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.
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Key developments
COP16 kicks off in Cali
COLOMBIA CALLING: Representatives from 175 countries are meeting in Cali, Colombia from 21 October to 1 November for the COP16 biodiversity summit, with “life on Earth on the agenda”, the New York Times reported. At the talks, countries will grapple with how to put the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework – often described as the “Paris Agreement for nature” – into action, alongside debates on finance for developing countries and how to best share the benefits from genetic information, the newspaper said. Carbon Brief has produced an interactive grid of where each party stands on the key negotiating issues and a live tracker of the texts under negotiation. On Tuesday, Carbon Brief’s team of five journalists on the ground in Cali held an online webinar on the key issues up for discussion at the summit. A recording is available.
HIGH-LEVEL PRESENCE: Mongabay reported that around 23,000 delegates are attending COP16, with presidents or heads of state from Brazil, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Mozambique, Peru and Suriname expected to be present. (The Earth Negotiations Bulletin noted that the summit “is the largest UN biodiversity conference to date”.) The outlet added that the conference also aims to adopt a work programme for Indigenous peoples and local communities. El Espectador reported that the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) will invest $300m in the protection of important ecosystems across the region, including the Amazon, the Antarctic and Patagonia. The president of CAF, Sergio Díaz-Granados, said they will deliver a tool for identifying high-quality projects to be funded.
PLANS AND PLEDGES: A joint investigation by Carbon Brief and the Guardian found that 85% of countries had failed to meet a UN request to publish new pledges on how they plan to tackle biodiversity decline before COP16. Just 25 nations and the EU released new national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) ahead of the summit. Since then, a further 10 countries have come forward with NBSAPS, including COP16 host Colombia. Colombia’s NBSAP pledges to extend protected areas from 24 to 34% of national territory and increase the bioeconomy’s contribution to national GDP from 0.8 to 3%. Carbon Brief will be updating its NBSAP tracker later this week.
Water woes
STRESSED OUT: New analysis from the US-based thinktank the World Resources Institute found that “one-quarter of the world’s crops are grown in areas where the water supply is highly stressed, highly unreliable or both”. Three staple crops that together provide more than half of the world’s calories – rice, wheat and corn – are “particularly vulnerable”, according to the analysis. It added that both rainfed and irrigated crops “face growing threats”, with the former imperilled by “erratic weather patterns” and the latter facing “increasing competition over shared water supplies”. According to the report, “demand for water to irrigate crops is projected to rise by 16% by 2050, compared to 2019”.
TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS: Covering the report, Grist wrote that water stress “stems partly from a common tendency to take water for granted and treat it like an endlessly renewable, on-demand resource”. Sam Kuzma, one of the authors of the report, told the publication: “Because we don’t put a value on water, you can irrigate and not pay much at all for the water that you’re using…That means we can be pretty reckless with how we’re growing and in what environments.” The analysis “spells trouble for global food security”, Grist wrote, noting that major agricultural exporters, including India, are among the countries most at risk of increasing water stress.
ROME DECLARATION: At the World Food Forum last week, hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, member states adopted the Rome Declaration on Water Scarcity in Agriculture. According to Down to Earth, “the countries committed to mobilise greater political support in terms of policies, legal and institutional frameworks, access to financing and responsible water governance”. FAO director general Dr Qu Dongyu told the plenary session: “The solutions we develop must reflect the interconnected nature of water security, agrifood systems and climate resilience.” According to the FAO press release, “by 2050, more than half the global population will live in areas at risk of water scarcity at least one month a year”.
Spotlight
‘The planet doesn’t have time to lose’
Carbon Brief’s entire food, land and nature team is on the ground in Cali, Colombia to report on the UN biodiversity talks. In this spotlight, Carbon Brief outlines what has happened so far at COP16.
Hola from Cali, where the UN biodiversity summit COP16 has kicked off this week.
Thousands of negotiators, observers, activists and journalists have descended on the city – the country’s “salsa capital” – for detailed nature discussions over the coming two weeks.
Far from the harsh lighting and long corridors of other COPs, Cali delegates are treated to mountain views in the distance and large overhead fans staving off the October heat in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries.
It has not all been smooth sailing so far, however, with packed buses transporting sweating delegates, congested roads, poor internet connections and winding security queues on the first day of the summit.
COP16 comes two years after countries signed off on a global biodiversity deal aiming to halt and reverse nature loss by the end of this decade.
Since this agreement, countries have been figuring out how to put in place these goals on a national level.
Hot topics
Negotiators are discussing a wide range of issues, including the implementation of biodiversity goals and how to scale up nature finance.
Bernadette Fischler Hooper, the head of global advocacy at WWF, told a press briefing on 21 October that resource mobilisation was hotly debated at the pre-COP16 implementation talks last week.
For example, countries are split on whether to develop a new global fund for biodiversity – to be controlled by the COP – or stick with the current fund. Negotiators are trying to break the “deadlock” on this issue over the next two weeks, she noted.
Other discussions centre around agreeing rules around digital access to genetic information, Indigenous peoples’ rights and monitoring for the Global Biodiversity Framework.
“The planet doesn’t have time to lose,” Colombian environment minister and COP16 president Susana Muhamad said at the summit’s opening ceremony.
Speaking via telecast, UN chief António Guterres also urged countries to “make peace with nature” – referencing the COP16 theme.
Security fears
More than 10,000 police officers are in place across the city amid threats from a rebel group to disrupt COP16.
Speaking at a press conference on 21 October, Cali’s mayor, Alejandro Eder, said that security was the first issue tackled when the city was selected to host COP16.
Eder assured the safety of COP16 attendees, but Colombian president Gustavo Petro last week said he was “nervous” that “something bad” could happen at the start of the summit, according to Colombia’s El Heraldo newspaper.
Eder noted that COP16 was organised in “record time”, given that cities usually have two years to prepare. (Turkey withdrew as COP16 host last year after severe earthquakes killed more than 40,000 people. Cali was confirmed as the new host in February 2024.)
Elsewhere, nearly 2,000 Indigenous peoples from Colombia took to the streets of Cali on 21 October calling for nature to be respected. More protests are expected throughout the summit.
Carbon Brief’s team of five nature journalists will be closely tracking the negotiations on the ground in Cali over the next two weeks.
News and views
REEF IT AND WEEP: The mass bleaching of coral reefs worldwide since early 2023 “is now the most extensive on record”, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told Reuters. Satellite data showed a “staggering 77%” of global reefs so far have “been subjected to bleaching-level heat stress…as climate change fuels record and near-record ocean temperatures across the world”, the newswire added. “We’ve eclipsed the previous record by 11.3% and…in half the amount of time,” Dr Derek Manzello, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, told Axios. CNN said that scientists have called for an emergency session on coral reefs at COP16 “in response to the bleaching record”.
‘NATURE-POSITIVE’: A record number of companies are expected to be at COP16, and they are “increasingly touting their ambitions to be ‘nature-positive’ alongside their net zero targets”, the Financial Times wrote. According to the newspaper, which looked at the rapid proliferation of the term “nature-positive” since COP15 in 2022, it implies “halting and reversing biodiversity loss, targeting an overall increase in nature…by 2030, relative to a 2020 baseline”. However, it adds that scientists and environmentalists are worried that states and firms “are starting to brandish the term as a buzzword” before a comprehensive and credible definition of nature-positive and its metrics exists.
GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM ATLAS: At COP16, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) launched the proof-of-concept of the Global Ecosystems Atlas, a tool for mapping and monitoring the world’s ecosystems. According to a GEO press release, the atlas provides information on ecosystem extent, condition and potential risks, drawing on inputs from high-quality maps and new maps based on field data and AI. The atlas aims to support “tracking [progress on] the Global Biodiversity Framework, develop national ecosystem maps…and inform private sector reporting on nature-related risks”, the press release added.
THE ROOF IS ON FIRE: Forest fires have intensified and become more widespread “amid global heating, particularly in the high northern latitudes such as Canada and Siberia”, researchers wrote in the Conversation. Their new study found that global carbon emissions from forest fires have grown by 60% over the past two decades, with the “largest contributions com[ing] from fires in Siberia and western North America”, the authors added. “We had to check the calculations because it’s such a big number,” lead author Dr Matthew Jones told the New York Times. Elsewhere, research covered by Carbon Brief revealed that a long-term decline in area burned globally by wildfires due to land-use change has almost entirely been offset by increases caused by warming.
DYING PLANET: Wildlife populations worldwide have “plunged” by an average of 73% in the last 50 years according to the latest Living Planet report, the Guardian reported. However, it adds that the Living Planet index is “weighted in favour of data from Africa and Latin America” and the metric has faced criticism for “potentially overestimating wildlife declines”. Vox, covering the report, wrote that it “underscores [that] we are living in a time of profound biodiversity loss” and that “calculating a single figure to encompass all of this loss isn’t easy”. At the same time, scientists not involved in the report called its metrics “misleading”, the story added. A ZSL scientist quoted by Vox said that “it’s also possible that the [Living Planet Index] actually underestimates the scale of declines”. Our World In Data published a guide to understanding the index and “what it does and doesn’t mean”.
Watch, read, listen
FOREST LOSS: Mongabay looked at how Indonesia’s plan to boost renewable energy could lead to Indigenous communities losing “huge swathes of their forests to biomass plantations”.
EYES ON SOUTH AMERICA: Analysis in the Guardian discussed how Colombia and Brazil “have the chance of a lifetime to save the Amazon” in hosting key upcoming global events.
SNAIL’S PACE: Ahead of COP16, NPR’s All Things Considered radio show spoke to wildlife biologist Dr David Sischo about what it’s like to work with Hawaii’s endangered tree snails.
COUNTING MOTHS: Sundance award-winning documentary “Nocturnes” followed ecologist Dr Mansi Mungee counting hawk moths in the lush forests of north-eastern India.
New science
- A new study found that nearly half of the proposed indicators for measuring progress on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework could involve community-based monitoring programmes. Researchers in Nature Sustainability wrote that greater involvement of citizens could “enhance local to national decision-making”.
- A 1% increase in deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was linked with a 6.3% rise in malaria cases the following month, a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found. Using sub-annual data, researchers showed that deforestation increases malaria transmission, especially in areas with high amounts of forest cover.
- Increasingly dry conditions under a changing climate will pose a significant threat to frogs and other water-sensitive animals, according to new research in Nature Climate Change. Researchers combined maps of drought risk and frog and toad habitats to find that nearly 7% of frog and toad habitats will become “arid-like” by the end of the century.
In the diary
- 21 October-1 November: COP16 UN biodiversity conference | Cali, Colombia
- 25 October: Kiribati presidential election
- 4-5 November: UN Water meeting | New York
- 5 November: US election
- 11-22 November: COP29 UNFCCC climate conference | Baku, Azerbaijan
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 23 October 2024: COP16 kicks off; Water woes; Coral bleaching ‘worst ever’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 23 October 2024: COP16 kicks off; Water woes; Coral bleaching ‘worst ever’
Climate Change
“Sink or swim”: WA Gov hugely underestimating decline in regional gas demand while sleeping on green exports, new report finds
PERTH, Tuesday 13 October 2026 — A new report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals green commodity exports are an untapped economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, while offering a genuine solution for decarbonising Asia.
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State is a comprehensive analysis of the declining gas market in Asia, and the untapped economic opportunity for WA to become a global leader in green commodity exports while driving the regional shift away from fossil fuels.
The report offers key recommendations for the WA Government to support regional decarbonisation through an orderly phase out of gas exports in favour of green iron and other green exports. It comes as global climate leaders from across business, politics and advocacy prepare to meet for the Global Citizen Now: Perth event focused on decarbonising WA.
Key findings:
- Gas demand is falling across WA’s core markets in Asia: Gas demand fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline, driven by a combination of global geopolitical factors and domestic concerns.
- Policy shifts in key markets since the war on Iran now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas: Japan, South Korea and China have legislated energy plans that prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- New WA gas would arrive in a saturated, uncertain Asian market filled with cheaper gas: The US is now the world’s largest liquefied gas producer and plans to double its capacity as it also targets Asian markets.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to sustain WA’s economy: WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars.
- Exporting more WA gas is likely to delay or impede Asia decarbonisation: Despite claims by the gas industry, there is no evidence that WA gas is displacing coal in Asia, and in fact diverts resources from genuine decarbonisation options.
Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said: “As our export partners in Asia shift away from expensive and polluting gas, the WA Government has a golden opportunity to pivot our economy to green exports, like green iron, which is the most effective way to help our region to decarbonise.
“The writing is on the wall: gas is in decline, renewables are our future. In this context, it makes zero sense for the government to encourage high risk projects like Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal at Scott Reef.
“This report clearly shows that the WA Government faces a choice: sink or swim. They can either allow the gas industry to keep ripping off West Australians and continue propping up its decline, or choose the path that will deliver enormous benefits to the state and the world by becoming a leader in the rapidly expanding green economy.”
Tom Quinn, Managing Director of Springmount Advisory: “Western Australia prospers when it looks to the future and builds for future demand. Twenty years from now, what the world needs is green commodities made using WAs abundant renewable resources. Just like it did with iron ore in the 1950s and gas in the 1970s, WA should look to the future and build what the world will need, not sunsetting industries like gas that are already past their peak.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lucy.keller@greenpeace.org
A report from Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Springmount Advisory reveals the untapped green economic opportunity for Western Australia in a declining Asian gas market, which also offers a genuine solution for decarbonisation in Asia.
Is Western Australia clinging to a fading gas industry while a thriving green future passes it by? As major Asian trading partners rapidly pivot away from volatile gas imports toward cheap solar and battery storage, this report exposes a high-stakes choice: risk becoming stranded in an oversupplied fossil fuel market, or harness WA’s unmatched sun and wind to lead the global clean energy transition.
Summary
From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State reveals that Western Australia (WA) faces a critical juncture as falling Asian gas demand, geopolitical gas supply volatility and accelerating renewable energy deployment undermine the long-term economic viability of gas exports. By harnessing its world-class wind and solar resources, the report demonstrates that WA can execute an orderly phase-out of gas and pioneer a green commodity export economy that could generate $987 billion in economic value by 2060, create 24,000 ongoing jobs, and drive a 9.6% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
Key Findings
- Gas demand is falling in Asia – WA can no longer rely on gas exports: Gas demand in core Asian markets fell in 2025 and is projected to continue to decline in 2026. Legislated energy plans in Japan, South Korea, and China now prioritise renewables and nuclear over gas.
- Asia is increasing renewables, importing gas just gets in the way: Evidence from markets like Thailand suggests that gas imports are increasingly crowding out cheaper renewable energy investments and battery storage rather than displacing coal, locking in more emissions over time.
- Green commodities offer a real solution to decarbonise Asia – this is a major win for WA: With world-class renewables, WA can lead Australia’s green commodity exports, which by 2060 could be worth almost a trillion dollars ($987 billion) and support a genuine 9.6% reduction in global emissions.
Recommendations to WA government
Recommendation 1: Plan an orderly gas phase-out aligned with a trading partner pivot plan
Implement a managed, orderly phase-out of gas exports aligned with trading partners’ decarbonisation pathways, rather than waiting for demand to collapse, by:
- Developing and implementing a staged phase-out of gas facilities aligned with feedstock supply expiry or typical end of facility lifespans.
- Committing to no new gas development for gas expansion, including Browse and Kimberley fields.
- Developing new, reciprocal trade relationships with existing gas trade partners, structured to progressively replace gas exports with green commodities – integrated with recommendation 2.
Recommendation 2: Develop an integrated green commodity export strategy, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub
Establish an integrated green commodity export strategy that immediately prioritises green iron development, positioning WA as a global green iron manufacturing hub, by:
- Committing to green commodity export targets to give industry and investors a clear demand signal.
- Prioritising green iron as the lead sector within the broader green commodity strategy, given WA’s iron ore endowment and first-mover potential.
Recommendation 3: Reject false solutions such as carbon dumping (CCS) and blue hydrogen
Reject carbon dumping (also described as carbon capture and storage, or CCS) and blue hydrogen as viable decarbonisation technologies, and prioritise green hydrogen and proven renewables for clean energy and fuel production by:
- Excluding blue hydrogen projects (and CCS-dependent projects) from all government support programs.
- Requiring existing hydrogen-based production (including ammonia, methanol, synthetic fuels) to have clear, near-term transition timelines to switch to green hydrogen production.
What you can do
Together, we can push for a prosperous green future.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and