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. This is the last edition of Cropped for 2025. The newsletter will return on 14 January 2026.
Key developments
UN talks face headwinds
GLOBAL OUTLOOK: A major new report calling for joint action on climate change and biodiversity was published this month at the UN Environment Assembly talks in Nairobi, Kenya, the Associated Press reported. The newswire said that more than 300 scientists from 83 countries contributed to the latest UN Environment Programme (UNEP) global environment outlook report.
‘SHARP DIVISIONS’: However, for the first time ever, countries failed to agree on a “summary for policymakers” to be published alongside the outlook, according to Agence France-Presse. It said that “sharp divisions” prevented countries reaching consensus on the high-level political summary, with “major oil producers Saudi Arabia and the US oppos[ing] references to phasing out fossil fuels”. The newswire added that UNEP chief Inger Andersen called the lack of a summary “regrettable”, but said the “integrity of the report” remained.
NEW AGREEMENTS: Separate to the report, negotiators in Nairobi were also tasked with agreeing on 15 resolutions and two decisions on a wide range of environmental topics, from plastics to the impact of artificial intelligence, forcing them to “work throughout the day and into the night” towards the end of the summit, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB). In the end, countries adopted 11 resolutions, including on protecting coral reefs from climate change, the global management of wildfires and the preservation of glaciers, a second ENB report said.
TURKISH INFLUENCE: Climate Home News reported that Turkey, the country co-hosting the COP31 climate summit next year alongside Australia, “sought to weaken language on climate change in several draft resolutions” being discussed at the talks. The publication said that the nation, often working alongside Saudi Arabia, “pushed to dilute wording on the climate crisis, the science of melting glaciers and the role of young and Indigenous people”. A separate Climate Home News story said that countries agreed to a first-of-its-kind resolution on addressing the environmental effects of AI, but failed to include a reference to examining its “life cycle” impacts.
‘Deadly’ Asia floods
‘NOT NORMAL’: Climate change made the rainfall behind the “deadly” floods and landslides in parts of south Asia earlier this month more likely to occur and more intense, a World Weather Attribution study covered by the Hindustan Times found. Deforestation and rapid urbanisation also contributed to the extreme flooding that killed more than 1,600 people in several countries, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Thailand, the newspaper said. The Guardian noted that while monsoon rains often bring flooding, scientists said this level of intensity was “not normal”.
FOREST LOSS: Mongabay looked at how deforestation contributed to the “catastrophic” impacts from Cyclone Senyar, which caused floods and landslides in Sumatra, Indonesia. The outlet said that “decades of deforestation, mining, plantations and peat drainage left watersheds unable to absorb intense rainfall”. Indonesian environmental group WALHI told the Associated Press that deforestation “stripped away natural defences that once absorbed rainfall and stabilised soil”. Gus Irawan Pasaribu, a local government leader in Tapanuli, told Reuters: “If our forests were well-preserved…it would not have been this terrible.”
NATURE IMPACTS: A separate Mongabay article reported on the “extensive” damage caused by Cyclone Ditwah to Sri Lanka’s “biodiversity-rich” central highlands earlier this month. The outlet said that initial assessments have shown disastrous impacts of flooding and landslides in places such as the Knuckles mountain range, a “Unesco-listed biodiversity hotspot”. Meanwhile, the floods that hit Indonesia were an “extinction-level disturbance” for the Tapanuli orangutan – the world’s rarest great ape, scientists told the Guardian.
Spotlight
Building a bird sanctuary at a London reservoir
In this Spotlight, Carbon Brief visits a radical conservation project aiming to reverse a decline in water birds at a Victorian reservoir in north London.
“I’d recommend bringing wellies! It’s very muddy.”
Those were the instructions of Ben MacMillan, an ecologist at the Canal & River Trust, a charity responsible for looking after the UK’s waterways, including canals, reservoirs and towpaths.
On a damp and grey Tuesday morning, he guided Carbon Brief round the back of a playing fields car park in Hendon, north London, past a metal fence reading “no entry” and across ground covered by several inches of mud to the unlikely site of a radical new conservation effort.
The site is at a degraded wetlands on the northern edge of the Welsh Harp reservoir, a large human-made lake capable of holding 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water, first established by the Victorians in the 1830s.
In the 1950s, the reservoir was declared one of the UK’s “sites of special scientific interest”, due to its ability to host an unusually large number of species, including breeding waterbirds, such as silvery-grey common terns and elegant great-crested grebes.
Despite the designation, little was done to protect the site from various threats, including the spread of invasive species, increasing urbanisation and pollution from major roads. The reservoir is bordered on one side by the M1, the main motorway from London to northern England, and by the North Circular, part of central London’s busy ring-road, on another.
In the 1980s, a conservation project led by ecologist Leo Batten transformed the site to create new refuges for breeding birds.
However, for the past 40 years, the reservoir has fallen into “mismanagement”, according to MacMillan – with devastating consequences for its wildlife.
In 2022, just two tern chicks were successfully fledged at the reservoir, compared to 44 in 2000, MacMillan said. Great-crested grebe nests have also dropped from 55 in 1987 to 27 in 2022.
Redesigning the landscape
The dramatic decline has spurred the start of a new £400m restoration project, called “wings on water”, which began in October 2025 and will continue for the next three years.
Headed by MacMillan, the project is making radical changes to the landscape of the site in order to create new habitats and breeding spots for its water birds.
MacMillan has contracted the services of restoration specialists Ebsford Environmental, who have used diggers to create a network of channels across the site.
These channels have uncovered a series of islands that can offer birds a safe place to breed, away from predators such as urban foxes and mink, MacMillan said.
As well as dredging the landscape, MacMillan also plans to introduce new micro-ecosystems, such as wildflower meadows, that will eventually form a “patchwork” capable of supporting a wide range of species.
“It’s all about creating a diversity of habitat,” he said. “It might take five or 10 years to develop, but eventually we’ll end up with an amazing complex mosaic of habitats.”
While MacMillan is “very happy” with the progress being made, the project has some issues to contend with.
One of the recently dug channels is contaminated by toxic silt, poisoned by the runoff of petrol from the nearby major roads. If the petrol seeps out of the silt, it could coat the feathers of birds, negatively affecting their health, MacMillan said.
Ninja turtle legacy
The site is also home to a number of invasive species, each with their own impacts.
One animal causing a particular nuisance are red-eared terrapins, a type of omnivorous shelled reptile, similar in appearance to a turtle, that are native to the US.
“They link back to the 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze,” MacMillan explained. “People bought loads of them. Then they thought: ‘Oh, these are getting a bit big now’ – and decided to release them in their local park.”
Terrapins have a life span of around 40 years, meaning many released on a whim 30 years ago have now established themselves in waterway habitats across the UK.
While terrapins feed on plants, they have also been seen taking chicks and eggs from nesting birds, MacMillan said:
“In an ideal world, we would move them on. But in practice, it’s very difficult to actually catch them.”
As well as restoring the site for the good of birds, the project also aims to improve access to nature for the local community.
The team plans to install a new boardwalk and viewing platform for the public, which they aim to open next year.
“It should provide a really nice space for people to take a walk in a green space, while being able to spot some breeding birds, in a very urbanised area,” MacMillan said.
News and views
NATURE CASH: The ‘Cali Fund’ – which could generate billions of dollars each year for conservation – recently received its first donation of just $1,000, Carbon Brief reported. On 19 November, nine months after the fund launched, UK start-up TierraViva AI put forward the contribution. The company’s chief executive told Carbon Brief that this was an “ice-breaker” aimed to encourage others to pay in. One expert described the contribution as a good “first step”, but said it is now “time for larger actors to step forward”. Large companies in sectors such as pharmaceutical, cosmetic, biotechnology, agribusiness and technology could contribute to the fund.
FARMING LOSSES: UK crop farmers lost more than £800m in 2025 due to poor harvests and “record heat and drought”, the Guardian reported, based on analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). Farmers recorded one of the worst harvests on record this year, with production of wheat, oats, spring and winter barley and oilseed rape dropping 20% below the 10-year average. Three of the five worst harvests have occurred since 2020, the newspaper added, quoting the ECIU’s Tom Lancaster: “The evidence suggests that climate impacts are what’s actually driving issues of profitability.” Meanwhile, BBC News reported that the UK government “roll[ed] back” certain nature protection requirements for housing developers in England.
CLIMATE FINANCE: Biodiversity, conservation and anti-desertification programmes in Africa have struggled to fill a “funding vacuum” since the US froze its development aid earlier this year, according to Mongabay. Experts and observers told the outlet they are “increasingly concerned” about the funding gap that “neither Europe nor billionaire philanthropists seem ready to fill”. Amhed Moustapha Mfokeu, a Cameroonian expert in climate finance, told Mongabay that the closure of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) “created a significant gap in funding for climate-related projects”.
SAVING SOILS: Around 70% of countries do not prioritise soil restoration in their national climate plans, a new report covered by EFEVerde found. The report, from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s world commission on environmental law and other groups, said that healthier soils can absorb more carbon and help to limit global warming, the outlet noted. Praveena Sridhar from the Save Soil movement wrote in Earth.org that the recent COP30 climate talks in Brazil “regarded [soils] as a sub-component of the agricultural machine, instead of the foundation to agriculture and many other components of terrestrial life”.
TRADE DEAL: The European parliament voted in favour of including measures to “protect European farmers” in a potential trade deal with South American countries, Bloomberg reported. The outlet said the EU is “rushing” this week to finalise the Mercosur deal, which has been negotiated over the past 25 years and aims to boost trade between the EU and Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. Reuters reported that France and Italy want to delay the vote, with France trying to “form a blocking minority” against the agreement.
XMAS CHEER: Christmas tree farmers in Canada are adapting to climate change impacts such as warmer weather, CBC News reported. Michael Cormack, who owns a tree farm near Toronto, told the outlet: “This year in July, we were averaging over 29C. So we had trees from two to three years ago that just died…Four years ago, we had a tornado here that wiped out a bunch of our stuff.” The outlet also addressed the age-old question of whether a real or artificial christmas tree is more “eco-friendly”, with one tree researcher saying that a real tree bought from a “local farmer” tends to be a lower-emission choice, or re-using an artificial tree for a long time.
Watch, read, listen
KOLAHOI GLACIER: A retreating glacier in Kashmir is “transforming landscapes and communities”, the Guardian said.
FISHY: DeSmog investigated accusations that the world’s largest salmon producer has wielded a “charm offensive” in the Scottish Highlands to distract from its “noisy” and “polluting” fish farms.
LIVING UNDER THREAT: The Associated Press reported on the “steep risks” environmental activists face in Colombia – the “deadliest country in the world” for environmental defenders.
BAMBOO BARRIER: Rivercane – a species of bamboo – could help protect the southern US from future floods, Grist reported.
New science
- Hard coral cover in Caribbean reefs has reduced by almost half since 1980 | Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network and International Coral Reef Initiative
- Three decades of Amazon forest data shows “higher tree mortality during intense droughts” | Nature
- Vertebrate species could face unsuitable conditions across 10-52% of their range by 2100 due to climate and land-use changes | Global Change Biology
In the diary
- 15-19 December: 70th meeting of the Global Environment Facility council | Virtual
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Ayesha Tandon also contributed to this issue. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 17 December 2025: ‘Deadly’ Asia floods; Boosting London’s water birds; UN headwinds appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 17 December 2025: ‘Deadly’ Asia floods; Boosting London’s water birds; UN headwinds
Ellen Davies is head of programmes at the African Climate Foundation and is based in Kenya. Wole Hammond is programme officer for adaptation and resilience at the foundation, based in Nigeria.
For generations, African communities have lived on the frontlines of climate disruption, managing erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and the slow erosion of their livelihoods, which depend on predictable seasons.
When the rains failed across Southern Africa in 2024, it was but the latest chapter of a crisis already long underway. During that season, maize crop failures of 40-80% devastated farming communities in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where roughly 70% of people depend on rain-fed agriculture. Governments already stretched by debt were forced to raid development budgets, trading long-term growth for emergency relief.
Then came the floods. In early 2026, parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa received over a year’s worth of rain in days. More than 2 million people were affected. In East Africa, drought has displaced nearly 62,000 people in Somalia this year alone, with nearly one in four Somalis now facing acute food insecurity.
This is what climate change looks like on the ground – not parts per million or diplomatic jargon, but whether a school stays open after floods cut off the road, whether a clinic can function in extreme heat, whether a country can still invest in its future when every year brings another disaster bill.
As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming
Africa as a continent contributes the least to global emissions yet bears a disproportionate share of the consequences. Nine of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change are African. As livelihoods collapse and rural economies fail, migration pressures will intensify, driven by climate change intersecting with poverty, conflict and constrained opportunity.
Chronic under-funding
Europe is only now beginning to experience, in more limited form, what African communities have navigated for decades with far less fiscal space, thinner insurance coverage and fewer resources for recovery. With El Niño conditions confirmed and a “super” version of the naturally occurring weather pattern possible later this year, the pressure is set to intensify further.
In Africa, climate action is fundamentally a development challenge where adaptation and mitigation must go hand in hand. Building a solar grid and flood-proofing the road that serves it are not separate agendas. Yet for too long, the global climate conversation has prioritised mitigation while leaving adaptation – the work of protecting lives, livelihoods and economies in a changing climate – chronically under-funded.
The result is three compounding gaps. A visibility gap: much of Africa’s adaptation work remains under-documented and under-recognised in global climate narratives. A financing gap: capital does not flow at the scale or speed required to the people and institutions best placed to use it. And a decision-making gap: too many solutions are still designed elsewhere and imported into African contexts, rather than backing African-led platforms to scale what is already working.
Live from LCAW – Raw diplomacy: Can new mineral alliances deliver a just energy transition?
Solutions ready for finance
The solutions exist. Rwanda’s green investment fund has mobilised climate finance at national scale through its own systems. Egypt’s Nexus of Water, Food and Energy programme has shown how integrated planning can stretch limited resources across interdependent systems.
Zambia’s Presidential Irrigation Initiative is building climate-resilient food production from the ground up. In Pata, Senegal, a solar irrigation project has unlocked agricultural production and created jobs, demonstrating how integrated investments in water, energy and livelihoods can deliver resilience and development gains simultaneously.
In South Africa, the African Climate Foundation’s work with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is supporting district municipalities to assess their climate risks and develop fit-for-purpose Climate Action Plans, building adaptation capacity where it is needed most – at the local level.
These are not pilot projects waiting to be validated. They are working systems waiting for investment.
Closing the gaps requires a decisive shift in posture from global finance, philanthropy and development institutions. It means backing country-led platforms that can prepare, aggregate and finance adaptation projects. It means investing in place-based initiatives grounded in local knowledge.
French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions
It means fostering intra- and inter-continental collaboration, so that lessons from Kigali inform decisions in Nairobi and innovations in Lagos reach communities in Dakar. And it means treating adaptation as core economic infrastructure, not charitable relief.
Invest now for future gains
The economic case is clear. Every dollar invested in climate adaptation returns an estimated four dollars in benefits on average – and up to five in the poorest economies. Under-investment in African adaptation is as economically irrational as it is morally unjust.
The world depends on Africa’s food systems, its young workforce – the majority of the continent’s population is under 25 – and its minerals. Several African countries supply a substantial share of the copper, cobalt and other critical materials underpinning the global clean energy transition.
Drought in Zambia has already shown how climate stress can disrupt hydropower, electricity supply and mining output. A transition that depends on African minerals cannot afford to ignore African climate resilience.
The world can continue to under-fund adaptation and pay repeatedly for emergencies, instability and lost development. Or it can invest now in the people, institutions and systems already doing the work on the ground in Africa, not in solutions imported from elsewhere.
Africa has the agency, the knowledge and the platforms. What it needs is the finance to match. A super El Niño will not wait for consensus to form. Neither, frankly, should we.
The post Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions
Climate Change
DeBriefed 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Record Europe heat
HOTTEST EVER: The UK broke its temperature record for June twice this week, while France recorded its hottest day ever two days in a row, reported the Guardian. The Times reported that temperatures reached 36.7C in Somerset on Thursday, as the “London Ambulance Service had its busiest-ever day for life-threatening emergencies”.
FRANCE FRYING: French newspaper Libération said that temperatures reached as high as 44.3C in the south-western commune of Pissos on Wednesday. Spain also recorded its highest daily average temperature for June, said BBC News. On Thursday, Switzerland also had its hottest June day, when temperatures reached 37C in four locations, reported SwissInfo.
CLIMATE LINK: CNN covered a rapid analysis from the World Weather Attribution service finding that fossil-fuelled climate change has made this heatwave the most severe and widespread in Europe’s history. Carbon Brief covered the broken heat records, explaining the influence of climate change.
‘Electrifying’ London talks
‘LONDON COOKING’: In a sweltering, packed-out event at London climate action week, UN chief António Guterres quipped that “London is not just calling, it’s cooking”, reported Edie. Guterres also used his address to release a “global call to action on methane” and to call on artificial intelligence companies to reveal their environmental impact and source their power solely from renewables by 2030, said the publication.
‘ELECTRIFY NOW’: Elsewhere, dozens of governments, led by the EU and the UK, committed to throwing “their political weight” behind a rapid electrification of the world’s economy, according to Climate Home News. A high-level summit in London’s Mansion House saw energy ministers and business leaders, joined by Guterres, in “calling for faster action to curb demand for oil, coal and gas by powering homes, industry and transport with clean electricity”.
FOSSIL TRANSITION: At the same event, ministers from Colombia and the Netherlands, the co-hosts of the world’s first summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in April, unveiled a report on their key takeaways. It comes after the current Colombian government has been ousted by a presidential election defeat to a fossil-fuel-supporting Trump ally. Carbon Brief examined what this could mean for the world’s energy transition.
Around the world
- UK TARGET: The UK parliament has approved its “seventh carbon budget”, aimed at cutting emissions 87% below 1990 levels by 2040.
- TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY: A French court has ordered oil-and-gas giant TotalEnergies to account for the emissions from the use of its products, following a case brought by a climate NGO, reported Le Monde.
- METHANE RULES: The US, Qatar and other major energy exporters have urged the EU to “rewrite planned methane emissions” rules for oil-and-gas imports, saying that the policy could disrupt fuel supplies to Europe, according to Reuters.
- CHINA MESSAGE: China’s special envoy for climate change, Liu Zhenmin, said at the World Economic Forum that energy shortages triggered by the Iran war should be a “lesson to countries to accelerate their energy transitions”, reported Bloomberg.
- US WEBSITE REVIVED: Former US government workers have “recreated a valuable climate-science website” shut down by the Trump administration last year, said the New York Times.
6,600 animals
The number of livestock that perished in transport during heat in England and Wales from June to August 2025, double the number killed the year before, reported Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Some world regions are experiencing up to 50 additional heat stress days annually, when compared to 1950 | Nature Climate Change
- Projections of national land-use emissions to 2100 suggest the strongest “carbon sinks” will be in China and Indonesia, whereas Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo will “dominate global sources” | Nature
- Most carbon-offset projects relying on “avoided deforestation” have “mixed, negligible or negative impacts relative to control areas” | Nature Climate Change
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The UK government’s official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), has released its latest progress report, emphasising that faster electrification is the best way to secure lower energy bills and stronger energy security. Electrification has shot up the agenda in recent months, with the COP31 presidency calling for countries to back a global goal for 35% of “final” energy to come from electricity by 2035. The text of the CCC’s latest report uses the word “electrification” far more often than previous editions, as shown in the figure above. See Carbon Brief’s in-depth breakdown of the CCC’s latest advice.
Spotlight
Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Carbon Brief explains how it built a major new database of climate science research and unveils a new ranking of the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in climate science.
This week, Carbon Brief launched Project Cosmos – the world’s largest and most complete database of climate change research.
The database features more than 1.8m academic papers, books and reports, capturing the vast body of human knowledge about climate change that has accumulated over more than a century of academic study.
The climate science “universe” is based on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are recognised as the world’s most authoritative summaries of the latest climate science.
Since its first report was published in 1990, humanity’s knowledge about human-caused climate change has ballooned. The IPCC has published six sets of reports in total – each one longer than the last.
In total, IPCC reports reference more than 100,000 other papers, books and reports. This is the core of our climate science universe. Carbon Brief then built on this core, by looking at four other sources of data. Read more about how the Cosmos database was created here.
Every single publication in the Cosmos database is linked to at least one other through references. Visualising these links reveals a “galaxy” of references.
In the image above, each colour and cluster reveals different topics and densities of research. Explore the galaxy in an interactive map.
Cosmos 500
As part of an initial wave of preliminary analysis to demonstrate the scope of the Project Cosmos database, Carbon Brief has ranked the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in the database.
The most highly cited climate scientist is Prof Philippe Ciais, who has spent almost four decades researching the planet’s carbon cycle – and the ways in which humans have been impacting its balance. Carbon Brief recently interviewed Ciais in Paris.
The US tops the tables for the most highly cited authors and institutions. Almost half of the 500 most highly-cited authors are from US institutions. This raises particular concerns for the future of climate science, as US climate scientists and institutions are coming under attack under the Trump administration.
Experts from global south countries account for only 4% of all authors in the Cosmos 500. China stands out as the most highly-cited global south country. Meanwhile, only 10% of authors in the Cosmos 500 are women.
There are many possibilities for future avenues of research using the Cosmos database. Over time, the database could be used to reveal, for example, how interest in different areas of climate science has changed over time, plus identify potential knowledge gaps and, thus, opportunities for future research.
Carbon Brief invites researchers – including academics, journalists and analysts – to submit their own proposals for co-authored studies, literature reviews and analytical projects. Proposals should be sent to cosmos AT carbonbrief DOT org.
This spotlight first appeared in Cited, Carbon Brief’s new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free.
Watch, read, listen
‘DOOMSDAY CULT’: OpenDemocracy reported on a “religious cult” spreading climate misinformation in “parliaments” and at “COP summits”.
‘WEDGES’ EXAMINED: ProPublica and Drilled released an investigation into how oil executives worked to influence a climate research paper from Princeton University known as “wedges”.
‘1976 to 2056’: A 30-minute YouTube video from the Met Office had climate scientists explaining how current UK temperatures compare to the infamous 1976 heatwave, and how extremes could worsen by 2056.
Coming up
- 29-30 June: Hamburg sustainability conference, Hamburg, Germany
- 29-30 June: Seventh global conference on climate and sustainable development goals synergies, Bangkok, Thailand
- 29-30 June: 11th annual global conference on energy efficiency, Montreal, Canada
Pick of the jobs
- Drilled, series editor | Salary: $4,000 a month (six-month contract). Location: US
- Met Office, ocean climate science manager | Salary: £54,515-£58,582. Location: Exeter, UK
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, research officer (climate science and law) | Salary: £43,277-£55,497. Location: London
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 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Over the last four years, Colombia has emerged as one of the most vocal advocates for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
Under the leadership of leftist politician and economist Gustavo Petro, it became the first major oil-and-gas producer to commit to halting all new fossil-fuel expansion.
In April, the nation hosted a first-of-its-kind meeting of countries on transitioning away from fossil fuels, alongside the Netherlands, in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta.
The meeting concluded with a promise for a new “Santa Marta process” spearheaded by Colombia and the Netherlands, a movement of countries that would continue to push for a transition away from fossil fuels at home – and at international climate talks.
But on 21 June, an ally of Petro suffered defeat in a presidential election runoff against Abelardo de la Espriella, a hard-right populist and favourite of US president Donald Trump, who has pledged to boost oil production and pursue “fracking to the max”.
Below, Carbon Brief examines what the loss could mean for Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels, as well as international efforts to transition away from coal, oil and gas, including at the COP31 climate summit in Turkey in November.
- How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
- How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
- How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
In 2022, Petro became Colombia’s first left-wing president in recent history.
Under his leadership, Colombia became the first major oil producer and exporter to halt all new fossil-fuel expansion, boosted renewable energy and saw a sustained decline in deforestation.
At the COP28 summit in 2023, Petro announced that Colombia would become the first major oil exporter to sign the fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty, a pact to legally control fossil-fuel production and use.
Successive Colombian environment ministers became among the most vocal supporters of transitioning away from fossil fuels at UN climate talks.
This included former minister Susana Muhamad, a political scientist and environmentalist who stepped in to lead the most recent UN biodiversity summit in 2024 after original host Turkey was forced to withdraw following earthquakes.
She was succeeded by Irene Vélez Torres, a former academic who led calls for a “fossil-fuel roadmap” to be part of the formal outcome at the COP30 summit in 2025.
At the sidelines of COP30, Vélez Torres and Netherlands climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven announced plans to co-host a first-of-its-kind summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Colombia in April 2026.
(In the end, countries failed to agree to a formally negotiated “fossil-fuel roadmap” at COP30. However, the Brazilian COP30 presidency promised to bring forward a voluntary roadmap instead, informed by the Santa Marta summit.)
Some 57 countries – representing one-third of the world’s economy – participated in the event, with officials describing it as “refreshing”, “highly successful” and “groundbreaking”, according to Carbon Brief’s reporting from Colombia.
The meeting concluded with a range of outcomes, including a second fossil-fuel transition summit to be co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland in 2027.
In stark contrast to Petro’s government, new hard-right populist president Abelardo de la Espriella has promised to quickly boost new fossil-fuel and mining projects, including by “fracking to the max”.
De la Espriella has also promised to build 10 “mega prisons” inside Colombia’s Amazon rainforest.
He has not yet commented on whether he will withdraw Colombia from Santa Marta’s “coalition of the willing”.
How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
Just two days after the Colombian government’s election defeat, environment minister Vélez Torres took to the stage at London climate action week, alongside Netherlands climate minister van Veldhoven, to present a report on key takeaways from the Santa Marta summit.
The report, written before the election loss, speaks of an ongoing “Santa Marta process” to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. It says that this will be coordinated by Colombia and the Netherlands, along with the two appointed co-hosts of the second conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, Tuvalu and Ireland.
Acknowledging that this was likely to be one of her last addresses as Colombia’s environment minister, Vélez Torres told the audience that, going forward, the Santa Marta process must be resilient to “political setbacks”.
At the sidelines of the event, Vélez Torres told Carbon Brief that the work her government has done “cannot be erased”, despite a change in power. She said:
“Right now, we are facing the dark nights, this will really shift the politics in terms of energy position and environmental protection. But we are certain that our legacy will continue. It goes beyond governments.”
Dutch minister van Veldhoven told Carbon Brief that the plan for the “Santa Marta process” is to hold fossil-fuel transition summits in a different country every year, with two new co-hosts each time. This could help weather political shocks, she said:
“We know that every couple of years there will be elections. That is why [we have] the idea of rotating presidencies and chairmanships…while we make sure we make use of existing secretariats and organisations that are not subject to political changes every couple of years.
“In that combination, we hope to create a historic legacy and continue to drive the process forward, but also [create space for] a new energy from two new countries every year that bring their own perspective and their own dynamic.”
Although new countries could drive the process forward without Colombia, there are few major oil producers that have shown the same level of commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Ana Toni, an economist and CEO of the COP30 summit in Brazil, told Carbon Brief at London climate action week that the world will “miss the leadership of Colombia”, but added:
“Not one country will stop this movement. All countries need to chip in. There isn’t one leader for this topic. Everybody needs to join forces.”
How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
At London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands presented their Santa Marta report to the Brazilian COP30 presidency.
The COP30 presidency is due to release a voluntary international “fossil-fuel roadmap” ahead of COP31 in Turkey in November, which it has promised will be informed by the takeaways from Santa Marta.
Speaking at the sidelines of London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands added that they have had “constructive” conversations with the COP31 co-presidencies, Australia and Turkey, about how to incorporate the discussions from Santa Marta.
Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres told a small group of journalists:
“We had this very interesting conversation with COP31 and they were clearly open to suggestions about what is needed in the discussion in Turkey, and we were explicit about the need to engage with the phasing out of fossil fuels.”
However, both Colombia and the Netherlands added that they were unsure of how this might work in practice.
When asked about whether the Santa Marta discussions could be incorporated into formal COP texts, they were keen to emphasise that all the conversations in Colombia were specifically not negotiations.
They added that they were unsure of whether the group of 57 countries that gathered in Santa Marta would appear as a collective at press conferences or events at the COP31 summit.
The post Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition
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