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
Ocean warming woes
NEAR-RECORD HIGHS: Global ocean temperatures remain “near record temperatures”, according to data from the EU’s Copernicus Earth-monitoring service, which was covered by the Financial Times. Dr Julien Nicolas, a senior scientist at Copernicus, said the warmer-than-usual oceans of 2023 and 2024 were “partly driven” by the El Niño phenomenon, but that the continued highs “underscore the long-term warming trend”. Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald said that a marine heatwave currently stretching across 40m km2 of the south-western Pacific Ocean was “bringing intense heat, extreme rainfall and sea level rise” to the region.
‘UNUSUALLY INTENSE’: The New York Times carried an interactive looking at how marine heatwaves have increased in frequency over the past few decades. It noted that the UK and Irish coasts have “experienced an unusually intense marine heatwave, one of the longest on record” in recent months. It also pointed out that most studies of marine heatwaves focus on a very small number of countries. Dr Dan Smale, a community ecologist at the UK’s Marine Biological Association, told the newspaper: “There are lots of regions around the world where monitoring isn’t as good as other places and so we don’t really know what’s happening.”
‘UNPRECEDENTED HEATWAVE’: Western Australia’s Ningaloo reef has been hit by an “unprecedented heatwave” since August 2024, “turning corals white” across a 1,500km span of reef, the Guardian said. It added that “government scientists are reporting widespread coral death, which they say is the worst bleaching to hit the state…The scale of mortality has left many shocked.” Temperatures on western Australia’s reefs have “reached as high as or higher than ever recorded”, according to Dr James Gilmour, a research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The Guardian delved into the emotions affecting the scientists who study the reef.
New deforestation rates in Latin America
SETBACK IN BRAZIL: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged 92% in May compared to the same period last year, according to official monitoring data covered by the Associated Press. The data showed 960km2 of forest loss, an area “slightly larger than New York City”, the newswire added. João Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary of Brazil’s ministry of the environment, told the outlet that wildfires have become one of the major drivers of deforestation in the Amazon. He called on countries to support the Tropical Forests Forever fund, a scheme proposed by Brazil to compensate for forest conservation, the article noted.
PERU NOT FALLING BEHIND: Peru lost 4.1m hectares (41,000km2) of forest – an area the size of Switzerland – in the last 40 years, according to a report released by the MapBiomas Peru platform and covered by Mongabay. Agricultural activities lead the list of drivers of deforestation, especially with oil palm and rice plantations, followed by mining, the outlet noted. The report found that the Amazon and the equatorial dry forest are the ecosystems most affected by deforestation, with the latter losing 9% of its territory compared to the 1985 level.
COLOMBIA REDUCES DEFORESTATION: Colombia’s environment ministry announced a decrease in deforestation of 33% early this year, compared to the same period in 2024, the Washington Post reported. The outlet cited Colombia’s environment minister, Lena Estrada, who said deforestation fell from 40,219 hectares (402km2) in early 2024 to 27,000 hectares (270km2) so far this year. The biggest reductions took place in Amazon national parks, due to “community coordination and a crackdown on environmental crime”, the ministry said. The outlet added that the Colombian Amazon holds the highest levels of deforestation in Colombia, accounting for 69% of the country’s deforestation.
Spotlight
Three key takeaways from the UN ocean summit
In this Spotlight, Carbon Brief highlights three key takeaways of the third UN ocean summit.
The third UN Ocean Conference ended last Friday (13 June) after a week of negotiations covering various aspects of the problems faced by the world’s oceans – including pollution, overfishing and the share of the benefits from the use of genetic resources in the high seas.
The summit took place in the French port of Nice and was co-hosted by France and Costa Rica. It brought together 15,000 attendees, including more than 60 heads of state and government.
High Seas Treaty ratifications
The agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty, was adopted in 2023 after 20 years of negotiations.
The treaty aims to “safeguard marine life in international waters”.
During the conference, 19 countries ratified the treaty, taking the total to 50 of the 60 countries required for the treaty to enter into force. According to BBC News, dozens of other countries also indicated their intent to ratify the treaty in the near future.
Sara Zelaya, a biologist and the senior advocacy officer for the ecosystems programme at the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defence, said that she hopes the treaty will complement other global governance mechanisms and allow for the fairer use of the “common heritage of mankind” that is the ocean.
She told Carbon Brief:
“For the global south, it brings a little bit of justice – or at least a hope of justice – in the sense of how we are using the resources in the high seas”.
José Julio Casas, technical secretary of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Marine Corridor (CMAR) encompassing Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador, told Carbon Brief that ratification of the agreement would see countries able to restrict the activities that can be implemented in specific areas of the high seas, according to their economic, ecological and social relevance.
New commitments
The conference saw several countries commit to ocean conservation funding.
The European Commission announced the largest investment of the summit, worth €1bn, for ocean conservation, science and sustainable fishing. Germany and New Zealand committed to allocate $115m and $52m, respectively, for conserving and strengthening the ocean governance of their territorial waters.
Several countries also committed to protecting large swathes of their ocean. French Polynesia pledged to create the world’s largest marine protected area, which will encompass around 5m km2 of ocean. Spain said it will establish five new marine protected areas.
Panama and Canada jointly announced the formation of a 37-country coalition called the High Ambition Coalition for a Quiet Ocean, which will focus on addressing ocean noise pollution.
Zelaya said that to make sure that these commitments translate into effective conservation of marine ecosystems, countries should include and prioritise oceans in their public policies and allocate specific budgets for ocean conservation.
The UN Ocean Declaration
At the summit, more than 170 countries adopted the Nice Ocean Action Plan, comprising a political declaration to commit to “urgent action” to protect the world’s oceans and a list of voluntary commitments.
The declaration calls on countries to boost ocean protection, reduce marine pollution, regulate the high seas and provide finance for vulnerable countries and island nations.
Alongside the political declaration are more than 800 voluntary commitments from a range of stakeholders, such as governments, scientists, civil society and UN agencies.
Mongabay reported that the Nice declaration is not legally binding, but “is intended to reflect the willingness of countries to invest more in ocean protection”. However, it added, reducing the use of fossil fuels was left out of the discussions.
Casas told Carbon Brief that governments now need to demonstrate “political commitment”. He said that such commitments are “improving”, but they “must be accompanied by financial support”.
The fourth UN Ocean Conference is to take place in 2028 and will be co-hosted by Chile and South Korea.
News and views
HARVEST AT RISK: UK farmers could face “another terrible harvest” after the country registered its “hottest spring on record and the driest conditions in decades”, according to an analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit thinktank, covered by the Press Association. It found that the production of crops, such as wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape, “could once again be near all-time lows”. This year, the UK saw its driest spring in the last 50 years, with rainfall 40% lower than average, the outlet added.
WHALE, WHALE, WHALE: Angelika Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho, the princess of Tonga, called for the “recognition of whales as legal persons” during the UN Ocean Summit in Nice, France, last week, Inside Climate News said. Lātūfuipeka Tukuʻaho told the conference: “The time has come to recognise whales not merely as resources, but as sentient beings with inherent rights.” The outlet added that the Pacific island nation could move forward with legislation ensuring this recognition and allowing for “appointing human guardians to represent [whales] in court”. The bill would also seek to ensure whales’ “rights to life, migration, a healthy habitat and cultural protection”, Inside Climate News added.
RED LINES: India has staked out “clear red lines” on certain agricultural export items in its ongoing trade negotiations with the US, Business Standard reported. The outlet outlined three categories for the country’s commodities: “non-negotiable, very sensitive and liberal – based on their economic and political sensitivity”. The outlet said that “no tariff concessions will be entertained” in India on agricultural staples, such as wheat and rice, while “high-value” crops primarily consumed by the higher-income portion of the population would fall under the “liberal” categorisation.
FROM PLEDGES TO ACTION: Experts interviewed by the Brazilian outlet ((o))eco stressed the need to implement Brazil’s national biodiversity strategy and action plan (NBSAP). The NBSAP, which is a plan submitted to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, aims to increase funding and political support for the conservation and sustainable use of Brazil’s biodiversity. Prof Alexander Turra from the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo said that although the NBSAP is aligned with international agreements, Brazil has not “necessarily succeeded” in achieving its strategy, adding that the country “[needs] to make a huge effort to implement it”.
Watch, read, listen
ALREADY MANDATORY: In a video, Deutsche Welle explained how New York City is composting organic waste, now that it has made it mandatory for residents to separate it from their rubbish.
‘SPONGE PARKS’: A NPR podcast addressed how Copenhagen has converted 20 green areas into “sponge parks” to hold rainfall as part of efforts to adapt to climate change.
JUST NATURE: A France24 video reported on how farmers and scientists are working together in western France to re-establish its biodiversity by avoiding chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
BEYOND ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A BBC News article shared drone images revealing the impacts of nickel mining, used for electric vehicle batteries, in one of the most marine-biodiverse zones in Indonesia.
New science
- Sharks are remaining in their summer habitats longer as surface ocean temperatures rise, according to a new study in Conservation Biology. The authors warned that these delays in the sharks’ migrations “may alter local ecosystem dynamics and challenge current management strategies”.
- New research, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, found that the indicators contained within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s (GBF) monitoring framework cover less than half of the elements of the GBF. The paper also highlights “important next steps to progressively improve the efficacy of the monitoring framework”.
- According to new research in Science Advances, human-driven climate change will remove coral habitat faster than corals can expand into higher-latitude, cooler waters. It found that severe coral cover declines will likely occur over the next 40-80 years, while large-scale expansion “requires centuries”.
In the diary
- 16-26 June: Preparatory meetings ahead of the COP30 climate conference | Bonn, Germany
- 22 June: World Rainforest Day
- 21-29 June: London Climate Action Week | London
- 7-25 July: 30th session of the International Seabed Authority | Kingston, Jamaica
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 18 June 2025: High Seas Treaty ratifications; Ocean warming woes; Brazilian deforestation ‘surges’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up around half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support conservation in the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge by 12 donors of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
Alongside the US and much of Europe, the UK has significantly cut its aid budget in recent years, leading to much of its Congo rainforest spending being cancelled or reappraised.
The government says it still plans to “prioritise” rainforest regions, including the Congo basin, but civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030. This was backed by more than 140 nations.
The UK also made various funding pledges, including £200m to protect the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
These commitments target the world’s three largest rainforests, all of which face major forest loss due to threats such as agriculture, logging and climate change.
The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink. Yet, its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both the Conservative and then Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was launched by the UK at COP27. It was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
CBFA set out to “empower central African nations”, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support for “community forests” and other measures to curb forest loss.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s recent aid cuts, intended to free up money for defence spending.
Its original £90m budget has now been reduced to £18.8m. Government data shows that £15m of this has already been spent.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to this latest round of aid cuts.
The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – championed by the previous government and worth at least £12.3m – has been closed, just two years into its seven-year schedule.
Government documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk as the UK scales back its aid budget, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region.
One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”. Officials working on the other, while more optimistic, reported that the project may be forced to operate in fewer countries as the cuts set in.
Documents also reveal the difficulties that come when operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior director of forests at WWF International tells Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a series of recent parliamentary responses, Chapman revealed that the UK had only spent £39.8m on Congo forest finance, as of 2024. (She declined to provide any information on the Indonesia and Amazon regional goals.)
Despite being presented as the UK’s “contribution” to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029.
Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution so far has been relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, tells Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world for whom the environment is an existential issue.”
Future targets
The Labour government says it has met the five-year “climate finance” target of £11.6bn that expires this year.
Ministers also say the government has met “and exceeded” the £3bn and £1.5bn sub-goals for “preserving nature” and forests, respectively, within the £11.6bn. These are the funding streams that include support for the Congo basin and other rainforests.
The UK has funded a variety of projects in line with its forest goals, including mangrove restoration in Indonesia, support for carbon-offsetting projects in Brazil and promoting “forest stewardship” among farmers in Cameroon.
Chapman has stated that the UK will continue to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest, in line with its new plan for aid spending in Africa. The UK even helped to launch a new “call to action” for Congo basin funding at COP30 last year.
The UK government also says it supported the creation of Brazil’s flagship “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” (TFFF). However, so far it has not provided any funding for the facility.
When the government announced a new climate finance pledge for 2026 onwards, it stressed that nature would still be a “focus” and said it would also generate billions in “climate and nature positive investments”. Nevertheless, it dropped the “ring-fenced” amounts for nature and forests that had appeared in its previous pledge.
The UK, alongside other developed countries, has pledged to provide biodiversity finance to developing countries, under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) – a non-binding global pact to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030.
Sarah Champion, chair of the international development committee of MPs, says “sub-pledges” for nature and forests are a “cost-effective and impactful” way to ensure this finance is provided, alongside climate finance. She tells Carbon Brief that she was “concerned” about the move away from this approach:
“When the minister recently appeared before the international development committee, I was concerned to hear her characterise this shift as a ‘gamble’.”
A government spokesperson tells Carbon Brief:
“We remain committed to providing finance for forests, including in the Congo basin, as a core element of our overall climate funding.”
A shorter version of this article was first published in Cropped, Carbon Brief’s fortnightly newsletter that provides a digest of food, land and nature news, on 15 July 2026. Subscribe for free.
The post UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo appeared first on Carbon Brief.
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
Climate Change
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
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
Global drought and heat
DRY THEN WET: A recent heatwave and months of low rainfall has led to a prolonged drought for Uganda, resulting in at least 16 deaths from hunger and significant crop losses, reported BBC News. Bastille Post Global suggested that “a developing El Niño later this year could bring heavier rainfall to parts of the region, raising the risk of flooding in areas now struggling with drought”.
FUNDING FOOD: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed for $200m in funding to help African nations deal with the impact of El Niño, stated Deutsche Welle. This would target 22 high-risk countries with measures, including “cash transfers, climate-resilient seeds, livestock protection and flood control.” The Guardian explained how El Niño could still “cause a severe shock to global food prices lasting into 2028”.
FARMING FEARS: Extreme weather has devastated agriculture across the world. India saw its driest June in 12 years, reported BBC News, and France has had a “double-digit production” decline, according to Le Monde. The Financial Times reported that farmers in the UK are mitigating the impacts of extreme heat by eliminating “chemicals and intensive ploughing to improve soil quality so it retains water”.
EURO FIRES: Wildfires have spread across Europe, with Spain reporting at least 12 deaths so far, according to the Guardian, and France experiencing road closures, said Reuters. Wildfire Today reported that the most extreme conditions are “across France, Spain and northern Portugal, the Alpine arc extending into northern Italy, the south of the UK and south-east Ireland”. CNN explained how “the climate crisis is driving hotter, drier weather, which is setting the stage for fiercer fire seasons”.
Endangering species
REDEFINING HARM: The Trump administration “reversed decades of longstanding environmental law protecting endangered species…opening up sensitive habitats…to drilling, mining, farming and real estate development”, reported CNN. According to the story, the change “redefines what constitutes ‘harm’” to endangered species, which historically prohibited habitat modification or degradation. Agence France-Presse reported that US environmental groups sued the Trump government over the move, arguing that it had violated “common sense, biological science and federal law”.
OPEN SEASON: Reuters reported that the change “limits the reach of the 50-year-old Endangered Species Act” (ESA), which is a “key regulatory consideration” when granting permits for “oil and gas, mining, electric transmission and other operations on federal lands and water”. Legal scholars told the New York Times the US government “was acting without conducting scientific research into the impact” of the change, while the National Mining Association “applauded the announcement”.
News and views
- INTERNATIONAL WATERS: After a significant delay, the UK ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction Agreement (BBNJ), also known as the High Seas Treaty. Oceanographic detailed how this will allow for “marine protected areas across international waters for the first time”, but also stressed that the “hard part” starts now.
- SCOPE-FREE: The world’s largest meat supplier JBS “scrapped a key climate goal” in its net-zero plan that accounts for its suppliers’ emissions, “which make up the vast bulk of the company’s environmental footprint”, reported the Financial Times. The company told the paper it was difficult to control these “indirect” emissions.
- DEEP TROUBLE: Pacific gray whales are facing a “catastrophic die-off” as sea-ice loss threatens their food sources, said the Guardian. Separately, conservationists warned that more than half of all molluscs that “cluster around underwater vents” could face extinction from deep-sea mining, reported Reuters.
- ETHANOL PUSHBACK: India’s new rules to promote 100% ethanol fuel and make ethanol-blended fuel mandatory at pumps “triggered a political row”, reported the Times of India. While the Indian government defended the push to automobile owners, a Hindu editorial and an Indian Express comment warned against incentivising fuels made from “water-intensive” sugarcane and rice.
- AMAZON ACTION: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to its lowest level in a decade, but president Lula’s plans to “end illegal deforestation by 2030” could be hampered if he is not re-elected, reported Al Jazeera. Meanwhile, Colombia’s outgoing environment minister warned of greater environmental and climate risk under the incoming government, said the Associated Press.
- WAR WORRIES: The International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of the impact of the Iran war on Africa’s clean cooking efforts as disruption in the strait of Hormuz has stunted supplies and increased prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), explained Climate Home News.
Spotlight
UK ‘discards’ Congo rainforest funding
Amid worldwide cuts to aid spending, Carbon Brief explores how the UK is backtracking on funding for the Congo basin – the world’s second-largest rainforest.
The UK has abandoned projects worth tens of millions of pounds that were meant to help protect Congo rainforests and support local people.
Together, these initiatives would have made up half of the £200m that the UK pledged to support forest conservation in the Congo basin.
When it hosted COP26 in Glasgow, the UK led a new initiative to end forest loss, which included a collective pledge of “at least” $1.5bn (£1.1bn) for Congo rainforest nations by 2025.
Development minister Jenny Chapman revealed last week that, as of 2024, the UK had only provided £39.8m towards this goal.
COP pledge
At COP26, the UK – led by then prime minister Boris Johnson – launched the “Glasgow leaders’ declaration”, with a goal to “halt and reverse forest loss” by 2030.
The UK also made various regional funding pledges, including £200m for the Congo basin, £350m for tropical forests in Indonesia and “up to £300m” for the Amazon.
All of these rainforests face major forest loss. The Congo basin is the planet’s largest forested carbon sink, but its six host nations are among the poorest in the world and face significant funding barriers.
This has global ramifications. An official UK assessment warned that “degradation or collapse” of the Amazon or Congo rainforests “threaten UK national security and prosperity”.
Forest cuts
Following successive aid cuts introduced by both Conservative and Labour governments – tracking a global trend – the UK’s Congo funding is under threat.
The Congo basin forest action programme (CBFA) was explicitly set up to provide “roughly half” of the UK’s £200m Congo pledge.
Now, after reporting delays, the UK has slashed the CBFA as part of the Labour government’s aid cuts. Its £90m budget has been “quietly reduced by 79% to £18.8m”, according to the Times.
This is not the only Congo project that has been dropped due to aid cuts. The Congo part of the biodiverse landscapes fund – worth at least £12.3m – has closed five years early.
Official documents reveal more Congo forest funding is at risk, including the UK’s two largest remaining projects in the region. One initiative, intended to “incubate forest-friendly enterprises” in DRC, faces “reduc[ed] budgets”.
Documents also show the difficulties operating in the Congo, including “complex political economies” and, in Gabon, a military coup – which “complicated matters”.
‘Breaking promises’
Damian Fleming, a senior forests director at WWF International told Carbon Brief:
“Tropical forest countries are making long-term policy and development choices in expectation that international partners will honour their commitments.”
In a parliamentary response, Chapman said that the UK had spent £39.8m towards its £200m Congo target, as of 2024.
Despite being described as the UK’s contribution to the £1.1bn-by-2025 global goal agreed at COP26, the £200m target has a deadline of 2029. Therefore, while the collective goal has been met, the UK’s contribution was relatively small.
Zac Goldsmith, a former Conservative minister who oversaw the forest targets at COP26, told Carbon Brief that, in his view, the UK has “discarded” its regional pledges:
“We have gone from being perhaps the leader on protecting nature internationally to breaking promises to countries around the world.”
The Labour government says it has met its overarching “climate finance” goals and still intends to “prioritise” the Congo rainforest.
However, civil society groups and MPs are concerned about the lack of “ring-fenced” forest funding in the UK’s new aid strategy.
Watch, read, listen
TOXIC TROUBLES: DeSmog unpacked a new report that said Northern Ireland is being turned into a “toxic” pig and poultry farming “sacrifice zone” to satiate the UK’s meat appetite.
NEED TO NOAA: Laid-off scientists from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) launched Climate.Us – an independent, public-backed version of the climate information website shut down by Trump last year.
DRY FRUIT: A Dialogue Earth long read looked at how climate change is impacting apricot harvests in the “stark, high-altitude desert” region of Ladakh, India.
READING ALOUD: A London Review of Books podcast discussed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s influential book “Braiding Sweetgrass”, weighing its compelling themes and where it veers into “scientific overreach”.
New science
- Climate change could cause Indigenous peoples in the Amazon to lose 28-34% of their plant species and 18-23% of their associated services | Nature
- Biodiversity in forests can act as a “buffer” against compound extreme weather events | Nature Communications
- Zero-deforestation commitments in Indonesia’s palm oil sector have had “no additional impacts” on reducing forest loss | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
In the diary
- 7-15 July: High-level political forum on sustainable development | New York City
- 13-31 July: Meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council | Kingston, Jamaica
- 16 July: International Energy Agency critical minerals outlook 2026, online
- 27 July-1 August: Scientific and technical subsidiary body meeting of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity | Nairobi, Kenya
This edition of Cropped was written by Jess Milligan, Josh Gabbatiss and Aruna Chandrasekhar. Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. This edition was edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 15 July 2026: Uganda starves | Trump opens endangered habitats | UK cuts rainforest aid
Climate Change
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
Climate and environment campaigners have urged the Kenyan government to halt plans for a proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery backed by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, warning the project threatens one of East Africa’s most ecologically sensitive coastlines.
The refinery, which is planned to be situated in Lamu County on Kenya’s northern coast, will be East Africa’s largest refining project and is expected to take up to three years to build. Once finished, it would supply refined petroleum products to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda, among others, helping to reduce the region’s dependence on imported fuels.
Campaigners are questioning the viability of such a large refinery at a time when renewable energy and electric transportation are expanding rapidly.
Mohamed Adow, director of a Kenya-based climate and energy think-tank Power Shift Africa, said the decision to give Dangote the green light for the refinery is “an extraordinary act of environmental recklessness and economic short-sightedness”, arguing it would tie Kenya to “yesterday’s energy system” just as global demand for petroleum products faces increasing uncertainty.
-
Nigeria gives fossil gas a bigger role as “transition fuel” in climate plan
Officials say the country needs time and money to ramp up renewables, but critics say betting on gas is a risky strategy that could prolong the “oil curse” -
Gas flaring soars in Niger Delta post-Shell, afflicting communities
Since the multinational sold its assets in Nigeria’s oil hub, data analysis for Climate Home News shows flaring has risen, harming locals and the climate
Campaigners argue the refinery risks coming online just as transport – the largest market for petrol and diesel – is beginning to electrify across the continent.
Kenya launched a National Electric Mobility Policy earlier this year to speed up the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) and reduce the country’s roughly $5 billion annual fuel import bill. Ethiopia has already banned imports of non-electric vehicles and now has more than 100,000 EVs on its roads, while Rwanda is expanding its electric mobility programme with plans to convert its fleet of around 100,000 motorcycles to electric.
Adow said the project risks billions of dollars in investment in infrastructure that could become obsolete as the world moves away from oil.
“Building a refinery today assumes decades of robust demand for fuels that much of the world is actively trying to phase out,” he said in a statement.
Ecological concerns
Lamu – the proposed site for the project – is home to the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Lamu Old Town and an archipelago containing extensive mangrove forests, coral reefs and seagrass beds that support fisheries, tourism and coastal livelihoods.
Locating the refinery in Lamu would “place one of Africa’s largest fossil fuel developments in one of the continent’s most ecologically sensitive and culturally significant coastal regions,” Power Shift Africa said.
Major emitting countries knew of climate risks decades earlier than claimed
Sherelee Odayar, oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, warned that a refinery of this scale could increase the risk of habitat destruction, marine pollution, oil spills and air pollution in one of East Africa’s most fragile coastal ecosystems.
She said the risks stem not only from the refinery itself – including storage tanks, pipelines and fuel handling facilities – but also from the large volumes of crude oil that would need to be shipped into Lamu and refined products exported by sea. Increased tanker traffic and fuel transfers, she said, would raise the likelihood of accidents in ecologically sensitive coastal waters.
Odayar added that Lamu’s low-lying, flood-prone coastline could compound those risks by damaging infrastructure and carrying contaminants from storage facilities into nearby fishing grounds and marine ecosystems.
“Lamu’s mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds are not expendable; they support fisheries, livelihoods and coastal protection,” Odayar added.
She said Kenyan authorities should suspend any approvals until an independent environmental and social impact assessment is completed, with genuine public participation and transparent scrutiny of the long-term economic, health and ecological risks.
“Any review must assess cumulative impacts on Lamu’s mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass beds and fishing livelihoods, alongside the wider economic risk of locking Kenya into costly fossil fuel infrastructure as the global energy transition accelerates”.
Dangote Group declined to answer questions from Climate Home News when contacted by phone.
Technological change threaten project’s future
The Kenya refinery would replicate Dangote’s 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lagos, currently Africa’s largest, which has plans to more than double capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2028.
Adow of Power Shift Africa said projects like this represent “a breathtaking failure to recognise where the global economy is heading”, pointing out that the East African refinery risks arriving when Africa is experiencing an unprecedented clean energy boom.
Referencing Africa’s solar boom, global electric vehicles uptake and the International Energy Agency’s projection that global oil demand is set to enter a decline later this decade, the think-tank founder said African governments risk anchoring the continent’s future to an industry facing mounting economic uncertainty.
Loss and damage fund delays first project approvals as needs dwarf resources
The organisation said the project faces a bigger threat aside from environmental opposition and that is technological change. “The danger is not simply that the refinery will pollute, it is that it will become obsolete long before it has paid for itself,” he added.
Kenyan President William Ruto said the project will create about 60,000 jobs for Kenyans and supply refined fuel to eight East and Central African countries.
GreenPeace Africa’s Odayar said the promise of ‘thousands of jobs’ cannot be used to hide the true cost of the investment which is that large fossil fuel projects often create temporary jobs while undermining existing livelihoods in fishing, tourism and small-scale local economies.
“The enormous capital required for a project of this scale could instead help accelerate Kenya’s renewable energy future through solar, wind, geothermal, storage and better energy access,” she added.
The post Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks appeared first on Climate Home News.
Campaigners oppose Dangote’s planned Kenya refinery over climate and ecological risks
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