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.
Key developments
EU nature, water and farmers
SAVING NATURE LAW: Environment ministers from 11 EU countries made a “last-ditch effort” to rally support for the bloc’s nature restoration law, the Irish Independent reported. The proposed law aiming to restore the EU’s degraded habitats has been in limbo since a final vote was shelved after pushback from several countries in March. The new letter, signed by ministers from Ireland, Germany, France and eight other countries, called on EU ministers to approve the law at the 17 June environment council meeting. The newspaper noted that this is the “last chance” for the law to be signed off in this legislative term. Failure to do so would “fundamentally undermine public faith in our political leadership”, the letter said.
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DUTCH FARMERS: In the Netherlands, the “citizen-farmers” movement party is one member of a newly formed rightwing coalition government, Euractiv reported. The coalition also includes the Party for Freedom, which is led by far-right politician Geert Wilders. The government has pledged to “simplify” EU green rules, tackle the “manure crisis” and re-introduce tax breaks for agricultural fuel, the outlet said. The coalition agreement also “shuts the door on forced livestock cuts, which the previous government considered as a way of cutting nitrogen emissions from animal manure and fertilisers”, Euractiv noted.
LEAVING ON A JET PLANE: Environmental law charity ClientEarth welcomed the Portuguese government’s decision to not build a new Lisbon airport on an “internationally protected nature site”. Previously, NGOs launched a lawsuit against plans to build the airport “on the Tagus Estuary, Portugal’s most important wetland and a crucial safe haven for millions of migratory birds”, the press release from ClientEarth said. The new airport will instead be built on the far side of the River Tagus at a military airfield across from Lisbon, Reuters reported. Soledad Gallego, head of ClientEarth’s Iberian and Mediterranean office, said the government “should be asking itself whether building a new airport at all is in line with its climate goals and in the best interest of the health of people and nature”.
WATER DAMAGE: The EU needs to better protect people and the environment from emerging waterborne diseases and pollution as global temperatures continue to rise, according to a report from the European Environment Agency (EEA) covered by Politico. The outlet listed some of the “looming threats” in the report, including “serious food poisoning from contaminated fish, drug-resistant bacteria emerging from melting permafrost and reindeer populations decimated by anthrax”. The article quotes EEA chief Leena Ylä-Mononen, who said that the EU’s existing climate, water and health policies must be “implemented more broadly and systematically”.
Land grabs threaten farmers
COMPETITION FOR LAND: The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) recently released a report addressing farmland grabbing worldwide. The report found that the largest 1% of farms control 70% of global agricultural land. This consolidation has caused farmers, Indigenous peoples and pastoralists to lose their land, culture and livelihoods, the report said. It also makes it more difficult for young people to access farmland. It has particularly affected central and eastern Europe, Latin America and south Asia. According to the report, the world is facing “overexploitation and exacerbated competition for land around the world”, which could deepen land inequality and rural poverty, drive “the most sustainable forms of agriculture out of business for good” and threaten food security and biodiversity.
‘GREEN’ GRABS: The report found that 20% of large-scale land deals can be classified as “green” land grabs. “Green” land grabbing refers to governments and corporations using global environmental objectives, such as carbon-offseting projects and green energy production, to “usurp” agricultural land and exclude local land users and food producers. Other reasons for land grabs are extractive industries, mega-infrastructure projects and the expansion of industrial agriculture and monocultures. The report called for “building integrated governance of land, environment and food systems to stop green grabbing”. This will be achieved by prioritising community climate and biodiversity action, helping communities map and defend their land and creating “land and agrarian reforms to return land to communities”, IPES-Food concluded.
SCEPTICISM: One of the funds that has financed carbon-offseting projects and clean energy projects is the Bezos Earth Fund, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the Guardian reported. The outlet added that the fund aims to donate a total of $10bn by the end of the decade to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. It “has become one of the most influential voices in the climate and biodiversity sector” by having a presence in international negotiations and supporting dozens of NGOs. However, experts consulted by the Guardian cited concerns about the fund’s influence over “critical environmental institutions”, with one telling the newspaper that “there is obviously a risk of a conflict of interest”.
Road to Cali
COP16 PREP: Delegates at a technical meeting held in preparation for the COP16 biodiversity summit later this year “set the stage” for a potential agreement on how the world defines and protects ecologically or biologically significant marine areas, a press release from the Convention on Biological Diversity said. Countries also advanced details of the framework to monitor progress on the global deal for nature agreed at COP15 in 2022. The recommendations from the meeting will be discussed at the upcoming summit in Cali, Colombia in October. Further pre-COP talks on finance and other issues are taking place in Nairobi, Kenya over 21-29 May.
CASH FOR NATURE: Meanwhile, the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund approved new grants worth more than $70m (£55m) for projects across 21 countries, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) said in a press release. This is the second round of preparation grants for projects, which range from strengthening biodiversity corridors in the Philippines to “empowering Indigenous peoples for sustainable development” in Suriname. The fund, which was set up to support the global deal for nature, is financed by six countries so far, including Canada, Japan and the UK, according to the GEF.
News and views
VICTORY FOR ISLAND STATES: The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea found that greenhouse gases constitute marine pollution, in what Reuters described as a “major breakthrough” for small island states at risk of being submerged by rising sea levels due to climate change. The judgement is an “advisory opinion” and was requested by nine Caribbean and Pacific island nations, including the Bahamas, the newswire said. The court said that states are obliged to monitor and reduce their emissions and laid out requirements for environmental impact assessments. For climate activists and lawyers consulted by Reuters, the decision could influence two pending opinions on states’ climate obligations from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice.
FOOD FOCUS: UK prime minister Rishi Sunak put forward a plan to improve food security and boost fruit and vegetable production, the Guardian said. It includes measures to ease planning rules for greenhouses and replace EU horticulture resilience funding. According to Tom Bradshaw, the president of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales, this will do little to restore farmer confidence after a winter of floods and other extreme weather. The Guardian reported that the government has also published its first food security index to assess the country’s ability to produce its own food. It found that the UK produced 17% of its own fruit and 55% of its own vegetables in 2022. The newspaper noted that the government was criticised by policy experts for listing climate change as a “longer-term risk”, rather than a current issue in its index.
LAND SQUEEZE: Following heavy rainfall and floods that have ravaged east Africa since March, the region is at risk of food shortages, Down to Earth reported. The outlet said that there are thousands of acres of croplands affected and thousands of dead livestock in the region. Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia and Burundi were all heavily affected by the floods. Down to Earth also reported that more than 1,465 clean water sources, such as rivers and ponds, have been contaminated, posing a risk to aquatic foods and public health. The outlet added that the World Food Programme and other humanitarian agencies “have expressed concern about disrupted food production”.
‘UNTOLD HARM’: More than 4,000 species are trafficked worldwide, causing “untold harm upon nature”, according to a new report published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and covered by the Guardian. The report found that 40% of around 140,000 wildlife seizures over 2015-21 involved threatened or near-threatened species, including mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. The Guardian said that the UN report also noted that wildlife trade permeates more than 80% of countries and is a “global problem [that is] far from being resolved”. The outlet pointed out that wildlife trafficking is often linked to organised crime and corruption.
ENVIRONMENTAL DATA THEFT: China’s spy ministry accused two foreign NGOs of stealing environmental data “under the guise of research and environmental protection”, the South China Morning Post reported. The Chinese security ministry said those organisations collected geographical, meteorological, biological and other data from China’s nature reserves, which poses “risks and hazards to national security”. According to the outlet, China has “some of the strictest” laws for regulating the activities of NGOs. It added that the security ministry called on the public to report “suspicious activity” to the authorities.
Watch, read, listen
NO BORDERS: An Associated Press video explored how botanists from California and Baja California joined forces to record plant biodiversity along the US-Mexico border.
CLIMATE INSURANCE: The BBC News World Service podcast Africa Daily looked at the “limitations and difficulties” facing farmers insuring themselves against climate disasters.
GARDENING ZONES: NPR mapped the changes in the US agriculture department’s gardening zones, which help people determine which plants might thrive in their region.
DRC MINING: Mongabay investigated the extent of, and response to, pollution from the mining of cobalt and copper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s “copper belt”.
New science
Severe decline in large farmland trees in India over the past decade
Nature Sustainability
India lost more than 5m large farmland trees over 2018-22, a study found. This was partly due to changed farming practices “where trees within fields are perceived as detrimental to crop yields”, the study said. Researchers mapped 600m trees planted on agricultural lands in India and tracked them over the past decade. They found that approximately 11% of large trees disappeared between an earlier period of 2010 to 2018. The findings are “particularly unsettling” as the practice of planting trees on farmland is seen as a “pivotal natural climate solution”, the researchers wrote.
New research found that the western US and southern Mexico have suffered a decline in pollinator species richness over time. In contrast, eastern North America and other cooler and wetter regions saw an increase in pollinator diversity. The researchers analysed four families of bees and butterflies, for which they constructed more than 1,400 species distribution models over two time periods in North America: 1939-79 and 1980-2020. The study concluded that “changes in pollinator diversity appear to reflect changes in climate”, but added that “other factors, such as land-use change, may also explain regional shifts”.
Multi-decadal climate services help farmers assess and manage future risks
Nature Climate Change
Long-term climate projections – those which look more than 20 years into the future – can help farmers better understand future climate risks, according to new research. Researchers introduced 24 Australian farmers to an online long-term climate projection service called “My Climate View” and asked them to evaluate long-term risk management. They found that such a service helped “[reduce] complexity and potentially [reduce] psychological distance” from climate risks in farmers. As farmers are often sceptical of climate change projections – in part because of “their experience in perceptions of inaccurate short-term weather and seasonal forecasts”, the study suggests taking advantage of “the expertise of trusted service providers” to increase confidence in the data.
In the diary
- 21-29 May: Fourth meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation | Nairobi
- 22 May: International Day for Biological Diversity
- 29 May: South Africa general election
- 2 June: Mexico general election
- 3-4 June: Royal Society conference: Innovating agriculture | Online
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
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 22 May 2024: Farmland ‘grabbing’; Ocean court ‘victory’ for small islands; Pre-COP16 talks appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 22 May 2024: Farmland ‘grabbing’; Ocean court ‘victory’ for small islands; Pre-COP16 talks
Climate Change
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
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
Climate Change
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.
Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.
The report – “A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate” – was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation.
The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.
It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.
Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.
Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.
Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.
The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)
The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.
In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.
Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.
The post Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-trumps-climate-report-includes-more-than-100-false-or-misleading-claims/
U.S. DOE Reveals $1B Funding to Boost Critical Minerals Supply Chain
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
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