Published

2 years ago

January 17, 2024

Alice Rush

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 around the world

GLOBAL DROUGHT: Drought affected 1.84 billion people in 2022 and 2023 – nearly one-quarter of all people on Earth – “the vast majority” of whom live in low- and middle-income countries, the New York Times wrote. The figures come from the UN’s “Global Drought Snapshot” report. The New York Times explained that the droughts “come at a time of record-high global temperatures and rising food-price inflation”, with conflicts such as Ukraine “punishing the world’s poorest people”. The outlet said: “Some of the current abnormally dry, hot conditions are made worse by the burning of fossil fuels that cause climate change.” It added that the onset of El Niño last year “has also very likely contributed” to the heat and drought.

SHIP-SHAPE: Drought is also impacting the flow of global shipping, as “critical shipping delays” have plagued the Panama Canal, Bloomberg reported. The canal handles around $270bn of global trade each year – about 5% of total commerce. “Potential solutions”, the outlet wrote, “include an artificial lake to pump water into the canal and cloud seeding to boost rainfall”. But, it added, it is unclear if either option is feasible – and neither would be able to be implemented quickly. Moller-Maersk, the Danish shipping giant, has announced that it will “turn to rail to move some cargo”, according to Reuters. The newswire added that the Panama Canal Authority is “developing short- and long-term solutions to limit climate anomalies’ impact on the trade route”.

LOOKING FORWARD: The Global Drought Monitor Consortium released its 2023 summary report, which found that the record heat experienced last year “affected the water cycle in various ways”, including by exacerbating drought conditions. Looking forward, the report said, “the greatest risk of developing or intensifying drought” over the next year is in much of central and South America, southern Africa and western Australia. According to the Global Drought Monitor, global precipitation was “close to average” last year, with no clear trend. But, it added, “the number of record low monthly precipitation totals was the highest on the record”. For more on last year’s record heat, see Carbon Brief’s 2023 state of the climate analysis, published last week.

New year, new species

RIGHT ON KEW: From Antarctic rocks to the top of a volcano, scientists at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, discovered 74 new species of plants and fungi in 2023, BBC News reported. Of these, “at least one will probably already have been lost”, the story said. Scientists are calling for the immediate protection of new discoveries that include species of Antarctic fungi and a pair of trees living almost entirely underground in highland Angola. Nevertheless, senior research leader at Kew, Dr Martin Cheek, told BBC News: “The sheer sense of wonder when you realise that you’ve found a species that is totally unknown to the rest of the world’s scientists and, in fact, everyone else on the planet, in many cases, is what makes life worth living.”

ANIMAL INVENTORY: Separately, the Zoological Survey of India declared that 664 new animal species were discovered in 2022, according to a story by Mid-day profiling the wildlife researchers behind these finds. “It is both hopeful and intriguing to know that there is something new in a particular patch of forest…but it is tough not to be worried by changes,” said University of Arkansas researcher Shantanu Joshi, who discovered a rare dragonfly species and gave a local family credit as co-authors of his research. Citizens and communities aiding these discoveries are “a contrast to the grim reality” of having to witness “radical and swift destruction of habitats” first-hand, the story added. But they face “systemic challenges”, including the lack of funding and opportunities and the state of documentation and inventorying in India, the story said.

DEEP-SEA DISCOVERY: Meanwhile, New Scientist reported that four new species of deep-sea octopus were discovered at depths of 3km near hydrothermal vents off the coast of Costa Rica. “It’s like walking in a forest you’ve never been in before, with a flashlight, trying to find a hot spring,” said expedition co-leader Dr Beth Orcutt from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Separately, the “largest ever study of ocean DNA” revealed fungi species in the ocean’s “twilight zone” that could yield “new drugs that may match the power of penicillin”, the Guardian reported. And a feature in Hakai Magazine looked at how quickly animals can evolve to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. For Prof Luciano Beheregaray, a molecular ecologist at Flinders University, “hybridisation” is key. He told Hakai: “We could manage populations at risk by actively bringing in genetic material that might help them adapt…It would be better than to sit and watch extinction take place before our eyes.”

Spotlight

Deep-sea disquiet

In this spotlight, Carbon Brief unpacks Norway’s recent decision to allow exploratory seabed mining in its national waters and explains what the next year holds for deep-sea mining approvals.

In December, Norway made headlines around the world as its centre-left minority government struck a deal with two conservative parties to allow companies to explore the seabed of the Arctic Ocean for critical minerals, as covered in Cropped at the time. Last week, the Storting – the Norwegian parliament – officially passed the measure, “against massive criticism from scientists, fisheries organisations and the international community”, EU Reporter wrote.

Seabed mining can involve “hoovering” up rocks called “polymetallic nodules” from the seafloor. These rocks contain metals including manganese, cobalt and nickel, many of which are critical for batteries and other technologies. However, it can also look more like land-based mining – which is “more invasive”, according to Wired.

There are a “huge number of unknowns” associated with seabed mining, Prof David Schoeman, a quantitative ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, told Carbon Brief last year.

In part, that is because deep-sea habitats are “poorly understood, diverse, fragile and extremely slow to recover from disturbance”, Pepe Clarke, global oceans practice lead at WWF-International, told Carbon Brief. In addition, research previously covered by Carbon Brief has found that seabed mining could negatively impact other important industries, such as fisheries.

At present, the governmental approval covers only exploration for critical minerals, not exploitation of such resources. But, Clarke said: “You don’t explore unless you’re looking for something.”

“Many states view Norway as a sustainable manager of its ocean areas, so what Norway practises and allows in terms of ocean industry is important,” Ida Soltvedt Hvinden of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute told Wired. But it does not directly affect the ongoing negotiations at the International Seabed Authority (ISA), which governs the use of the seafloor in areas beyond any national waters. Twenty-four countries, including the UK, are currently calling for a moratorium on seabed exploration until the risks of environmental harm can be better understood.

There are, essentially, two ways that such a moratorium could come into effect. It could be adopted at the ISA through a formal process. Or, a de facto moratorium could take hold if “a sufficiently large bloc of countries at the ISA committed to withholding support for future mining approvals”, Clarke explained.

Discussions around a seabed exploration moratorium will continue at the ISA this year, with the council scheduled to meet twice and the assembly convening at the end of July. However, Clarke said, it is “unlikely” that the issue will be resolved in the coming year. According to BBC News, a final vote at the ISA is “expected within 24 months”.

News and views

MIXED SIGNALS: Reuters reported that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest halved in 2023 compared to 2022, hitting its lowest levels since 2018. The newswire called it “a major win for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in his first year in office”. But, it pointed out, the area cleared last year is still “six times the size of New York City” – underscoring challenges in Lula’s pledge to end illegal deforestation by 2030. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that deforestation in the Cerrado savannah in eastern Brazil rose by 43% in the same time period, with campaigners calling it a “major stain” on Lula’s environmental credentials. Speaking to the FT, André Guimarães of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute said: “Unlike the Amazon, where prevention can be done via law enforcement, in the Cerrado, incentives have to be created for landowners to give up their right to deforest.”

POLAR PATHOGENS: Alaska state officials confirmed that a polar bear found dead in October was killed by the “highly pathogenic avian influenza that is circulating among animal populations around the world”, the Alaska Beacon reported. The state veterinarian said that the death was the first-ever such report in a polar bear anywhere in the world. The outlet added that the death “is a sign of the unusually persistent and lethal hold that this strain” has on wild animal populations. At the other end of the world, the first bird flu deaths in elephant and fur seals were confirmed on South Georgia Island, a UK territory in the sub-Antarctic. “Hundreds of elephant seals were found dead” on the island, the Guardian reported, adding that there “have also been increased deaths of fur seals, kelp gulls and brown skua at several other sites”.

OVERSATURATED: Important crop-growing areas of England were hit by “widespread flooding”, leading to “concerns about shortages of carrots and other root vegetables”, according to the Times. “Prolonged rain” during Storm Henk earlier this month resulted in sustained flooding. The newspaper wrote that “saturated ground is a problem for growers because as long as the crop is in the ground, there’s greater risk of it rotting”. Prof Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist at the University of Reading, pointed out that the floods compounded issues brought on by a “very wet autumn”. She told the outlet: “October’s Storm Babet is already likely to have caused big impacts on potato and cereal crops and damaged this year’s harvest.”

SEED CHANGE: After two consecutive years of heatwaves and other extreme weather taking a toll on yields from India’s wheat bowl, government surveys showed that 80% of the “wheat area this year has been sown with climate-resilient and bio-fortified varieties,” the Hindustan Times reported. The 2022 heatwave reduced India’s wheat yield by 4.5% “compared to a year with normal weather”, according to a study by the University of British Columbia quoted in the story. Separately, Mongabay reported on the combined impact of air pollution and climate change on India’s food security. And Context News reported that while past election manifestos have made only “passing references” to climate impacts on farmers, “crop-threatening erratic monsoon rains and heatwaves could make headlines as campaigning starts” in India’s big general election in April.

SNOWLESS SLOPES: Gulmarg, a skiing town in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, witnessed a lack of snow on its ski slopes “due to unseasonably dry weather”, CNN reported, despite being one of the world’s highest ski resorts. The region saw an “80% rain deficit” in December, the Associated Press reported, with daytime temperatures “sometimes at least 6C higher than the norm”. The head of the India Meteorological Department’s Kashmir office, Mukhtar Ahmed, told the newswire that in the last few years, “winter has shortened due to global warming”. This has affected hydropower generation, tourism and agriculture, the article reported, forcing “distressed” farmers to change the crops they plant. Ahmed added that “timely snowfall is crucial to recharge the region’s thousands of glaciers” that sustain agriculture and horticulture. Scientists told the Third Pole that snowless winters and more extreme summer rain could become the norm.

GAZA FAMINE: “Pockets of famine” already exist in Gaza according to UN aid officials, the Guardian reported, with parents sacrificing food for their kids, cooking fuel “almost impossible to find” and 25 kilo sacks of flour now six times their pre-war price. However, lack of data on child malnutrition and mortality meant formal criteria for declaring a famine had not been met, the story said. In a joint statement, the World Health Organisation, World Food Programme and UNICEF said new aid routes must be opened to Gaza, more trucks must be allowed in and aid workers must be protected. According to doctors in Gaza, children “weakened by lack of food had died from hypothermia” and babies born to undernourished mothers “had not survived for more than a few days”.

Watch, read, listen

TRACKED CHANGES: In a news feature, Nature examined how scientists are using gene-editing to domesticate wild plants and concerns around the exploitation of Indigenous and traditional knowledge.

GRISLY NEWS: Are US authorities attributing wildlife declines to predators and overlooking climate impacts on biodiversity? A long-read in Grist unpacked how this has played out in Alaska.

NUTS ABOUT CHESTNUTS: In the Atlantic, staff writer Katherine J Wu explored the downfall of the American chestnut tree and scientists’ attempts to restore the species to its native range.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?: An article in Atmos argued that the way humans talk about nature shapes their relationship to it – and asked whether “we [should] be paying more attention to the words we use?”.

New science

Severe 21st-century ocean acidification in Antarctic marine protected areas

Nature Communications

A new study found that even under intermediate warming over the next century, proposed and existing marine protected areas in the Antarctic will experience “severe” ocean acidification. Using a high-resolution model of the ocean, sea ice and biogeochemistry, researchers projected future ocean acidification under four emissions scenarios. They found that pH in the upper 200 metres of the ocean may decline by up to 0.36, and that these declines will be most severe in coastal areas, where organisms are most sensitive to acidification. The researchers “call for strong emission-mitigation efforts and further management strategies to reduce pressures on ecosystems”.

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Nature

Around 1,050 species make up half of the Earth’s 800bn tropical trees, according to new research. The study, with 357 authors, investigated patterns of abundance of common tree species using inventory data for more than one million trees in old-growth tropical forests across Africa, Amazonia, and south-east Asia. The authors found that despite different histories, there were consistent patterns in common tree species across all continents, suggesting that the “fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests”. While their findings “should not detract” from the focus on rare and endemic species, the researchers conclude that it “open[s] new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests”.

Living in harmony with nature is achievable only as a non-ideal vision

Environmental Science & Policy

A new study found that “a dynamic relationship with nature is a constitutional right” for citizens of only four out of 193 countries with constitutions in force: Ecuador, Bolivia, the Philippines and São Tomé and Príncipe. The authors reviewed national constitutions and environmental and biodiversity policies to understand whether they aligned with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s vision of “a world living in harmony with nature by 2050”. They argued that while such harmony “has little scope for translation into rational or achievable policy”, it is consistent with legislation that has been increasingly recognising the rights of nature. They concluded by calling on politicians to “shift Earth-centred governance from an aspirational party-political issue to a foundational principle through constitutional reforms with policy implications”.

In the diary

16-19 January: 60th Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change | Istanbul, Turkey
23 January: UN Convention on Biological Diversity first meeting of the informal advisory group on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources | Online
28 January: Finland presidential election
2 February: World wetlands 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 17 January 2024: Norway’s deep-sea disquiet; Panama drought; New species discovered appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 17 January 2024: Norway’s deep-sea disquiet; Panama drought; New species discovered

Greenhouse Gases

DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report

Published

9 hours ago

August 15, 2025

Alice Rush

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

This week

Blazing heat hits Europe

FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.

HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.

UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.

Around the world

GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.

15

The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.

Latest climate research

As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food

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

Captured

Factchecking Trump’s climate report

A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80

Spotlight

Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?

This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.

On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.

In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.

(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)

In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.

Forward-thinking on environment

As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.

He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.

This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.

New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.

It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.

Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.

“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.

Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.

What about climate and energy?

However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.

“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.

The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.

For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.

Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.

Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.

By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.

There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:

“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”

Watch, read, listen

TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.

NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.

‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.

Coming up

17 August: Bolivian general elections
18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama

Pick of the jobs

Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India

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 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.

DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report

Greenhouse Gases

Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund

Published

2 days ago

August 13, 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

‘Deadly’ wildfires

WINE BRAKE: France experienced its “largest wildfire in decades”, which scorched more than 16,000 hectares in the country’s southern Aude region, the Associated Press said. “Gusting winds” fanned the flames, Reuters reported, but local winemakers and mayors also “blam[ed] the loss of vineyards”, which can act as a “natural, moisture-filled brake against wildfires”, for the fire’s rapid spread. It added that thousands of hectares of vineyards were removed in Aude over the past year. Meanwhile, thousands of people were evacuated from “deadly” wildfires in Spain, the Guardian said, with blazes ongoing in other parts of Europe.

MAJOR FIRES: Canada is experiencing its second-worst wildfire season on record, CBC News reported. More than 7.3m hectares burned in 2025, “more than double the 10-year average for this time of year”, the broadcaster said. The past three fire seasons were “among the 10 worst on record”, CBC News added. Dr Mike Flannigan from Thompson Rivers University told the Guardian: “This is our new reality…The warmer it gets, the more fires we see.” Elsewhere, the UK is experiencing a record year for wildfires, with more than 40,000 hectares of land burned so far in 2025, according to Carbon Brief.

Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “Cropped” email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.

WESTERN US: The US state of Colorado has recorded one of its largest wildfires in history in recent days, the Guardian said. The fire “charred” more than 43,300 hectares of land and led to the temporary evacuation of 179 inmates from a prison, the newspaper said. In California, a fire broke out “during a heatwave” and burned more than 2,000 hectares before it was contained, the Los Angeles Times reported. BBC News noted: “Wildfires have become more frequent in California, with experts citing climate change as a key factor. Hotter, drier conditions have made fire seasons longer and more destructive.”

FIRE FUNDING: “Worsening fires” in the Brazilian Amazon threaten new rainforest funding proposals due to be announced at the COP30 climate summit later this year, experts told Climate Home News. The new initiatives include the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, which the outlet said “aims to generate a flow of international investment to pay countries annually in proportion to their preserved tropical forests”. The outlet added: “If fires in the Amazon continue to worsen in the years to come, eligibility for funding could be jeopardised, Brazil’s environment ministry acknowledged.”

Farming impacts

OUT OF ORBIT: US president Donald Trump moved to “shut down” two space missions which monitor carbon dioxide and plant health, the Associated Press reported. Ending these NASA missions would “potentially shu[t] off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers”, the outlet said. Dr David Crisp, a retired NASA scientist, said the missions can detect the “glow” of plant growth, which the outlet noted “helps monitor drought and predict food shortages that can lead to civil unrest and famine”.

FARM EXTREMES: Elsewhere, Reuters said that some farmers are considering “abandoning” a “drought-hit” agricultural area in Hungary as “climate change cuts crop yields and reduces groundwater levels”. Scientists warned that rising temperatures and low rainfall threaten the region’s “agricultural viability”, the newswire added. Meanwhile, the Premium Times in Nigeria said that some farmers are “harvest[ing] crops prematurely” due to flooding fears. A community in the south-eastern state of Imo “has endured recurrent floods, which wash away crops and incomes alike” over the past decade, the newspaper noted.

SECURITY RISKS: Food supply chains in the UK face “escalating threats from climate impacts and the migration they are triggering”, according to a report covered by Business Green. The outlet said that £3bn worth of UK food imports originated from the 20 countries “with the highest numbers of climate-driven displacements” in 2024, based on analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. The analysis highlighted that “climate impacts on food imports pose a threat to UK food security”. Elsewhere, an opinion piece in Dialogue Earth explored how the “role of gender equity in food security remains critically unaddressed”.

Spotlight

Fossil-fuelled bird decline

This week, Carbon Brief covers a new study tracing the impact of fossil-fuelled climate change on tropical birds.

Over the past few years, biologists have recorded sharp declines in bird numbers across tropical rainforests – even in areas untouched by humans – with the cause remaining a mystery.

A new study published this week in Nature Ecology and Evolution could help to shed light on this alarming phenomenon.

The research combined ecological and climate attribution techniques for the first time to trace the fingerprint of fossil-fuelled climate change on declining bird populations.

It found that an increase in heat extremes driven by climate change has caused tropical bird populations to decline by 25-38% in the period 1950-2020, when compared to a world without warming.

In their paper, the authors noted that birds in the tropics could be living close to their “thermal limits”.

Study lead author Dr Maximilian Kotz, a climate scientist at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, explained to Carbon Brief:

“High temperature extremes can induce direct mortality in bird populations due to hyperthermia and dehydration. Even when they don’t [kill birds immediately], there’s evidence that this can then affect body condition which, in turn, affects breeding behaviour and success.”

Conservation implications

The findings have “potential ramifications” for commonly proposed conservation strategies, such as increasing the amount of land in the tropics that is protected for nature, the authors said. In their paper, they continued:

“While we do not disagree that these strategies are necessary for abating tropical habitat loss…our research shows there is now an additional urgent need to investigate strategies that can allow for the persistence of tropical species that are vulnerable to heat extremes.”

In some parts of the world, scientists and conservationists are looking into how to protect wildlife from more intense and frequent climate extremes, Kotz said.

He referenced one project in Australia which is working to protect threatened wildlife following periods of extreme heat, drought and bushfires.

Prof Alex Pigot, a biodiversity scientist at University College London (UCL), who was not involved in the research, said the findings reinforced the need to systematically monitor the impact of extreme weather on wildlife. He told Carbon Brief:

“We urgently need to develop early warning systems to be able to anticipate in advance where and when extreme heatwaves and droughts are likely to impact populations – and also rapidly scale up our monitoring of species and ecosystems so that we can reliably detect these effects.”

There is further coverage of this research on Carbon Brief’s website.

News and views

EMPTY CALI FUND: A major voluntary fund for biodiversity remains empty more than five months after its launch, Carbon Brief revealed. The Cali Fund, agreed at the COP16 biodiversity negotiations last year, was set up for companies who rely on nature’s resources to share some of their earnings with the countries where many of these resources originate. Big pharmaceutical companies did not take up on opportunities to commit to contributing to the fund or be involved in its launch in February 2025, emails released to Carbon Brief showed. Just one US biotechnology firm has pledged to contribute to the fund in the future.

LOSING HOPE: Western Australia’s Ningaloo reef – long considered a “hope spot” among the country’s coral reefs for evading major bleaching events – is facing its “worst-ever coral bleaching”, Australia’s ABC News reported. The ocean around Ningaloo has been “abnormally” warm since December, resulting in “unprecedented” bleaching and mortality, a research scientist told the outlet. According to marine ecologist Dr Damian Thomson, “up to 50% of the examined coral was dead in May”, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Thomson told the newspaper: “You realise your children are probably never going to see Ningaloo the way you saw it.”

‘DEVASTATION BILL’: Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed a “contentious” environmental bill into law, but “partially vetoed” some of the widely criticised elements, the Financial Times reported. Critics, who dubbed it the “devastation bill”, said it “risked fuelling deforestation and would harm Brazil’s ecological credentials” just months before hosting the COP30 climate summit. The newspaper said: “The leftist leader struck down or altered 63 of 400 provisions in the legislation, which was designed to speed up and modernise environmental licensing for new business and infrastructure developments.” The vetoes need to be approved by congress, “where Lula lacks a majority”, the newspaper noted.

RAINFOREST DRILLING: The EU has advised the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against allowing oil drilling in a vast stretch of rainforest and peatland that was jointly designated a “green corridor” earlier this year, Climate Home News reported. In May, the DRC announced that it planned to open the conservation area for drilling, the publication said. A spokesperson for the European Commission told Climate Home News that the bloc “fully acknowledges and respects the DRC’s sovereign right to utilise its diverse resources for economic development”, but that it “highlights the fact that green alternatives have facilitated the protection of certain areas”.

NEW PLAN FOR WETLANDS: During the 15th meeting of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, held in Zimbabwe from 23 to 31 July, countries agreed on the adoption of a new 10-year strategic plan for conserving and sustainably using the world’s wetlands. Down to Earth reported that 13 resolutions were adopted, including “enhancing monitoring and reporting, capacity building and mobilisation of resources”. During the talks, Zimbabwe’s environment minister announced plans to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded wetlands by 2030 and Saudi Arabia entered the Convention on Wetlands. Panamá will host the next COP on wetlands in July 2028.

MEAT MADNESS: DeSmog covered the details of a 2021 public relations document that revealed how the meat industry is trying to “make beef seem climate-friendly”. The industry “may have enlisted environmental groups to persuade people to ‘feel better’ about eating beef”, the outlet said, based on this document. The strategy was created by a communications agency, MHP Group, and addressed to the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. One of the key messages of the plan was to communicate the “growing momentum in the beef industry to protect and nurture the Earth’s natural resources”. MHP Group did not respond to a request for comment, according to DeSmog.

Watch, read, listen

MAKING WAVES: A livestream of deep-sea “crustaceans, sponges and sea cucumbers” has “captivated” people in Argentina, the New York Times outlined.

BAFFLING BIRDS: The Times explored the backstory to the tens of thousands of “exotic-looking” parakeets found in parks across Britain.

PLANT-BASED POWER: In the Conversation, Prof Paul Behrens outlined how switching to a plant-based diet could help the UK meet its climate and health targets.

MARINE DISCRIMINATION: Nature spoke to a US-based graduate student who co-founded Minorities in Shark Science about her experiences of racism and sexism in the research field.

New science

Applying biochar – a type of charcoal – to soils each year over a long period of time can have “sustained benefits for crop yield and greenhouse gas mitigation”, according to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study.
New research, published in PLOS Climate, found that nearly one-third of highly migratory fish species in the US waters of the Atlantic Ocean have “high” or “very high” vulnerability to climate change, but the majority of species have “some level of resilience and adaptability”.
A study in Communications Earth & Environment found a “notable greening trend” in China’s wetlands over 2000-23, with an increasing amount of carbon being stored in the plants growing there.

In the diary

18-29 August: Second meeting of the preparatory commission for the Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction | New York
24-28 August: World Water Week | Online and Stockholm, Sweden
26-29 August: Sixth forum of ministers and environment authorities of Asia Pacific | Nadi, Fiji

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 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund

Greenhouse Gases

Holding the line on climate: EPA

Published

2 days ago

August 13, 2025

Alice Rush

CCL submits a formal comment on EPA’s proposed endangerment finding rollback

By Dana Nuccitelli, CCL Research Manager

On July 29, the EPA proposed to rescind its 2009 endangerment finding that forms the basis of all federal climate pollution regulations.

Without the endangerment finding, the EPA may not be allowed or able to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from sources like power plants or vehicle tailpipes, as they have done for years. News coverage has framed this as a “radical transformation” and a “bid to scrap almost all pollution regulations,” so it has appropriately alarmed many folks in the climate and environment space.

At CCL, we focus our efforts on working with Congress to implement durable climate policies, and so we don’t normally take actions on issues like this that relate to federal agencies or the courts. Other organizations focus their efforts on those branches of the government and are better equipped to spearhead this type of moment, and we appreciate those allies.

But in this case, we did see an opportunity for CCL’s voice — and our focus on Congress — to play a role here. We decided to submit a formal comment on this EPA action for two reasons.

First, this decision could have an immense impact by eliminating every federal regulation of climate pollutants in a worst case scenario. Second, this move relates to our work because the EPA is misinterpreting the text and intent of laws passed by Congress. Our representatives have done their jobs by passing legislation over the past many decades that supports and further codifies the EPA’s mandate to regulate climate pollution. That includes the Clean Air Act, and more recently, the Inflation Reduction Act. We at CCL wanted to support our members of Congress by making these points in a formal comment.

There has been a tremendous public response to this action. In just over one week, the EPA already received over 44,000 public comments on its decision, and the public comment period will remain open for another five weeks, until September 15.

To understand more about the details and potential outcomes of the EPA’s actions, read my article on the subject at Yale Climate Connections, our discussion on CCL Community, and CCL’s formal comment, which represents our entire organization. As our comment concludes,

“In its justifications for rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, the Reconsideration has misinterpreted the text of the Clean Air Act, Congress’ decadeslong support for the EPA’s mandate to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and other major sources, and the vast body of peer-reviewed climate science research that documents the increasingly dangerous threats that those emissions pose to Americans’ health and welfare. Because the bases of these justifications are fundamentally flawed, CCL urges the EPA to withdraw its ill-conceived Reconsideration of the 2009 endangerment finding. The EPA has both the authority and the responsibility to act. Americans cannot afford a retreat from science, law, and common sense in the face of a rapidly accelerating climate crisis.”

After the EPA responds to the public comment record and finalizes its decision, this issue will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court several years from now.

In the meantime, CCL will continue to focus our efforts on areas where we can make the biggest difference in preserving a livable climate. Right now, that involves contacting our members of Congress to urge them to fully fund key climate and energy programs and protect critical work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Department of Energy. We’ve set an ambitious goal of sending 10,000 messages to our members of Congress, so let’s all do what CCL does best and make our voices heard on this critical issue.

This action by the EPA also reminds us that federal regulations are fragile. They tend to change with each new administration coming into the White House. Legislation passed by Congress – especially when done on a bipartisan basis – is much more durable. That’s why CCL’s work, as one of very few organizations engaging in nonpartisan advocacy for long-lasting climate legislation, is so critical.

That’s especially true right now when we’re seeing the Trump administration slam shut every executive branch door to addressing climate change. We need Congress to step up now more than ever to implement durable solutions like funding key climate and energy programs, negotiating a new bipartisan comprehensive permitting reform bill, implementing healthy forest solutions like the Fix Our Forests Act, and advancing conversations about policies to put a price on carbon pollution. Those are the kinds of effective, durable, bipartisan climate solutions that CCL is uniquely poised to help become law and make a real difference in preserving a livable climate.

For other examples of how CCL is using our grassroots power to help ensure that Congress stays effective on climate in this political landscape, see our full “Holding the Line on Climate” blog series.

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