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
Drought hits food supplies
BLOW TO AFRICA: “The driest February in decades” swept across a swathe of southern Africa, wiping out crops and jeopardising energy supplies, Bloomberg reported. It cited preliminary data suggesting that large parts of Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe had record-low February rainfall last month. The outlet noted that 45% of planted areas in Zambia “have been destroyed” and the president has declared a national disaster. The crop failures have “threatened to send already high food prices surging further”, Bloomberg wrote, noting that in both Zambia and Zimbabwe, prices have risen by about 75% compared to last February. In addition, “dangerously low” water levels in reservoirs in several countries could force the governments to ration power supplies.
‘DIRE NEED OF FOOD’: In the Federated States of Micronesia, in Oceania, thousands of people have been affected by drier-than-normal conditions recorded since December last year, Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reported. The news site interviewed Cromwell Bacareza, UNICEF’s Micronesia field office chief, who said that around 16,000 people – 40% of whom are children – “are in dire need of food”. Bacareza told the outlet: “It’s not an isolated incident, but rather a grim reminder for everyone of the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, particularly the small island states.” RNZ cited the US National Weather Service, which has projected that the current El Niño would continue to worsen weather conditions.
SICILY’S ‘SEVERE DROUGHT’: The southern Italian island of Sicily is also under a “severe drought” due to a lack of winter rains, which has forced dozens of towns to ration water for both agriculture and residential consumption, Reuters reported. The newswire added that the risk to agriculture in Sicily was considered a “particular concern” by the EU’s crop monitoring service. Meanwhile, in the Po valley in northern Italy, rice farmers are still dealing with the impacts of a persistent drought that began in 2022 and devastated 7,500 hectares of rice fields last year alone, according to the Guardian. The outlet noted that Italy accounts for about 50% of the rice produced in the EU, and most of it comes from the Po Valley, where arborio and carnaroli rice – used in risotto – is harvested. The Guardian added that farmers have sought to diversify their crops in response to climate change.
Indigenous peoples driving conservation
INDIGENOUS VOICE: El Mostrador reported that the Chilean government has announced that it will involve Indigenous peoples in developing the country’s adaptation plan for its water sector. It added that “citizen participation” workshops will take place during March and April with the 11 Indigenous peoples legally recognised by Chile. El Mostrador quoted Cristian Núñez Riveros, the director general for water in Chile’s public-works ministry: “This will make it possible to recognise [Indigenous peoples’] interrelationship with water, considering their environment, ways of life and productive activities. It will shed light on the impacts of climate change from their voices, considering their practices and contributions to sustainable water management.”
LEADING CONSERVATION: Indigenous and coastal minority women are at the forefront of efforts to conserve Kenya’s “blue forests”, Inter Press Service reported. The women are restoring mangroves and fish ponds near Tsunza, a southern Kenyan coastal village, after fish disappeared from the area following several oil spills between 2003 and 2006, the newswire reported. Elsewhere, the Indigenous Achuar people in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who fought for more than 40 years to stop oil development in the area, now have solar panels in 12 of their villages, the Washington Post reported. The community had previously had little electricity coverage, but a new project has brought solar electricity to schools and homes and even allowed a switch from petrol boats to solar-powered boats.
‘THE SOLUTION’: Nearly 200 representatives of peasant and Indigenous organisations met at the end of February in south-eastern Mexico to address issues that affect them, including climate change, violence and food sovereignty, EFE Verde reported. The meeting organisers told the news agency that the meeting sought to establish actions to defend their rights in the run-up to the Mexican general elections on 2 June. In an interview with the outlet, Jesús Andrade, a member of a group of farmers’ organisations, said “the solution is peasant agroecology, which can cool the planet”. EFE Verde added that activists, NGOs and communities condemned the murder, disappearance and forced displacement of Indigenous communities by organised crime groups.
Spotlight
Dutch farm visit
In this spotlight, Carbon Brief speaks to John Arink, a Dutch organic farmer, on a media trip organised by Clean Energy Wire.
“When I look at the agricultural system at this moment, we have big problems. It is due to the system that the water is polluted…so we have to change the system.”
Amid ongoing farmer protests across the EU, one farmer in the Netherlands recently showcased the less-intensive future he wants for the agriculture sector.
John Arink, an organic farmer, spoke to Carbon Brief and other media outlets on his farm near the village of Lievelde in the east of the Netherlands, around two hours from Amsterdam.
Arink and his family run a small organic farm, shop, hotel and restaurant. He is a small producer by Dutch standards – the average dairy farm in the country has more than 100 cows. Arink has 50, alongside three pigs and 100 chickens.
Walking around the farm, a rooster crowed in an outdoor enclosure with a solar-powered coop, horned cows looked out from their pen and a group of piglets huddled around their feed.
Arink started out as a more conventional, intensive farmer in the mid-1980s. Then he visited a smaller organic farm and saw how animals could be raised with limited use of chemical fertilisers and antibiotics. He said:
“On my way back home, I thought, well, that’s the direction I want to go with my farm. In the 30 years after that, that’s what we did here.”
The Netherlands – a country around one-third the size of England – is the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural goods, behind the US. Overall in the Netherlands, average farm sizes are getting bigger, but the number of farms is shrinking.
In recent years, the Dutch government had to develop plans to substantially reduce nitrogen emissions from, among other things, manure and chemical fertilisers on farms.
In 2022, the government set targets to cut nitrogen pollution by as much as 70% in some areas by the end of this decade. A voluntary “buy out” scheme for farms is among the measures aimed to reach this goal.
Protests kicked off in 2019 in response to the nitrogen crisis and demonstrations continued over the past few years.
On these protests and the wider farmer outcry across Europe this year, Arink believes that many farmers “cannot look over the hill” to a possible future producing less meat and more plants. He added:
“In Holland, we have some kind of a mantra that says the intensive way of producing milk and meat is very efficient. But it is not when you calculate all of the indirect dues of materials and energy.
“Maybe from the financial point of view, it can be efficient, but we have to look at it in the ecological way. And from that point of view, it’s very inefficient.”
Government formation talks remain ongoing in the Netherlands, months after the country’s general election last November. The next government will be tasked with enforcing the nitrogen reduction measures in the coming years. Arink said:
“That [nitrogen] problem is not to be solved only by farmers, but the whole society.”
News and views
REEF RIFT: Coral reefs around the world are on the brink of a fourth mass bleaching event, which “could see wide swathes of tropical reefs die”, Reuters reported. This follows “months of record-breaking ocean heat fuelled by climate change and the El Niño climate pattern”, the newswire added. Bleaching is triggered by heat stress and “can be devastating for the ocean ecosystem”, Reuters said. Dr Derek Manzello, the coordinator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s coral reef monitoring authority, told the outlet: “We are literally sitting on the cusp of the worst bleaching event in the history of the planet.” Australia’s Great Barrier Reef “lost nearly a third of its corals” during the last global bleaching between 2014 and 2017, the newswire noted.
RISK FACTOR: The EU is planning to delay its deforestation-risk rating system for countries, which was due to take effect at the end of this year, according to the Financial Times. The law aims to prevent the sale of products that have been produced on deforested land. The rules would categorise countries as posing either a low, standard or high risk for deforestation. Three EU officials told the FT that all countries will be listed as “standard risk, to give them more time to adapt”. The newspaper said that the change came after “several governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America complained that the rules would be burdensome, unfair and scare off investors”. The European Commission declined to comment, the FT said. (Read Carbon Brief’s Q&A on the law for more.)
NIGERIA’S ‘BLUE CARBON’: A mangrove-restoration carbon credit project received an early green light in an “oil-rich Nigerian state”, Bloomberg reported. A UK-based company, Serendib Capital, was granted the rights “to restore the mangroves and seagrass beds” on about 9% of land in Delta State, in southern Nigeria. The outlet said that the project developer claimed this “could potentially sequester, or store away, 5.32m tons of carbon each year”. Huge oil companies “have been blamed for much of the damage that’s historically destroyed the area’s wetlands and farms”, Bloomberg added, noting that “they, in turn, could now become some of the biggest buyers of carbon offsets”. Parts of the carbon offset market have “cooled recently amid increasingly sharp criticism from scientists and experts”, the outlet said.
FARMERS RALLY ON: “Thousands of angry farmers” threw smoke bombs and lit fires near parliament buildings in Warsaw as EU farmer protests continued, Al Jazeera said. Polish farmers demonstrated against EU rules and “cheap Ukraine imports”, according to the outlet, adding that there were also “tractor blockades on roads across the country”. The country’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, “failed to reach an agreement with Polish farmers to end protests”, Euronews reported. Separately, ITV News said that farmers in Wales lined “thousands of wellies…on the steps of the Senedd [parliament] in protest against the Welsh government’s new farming plans”.
AFRICAN AGRI: A report from civil-society groups criticised a $61bn plan to “industrialise African food systems”, saying it would pose a “significant threat to small-scale farmers”, Mongabay reported. The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently released “agricultural development plans” for 40 African countries, aiming to improve food security and productivity. The groups said the initiative’s “emphasis on principal commodity crops, mechanised farming tools and standardised land tenure systems” push towards agro-industrialisation, Mongabay said. The outlet added that the groups believe this would “increase dependency on multinational corporations for seeds and agrochemicals, and lead to the loss of land and biodiversity”. The AfDB did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.
COASTAL VILLAGE THREAT: Coastal villages in the east of India that were “hit hard by a super-cyclone” 25 years ago have since experienced “a rise in soil and water salinity and subsequent loss of agricultural land, livelihoods and marriage prospects”, according to the Migration Story. The outlet spoke to residents in the villages of Udaykani and Tandahar about the continuing impacts of the super-cyclone that “lashed” the state of Odisha in 1999, which was the “most intense ever recorded in the northern Indian Ocean”. One villager, Vaidehi Kardi, told the outlet: “When the soil turned salty, our crops shrivelled…Gradually, the water, too, turned salty and our lives withered.”
Watch, read, listen
GREEN BURIALS: In a podcast, National Public Radio examined sustainable burials and how costly they can be for your wallet and the planet.
AN OPTION FOR BELIZE: Inside Climate News looked at a “fevered push” from conservationists to “save what’s left” of the tropical rainforest in Belize through carbon offsets.
‘ENVIRONMENTAL CRIMES’: The Diplomat interviewed Prof John McManus, a professor at the University of Miami, to talk about environmental damage in the South China Sea.
‘GREEN GOLD’: In a Financial Times long read, the newspaper’s Brazil bureau chief Bryan Harris explored the agriculture and agribusiness “boomtowns” in the central-west parts of Brazil.
New science
Australia’s Tinderbox Drought: An extreme natural event likely worsened by human-caused climate change
Science Advances
Climate change made low rainfall levels during an “extreme and impactful” drought in Australia from 2017-19 “around six times more likely”, compared to pre-industrial times, new research suggested. This drought “helped create favourable conditions for the most intense and widespread outbreak of forest fires ever recorded in south-east Australia”, the study said. The researchers looked at the characteristics and causes of the “tinderbox drought” in south-east Australia and used modelling to assess how unusual the drought was compared to “natural climate variability”. They found multiple ways in which human-caused climate change may have worsened the drought, but said that other aspects of the drought were “unexpected”.
Bornean tropical forests recovering from logging at risk of regeneration failure
Global Change Biology
When logged forests are restored, they have higher seedling mortality compared to unlogged forests, new research has found. Over a year and a half, researchers examined the diversity, survival and characteristics of more than 5,000 seedlings of 15 species in northern Borneo. Some of the seeds germinated in unlogged forests and some in forests that were logged 30-35 years ago and were subsequently restored either naturally or with restoration techniques such as tree planting. They found that both restoration types had lower species richness and evenness than unlogged forests five-to-six months after the trees began to produce stems.
Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the UK: carbon storage potential and growth rates
Royal Society Open Science
A new study revealed that giant sequoias planted in the UK can absorb carbon between 2.5 and 20 times faster than other tree species commonly planted on plantations. The researchers used laser scanning to calculate the above-ground biomass and annual biomass accumulation rates of individual giant sequoia trees at three different sites. They found that the UK trees grew at similar rates as those in the US, “varying with climate, management and age”. The study said that giant sequoias are one of the country’s largest tree species and have “undoubted public appeal”. It added that they “represent a small but potentially important addition to the UK’s carbon sequestration efforts”.
In the diary
- 15 March: Third meeting of the informal advisory group on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources | Online
- 11-13 March: 11th annual World Ocean Summit and Expo | Lisbon
- 18-29 March: First part of the 29th session of the International Seabed Authority | Kingston, Jamaica
- 21 March: International Day of Forests
- 22 March: World Water Day
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 13 March 2024: Drought hits food supplies; ‘Mass bleaching’ of coral reefs; Industrialising African ag appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Iran war fallout continues
WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.
SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.
COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”
Around the world
- WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
- SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
- CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
- RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
- VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.
1%
The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)
Spotlight
New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.
Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.
The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.
Reductions vs removals
The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.
One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.
When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.
The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.
Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:
“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”
‘Global dialogue’
While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.
Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.
Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:
“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”
Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.
Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:
“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”
While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.
She added:
“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”
Watch, read, listen
COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.
THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.
SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.
Coming up
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
- Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Around 300 scientists, civil servants, journalists and climate experts took part in the 11th annual Carbon Brief quiz on Wednesday 18 March 2026.
For the second time, this year’s quiz was hosted by Octopus Energy at its headquarters in central London.
In total, 39 teams participated – 25 teams in person and 14 teams joining via Zoom.
Competing teams reflected a wide range of climate change and energy professionals. The list included journalists, civil servants, climate campaigners, policy advisers, energy experts and scientists.
Organisations represented included: Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in India; New Scientist; the Times; Business Green; the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), UCL; Verisk Maplecroft; BBC; World Weather Attribution; Grantham Institute at Imperial; DESNZ; WWF; European Climate Foundation (ECF); the ENDS Report; C40 Cities; Ricardo; Met Office; Meliore; E3G; Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI); Energy Transitions Commission; Carbon Tracker; Ember; Royal Meteorological Society; Civil Service Climate and Environment Network (CSCEN); Changing Markets Foundation; Cerulogy; Oxford Sustainable Law Programme; Université de Lausanne; University of Exeter; Centre for Environment and Sustainability, University of Surrey; UK Parliament; Skeptical Science; ECIU (Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit); Octopus Energy; DeSmog; Department for Transport and Royal School of Mines.
Teams were tested with five rounds of questions – general knowledge, policy, science and two picture rounds. (See the slideshow of the questions and answers below).
After two hours of playing, this year’s winners were announced.
Comprised of players from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) in India, last time’s second place team, “Emissions Impossible” won the coveted Carbon Brief trophy with a total score of 76 out of 100 available points.
In joint second place, with 59 points, were the “Potato-sized nodules”, a mixed team of journalists from New Scientist, the Times and Business Green.
Sharing second place, after leading at the half-way point, were “You cannot BSEERious” from the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources at UCL.
In fourth place, with 57 points, were “Risky Quizness”, from Verisk Maplecroft.
A certificate was awarded to the BBC for the best team name, as voted for by Carbon Brief staff: “High hopes [low confidence]”.
See the full leaderboard:
All the questions and answers from this year’s quiz can be found in this PDF document.
This year’s trickiest round was picture round two, which asked teams to match the quote to the author, with an average score of 5.9 out of 20 available points.
No team correctly guessed that “Chris Funk: Drought, Flood, Fire” was the source of the quote: “How greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere is pretty straightforward. It is really important that we understand this. But almost nobody does, because it is not something that we are taught in school.”
Science was the second hardest round, earning an average score of 6.1 points out of 20.
No team correctly guessed “religious leaders” as the least trustworthy source of climate information, according to a 2025 study using public polling from seven global south countries.
The highest-scoring round was general knowledge, with an average of 13.8 out of 20 questions answered correctly.
Carbon Brief would like to thank all the teams who took part and we look forward to hosting the quiz again in the spring of 2027.
If you would like to participate in next year’s quiz, please contact us in advance at quiz AT carbonbrief DOT org.
Photos by Kerry Cleaver
The post The Carbon Brief Quiz 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Just 1% of England’s land will be needed for renewables to help meet the UK’s climate goals by 2050, according to a first-of-its-kind framework.
There is enough land in England to meet climate and nature goals, while also producing more food and building new homes, according to the UK government’s new “land-use framework”.
Speaking at the framework’s launch on Wednesday, environment secretary Emma Reynolds said she hoped it would put an end to the idea that England faces “false choices” over “solar panels versus farmland”, or “growth versus environment”.
The policy was first planned by the Conservative government in 2022, but has been delayed many times.
It has been broadly welcomed by environmental groups, with Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, calling it a “vital step forward” towards “more joined-up approaches” to land use.
Below, Carbon Brief outlines the main points of the framework relating to climate change, nature restoration, food production, renewable energy and housing.
- What is the land-use framework?
- What does the plan say about how land in England should be used?
- What does the framework mean for different sectors?
What is the land-use framework?
The government’s land-use framework for England aims to set out a “coherent national vision” for using land.
The 56-page report is the first of its kind in England.
It focuses solely on England, but notes that the government will “work closely” with the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to share best practice and “collaborate on cross-border issues”.
It is a “blueprint” to inform better decisions on optimising land use to produce food, host renewable energy, restore nature and build more homes, says environment secretary Emma Reynolds in the foreword of the framework.
The plan hopes to end the “fragmented approach” to tackling these issues, which has led to a “confused picture and missed opportunities for land to deliver multiple benefits”, Reynolds says in the foreword. She adds:
“We can plant trees to reduce flood risk to homes and farmland, locate energy infrastructure alongside nature-rich food production and ensure nature recovery is at the heart of resilient growth and development.”
The report says it will play a “critical role” in helping to deliver national and global commitments, such as carbon budgets and national biodiversity and climate plans.
The framework commits to creating a long-term assessment of climate change impacts on land use at 2C and 4C of global warming.
It also commits to setting up a “land-use unit” in the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to produce a map of “national spatial priorities” in England for, among other things, food production, nature and housing.
The government says it will update the framework every five years, outlining progress and next steps on implementation.
Currently, about 70% of land in the UK is used for agriculture – primarily livestock.
The chart below highlights how land is currently allocated in the UK (left) and how much overseas land is used to produce food for the UK (right).
The government’s land-use framework for England has been long-awaited and much-delayed.
The recommendation for the report first came in the 2021 National Food Strategy, an independent report led by businessman Henry Dimbleby.
It recommended creating a rural land-use framework to give “detailed assessments” of the best ways to use land in England.
The former Conservative government committed to produce such a report in a June 2022 food strategy.
This strategy said that a land-use framework for England would be released in 2023 “to ensure we meet our net-zero and biodiversity targets”, among other aims.
The publication was, however, delayed many times.
The Labour government launched a consultation on the framework in January 2025 and the final report was eventually released on 18 March 2026.
The framework is a “long-awaited opportunity for real change”, says Roger Mortlock, chief executive of the environmental charity Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), in a statement.
Mortlock welcomes its “ambition”, but says that the way in which land tradeoffs are considered locally and nationally “will be key to its success”.
A report released by CPRE earlier this week, however, said that the framework is “unlikely to be the silver bullet many are hoping for”.
What does the plan say about how land in England should be used?
The framework uses high-resolution modelling – what it calls the “most sophisticated analysis” of its kind – to examine how England can use land to meet climate, nature, food and housing needs.
One key finding is that England has enough land to meet all of its objectives, if land is used efficiently.
This means that England has “enough land to deliver our objectives for nature restoration and development without reducing domestic food production or compromising on these objectives”, according to the framework.
It adds that efficient land use means “playing to the strengths” of England’s varied landscape. This involves, for example, prioritising the restoration of peatlands in north-west England and temperate rainforests in the south-west.
The chart below shows the percentage of land in England currently used for different purposes, as well as how this distribution will need to change by 2030 and 2050, if the UK is to meet its goals, according to the framework.
According to the framework, just 1% of England’s land will need to be taken up by renewables, such as solar and onshore wind, by 2050.
However, the framework does note that there is “inherent uncertainty” in projecting energy use by 2050 and says that the amount of land required for renewables may be nearer to “more than 2%”, depending on how quickly solar and wind is deployed in the future.
A further 6% of England’s land should be used for achieving climate and nature goals, according to the framework.
(A Defra official tells Carbon Brief that the framework’s projections for renewable energy and tree-planting were not as ambitious as those in the Climate Change Committee’s central pathway to net-zero, but are in line with the government’s carbon budget delivery plan for 2035.)
Speaking at the launch of the framework, environment secretary Emma Reynolds said that the framework shows that there are no “false choices” between “solar panels versus farmland” or “growth versus environment”, adding:
“The problem has never been scarcity of land. It has been a shortage of clarity.”
What does the framework mean for different sectors?
The framework sets out a “vision” for land use in several areas, such as housing, energy, food and nature by 2030 and 2050.
It also details what the government is currently doing to achieve these aims and makes pledges for more action down the line.
Below, Carbon Brief has detailed the key points around renewable energy, tree-planting and nature restoration, food production and housing.
Renewable energy
The report notes that the need to produce extra electricity to meet growing demand from, among other things, electric vehicles, heat pumps and data centres is “changing the way land is used across England”.
The UK plans to produce at least 95% of electricity from low-carbon sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear, by 2030.
Despite this, the report says that solar and wind will continue to make up a “small proportion of land use”. It says that, by 2030, much of this land will be “managed sustainably” for dual purposes, such as placing solar panels on the same land as growing crops.
Currently, around 21,000 hectares of land in the UK is covered by solar panels – which, as Carbon Brief has previously noted, is much less than the land used for golf courses.
By 2035, an additional 129,000 hectares of land is estimated to be used for solar and wind energy in England, with some of this land also used to produce food at the same time.
If achieved, this will account for 1% of land in England and 2% of the UK’s agricultural area.
This estimate is based on the assumption that all extra solar will be installed on the ground, which the report says is a “highly conservative and unlikely scenario” given that many panels are anticipated to be placed on rooftops.
This makes the 2035 figure an “upper-bound” estimate, says the report.
By 2050, around 155,000 hectares – roughly equal to the size of Greater London – will be used for renewables, the report estimates, adding that this is based on trends from historical data and not future scenarios.
The report adds that it is possible that more land than this will be needed to meet energy goals past 2035, however, citing the “inherent uncertainty” in figuring out what the mix of electricity sources will look like by 2050.
By 2030, coordinated planning of electricity networks will encourage rural investment, “such as through new data centres”, the report claims.
By 2050, the report says that better land-use planning will lead to a “fairer and more efficient distribution of solar and wind infrastructure across England”.
There will also be better electricity connections to renewables, much of which will be delivered alongside “productive agriculture”, such as by installing solar panels above crops – known as agrivoltaic farming.
The report says that any land-use change decisions should be made based on a number of factors, drawing from “local knowledge, values, data and priorities”.
It notes that development of wind and solar infrastructure in rural areas should give local communities the “opportunity to benefit from local clean energy”.
Tree-planting and nature restoration
According to the framework, 6% of England’s land will need to be used for achieving climate and nature goals by 2050.
This kind of land use includes restoring England’s carbon-dense peatlands, planting new woodlands and restoring heathland habitats.
As part of the analysis, the framework takes a detailed look at what parts of England would be best suited for nature restoration. It says:
“Habitat creation and restoration should be directed to the places where it can have the greatest ecological impact, help to reconnect fragmented landscapes, support priority species and deliver the greatest contribution to nature recovery.”
The chart below, taken from the framework, shows where in England has the greatest potential for nature restoration in dark green.
The analysis finds that north-west England has high potential for nature restoration, largely because it is home to the vast majority of the country’s carbon-rich, but degraded, peatlands.
Other areas identified include the south-west, which could be suitable for “grassland restoration and broadleaf woodland creation” and the south-east, where new grasslands could be planted, according to the framework.
The framework adds that the UK government remains committed to protecting 30% of land for nature by 2030, an international goal set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
However, it notes that, at present, just 7% of England’s land is protected for nature – with just four years to go until the deadline.
Speaking at the launch of the framework, nature minister Mary Creagh acknowledged that meeting the target remains a large challenge.
She added that her department was currently on a “data sprint” to try to account for all kinds of land that may not currently be classified as being protected for nature, despite serving this purpose.
Food production
The new framework extensively discusses how to balance food production with other uses for land, such as producing renewable energy and building homes.
The government says it is generally not suggesting land-use change on the country’s “best agricultural land”.
The framework focuses instead on using farmland to fulfil dual purposes, “rather than taking land out of production entirely”.
The goals outlined in the framework include increasing domestic food production in England, which the report says is “feasible according to our projections”.
Currently, the UK produces around 60% of its own food, importing the rest from abroad.
By 2030, the “vision” outlined in the framework says that farmers and other land managers will have better long-term clarity and more information on improved ways to use their land.
By 2050, meanwhile, farmlands will be managed to prioritise “sustainable food production and environmental benefits”, it says.
At this stage, the framework estimates that 480,000 hectares of farmland could be used primarily for food production, while also bringing environmental and climate benefits such as planting trees or restoring grassland habitats.
Agricultural land will be used to balance food production and other outcomes. A footnote in the report says that this will broadly lead to a “mosaic of different landscapes” – semi-natural land, low-intensity farmland and higher-intensity farmland.
It also says that, by 2050, farmland will be more resilient to climate change impacts through actions such as planting trees for flood and drought resilience.
All projected scenarios in the analysis behind the framework focus on producing food “more sustainably from less land”, the report notes.
The agricultural land-use change recommendations in the framework differ across the country. If focusing on improvements to water quality and biodiversity, for example, it recommends looking at areas with intensive agricultural production in the east of England.
This is due to these areas using high quantities of fertilisers, which can wash off fields and run into rivers and other waterways. This lowers water quality and harms plants and animals.
The government commits to developing sectoral growth plans, starting with horticulture and poultry, to provide a framework to boost production and “maintain food security”.
The government also promises to support making “under-used land” available for communities to grow food and recover nature, “where appropriate”. This refers to inactive land that is not suitable for other developments.
The report is a “step in the right direction”, says Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union. He adds that it is “positive” to have “explicit recognition” of using land for multiple purposes and a government commitment to maintain food production.
Bradshaw notes that “challenges remain about delivering against the ambitious objectives as the first 2030 milestone approaches”.
Housing
Reynolds says that this framework can help to “speed up house-building and infrastructure delivery”.
The report says that, by 2030, improved planning will enable areas to facilitate housing and development “whilst protecting and enhancing the environment”.
It adds that, where appropriate, developments will be higher-density to “make the best use of land within our towns and cities”.
By 2030, biodiversity net gain – a planning requirement to improve habitats while building developments – and nature-based solutions will also be used to ensure development “leaves the natural environment in a measurably better state than it was in beforehand”, the report says.
It adds that timber production will be expanded to provide “low-carbon building materials”.
By 2050, meanwhile, the framework says planners will be able to more easily assess how suitable areas are for development “using a streamlined digital planning service and decision support tools”.
These tools – built on a range of data sources – are intended to reduce the number of homes built in areas at risk of flooding, the report says.
One in four homes in England are projected to be at risk of flooding by 2050, under a high-emissions scenario, the report outlines.
The report notes that the government is proposing a “default yes” to some planning applications for developments near well-connected transport stations.
High-demand areas “need to be powered locally and sustainably”, it notes, and using technologies such as rooftop solar to “make use of existing built land for electricity generation” can reduce land pressures elsewhere.
The post Q&A: What England’s new ‘land-use framework’ means for climate, nature and food appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What England’s new ‘land-use framework’ means for climate, nature and food
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