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.
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate plan
PEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. The plan called for China to cut its carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 17% from 2026 to 2030, which “may allow for continued increase in emissions given the rate of GDP growth”, reported Reuters. The newswire added that the plan also had targets to reach peak coal in the next five years and replace 30m tonnes per year of coal with renewables.
ACTIVE YET PRUDENT: Bloomberg described the new plan as “cautious”, stating that it “frustrat[es] hopes for tighter policy that would drive the nation to peak carbon emissions well before president Xi Jinping’s 2030 deadline”. Carbon Brief has just published an in-depth analysis of the plan. China Daily reported that the strategy “highlights measures to promote the climate targets of peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030”, which China said it would work towards “actively yet prudently”.
Around the world
- EU RULES: The European Commission has proposed new “made in Europe” rules to support domestic low-carbon industries, “against fierce competition from China”, reported Agence France-Presse. Carbon Brief examined what it means for climate efforts.
- RECORD HEAT: The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said there is a 50-60% chance that the El Niñ