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
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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
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 Chi