Published

1 year ago

March 12, 2025

Alice Rush

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

Trump’s logging orders

IF A TREE FALLS: US president Donald Trump last week signed a pair of executive orders “to increase lumber production across national forests and other public lands”, Axios reported. The outlet explained that the first order “calls for considering new categorical exclusions” under the existing law that requires environmental reviews, while the second “promotes domestic timber production to replace imports”. The latter order dealt “a devastating blow” to forests on public lands, said Inside Climate News. The outlet added that “increasing timber production would likely target the larger, older trees that are the most critical to protect as climate change accelerates”.

QUESTIONABLE IMPACT: The Trump administration claims that increasing timber production will be “the next frontier in job creation and wildfire prevention”, USA Today reported. Timber groups and lawmakers representing rural districts were in agreement, the outlet said. It added: “But conservation groups and forestry experts say cutting down more trees doesn’t inherently reduce wildfire risk and can actually increase it.” The orders are “expected to face legal pushback”, USA Today said.

NOT SO CLEAR CUT: Despite the claims of a viral Instagram post, the executive orders do not compel the clearing of 280m acres (1.1m square kilometres) of national forest, noted a Yahoo News factcheck. The outlet added that the total area of land affected by the orders is actually 251m acres (1m km2) and that “even in the most extreme scenario, the US logging industry wouldn’t have the sawmills or workers required” to clear-cut that much forest in the next four years. It said: “But whatever the scale, environmentalists warn that expanding logging while reducing oversight will damage fragile ecosystems, threaten old-growth forests, increase pollution and even worsen wildfires.”

Tit-for-tat tariffs

FOOD FIGHT: On Monday, China began imposing tariffs on US farm products, in what the New York Times called “the latest escalation of a trade fight between the world’s two largest economies”. China’s tariffs include a 15% levy on US-raised chicken, wheat and corn, along with a 10% levy on other food products, the newspaper reported. Describing the food tariffs as “a high impact yet low-cost weapon” in the US-China trade war, Bloomberg noted that “the Asian giant remains a key export market for largely Republican states in the midwest farm belt”. Alongside the new levy, it added that China also halted all American timber purchases and soybean imports from three US firms. The Washington Post mapped where tariffs could “hit” US farmers and jobs “the hardest”.

AG INDEPENDENCE: The latest move is part of China’s “broader strategy” to strengthen its food security since Trump’s first term, reported Business Standard, tracing a timeline of the country’s initiatives “to reduce its reliance on US imports”. US farmers and experts who spoke to Time magazine said they “know from experience” that Trump’s “incipient trade war will make things tougher” for them. The outlet added that “around 80% of the money the US government took in from tariffs on Chinese imports [during Trump’s first term] went back to paying farmers” affected by retaliatory tariffs. The US-China food trade fight will give Brazilian exporters “an opportunity to take an even bigger share of the Chinese market”, Reuters reported, adding that it “could also fuel already-high food inflation in Brazil”.

UH OH, CANADA: At the same time, China “open[ed] a new front in a trade war”, announcing tariffs on over $2.6bn worth of Canadian agricultural and food products on Saturday, according to Reuters. The measures include a 100% tariff on Canadian rapeseed oil and pea imports, the newswire explained. It said that China’s tariffs on Canada are being seen as a “warning shot” and “retaliati[on] against levies Ottawa introduced in October” on China-made electric vehicles and aluminium products. Canada’s 40,000 rapeseed farmers are now “caught in the middle of political tensions far outside [their] control” amid two trade fights, the Globe and Mail reported, with China’s moves combining with the “threat of 25% tariffs on $7.7bn of exports to the US, their largest market”.

Spotlight

Mining drives ‘destruction’ in Peru’s peatlands

This week, Carbon Brief covers a new study that found that small-scale, artisanal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon is a small but growing cause of “destruction” for the region’s carbon-rich peatlands.

Peatland loss due to small-scale gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon has released up to 0.7m tonnes of carbon – some 2.6m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) – over the past 35 years, according to new research.

The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, used satellite imagery to determine where “artisanal” mining had driven deforestation in the Madre de Dios river plain.

The researchers found that while only 5% of the mined area overlapped with known peatlands, 55% of this peatland loss occurred within just the past two years.

They warned that mining in Peru’s peatlands is “happening at a scale sufficiently large to threaten the future existence of peatland on the Madre de Dios landscape”.

Mining-driven deforestation

Peatlands are carbon-rich, water-logged ecosystems that form slowly over time as plant matter dies and partially decomposes.

Although they make up only 3% of the Earth’s land surface, peatlands are estimated to contain 600bn tonnes of carbon – more than is stored in all of the world’s forests combined.

Despite their importance as carbon stores, peatlands are underprotected compared to other “high-value” ecosystems, such as tropical forests. A recent study found that just 17% of peatlands are protected globally.

Artisanal gold mining – referring to mining done informally and with basic tools – is one of the main drivers of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon in recent decades. It is highly concentrated around the Madre de Dios river, which cuts through the south-eastern part of the country.

To understand the impact of this type of mining, the researchers used 35 years of data from NASA’s Landsat satellite to monitor changes in the region around the Madre de Dios river known as its alluvial plain. They then used an algorithm to differentiate deforestation that was caused by artisanal mining from deforestation due to other factors.

The researchers identified 11,356 hectares of mining in the alluvial plain, two-thirds of which was concentrated in a 50-kilometre stretch of river.

Peatland loss

The researchers then overlaid the identified mining sites with maps of the Madre de Dios peatland complex.

They identified more than 550 hectares of peatland that had been lost to artisanal mining between 1985 and 2023. They estimated that this “destruction” released between 0.2m and 0.7m tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, resulting in emissions of up to 2.6MtCO2.

Moreover, mining in peatland areas has increased twice as quickly as the average rate of increase across the plain as a whole over the past five years. More than 10,000 hectares of peatland, containing between 3.5 and 14.5m tonnes of carbon, are at “imminent risk”, the authors warn.

Dr John Householder, a researcher at Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and an author of the study, said in a statement:

“Even within a human generation, it is quite possible that large peat deposits can disappear from the landscape, before science has had a chance to describe them. For those peat deposits that are already known, these research findings are a wakeup call to protect them.”

News and views

IWATE ABLAZE: Japan was faced with its “worst wildfire in half a century” in early March, Agence France-Presse reported. The fire, which broke out in the Iwate prefecture on the country’s Pacific coast, “engulfed around 2,600 hectares” and “left one dead”, the newswire said. The Japan Times noted that “unusually dry weather, strong winds and the city’s terrain have made the situation worse than usual”. Dr Akira Kato, a forestry professor at Japan’s Chiba University, told the outlet: “There is a big misconception that fires don’t occur in humid climates, but this is actually not true, and forest fires can occur anywhere in the world.”

EXTINCTION LITIGATION: Australia’s environment minister, Tanya Pilbersek, is being sued by conservation non-profit the Wilderness Society for failing in “her promise to halt Australia’s ongoing extinction crisis”, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The case does not mention Pilbersek by name but alleges “successive environment ministers are to blame” for failing to “implement plans to save endangered animals”, the newspaper said. Pilbersek, it added, has responded by saying “she had made double the number of [nature] recovery plans than her predecessor”. Separately, ABC News reported that Tasmania’s salmon industry is being hit by mass die-offs due to bacterial disease, with “chunks” of thousands of dead salmon washing up ashore.

ARMY OF ME: After the “worst drought in decades”, Context News reported that Zimbabwe’s maize farmers are now battling an infestation of the fall armyworm. The pests are “[n]ative to the Americas” but have “spread across almost all of sub-Saharan Africa” in just two years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The outlet quotes Patrice Talla of the FAO saying: “Climate change has contributed to outbreaks of migratory pests beyond their regions of origin, notably the fall armyworm.” According to the story, the armyworm “reduces maize yields by up to 73% and inflicts annual economic losses valued at $9.4bn in Africa alone”, its “crop-munching” impacts also affecting Malawi, Zambia, Togo, Benin and Swaziland.

SUDANESE BREW: Excelsea coffee – discovered in South Sudan nearly a century ago – is drawing international interest “amid a global coffee crisis caused mainly by climate change”, the Associated Press reported. The coffee variety currently accounts for “less than 1% of the global market” but production trials by agroforestry company Equatoria Teak indicate that it can “thrive in extreme conditions, such as drought and heat, where other coffees cannot”, according to the newswire. While the beans “represent a chance at a better future” for the country, farmer Elia Box – who lost half his coffee crop to fire in early February – told AP that long-term crops, such as coffee, need stability: “Coffee needs peace.”

ESTATE SALE: A “mystery donor” made a record land purchase in the Scottish Highlands on behalf of the Scottish Wildlife Trust – “the largest donation in the trust’s 60-year history”, according to the Times. It quoted the charity saying that by securing the 7,618-hectare Inverbroom Estate, it could “significantly enhance its efforts to protect and restore wildlife at scale across Scotland”. Furthermore, the newspaper noted that “the trust has made a commitment to the donor that none of the work at Inverbroom would be funded through the sale of carbon credits”.

ILLEGALLY FELLED: According to a new report covered by Mongabay, nearly all of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in the past year was illegal. It said Brazilian non-profit Center of Life Institute (ICV) found that 91% of deforestation in the Amazon and 51% in the tropical savanna of the Cerrado lacked authorisation between August 2023 and July 2024. The outlet noted that under Brazilian law, landowners with a government-issued permit can clear up to 20% and 80% of the vegetation on their property in the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado, respectively. However, it added that the ICV researchers found that much of the deforestation captured by Brazil’s national space agency “wasn’t registered in official databases” for deforestation permits. Separately, BBC News reported that a new highway being built for the COP30 UN climate talks in Belém is “cutting through tens of thousands of acres” of protected Amazon rainforest.

Watch, read, listen

FOREST FOR THE TREES: Dialogue Earth explained how extreme heat is affecting China’s trees – and magnifying other threats to the plants.

IN BLOOM: An in-depth piece in the New York Times covered how a warming ocean is “throwing plankton into disarray”, putting the entire marine food web at risk.

RADICAL INTELLIGENCE: A Noema long read looked at how studying intelligence as a biological property across species can “open up a world of commonalities” across all life.

EXTRACTIVE INVESTORS: The Guardian examined the investor-state lawsuit levelled against Greenland that is seeking to reverse its uranium mining ban.

New science

Research published in PLOS Climate found that smallholder farmers in north-eastern Madagascar reported that they perceived increased temperature and decreased rainfall over the past five years. However, despite reporting concerns over their ability to feed their families in the future, only 21% of the 479 farmers surveyed reported changing their farming practices.
Tropical forests in the Americas are changing certain functional traits, such as wood density, in response to warming temperatures – “but at a rate that is fundamentally insufficient to track climate change”, a new study published in Science found. Researchers used data from 415 forest plots over 1980-2021, along with temperature data, to determine how forest composition was changing in response to warming.
A new review in Environmental Research Letters scanned nearly 10,000 scientific papers to identify the impacts of trees outside of forests on human well-being in South Asia. While most of the literature reported an increase in economic and material well-being, negative outcomes documented included a loss of agency, political voice and social equity – “in particular with afforestation and monoculture plantation projects”.

In the diary

17-18 March: First part of the 30th annual session of the International Seabed Authority | Kingston, Jamaica
21 March: International Day of Forests
22 March: World Water Day
29 March: Global Day of the Landless

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 12 March 2025: Trump and timber; Food fights; Peru’s peatlands appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 12 March 2025: Trump and timber; Food fights; Peru’s peatlands

Climate Change

European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels

Published

14 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Alice Rush

The global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels now being developed should be a “continuing conversation” which is part of UN climate talks, not just a one-off report, several governments told the Brazilian COP30 Presidency on Friday in Bonn.

During a 90-minute exchange of views at the annual mid-year climate talks in Germany, several European governments and the Marshall Islands said the roadmap that Brazil is due to finish by November should be incorporated into the official negotiations.

Any such push is likely to be resisted by nations whose economies are reliant on fossil fuel production. While Russia did not speak on Friday, it has said in earlier written submissions that the roadmap should not be referenced in any document approved by governments at UN climate talks.

At COP30 last year, Brazil tried to get governments to agree to produce a roadmap on how to transition away from fossil fuels but the proposal did not win consensus, with major nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia opposed.

Feedback in Bonn

To save the day, Brazil’s COP30 president André Aranha Corrêa do Lago promised at the closing plenary in Belem to draw up a voluntary roadmap in consultation with interested governments. Over 20 countries have officially submitted their opinions on this roadmap and, in Bonn on Friday, Corrêa do Lago sought their views – and those of civil society – in person after the presidency presented its findings so far.

The roadmap will also incorporate outcomes from the first global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels held in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April and attended by around 60 countries.

A negotiator for the Marshall Islands told Friday’s meeting that at COP31 this year all governments should “welcome the collaborative effort behind the roadmap and the Santa Marta conference and for this work to be taken on to COP32 and beyond”.

Jun 11, 2026

Politics

Fewer journalists register for Bonn talks, as cuts to climate reporting bite

UN data shows a smaller number have signed up to cover the mid-year climate negotiations in Germany than in any year since the COVID-19 pandemic

Read more
Jun 9, 2026

Politics

COP31 leaders unveil global targets, with spotlight on electrification

Co-hosts Türkiye and Australia want countries to sign on to global targets in three of their priority areas for this year’s COP climate negotiations

Read more

A spokesperson for Switzerland said on behalf of a group of nations which includes South Korea and Mexico that the roadmap must be a “sustained process, not a one-off report” and “we would welcome an ongoing platform for dialogue, for learning and cooperation including among fossil-fuel production countries”.

“We expect more than a document, rather a process whereby we come together to develop concrete steps, recommendations and tools to prepare for the transitions,” she said, calling on the COP31 co-presidents Australia and Turkiye and COP32 host Ethiopia to “take up the leadership” for implementing the roadmap”.

Global stocktake response

France’s negotiator said the roadmap “is a process and we will need continuing discussions” as “implementation needs time”, while the UK called for a “continuing conversation, including as we head towards the second [global stocktake]”.

The global stocktake (GST) is an official five-yearly report into how the world’s governments are doing on their Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

The second stocktake will be published in 2028 and governments are likely to negotiate a response to it, which could include new commitments to reduce emissions, at COP33 that year. The response to the first global stocktake included the landmark COP28 commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems.

Activists and Indigenous people take part in a Stop EACOP campaign protest against fossil fuels during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, November 13, 2025. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

“Even though it’s not a formal part of the negotiation agenda, the roadmap can be a key input for the entire information-gathering phase of the second GST,” Enrique Maurtua Konstantinidis, an independent climate policy consultant, explained to Climate Home News.

“The key is for countries not to focus the discussion on defending the roadmap itself, but rather on its content, which is what truly matters,” he added.

At the Bonn event, civil society organisations also supported continuing the roadmap inside the formal climate process.

Natalie Jones, policy adviser for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, told Climate Home News the roadmap should be “an ongoing dialogue where countries can exchange their experiences, best practices and continue implementing the [transitioning away from fossil fuels] consensus”.

Russian resistance

But economies reliant on fossil fuel production are likely to oppose incorporating the roadmap into negotiations in Bonn and at COP summits. Russia’s written submission to Brazil’s consultation says the roadmap was not agreed by governments at COP30.

It says such work should therefore take place on the margins of the UNFCCC process, adding that “ the inclusion of any references to the “Roadmap” in the agenda or in official or informal documents” at Bonn or COP “would constitute a deviation from previously agreed consensus outcomes”.

Other major oil and gas producers like Saudi Arabia have not made written or spoken submissions and the US, as it has left the Paris Agreement, is not involved in discussions. But countries other than Russia are likely to resist incorporating the roadmap into official talks.

The UN climate process needs ambition – the law demands it

The submission by Japan, which is not a major producer of fossil fuels but consumes them from overseas, suggests nervousness about the roadmap. It asks Brazil for clarity on how the roadmap is “envisaged to be utilised” and argues that as many countries continue to rely on fossil fuels for electricity, a full and fast shift to “full decarbonisation” is “challenging.

After Friday’s event, Corrêa do Lago told Climate Home News that “the suggestions and the key milestones of the roadmap are not clear yet”. He added that the next step for the COP30 presidency will be to “sit down in July and August to really prepare” the content.

The veteran Brazilian diplomat added that the roadmap will have a section on the challenges of the transition and another section on solutions.

National fossil fuel roadmaps

Brazil, as COP30 president, is drawing up the global roadmap but its leader Lula da Silva has also ordered his officials to draw up a national roadmap.

In April, France became the first and so far only nation to produce a roadmap, which amalgamated different existing energy and decarbonisation plans and targets. Colombia is reportedly drawing up a roadmap too, based on a draft document by academics.

On Friday, a coalition of nearly 100 civil society organisations called on the COP31 co-presidents Australia and Türkiye to both come up with national roadmaps in order to “lead by example”. Türkiye produces about a third of its electricity from coal, while Australia is the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter, the NGOs said.

But in the Brazil-led consultation meeting, a Norwegian negotiator downplayed the importance of separate national roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels.

While they can “have a supporting role”, the official said countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs) “must remain the primary vehicle for driving global climate transition.”

NDCs are climate plans, usually containing emissions reduction targets, which the Paris Agreement states governments must update with higher ambition every five years.

The post European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/06/12/european-island-states-seek-clear-future-for-global-roadmap-to-cut-fossil-fuels/

Climate Change

Hoover Dam Approaches a Hydropower Cliff

Published

15 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Alice Rush

Big cuts in generating capacity are coming as the Colorado River struggles to meet demand.

Brett Walton, Circle of Blue

Some day in the next 12 months—maybe in late August, maybe not until next spring— Lake Mead will drop below the critical threshold of 1,035 feet above sea level.

Hoover Dam Approaches a Hydropower Cliff

Climate Change

DeBriefed 12 June 2026: El Niño begins | COP31 hosts eye electrification | Atlantic current monitoring at risk

Published

17 hours ago

June 12, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

El Niño begins

‘DOMINO WEATHER’: The natural weather phenomenon El Niño, which can raise global heat and “bring domino weather effects across the planet”, is now underway, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared on Thursday, reported the Washington Post. The Japanese Meteorological Administration also identified the start of El Niño on Wednesday, said Bloomberg. According to the Japanese weather agency, the event is “expected to intensify in the coming months and become very strong later in the year, persisting into at least December”, reported the outlet.

‘SUPER EVENT’: BBC News reported that “many forecasts suggest this could end up as a so-called ‘super’ El Niño” and be “among the strongest ever recorded”. It added: “Coming on top of decades of human-caused warming, it could bring another record-hot year – most likely in 2027 – with disruption to weather, food supplies and economies running well into that year.”

COP31 hosts eye electrification

‘35 BY 35’: COP31 hosts Turkey and Australia have called for countries to support a target of electrifying 35% of global energy use by 2035, reported Politico. Speaking at climate talks in Bonn, Germany, Turkish minister Murat Kurum said that electrification would be a “flagship priority” at the COP31 summit, noted the publication. Kurum added that “electrifying daily life, from transport to buildings and industry” could “protect families and businesses from volatile energy markets”, said the outlet.

WASTE AND BUILDINGS: Climate Home News reported that electrification was one of three priorities unveiled by the COP31 hosts, with the other two being waste and buildings. On buildings, the COP31 hosts “quietly overhauled [their] goal”, Climate Home News said. It reported: “An initial press statement on Monday set out a target ‘to achieve at least a 25% increase in energy efficiency in buildings by 2035’. But…on Tuesday, that was replaced with a different goal to ‘reduce energy consumption intensity in the building sector by at least 25% by 2035’.”

‘HARDEST’ CHALLENGE: Elsewhere in Bonn, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said “governments must stop revisiting climate commitments and start delivering on them”, South Africa’s Mail and Guardian reported. It quoted Stiell as saying: “Tackling the global climate crisis is the hardest but most important thing humanity has ever tried to do together…We are not yet where we need to be. But we are somewhere we have never been before.”

Around the world

ETS EXTRA: The EU has agreed “stronger” price controls on “ETS2”, its planned trading system for heating and transport emissions, according to Reuters.
OCEAN STRESS: The rate of sea level rise has doubled in 10 years amid “severe and accelerating” pressures on oceans, said a UN report covered by Time.
CLIMATE MIGRANTS: Donald Trump’s “immigration crackdown is largely targeting people from the countries most vulnerable to displacement from climate-driven disasters”, according to Guardian analysis.
ULTRA-RICH: Investments by the world’s ultra-rich in 2022 are linked to nearly $1tn in climate damages, according to a Greenpeace Africa analysis covered by BusinessGreen.

Two

The number of bidders for Trump’s auction for drilling rights in an Arctic wildlife refuge, with big oil companies “sitting out the sale”, reported Bloomberg.

Latest climate research

As the Arctic warms, increased iceberg activity could “reshape” deep-sea habitats and “elevate” navigational hazards as maritime traffic expands | Nature
Around 11% of the population of the world’s “rarest great ape”, the Tapanuli orangutan, is estimated to have perished in an extreme rainfall event in Indonesia in 2025 | Current Biology
Canada’s forests are shifting from a carbon sink to a carbon source, due to “wildfires disturbances” | Global Change Biology

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Solar power has overtaken gas in Asia to become the region’s third largest electricity source behind coal and hydropower, according to Carbon Brief analysis of data from the thinktank Ember. Solar became the third largest electricity source for Asia on an annual basis in April 2026, according to the analysis. In the year to April 2026, solar generated 1,727 terawatt hours (TWh), while gas generated 1,711TWh, it added.

Spotlight

Atlantic current monitoring at risk

This week, Carbon Brief reports on how Trump plans could disrupt efforts to track a major ocean current.

The Irminger Sea, a patch of frigid ocean east of Greenland, plays an outsized role in the Earth’s climate.

Here, surface water that has travelled thousands of kilometres from the tropics grows cold and dense enough to sink to the ocean’s depths – a transformation that must occur for the water to begin a long journey back to the southern hemisphere.

This makes the Irminger Sea an “action centre” for the mighty Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the vast system of ocean currents that keeps temperatures in Europe mild.

Last week, the US government announced plans to dismantle ocean moorings installed in the Irminger Sea which, among other things, collect data on the health of the AMOC.

This came as part of a programme to “descope” the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $368m network of ocean sensors installed in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Two of the moorings earmarked for removal in the Irminger Sea form part of an internationally funded, trans-Atlantic AMOC monitoring array, known as OSNAP, that stretches from Canada to Scotland.

Experts told Carbon Brief the move by the Trump administration highlights the vulnerability of AMOC observation systems around the world. These deep-sea moorings – scattered across the Atlantic – collect real-time data on, among other things, ocean current, temperature, pressure and biochemistry.

Prof Penny Holliday, chief scientific officer of the UK National Oceanography Centre, told Carbon Brief that the OSNAP array, as well as the RAPID array at 26N, are “entirely dependent” on research grants that have to be “continually reapplied for”.

“Funding is perilous all the time,” she said.

A report prepared last month by scientists for Nordic ministers exploring the security of funding for AMOC observing systems warned that RAPID and OSNAP were in “critical condition” and faced “material exposure over an 18-month horizon”. Meanwhile, other key basin-wide and global components of the global AMOC observing system were rated as “at risk”.

It is not just US funding that is uncertain. The report notes, for example, that the five-yearly funding the UK provides to RAPID and OSNAP is “at risk from 2027 due to year-on-year budget reductions” at the Natural Environmental Research Council.

(RAPID is funded by the US and UK, whereas OSNAP is backed by five different countries, with the US contributing half of the total financial support.)

Report co-author Dr Femke de Jong from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research told Carbon Brief that “continued AMOC observations” are under pressure in “multiple countries”. She said:

“While the risk of a declining AMOC to society is starting to be recognised, there is not yet a system or institution in place to guarantee a way to monitor it.”

AMOC monitoring arrays are still in their infancy – RAPID, the oldest, was launched in 2004. Two decades of data captured so far shows that the AMOC is slowing down. However, scientists will need many more years of data to be able to confidently link the decline to climate change, rather than natural variability in the ocean.

NOC’s Holliday points to the disconnect between scientific and funder timelines:

“The timescale of observations needed in order to be able to detect a climate change signal from the very naturally variable ocean is around 40-60 years…. [And yet], in the Netherlands, they have to apply for a new grant for their ocean moorings every two years. They are going to have to do that for 40 years.

“This is a very inefficient way of getting funding for what should be critical infrastructure.”

This spotlight first appeared in Cited, Carbon Brief’s new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free.

Watch, read, listen

‘BEYOND GROWTH’: A group of economists set out a “roadmap for eradicating poverty beyond growth” in the Guardian.

OIL CAMPAIGN: Politico reported on how “oil industry allies” are campaigning against attribution science, including by working to discredit a US National Academies report that “will examine research into the ways corporate climate pollution is intensifying natural disasters”.

‘FIGHT BACK’: For the Apocalyptic Optimist podcast, Dr Dana Fisher spoke to historian and author Dr Naomi Oreskes about how to “fight back” against climate misinformation.

Coming up

8-18 June: Bonn climate talks, Bonn, Germany
16-18 June: 11th Our ocean conference, Mombasa, Kenya
18 June: International Energy Agency Global Hydrogen Review 2026 report launch

Pick of the jobs

S-Curve Economics, head of road transport | Salary: £75,000-£80,000. Location: Remote (UK)
UK Department for Energy Security and Net-Zero, speechwriter to the secretary of state | Salary: £62,595-£69,765. Location: London (hybrid)
Basque Centre for Climate Change, postdoctoral researcher for JustBioSolar project | Salary: €27,040-€34,320. Location: Bilbao, Spain
Boston Globe climate science and environment reporter | Salary: Unknown. Location: Boston, US