thoughts,” he said in an attempt to reassure campaigners, adding that he had put former deputy environment minister Mehmet Birpinar in charge of liaising with civil society.
Civic space needed
Camilla Pollera, human rights and climate change campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said meaningful participation at COP31 is fundamental to the legitimacy of climate action.
“At a climate summit, civil society participation necessarily includes being present, speaking out, scrutinising governments’ decisions and climate policies, and advocating for communities most vulnerable to climate change,” she added.
At last year’s COP30 summit, thousands of Indigenous people and climate activists peacefully marched through the Amazonian city of Belém in the first major demonstration outside the UN venue in four years. Smaller-scale demonstrations were largely confined to the “Blue Zone” at COP27 in Egypt, COP28 in the UAE and COP29 in Azerbaijan.
In two other separate incidents in Belém, members of the Munduruku tribe blocked access to the conference centre for hours, demanding an end to development projects in their ancestral land, and protesters stormed through the venue clashing with UN security officials.
The COP31 hosting agreement keeps some of the safeguards previously hailed by civil society groups. The government and the UN secretariat commit to upholding “the fundamental human rights” of all participants in the agreement’s preamble.
Under the deal, Türkiye also needs to ensure that security personnel follow “the highest ethical and professional standards and are expected to behave with integrity and respect”.
The post COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs” appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 attendees told not to interfere in Türkiye’s “internal affairs”
As rising seas submerge growing swathes of land, countries that lose territory should still keep their national boundaries, sovereign rights and UN membership, according to a political declaration adopted at the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
The declaration, which was championed by climate-vulnerable small island states, affirms “the presumption in favour of continued statehood” in the face of sea level rise fuelled by climate change, and urges countries to work together to assist communities affected by encroaching oceans.
Speaking at a high-level UN meeting to address the existential threats posed by sea level rise, Cabo Verde’s Prime Minister Francisco Carvalho, one of the initiative’s co-facilitators along with Australia, said the adoption of the text by consensus sends “a message of hope”.
“This declaration has a very special meaning. For us, sea level rise is neither a distant threat nor a theoretical concern,” he said, adding that rising seas put at risk key infrastructure, water resources and economic growth in small island states.
In the Pacific, sea levels have risen at twice the global rate, dramatically increasing coastal flooding events from two to 20 a year in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and from zero to 102 events per year in American Samoa, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island of Palau, said the summit in New York represents a “moment of international solidarity”, and highlighted that small island states will remain permanent members of the UN.
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The President of Kenya and the British climate envoy said Africa should use the global electrification push to roll out clean cooking -
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At the UN Secretary-General’s climate summit in New York, countries shared their energy transition plans while Nepal and island nations advocated for more international support
Declaration recognises statehood
An advisory opinion by the world’s top maritime court, the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), first upheld in 2024 that countries do not have to shrink their maritime borders even if they lose land territory due to sea level rise. This was reiterated by the International Court of Justice in last year’s landmark ruling on the climate obligations of states.
The new declaration endorsed by all governments at the UN General Assembly stresses that sea level rise “is not a distant scenario but a real and lived experience for many”, and notes that international law must be implemented in global responses to rising seas.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the “milestone must now be translated into action”, adding that the declaration should encourage an “ongoing dialogue” at the “highest possible level” leading to practical outcomes. Pacific islands have proposed an international treaty on sea level rise that would provide more legal certainty.
“Those on the frontlines must be front and centre on every decision. We cannot allow countries and cultures to vanish beneath the waves,” he said. “The SOS has gone out. The world must answer.”
At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance
Goodwin Friday, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said measures to protect vulnerable states will require adequate finance. “Investing in resilience now is more cost-effective than paying the far greater price for loss and damage later,” he added.
Championed by Australia’s COP31 co-presidency, Pacific islands have sought to put adaptation to sea level rise and ocean conservation at the top of the political agenda by inviting world leaders to attend the pre-COP31 summit co-hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu in October.
Tuvalu will also host the second global fossil fuel phase-out summit in April 2027, after around 60 governments met this year in Santa Marta, Colombia, to discuss ending their dependence on coal, oil and gas.
“Our coastlines, our reefs and our communities are living with the consequences of fossil fuel dependence every day, and our people have earned the right to help shape the way forward,” Lynda Tabuya, Fiji’s climate minister, said in a statement announcing details of the conference.
Ocean monitoring gets a boost in New York
Amid record-breaking marine heat and seas rising at unprecedented speed, governments in New York announced new commitments to protect the world’s ocean, as efforts to bolster marine ecosystems and coastal communities rise up the political agenda.
On Wednesday, the EU and Canada announced more funding for a new Europe-led ocean monitoring system called OceanEye, launched in the aftermath of a failed attempt by the Trump administration to dismantle the largest existing network of deep-sea observatories.
During an event at UN headquarters in New York, EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced around $163 million in new funding for the initiative, with the EU pledging €92 million ($105m) on top of existing seed funding and Canada pledging C$82 million (US$58m) over five years.
According to an EU statement, while OceanEye will collaborate with the Global Ocean Observing System, that network “remains vulnerable to financial shortfalls and geopolitical disruptions”. A group of 30 countries from Europe, Africa and the Americas joined an international initiative in support of OceanEye, including large coastal nations like Brazil, Namibia and Mexico.
Von der Leyen said OceanEye “can make us the leading ocean data provider in a matter of years”, including by launching new satellites and installing new observatories in the deep ocean. “From outer space to the deepest ocean, our funding helps us keep watch beneath the waves,” she added.
Carney said the initiative would help protect Canada’s Arctic region with real-time monitoring operating year-round. “We can’t protect what we can’t see,” he said, also highlighting that Canada had expanded conservation of its ocean territory from 1% a decade ago to 15% now.
In New York, a group of 19 countries said they are either developing or implementing plans to sustainably manage all of their ocean territory, with 12 new nations joining the initiative. In a joint communiqué, they called on more countries to sign up ahead of COP31.
Warnings of El Niño-fuelled extreme heat
Scientists and world leaders have raised the alarm over this year’s record-breaking marine temperatures, which have persisted above historical peaks for more than 100 days as the naturally occurring El Niño phenomenon intensifies in the Pacific.
Extreme ocean heat could become a threat to coastal ecosystems and communities, experts fear. Water temperatures 1.5C above normal levels have also rapidly fuelled a strong hurricane in the Pacific in recent days.
Despite scientific calls for additional ocean conservation efforts, a report launched this week in New York warned that efforts to protect ocean ecosystems are lagging behind, with only 10% of the global ocean covered by conservation areas and just 3.5% designated as “effectively protected”.
The post Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood appeared first on Climate Home News.
Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood
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Climate Change2 years agoAnalysis: China’s CO2 falls 1% in Q2 2024 in first quarterly drop since Covid-19