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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

Climate and conflict imperilling food security

HUNGER CRISIS: More than four million people in Somalia – one-quarter of the country’s population – are at risk of experiencing “crisis-level hunger” by the end of the year, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). The east African country is facing “floods that have uprooted hundreds of thousands of people” after a “historic drought” earlier in the year killed livestock and ruined crops and pastureland, Reuters reported. A WFP spokesperson told the newswire: “This bombardment of climate shocks, from drought to floods, will prolong the hunger crisis in Somalia.” Meanwhile, Palestine is facing an “agricultural crisis”, with “farmlands being burned, farmers/fishermen being attacked and inaccessibility to food and water infrastructure” amidst the ongoing war with Israel, the Times of India wrote. 

WHEAT WORRIES: Imports of wheat are “on track to hit record levels” in China this year following heavy rains damaging the country’s domestic supply, Bloomberg reported. Wheat prices on the international market hit a three-year low at the end of September. The outlet noted that China’s spending spree “adds an element of uncertainty to supply chains that have become increasingly vulnerable to war and protectionist trade policies”. In a separate piece, Bloomberg explored India’s food systems, writing that “farm plots are shrinking, infrastructure remains rickety and climate change is only bringing more disruption”. Governmental policies are “rapidly becoming a threat to food security in the world’s most populous country, upping the stakes for [Narendra] Modi’s ruling party”, Bloomberg added.

TECHNO-FIXES: The UK, Somalia and COP28 hosts UAE convened a one-day Global Food Security Summit in London on Monday. Ahead of the summit, aid organisations and other groups “raised the alarm” about the meeting’s technology-focused agenda, which they alleged was “potentially sidelining key issues, such as early action to stamp out hunger, fair trade, and local control of food systems”, according to Devex. “No new financial commitments” were expected to be made at the summit, the outlet continued. During the meeting, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak announced an initiative to “bring together work on developing climate-resilient crops”, Reuters reported. The initiative will fall under the auspices of CGIAR. The UK government also released a white paper on international development, laying out its intention to “work in partnership with countries to tackle extreme poverty and climate change, rather than just providing aid money”, Reuters said.

Dust, ice, extinctions and inequality

LAND LOSS: The world is losing nearly one million square kilometres of productive agricultural lands each year due to sand and dust storms amplified by human activities, Reuters reported. According to a report from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), at least one-quarter of these storms are a result of human activities, such as mining and overgrazing. Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD executive secretary, told Reuters that topsoil losses are affecting food supplies, migration and navigation, and creating security risks. 

ICE MELT: Carbon Brief covered the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative’s 2023 “state of the crysophere” report. The report revealed that, if the planet were to reach 2C of warming, ice sheets and glaciers would experience “extensive, long-term [and] essentially irreversible” losses. Sustained warming of 2C could produce “potentially rapid, irreversible sea level rise from the Earth’s ice sheets” and lead polar oceans to thaw and undergo “essentially permanent corrosive ocean acidification”, Carbon Brief wrote.

SPECIES DECLINE: Nearly 2m species around the world are at risk of extinction, doubling the number previously estimated by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, according to a study reported on by the Guardian. The increased estimate is largely a result of better data availability about insect populations, the newspaper added. The study also revealed that almost one-quarter of invertebrates, which play a vital role in pollination, are at risk of extinction. Insects also provide other services to human populations, such as healthier soils and pest control, the Guardian said. A different study found that in the UK and Ireland, almost half of seabirds species have declined over the past 20 years, Discover Wildlife wrote. Some of the species that have undergone declines are the common gull and the puffins, the Irish Times added.

UNEQUAL FARMING: Women who work in the agricultural sector in Africa and Asia are more affected than men by climate risks, including droughts, floods and the reduction of crop-growing season, wrote the Indian environmental website DownToEarth. The article cited a study published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, which analysed the climate risk for women farmers from 87 countries across those two continents and Latin America. The study pointed out that women are less likely to adapt to climate change than men because of gender inequalities and unequal access to resources. Dr Els Lecoutere, the first author of the study, told Down To Earth that their research may encourage discussions over the need to finance a loss-and-damage fund at COP28 and to invest in regions where women face the most risk.

Spotlight

COP28 curtain-raiser

For many years, carbon sinks, carbon markets and land-use emissions were often the only way to talk about food and nature at UN climate COPs.

COP27 in Egypt last year changed that – and political momentum has been growing ever since.

Food – as was the case for health and other subjects without a dedicated negotiations track – got a specific reference for the first time in the COP27 cover decision, along with rivers and nature-based solutions. This political acknowledgement was reinforced by a formal decision to renew work on agriculture, food security and climate for another four years.

The United Arab Emirates presidency of COP28, which starts next week, has promised that food will be at the heart of the negotiations and, specifically, within the Global Goal on Adaptation, mandated for adoption in Dubai.

At the Global Food Security Summit in London this week, UAE’s climate minister and COP28 food systems lead Mariam Almheiri urged world leaders to sign on to the “Emirates declaration on resilient food systems, sustainable agriculture and climate action”, which rallies states to “align their food systems” with their climate pledges. The declaration, as Politico reported, “barely acknowledges that food production and consumption patterns are a major driver of climate change”. Two-thirds of what the UAE is calling a “1.5C aligned menu” for COP28 delegates will be vegan and vegetarian for the first time in COP history, according to ProVeg. 

But in an El Niño year with skyrocketing food prices, burning forests, choked supply chains, farmers grappling with the costs of war and green trade measures with no climate finance forthcoming, countries are keen that agriculture and ecosystems are recognised in COP outcomes in a more significant, lasting way than just workshops or a token thematic day.

One of the highlights of COP28 is the global stocktake, a five-yearly Paris Agreement “report card” on how the world has done so far, what actions have worked and what is needed to address the many yawning gaps. 

Developing countries are keen that the stocktake also serves as a record of what has not worked: a recognition of mounting losses, risks and the costs of climate inaction.

For instance, Latin American countries and Nepal have called for recognising ecosystems – specifically, rainforests and mountains – at “tipping-point risk”. For developed countries such as New Zealand and Canada, phasing out agricultural subsidies, halting deforestation by 2030, and developing “innovative” finance for nature-based solutions are vital concerns. Meanwhile, the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), US and Canada want to see international carbon markets operationalised, as nations are set to approve rules.

But the stocktake is not just a wishlist. It has to inform the next round of climate pledges, with current pledges both inadequate and, some say, over-reliant on land.

For instance, a new Land Gap report, produced by a range of NGOs and academics, estimates that countries have proposed about 1bn hectares of land for land-based carbon removal in their climate mitigation pledges, with large emitters such as the US and Saudi Arabia relying the most on land to reach net-zero. 

Meanwhile, Indigenous leaders have called for Europe’s lawmakers to vote to protect 80% of the Amazon by 202​​5 as part of their official COP28 position, pointing to a “cascade” of tipping points. “How much more do we have to wait until the global north prioritises the protection of the largest forest on Earth?” said Fany Kuiru, general coordinator of the Coordinating Body of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA). “Today, it is our home burning, but yours will be next.”

To Teresa Anderson, global climate justice lead at Action Aid, it remains to be seen if the COP28 presidency’s menu of food systems initiatives is more than just a “random buffet of high-tech nothingburgers with a climate dressing, possibly sitting queasily alongside a couple of agroecological tidbits.” She told Carbon Brief:

“At best, this could help put industrial agriculture in the climate hotseat. At worst, it could act as a cynical effort to distract from the urgently-needed conversations about fossil fuels.”

News and views

GLIMMER OF HOPE: The Colombian government announced a new biodiversity fund to finance initiatives for climate action, biodiversity and ecosystem conservation and protection of vulnerable populations. According to the government, the resources will come from a national carbon tax, Colombia’s general budget and donations, among other sources of funding. The minister of environment, Susana Muhammad, said the country foresees the fund reaching nearly $1bn by 2026, Reuters reported. Muhammad described the fund as “a fundamental tool for environmental management and change throughout the country” and said the government expects to start off the delivery of resources by the end of this year. A trust will monitor the effective distribution of resources, the newswire wrote, adding that environmental initiatives can be funded more than once.

NATURE VOTE: EU negotiators “finally clinched a political deal” on an embattled nature restoration law proposal, edging one step closer to the finish line, Politico reported. The adapted proposal agreed on 9 November gave “major concessions to the centre-right European People’s Party” which has “led a tough campaign” against the bill, the outlet said. The proposed law, covered in previous editions of Cropped, aims to restore and recover damaged ecosystems in the EU. It was “very painful” to see some key targets weakened, said Jutta Paulus, a green European politician, but she added: “I think we can be content with what we got.” The bill must still be formally adopted by the European parliament and council over the coming months before it can take effect. 

MARINE PROSPECTING AREAS? :The UK government “has been accused of putting its quest for new North Sea oil and gas ahead of safeguarding Britain’s wildlife”, after one-quarter of new exploration licenses were found to overlap with Marine Protected Areas, the i newspaper reported. The story was based on analysis by Unearthed which found that 17 of 64 blocks “sit wholly or partly within” a protected area. Environmental groups described the Rishi Sunak government’s trade-off as “morally obscene” and pointed to impacts on species from whales to corals to fish spawning grounds. A Shell spokesperson quoted by the i newspaper said that “many oil and gas platforms already producing in the North Sea are in Marine Protected Areas”.

FORCED FISHING: The UK National Health Service and supermarkets Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose are sourcing seafood from “companies exploiting forced labour by minority Uyghurs”, DeSmog reported, with calls for the UK to “impose import controls on China”. The four-year-long Outlaw Ocean investigation has “sparked a wave of responses”, including “prompt[ing] a congressional hearing” in the US. A Canadian seafood company cut ties with tainted suppliers, the Globe and Mail reported. Separately, a Guardian investigation found that BP, Spotify and WWF were among companies that bought carbon credits from a South Pole biomass power project in Xinjiang “at risk of being implicated in potential Uyghur forced labour”. While South Pole told the paper it halted credit sales from the project in 2021, companies that bought the credits said “they were not alerted”.

EVICTED COMMUNITIES: The Kenyan government is evicting members of the Indigenous Ogiek community from their ancestral lands in order to make room for carbon-offsetting projects, BBC News reported. Members of the Ogiek community are hunter-gatherers in the country’s biggest forest, the Mau Forest. One of the community’s leaders told the outlet that the government had destroyed their houses and properties. The evictions were conducted even though the Ogiek community gained legal recognition to own and keep their lands in 2017, reported Mongabay. Kenya’s forest service said that the government is fighting illegal farming and housing in the forest.

ARGENTINIAN ELECTION: Although the newly elected far-right Argentinian president, Javier Milei, raised “general ideas” around renewable energy during the campaign, he is a climate sceptic and has brought forth few environmental proposals, Chequeado wrote. In fact, Milei has said that he wants to eliminate the country’s main science agency and the ministries of health, science and the environment, a situation considered by Argentinian researchers as “extremely worrying”, Nature reported. Milei and vice-president-elect Victoria Villarruel propose to call off withholding taxes on wheat, corn and soybeans, Agrofy News reported. The news website added that the government plans to work on a biofuel law, eliminate import and export regulations and advance measures focused on the traceability of commodities’ environmental footprints.

Watch, read, listen

‘NITROGEN WARS’: A Guardian long-read looked at the rise of the Dutch farmers’ revolt, which, it wrote, “may well determine the outcome of [this week’s] general election”.

SHORT STRAW: The Atlantic spoke to scientists who said that even if all plastic pollution were to stop tomorrow, “it would be at least a quarter of a millennium” before the world could see a plastic-free sea turtle.

WOOD FOR TREES: A new investigation by the Mekong Eye examined how Vietnam is clearing native forests for wood pellets to help Japan and South Korea reach their net-zero targets.

OLIVE BRANCH: An essay in Atmos looked at olive trees, which are “vital to life in Palestine”, and argued that the roots of the conflict need peace to be addressed.

New science

Integrated global assessment of the natural forest carbon potential
Nature

A new study found that the amount of carbon being stored in forests is “markedly under the natural potential” of those ecosystems. Researchers used field and satellite data to analyse the gap between current and potential carbon storage, finding that forests could hold more than 200bn tonnes of carbon more than they currently do. More than 60% of this potential occurs in still-standing forests, they found, meaning that restoration could increase carbon storage in those areas. The authors concluded: “Although forests cannot be a substitute for emissions reductions, our results support the idea that the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of diverse forests offer valuable contributions to meeting global climate and biodiversity targets.”

Increased extreme humid heat hazard faced by agricultural workers
Environmental Research Communications

Labourers on rice and maize croplands are the agricultural workers most exposed to dangerous humid heat, new research found. Researchers quantified the number of extreme humid heat days that took place throughout the planting and harvesting seasons of 12 crops, by using temperature data, agricultural calendars and cropland areas data. They found that south-east Asia, equatorial South America, the Indo-Gangetic Basin, coastal Mexico and the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea faced the most frequent humid heat extremes, with certain areas exceeding 60 extreme humid heat days per year. The authors suggested that their results could encourage the creation of policies and efforts to protect vulnerable populations.

Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests
Science Advances

A new study found that low-intensity wildfires “substantially reduce the risk” of future, higher-intensity ones in California. Researchers analysed 20 years of satellite data related to fire activity across 124,000 hectares of California’s forests. They found that some forests’ fire risks were reduced by nearly two-thirds and these protective effects lasted for at least six years. They concluded that their findings “support a policy transition from fire suppression to restoration, through increased use of prescribed fire, cultural burning and managed wildfire”, adding that the state should aim to return to a “pre-suppression and precolonial fire regime”.

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 22 November 2023: COP28 curtain-raiser; Food security fear; Dust, bugs and ice appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 22 November 2023: COP28 curtain-raiser; Food security fear; Dust, bugs and ice

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Climate Change

New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation

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August 24, 2026

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New Zealand’s parliament has adopted a controversial new law blocking a whole avenue of climate litigation and shutting down its most advanced corporate lawsuit, which has been blamed by the government for shaking business confidence and investment.

The Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill, expected to take effect in the coming days after it is formally signed by the Governor-General, prevents all current and future civil claims for climate loss or harm under tort law.

Justice minister Paul Goldsmith said last week that the aim was to give businesses “certainty around their climate change obligations”, noting it would not alter the government’s responsibilities under the Climate Change Response Act 2002 nor business obligations under the Emissions Trading Scheme.

“Our response to climate change is best managed by the Government at a national level and not through piece-meal litigation in the courts,” he added in a statement.

Such litigation, he said, “risks developing a new regime that contradicts the framework Parliament has already enacted” to tackle climate change.

    Goldsmith singled out a key domestic climate lawsuit brought by Northland iwi leader and activist Mike Smith against six big companies: dairy firms Fonterra and Dairy Holdings, energy firms Genesis Energy and Z Energy, New Zealand Steel and coal mining firm BT Mining. A seventh original defendant, Channel Infrastructure, was dropped after it permanently decommissioned its Marsden Point oil refinery.

    Smith argued that these companies had caused him harm under public nuisance and negligence law, as well as a third breach of a duty to cease contributing to climate change that has yet to be tested domestically. He did not seek financial compensation, instead asking for the companies to immediately stop emitting or contributing to net greenhouse gas emissions.

    In one of the most advanced corporate climate accountability lawsuits in the world, a trial had been scheduled for April 2027 after the Supreme Court unanimously allowed the case to continue.

    Corporate lobbying in the shadows

    Smith described the passing of the bill as “deeply concerning”, particularly as it coincided with the Supreme Court hearing another of his climate lawsuits. In that case, Smith v Attorney-General, he argues that the government’s response to climate change and its impacts on Māori communities in particular breaches rights to life and culture.

    “That timing raises profound questions about the separation of powers and the rule of law,” said Smith. “Whatever one’s view of the merits of these cases, it is deeply troubling when parliament intervenes to remove a legal pathway while the courts are actively considering fundamental questions about climate responsibility, rights and the crown’s obligations.”

    The bill – which says that no person (including the government) can be found liable in tort for emissions-related climate change effects – followed major lobbying efforts by the companies defending themselves in Smith’s lawsuit. They outlined a proposed legal amendment in a briefing note to the government in 2024.

    The centre-right government has been fiercely criticised over its lack of transparency in relation to this lobbying activity. The national ombudsman recently found that the Prime Minister’s Office effectively withheld information requested by the Environmental Law Initiative about meetings, discussions and conversations regarding Smith’s case.

    Green groups fail to stop bill

    The bill sparked huge concern among environmental campaigners in New Zealand and elsewhere. Greenpeace Aotearoa called it a “shocking abuse of executive power” and the vast majority of submissions to a parliamentary inquiry said it should be rejected.

    But in the end, it was adopted with little resistance, moving relatively smoothly through parliament, passing its third reading by 67 votes to 53. Sam Bookman, climate law lecturer at Melbourne Law School, told Climate Home News he was not surprised by this, given that the coalition government has a secure majority.

    A complaint has been made to the UN special rapporteur on climate change and human rights by Smith, the National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga and youth coalition Climate Clinic Aotearoa over what they see as the government’s heavy-handed approach. Smith is also challenging the new law in yet another lawsuit.

    “Pathetic”: New Zealand plans to barely cut emissions between 2030 and 2035

    Bookman thinks it “very unlikely” that such a challenge will succeed, noting that New Zealand’s constitution is firmly anchored in parliamentary sovereignty.

    But the expert in climate law does not see the bill as the end of legal action in the country, noting that New Zealand has a “sophisticated climate litigation landscape with a growing number of specialist and experienced lawyers and NGOs”.

    The country is also approaching its next general election in November, and some opposition parties have pledged to restore access to the courts if elected.

    Amanda Larsson, global project lead on agriculture for Greenpeace International, said: “This law deserves to be tested, and I strongly encourage the international climate litigation community to unite and help defend New Zealanders’ fundamental right to hold polluters accountable before this becomes a global blueprint.”

    Copycat legislation on the rise

    New Zealand’s move is part of a small but growing legislative effort to shut down climate litigation around the world.

    In the US, Republican politicians introduced legislation in the House and Senate in April that would shield fossil fuel firms from climate liability lawsuits. Similar laws have already been passed at state level in Tennessee, Utah, Iowa and Louisiana.

    The German state of Bavaria has put forward a similar proposal to the Federal Council, aiming to block private climate claims as well as the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments imposing such liability. There are also proposals to limit available remedies and actions in the Netherlands and Belgium.

    UN General Assembly backs “climate obligations” set by world’s top court

    Bookman said he expects more efforts to counter climate damages litigation and advised plaintiffs to think about how to respond, including drawing on broader support in opposing them.

    “Even though it’s very hard for plaintiffs to win these types of cases, companies are very eager to avoid the expense, embarrassment and political accountability that come even with unsuccessful lawsuits,” he said.

    The post New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation appeared first on Climate Home News.

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    Climate Change

    Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry 

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    20 hours ago

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    August 24, 2026

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    Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara is the Executive Director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), an Indonesia-based economic think tank. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is the Director of the China-Indonesia desk at CELIOS. 

    Indonesia produces around 60% of the world’s nickel, a metal used to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) – more than any other country in the world. But in 2026, the government sharply reduced how much of its nickel can be extracted from the ground.

    Production quotas were reduced by around 40% this year compared to 2025. Weda Bay, the largest nickel mine on Earth, had its allowance cut by more than 70% and exhausted its full-year quota by the end of May, halting mining entirely; it cannot resume large-scale extraction until next year unless regulators grant an extension.

    The policy has sparked a vivid debate in Indonesian policy circles: how can the country shift its strategy from a decade of mining vast quantities of cheap nickel to producing a high-value and low-carbon material that the rest of the world wants for EV batteries.

    The cuts aren’t a silver bullet to clean up Indonesia’s nickel industry, whose smelters are powered by coal – the most polluting fossil fuels. But alongside stricter enforcement of environmental rules, it is one side of efforts to produce more sustainable nickel for a premium.

    Restricting Indonesia’s nickel output

    Production quotas were introduced to stop the collapse of nickel prices because of oversupply in the market. Prices had fallen more than 40% in 2023 alone and kept sliding as Indonesian supply kept growing, hitting a four-year low of around $13,900 a ton in late 2025.

    Critics called the recent tightening of production quotas proof that Indonesia’s nickel strategy has failed, arguing that the industry shouldn’t need to throttle its own output to survive. But when assessed against what the policy was supposed to do – push up nickel prices – it has worked. Prices jumped to $20,000 a ton in May, the highest since 2024.

      Chinese industry groups representing companies that have invested billions to mine and refine the country’s nickel were furious, warning Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto that the cuts put $50 billion worth of investment at risk. But much of that Chinese capital is sunk into smelters and processing plants built specifically to run on Indonesian ore, and cannot simply be moved elsewhere. That gives Jakarta more room to hold its ground than the warning suggests.

      Stronger environmental enforcement

      Since the start of the year, Indonesia’s forestry task force has seized more than four million hectares of land from mines and plantations operating illegally in protected forests, collecting over two trillion rupiah ($113 million) in fines.

      This included 148 hectares seized from Weda Bay for lacking a forestry permit. The share of nickel produced from illegal small-scale mining also fell from about a quarter in 2022 to roughly 10% by 2024.

      The crackdown responds to serious environmental damages in the nickel industry. On Obi Island, a waste pond collapsed after heavy rain in June 2025, flooding three villages and killing a resident. Internal company tests found chromium-6 – a carcinogen – in the water, in quantities far above the legal limit. The footprint of another mine near Raja Ampat, which is home to some of the world’s richest coral reefs, grew 60-fold in just eight years.

      A coastal village is wedged between the sea and a large nickel mine in Indonesia
      The fishing villages of Tapunggaya in Sulawesi, Indonesia, are squeezed between the sea and an expanding nickel mine (Photo by Garry Lotulung/NurPhoto)

      The market is responding to early cleanup efforts. Low-carbon nickel now sells for a real premium, roughly $18,800 to $19,300 a ton compared with $17,900 to $18,300 otherwise, as carmakers seek to source cleaner materials to comply with the European Union’s new emissions rules for imports.

      In turn, this is incentivising the industry to do more to green its operations. Vale Indonesia’s smelter in South Sulawesi now runs almost entirely on hydropower, for example.

      None of this addresses coal use, however. Major Indonesian nickel producers still emitted an estimated 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2023. Indonesia may be cracking down on illegal mining and rewarding cleaner producers but it is still running its mines on the dirtiest fuel available.

      Unequal benefits

      For Indonesia to truly benefit from producing cleaner and high-value nickel, it needs to reap the economic benefits too. Although the industry has boosted the country’s economic growth, the reality on the ground tells a different story.

      Konawe in Southeast Sulawesi is home to a major smelting complex. Growth in the district jumped from 6% to 22% between 2015 and 2023, driven almost entirely by the nickel industry, according to a study by the Lowy Institute study. At the same time, poverty levels increased slightly and unemployment remained unchanged.

        In Halmahera, another epicentre of the nickel industry, spending by the poorest fifth grew just 5% between 2019 and 2022, compared with 28% for the wealthiest fifth, according to a separate study.

        Part of the reason for this inequality is the system for transferring mining royalties to district authorities where the mines are located. In theory, they are entitled to the largest share. But in practice, payments are delayed, companies routinely dispute what they owe and royalties are pooled and distributed across a larger area.

        The Natural Resource Governance Institute has found that decentralisation handed local governments power to approve new mines faster than they could build their capacity to manage them. Higher output raises national income on paper, but local governments remain constrained by fiscal rules and infrastructure costs that scale with mining.

        None of this makes the 2026 quota cuts a mistake. Indonesia has every right to defend its pricing power over a resource it controls. But limiting extraction isn’t going to fix underlying issues around environmental enforcement and revenue-sharing. That requires rules that are consistently enforced, royalties that reach communities living by the mines, and a plan to wean smelters off coal.

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        Climate Change

        Risk of “catastrophic” oil spill reaching Kimberley coast found in Woodside’s Scott Reef gas drilling plans

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        22 hours ago

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        August 24, 2026

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        SYDNEY, Monday 24 August 2026 – New analysis of Woodside modelling released by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley has revealed the oil and gas corporation’s plans to drill at Scott Reef could cause an oil spill up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara disaster, impacting the Kimberley coastline and reaching as far as Indonesia.

        The new analysis details the “catastrophic” oil spill risk put to environmental regulators for approval by Woodside in its Browse to North West Shelf Project (Browse) plans, the worst-case scenario being a blowout directly below Scott Reef, polluting whale migratory pathways and covering isolated turtle nesting ground with oil condensate.

        An FOI application (F348) revealed the federal environment department (DCCEEW) asked offshore oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA to look into the oil spill risk in 2025. NOPSEMA’s response to the application refused access to its report, and one document shows DCCEEW sought further advice this year.

        Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley are calling on the Federal Government to publicly release the NOPSEMA report given the risk of an uncontrolled release of oil condensate from directly below Scott Reef.

        Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Woodside is aware that drilling at Scott Reef risks a massive oil spill that would have severe, far-reaching consequences. It appears environmental regulators are aware too.

        “The state and federal governments need to take this risk from Woodside’s drilling plans seriously, as they could end up allowing the worst oil spill in Australian history.

        “The pygmy blue whales that migrate up and down the WA coast with their newborns each year could be swimming and feeding in toxic, oil-slicked water. Woodside’s proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and the WA and federal governments have one surefire way to prevent catastrophe — reject Browse.”

        Martin Prichard, Executive Director at Environs Kimberley, said: “A catastrophic oil spill by Woodside would be disastrous not just for marine life in the area but also for the Kimberley’s $500 million tourism industry.

        “The state and federal governments will see five marine parks on the Kimberley coast included in the risk area of a catastrophic Woodside oil spill.

        “The Montara oil spill was disastrous for West Timor with the toxic oil destroying seaweed farmers’ livelihoods. The Kimberley dodged a bullet with Montara, we were lucky the spill didn’t head our way. Myself and a crew flew over the Montara oil spill and followed it as far as we could. It was like a scene from a disaster movie.”

        After the WA Environmental Protection Authority deemed Browse “unacceptable” due, in part, to oil spill risk, Woodside submitted a mitigation plan based on technology that has never been used “in anger”, a weakness stated in an independent expert review of the plan.

        Professor Richard Steiner, independent oil spill expert, said: “A large offshore spill is impossible to effectively contain or recover. Historically, only 2-6% of total spill volume is recovered and the ecological injury from the release of toxic hydrocarbons in the sea can be severe, extensive, and long-term.

        “Here in Alaska, government research concludes that several marine populations injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, including whales, fish, and seabirds, are still not recovering today, 37 years later. We should expect similar long-term ecological impacts in Western Australia if there were to be a major oil spill. The only sure way to avoid the risk of a catastrophic marine oil spill is to not develop oil and gas projects in marine environments.”

        -ENDS-

        Media contact

        Emma Sangalli on emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org or 0431 513 465

        Risk of “catastrophic” oil spill reaching Kimberley coast found in Woodside’s Scott Reef gas drilling plans

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