Connect with us

Published

2 years ago

on

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

Nature at COP28

BIODIVERSITY LINKS: COP28 came to a close last week and the interconnections between climate change and biodiversity featured heavily in the two-week summit. As Carbon Brief noted in an in-depth summary of the event, the global stocktake – the periodic global review of progress towards the aims of the Paris Agreement – contained eight references to “nature” and five to “biodiversity”. It also noted “the urgent need” to address climate change and biodiversity together and meet targets for both “in line” with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the landmark agreement of the 2022 COP15 biodiversity summit. COP28 president UAE and COP15 president China released a Joint Statement on Climate, Nature and People, where countries committed to aligning their national climate plans and their national nature plans ahead of COP30 and COP16, respectively.

FOCUS ON ECOSYSTEMS: The global stocktake also noted the importance of “ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems”, including oceans, mountains and the cryosphere. During the summit, the Guardian reported that, even if the world reaches a phase-out of fossil fuels, achieving the 1.5C target will be impossible if humanity fails to conserve nature, according to Prof Johan Rockström, a leading climate scientist. Speaking to Carbon Brief in Dubai, David Cooper, acting executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), said that while nature has featured in many pledges and voluntary announcements at climate COPs in recent years, COP28 saw “more recognition in the actual official texts”. This included a greater focus on ecosystems, he said, adding: “What I’d like to see more is greater recognition of the role of ecosystems beyond their role as carbon sinks.”

ROAD TO COLOMBIA: Shortly after COP28 ended, the CBD confirmed that the next UN biodiversity summit, COP16, will be held in a yet-to-be-announced city in Colombia from 21 October to 1 November 2024. Cooper told Carbon Brief that he was “very excited” for Colombia to host the event, as it is a “megadiverse country, it has very strong Indigenous peoples’ organisations [and] a very strong scientific base”. Colombia’s environment minister, Susana Muhamad, said in a statement: “This event sends a message from Latin America to the world about the importance of climate action and the protection of life.” At COP16, governments will review the implementation of nature goals and targets and also update their national biodiversity plans.

Food at COP28

ROADMAP: COP28 “confronted” the question of balancing the need to reduce emissions and to feed a growing population “like never before”, wrote New York Times international climate correspondent Somini Sengupta. She cited a number of “small, but significant steps” made at the summit, from the leaders’ declaration on food systems – covered in the previous issue of Cropped – to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s first-ever roadmap to 1.5C. That roadmap is “the most significant nudge” of the summit, the New York Times said, but added: “Roadmaps, of course, are only that until someone starts following the directions.” Action Aid’s climate justice lead Teresa Anderson told Carbon Brief that the roadmap’s “big problem is that it can’t bring itself to name the real issues at stake” and by “failing to name chemical fertilisers, factory farming or industrialised agriculture as the major sources of emissions and deforestation, its recommendations boil down to protecting the status quo”.

WASTE NOT: Among the recommendations in the roadmap is the need to reduce food loss and waste by 50% per capita by 2030, and to integrate all such waste “in a circular bioeconomy” by 2050. According to the not-for-profit Modern Farmer, the US Department of Agriculture released a draft of its new national strategy on food loss and waste at COP28. The announcement was accompanied by an initial investment of $30m and sets out goals for the federal government, including preventing food loss and waste, increasing the recycling of organic wastes and “to support policies that echo those aims”.

TAKING STOCK: Another major outcome for food at COP28 was the inclusion of “resilient food systems” in the global stocktake. Ag Insider noted that, although the stocktake “urges” countries to implement solutions towards resilience, it did so “without setting goals for the sector that produces one-third of global greenhouse gases”. A report published by WWF that assessed COP28’s action on food systems noted that a stocktake “that directly calls for food systems transformation to mitigate climate change would likely lead to higher prioritisation and increased amounts of climate finance for food”. The report said the summit “[fell] short of delivering robust outcomes [for food] in the negotiating rooms”. But, WWF added, “there are still grounds for optimism”, such as “the breadth of stakeholders determined to drive change” in the agrifood sector. 

CONTRADICTORY AGENDA: An editorial in Nature Food cast doubt on Brazil’s ability to drive a sustainable agenda on food and climate after the nation announced its intention to join the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec+) at COP28. The piece noted that Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) “has set the protection of the Amazon and Cerrado biomes as a priority” since regaining office. But the announcement that the country will join Opec+ in January, as well as its intention to auction several new blocks for oil drilling, “had a negative repercussion among environmentalists”. Nature Food noted that COP30 is set to be held in “the heart of the Amazon”, saying: “Domestically, this is an opportunity for Brazil to put itself on a different development pathway, fostering more sustainable food production and managing natural resources in a just and inclusive way.”

COP28 round-up

GLASGOW RECEIPTS: COP26 in Glasgow saw several major political declarations around deforestation. While deforestation was lower on the agenda this year, it achieved one notable first: the global stocktake was the first time the need for “halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030” was enshrined in a major negotiated text under UN climate change. But, despite this, “countries are still no nearer to closing the ‘finance gap’ necessary to stop the destruction of rainforests”, Mongabay reported. The outlet added that the Democratic Republic of the Congo “says it has not seen any of the $500m pledged to it two years ago [at COP26] to protect the Congo Basin rainforest”. As Cropped editor Dr Giuliana Viglione reported at COP28, a group of NGOs released a call to create a “Glasgow Declaration Accountability Framework” to hold countries accountable for their deforestation pledges from COP26.

RESTORATION RECOGNISED: The global stocktake underlines the “vital importance of protecting, conserving, restoring and sustainably using nature and ecosystems” and encourages the implementation of nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches, Carbon Brief reported. COP28 saw the announcement of updates to both the Mangrove Breakthrough and the Freshwater Challenge, two global commitments to restoring mangroves and rivers and wetlands, respectively. Another big outcome of the summit was the global goal on adaptation, a framework meant to help countries build resilience to climate change. The text included topics such as water, health and ecosystems, the Spanish outlet Climática reported. But, it added, the global goal on adaptation will not guarantee that 30% of ecosystems will be “maintained, improved or restored”, relying instead on targets such as “reach resilience” or “reduce impacts”.

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: Despite being the UN climate summit with the largest delegation of Indigenous peoples ever, they remained marginalised in the discussions regarding financing, the Brazilian outlet InfoAmazonia reported. The outlet added that concerns about oil and gas auctions in the Amazon and the arrival of agricultural projects on Indigenous lands overshadowed the result of the summit. Carbon Brief reported that the global stocktake included nine mentions of Indigenous peoples; however, language in the text was considered weaker than hoped by experts. For example, the texts lack recognition of Indigenous people’s rights to give or withhold free, prior and informed consent to approve projects within their territories. 

METHANE ROUNDUP: Several voluntary pledges and finance pushes at COP28 focused on cutting methane emissions – and while many centred on fossil-fuel production, some homed in on food systems and agriculture. On 5 December, six major food companies, including Danone, Nestlé and Kraft Heinz, committed to release information on methane emissions within their dairy supply chains and to put in place methane action plans by the end of 2024. There were also several announcements of funds aimed at cutting emissions of the potent greenhouse gas, including more than $200m in public and private finance for research into reducing methane from livestock.

News and views

JUMBOS IN JEOPARDY: Drought has killed “at least 100 elephants” in Zimbabwe’s largest national park in recent ​weeks, the Associated Press reported. Conservation groups and wildlife authorities have attributed the deaths to “the impact of climate change and El Niño”, while authorities warn that “more could die as forecasts suggest a scarcity of rains and rising heat” in areas including the Hwange National Park. Separately, the Hindu Business Line reported that nearly 500 elephants in India have died from “unnatural causes” over the past five years, mainly due to electrocution and train collisions. India’s power ministry, while continuing to expand its infrastructure in elephant habitat, has issued an advisory to “mitigate the impact of power transmission lines and other power infrastructure on elephants and other wildlife”, the outlet said.

TRILLION APOLOGIES: At COP28, ecologist and former chief scientific adviser to the UN’s Trillion Trees Campaign Prof Thomas Crowther “begg[ed] environmental ministers to stop planting so many trees”, Wired reported. Crowther’s 2019 study that suggested “global tree restoration as our most effective climate change solution to date” sparked a global “tree-planting craze by companies and leaders…from Shell to Donald Trump” who were “keen to burnish their green credential”, but not cut actual emissions, the story said. Crowther told Wired his “message was misinterpreted”. He added that he brought results from a new paper on preserving existing forests to COP28 in an attempt to “kill greenwashing”. One scientist on Twitter commented that Crowther should “retract the [original trillion trees] paper instead of doing PR”. 

START YOUR ENGINES: Tractors took over the streets of Berlin as hundreds of farmers protested against German government plans to get rid of some agricultural subsidies and tax breaks, Reuters reported. The plans are part of wider federal government efforts to fill a €60bn hole in the country’s 2024 budget, the newswire said. The government said it will remove a partial tax refund on diesel for farm machinery and a tax exemption for agricultural vehicles, Reuters noted – adding that this is something “farmers said would threaten their livelihood”. The newswire said that the plans are aimed to reduce emissions from the agricultural sector, which amounted to “55.5m metric tonnes of greenhouse emissions last year, roughly 7.4% of the country’s total”. 

TO BEE OR NOT TO BEE: Indigenous peoples in south-east Mexico are calling for the recognition of bees as legal persons, with Mayan communities as their guardians, the Spanish-language version of Wired reported. This came after rainforests in the region experienced “devastation” due to soya agriculture and the excessive use of pesticides, leading to “more and more” bees dying. Indigenous communities criticised the state for not yet granted such recognition. The outlet said that protecting bees “for their intrinsic value” is an “idea [that] comes naturally” to Indigenous peoples. This would not be the first time that nature received legal recognition, as the constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia both consider nature as a separate and living entity.

DIET IMPACTS: Halving meat and dairy consumption alongside reducing fertiliser use and food waste are some of the best ways to cut agricultural nitrogen pollution in Europe, a new report found. The report – produced for the UN by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and other researchers – said that significant amounts of the nitrogen used to boost crop growth ends up leaking into the air, water and soils. The researchers looked at 144 scenarios and outlined ways to reduce these losses, which included halving the amount of meat and dairy the average European eats.

Watch, read, listen

IMPROVING CONNECTIVITY: El Espectador looked at how the movement of 26 bird species helped scientists identify key sites for conserving ecological connectivity in Colombia’s protected areas.

BIODIVERSITY PATTERNS: What makes a place more biodiverse? Jaron Adkins, a scientist at Utah State University, explored this question for Utah Public Radio.

KEEPING PACE: In her newsletter, Sustainability by numbers, Dr Hannah Ritchie examined whether agricultural innovation can keep up with climate change.

ROAD REVAMP: Ben Goldfarb, writing for Yale Environment 360, looked at “green roads” – a way of redesigning roads to reduce floods and catch excess water for irrigation.

FORAGING THROUGH FEAR: Writing for Vittles, anthropologist Dolly Kikon and writer Joel Fernandes connected the dots between land rights, new climate laws, conflict and foraging in landscapes of loss in India’s north-eastern state of Nagaland.

New science

COP28 initiatives will only reduce emissions if followed through

Climate Action Tracker

A new analysis of COP28 pledges found the “plausible” impact of its food and agriculture declaration on global emissions to be around 500m tonnes of CO2-equivalent by 2030. Climate Action Tracker assessed the emissions-reduction potential of five non-binding pledges made at COP28 and the extent to which those pledges overlap with already-promised reductions. The lack of “quantifiable targets in the initiative text” and “targets directly targeting emissions reductions”, result in a commitment “so vague as to risk becoming another talking shop”, the authors wrote. On deforestation, the assessment found that funding declarations in the hundreds of millions of dollars, as opposed to the billions needed to end deforestation in this decade, “are not truly new” and represent a “repeat of the commitments already made at COP26 in Glasgow”. 

Towards equity and justice in ocean sciences

npj Ocean Sustainability

A new review article examined progress towards equity in the ocean sciences and presented a pathway to addressing the gaps that remain in the field. A group of ocean scientists examined dozens of scientific papers on ocean equity and justice. They found that while the community has begun to identify and tackle existing power imbalances in ocean sciences over the past few years, “many issues still need to be addressed”. The authors called for “honest and transparent dialogue”, accompanied by “a significant shift in institutional cultures and norms” from scientists, professional societies, funders and other groups.

Are climate neutrality claims in the livestock sector too good to be true?

Environmental Research Letters

A number of scientific studies have “distorted understanding of the climate impact of livestock production”, a new “perspective” paper suggested. The researchers focused on the use of global warming potential (GWP) metrics, which standardise different greenhouse gases into one CO2-equivalent (CO2e). The “policymakers who wrote the Paris Agreement text” based its goals on “emissions pathways aggregated using GWP100”, the authors explained, which accounts for the warming caused by GHGs over a 100-year period and “does not differentiate between long-lived climate pollutants (LLCPs) and short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs)”. However, some recent studies “claiming that ruminant livestock sectors in developed economies are, or could readily be, climate neutral” have used the GWP* metric, which “accounts for the effect of changes in the rate of SLCP emissions on warming over time”. While the GWP* is a “useful complement” to other metrics, the claimed states of climate neutrality in specific sectors based on its use are “temporary and are not aligned to the wider outcomes of the Paris Agreement”, the paper concludes.

In the diary

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 20 December 2023: COP28 special edition appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 20 December 2023: COP28 special edition

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Climate Change

Big fishing nations secure last-minute seat to write rules on deep sea conservation

Published

12 hours ago

on

January 20, 2026

By

As a treaty to protect the High Seas entered into force this month with backing from more than 80 countries, major fishing nations China, Japan and Brazil secured a last-minute seat at the table to negotiate the procedural rules, funding and other key issues ahead of the treaty’s first COP.

The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) pact – known as the High Seas Treaty – was agreed in 2023. It is seen as key to achieving a global goal to protect at least 30% of the planet’s ecosystems by 2030, as it lays the legal foundation for creating international marine protected areas (MPAs) in the deep ocean. The high seas encompass two-thirds of the world’s ocean.

Last September, the treaty reached the key threshold of 60 national ratifications needed for it to enter into force – a number that has kept growing and currently stands at 83. In total, 145 countries have signed the pact, which indicates their intention to ratify it. The treaty formally took effect on January 17.

    “In a world of accelerating crises – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – the agreement fills a critical governance gap to secure a resilient and productive ocean for all,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.

    Julio Cordano, Chile’s director of environment, climate change and oceans, said the treaty is “one of the most important victories of our time”. He added that the Nazca and Salas y Gómez ridge – off the coast of South America in the Pacific – could be one of the first intact biodiversity hotspots to gain protection.

    Scientists have warned the ocean is losing its capacity to act as a carbon sink, as emissions and global temperatures rise. Currently, the ocean traps around 90% of the excess planetary heat building up from global warming. Marine protected areas could become a tool to restore “blue carbon sinks”, by boosting carbon absorption in the seafloor and protecting carbon-trapping organisms such as microalgae.

    Last-minute ratifications

    Countries that have ratified the BBNJ will now be bound by some of its rules, including a key provision requiring countries to carry out environmental impact assessments (EIA) for activities that could have an impact on the deep ocean’s biodiversity, such as fisheries.

    Activities that affect the ocean floor, such as deep-sea mining, will still fall under the jurisdiction of the International Seabed Authority (ISA).

    Nations are still negotiating the rules of the BBNJ’s other provisions, including creating new MPAs and sharing genetic resources from biodiversity in the deep ocean. They will meet in one last negotiating session in late March, ahead of the treaty’s first COP (conference of the parties) set to take place in late 2026 or early 2027.

    China and Japan – which are major fishing nations that operate in deep waters – ratified the BBNJ in December 2025, just as the treaty was about to enter into force. Other top fishing nations on the high seas like South Korea and Spain had already ratified the BBNJ last year.

    Power play: Can a defensive Europe stick with decarbonisation in Davos?

    Tom Pickerell, ocean programme director at the World Resources Institute (WRI), said that while the last-minute ratifications from China, Japan and Brazil were not required for the treaty’s entry into force, they were about high-seas players ensuring they have a “seat at the table”.

    “As major fishing nations and geopolitical powers, these countries recognise that upcoming BBNJ COP negotiations will shape rules affecting critical commercial sectors – from shipping and fisheries to biotechnology – and influence how governments engage with the treaty going forward,” Pickerell told Climate Home News.

    Some major Western countries – including the US, Canada, Germany and the UK – have yet to ratify the treaty and unless they do, they will be left out of drafting its procedural rules. A group of 18 environmental groups urged the UK government to ratify it quickly, saying it would be a “failure of leadership” to miss the BBNJ’s first COP.

    Finalising the rules

    Countries will meet from March 23 to April 2 for the treaty’s last “preparatory commission” (PrepCom) session in New York, which is set to draft a proposal for the treaty’s procedural rules, among them on funding processes and where the secretariat will be hosted – with current offers coming from China in the city of Xiamen, Chile’s Valparaiso and Brussels in Belgium.

    Janine Felson, a diplomat from Belize and co-chair of the “PrepCom”, told journalists in an online briefing “we’re now at a critical stage” because, with the treaty having entered into force, the preparatory commission is “pretty much a definitive moment for the agreement”.

    Felson said countries will meet to “tidy up those rules that are necessary for the conference of the parties to convene” and for states to begin implementation. The first COP will adopt the rules of engagement.

    She noted there are “some contentious issues” on whether the BBNJ should follow the structure of other international treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), as well as differing opinions on how prescriptive its procedures should be.

    “While there is this tension on how far can we be held to precedent, there is also recognition that this BBNJ agreement has quite a bit to contribute in enhancing global ocean governance,” she added.

    The post Big fishing nations secure last-minute seat to write rules on deep sea conservation appeared first on Climate Home News.

    Big fishing nations secure last-minute seat to write rules on deep sea conservation

    Continue Reading

    Climate Change

    Climate at Davos: Energy security in the geopolitical driving seat 

    Published

    18 hours ago

    on

    January 20, 2026

    By

    The annual World Economic Forum got underway on Tuesday in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, providing a snowy stage for government and business leaders to opine on international affairs. With attention focused on the latest crisis – a potential US-European trade war over Greenland – climate change has slid down the agenda.

    Despite this, a number of panels are addressing issues like electric vehicles, energy security and climate science. Keep up with top takeaways from those discussions and other climate news from Davos in our bulletin, which we’ll update throughout the day.

    From oil to electrons – energy security enters a new era

    Energy crises spurred by geopolitical tensions are nothing new – remember the 1970s oil shock spurred by the embargo Arab producers slapped on countries that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War, leading to rocketing inflation and huge economic pain.

    But, a Davos panel on energy security heard, the situation has since changed. Oil now accounts for less than 30% of the world’s energy supply, down from more than 50% in 1973. This shift, combined with a supply glut, means oil is taking more of a back seat, according to International Energy Agency boss Fatih Birol.

    Instead, in an “age of electricity” driven by transport and technology, energy diplomacy is more focused on key elements of that supply chain, in the form of critical minerals, natural gas and the security buffer renewables can provide. That requires new thinking, Birol added.

    “Energy and geopolitics were always interwoven but I have never ever seen that the energy security risks are so multiplied,” he said. “Energy security, in my view, should be elevated to the level of national security today.”

    In this context, he noted how many countries are now seeking to generate their own energy as far as possible, including from nuclear and renewables, and when doing energy deals, they are considering not only costs but also whether they can rely on partners in the long-term.

      In the case of Europe – which saw energy prices jump after sanctions on Russian gas imports in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine – energy security rooted in homegrown supply is a top priority, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Davos on Tuesday.

      Outlining the bloc’s “affordable energy action plan” in a keynote speech at the World Economic Forum, she emphasised that Europe is “massively investing in our energy security and independence” with interconnectors and grids based on domestically produced sources of power.

      The EU, she said, is trying to promote nuclear and renewables as much as possible “to bring down prices and cut dependencies; to put an end to price volatility, manipulation and supply shocks,” calling for a faster transition to clean energy.

      “Because homegrown, reliable, resilient and cheaper energy will drive our economic growth and deliver for Europeans and secure our independence,” she added.

      Comment – Power play: Can a defensive Europe stick with decarbonisation in Davos?

      AES boss calls for “more technical talk” on supply chains

      Earlier, the energy security panel tackled the risks related to supply chains for clean energy and electrification, which are being partly fuelled by rising demand from data centres and electric vehicles.

      The minerals and metals that are required for batteries, cables and other components are largely under the control of China, which has invested massively in extracting and processing those materials both at home and overseas. Efforts to boost energy security by breaking dependence on China will continue shaping diplomacy now and in the future, the experts noted.

      Copper – a key raw material for the energy transition – is set for a 70% increase in demand over the next 25 years, said Mike Henry, CEO of mining giant BHP, with remaining deposits now harder to exploit. Prices are on an upward trend, and this offers opportunities for Latin America, a region rich in the metal, he added.

      At ‘Davos of mining’, Saudi Arabia shapes new narrative on minerals

      Andrés Gluski, CEO of AES – which describes itself as “the largest US-based global power company”, generating and selling all kinds of energy to companies – said there is a lack of discussion about supply chains compared with ideological positioning on energy sources.

      Instead he called for “more technical talk” about boosting battery storage to smooth out electricity supply and using existing infrastructure “smarter”. While new nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors are promising, it will be at least a decade before they can be deployed effectively, he noted.

      In the meantime, with electricity demand rising rapidly, the politicisation of the debate around renewables as an energy source “makes no sense whatsoever”, he added.

      The post Climate at Davos: Energy security in the geopolitical driving seat  appeared first on Climate Home News.

      Climate at Davos: Energy security in the geopolitical driving seat 

      Continue Reading

      Climate Change

      A Record Wildfire Season Inspires Wyoming to Prepare for an Increasingly Fiery Future

      Published

      22 hours ago

      on

      January 20, 2026

      By

      As the Cowboy State faces larger and costlier blazes, scientists warn that the flames could make many of its iconic landscapes unrecognizable within decades.

      By Jake Bolster

      In six generations, Jake Christian’s family had never seen a fire like the one that blazed toward his ranch near Buffalo, Wyoming, late in the summer of 2024. Its flames towered a dozen feet in the air, consuming grassland at a terrifying speed and jumping a four-lane highway on its race northward.

      A Record Wildfire Season Inspires Wyoming to Prepare for an Increasingly Fiery Future

      Continue Reading

      Trending

      Copyright © 2022 BreakingClimateChange.com