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
Seabed mining talks stall
UNFINISHED BUSINESS: The International Seabed Authority (ISA) ended a two-week meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, without agreement on the “long-delayed” code for deep-sea mining, which “remains both unfinished and deeply contested”, said Oceanographic. Several countries raised “fundamental scientific, environmental and governance gaps” in the draft regulations, it added. CBC News reported that although the ISA’s executive secretary, Leticia Carvalho, had previously said she “hoped a mining code could be finalised this year”, she “did not provide a new timeline” following the most recent talks.
DOUBLE TROUBLE: Meanwhile, federal regulators in the US have announced that they have identified nearly 70m acres (283,000 square kilometres) of seabed off the Northern Mariana Islands “that could be open to mineral leasing”, reported E&E News. The outlet noted that this recommendation was nearly double the government’s initial area under consideration, announced last autumn.
-
Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “Cropped” email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
PROCESS PROBLEMS: The CBC News article noted that 40 member countries now support a moratorium on deep-sea mining, but the ISA has “faced mounting pressure in recent months after the US…moved to begin approving mining outside the ISA process”. In the Conversation, an international-law expert from Duke University wrote: “The Trump administration’s attempt to unilaterally exploit the seabed resources of the global commons will severely undermine part of the rules-based international order that the US built and of which it has been the main beneficiary.”
England’s new ‘blueprint’ for land use
‘BLUEPRINT’: The UK government released its “long-awaited and much-delayed” land-use framework, detailing how England can optimise its land for food, housing, climate and nature, reported Carbon Brief. The “blueprint” found that “England has enough land to meet all of its objectives, if land is used efficiently”, the outlet added. The Guardian said that “farmers and campaigners broadly welcomed the framework”, with the president of the National Farmers’ Union saying that implementation “will require clear guidance, the right policy framework and incentives to avoid unintended outcomes”.
PRACTICAL MATTERS: Alongside the framework, the Environment, food and rural affairs committee of the UK parliament “launched a major inquiry into how England’s land is used”, reported FarmingUK. The inquiry will focus on how the land-use framework “works in practice”, it added. The outlet said: “Looking ahead, the committee will scrutinise how government policy [on land use] is coordinated across departments.”
SLOW PROGRESS: Meanwhile, the National Audit Office found that nature-restoration progress across England has “slowed due to ‘recent funding uncertainty’”, reported Agriland. The office examined the Nature for Climate Fund, a programme under the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, which was established in 2020 and “led to a substantial increase in tree-planting and peatland restoration”, the outlet said. However, the report also found that “targets in England will continue to be missed” without substantial changes, said the Forestry Journal.
News and views
- PROTECTED WATERS: On 10 March, outgoing Chilean president Gabriel Boric signed a decree to expand and “fully protect” two marine protected areas that “harbour the highest concentration of marine species found nowhere else on Earth”, Island Conservation reported. The new administration told the Guardian that its “intention is not to eliminate protections” and, barring legal and technical issues, it will allow the areas “to go forward as planned”.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2035, reported Folha de Sao Paolo. Meanwhile, Climate Home News wrote that the “Tropical Forest Forever Facility” – which Brazil championed – is “unlikely to make payments to rainforest countries until at least 2028”.
- SAVE THE FISHES: A new UN report identified 325 freshwater fish species “requiring coordinated international conservation action” to address declining populations due to overexploitation, habitat degradation and other compounding pressures, said Down to Earth. The report was launched at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, which began on Monday in Campo Grande, Brazil.
- FACE PALM: A Climate Home News and SVT investigation found that Neste – the world’s largest producer of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) – was sourcing “key ingredients from an opaque supply chain” that allowed “fresh palm oil to be passed off as waste”. Neste said it would look into the outlets’ findings, adding that it was “currently not aware of any verified cases of fraud” in its raw-materials sourcing.
- CRITICAL HABITAT: The US government plans to approve the country’s first critical-minerals mine in Patagonia, Arizona, even as locals warn of potential water and biodiversity impacts, Inside Climate News reported. The project site – which holds “one of the largest undeveloped zinc resources in the world” – borders “one of the most important biodiversity hotspots in North America”, which is home to 12 endangered species, including jaguars and Mexican spotted owls, the outlet added.
- RE-PEAT OFFENDERS: More than 370,000 tonnes of peat were exported from Ireland in 2025, with revenues totalling around €40m – “despite there being no known legal commercial peat extraction operation in the country”, said the Irish Times. This represents a higher volume than was exported in 2023 or 2024, but a decrease from the nearly one million tonnes exported in 2020, it added.
- ‘FIELDS OF IRON’: Rural voters in Denmark have begun to “sour” on solar power, with one populist leader in 2024 saying “no to fields of iron!”, said the Guardian. Danish PM Mette Frederiksen “failed to secure a majority” in the country’s general election on Tuesday, where the climate footprint of agriculture has been a concern for voters, reported BBC News.
Spotlight
Plate half full
This week, Carbon Brief looks at the impact of the US-Israel-Iran war on India’s kitchens, restaurants, workers and farmers – and what it means for the climate.
On 23 March, two Indian-flagged tankers made their way through the mine-laden Strait of Hormuz, hugging Iran’s coastline.
The ships are carrying more than 90,000 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), equivalent to roughly one day of the country’s cooking gas consumption.
In India – the world’s second-largest LPG importer – gas is intrinsically tied to food security.
With 60% of these imports sourced from Gulf countries, the war’s immediate impacts have been acutely visible in India’s kitchens and restaurants.
Lunch on the move
Since 10 March, many Indian cities and towns have seen snaking queues and skirmishes breaking out as India’s poor rushed to refill gas cylinders in the heat of an early summer.
As the government prioritised the 340m households that use LPG over commercial establishments, restaurants have faced “catastrophic closures”.
Ashok Vada Pav – birthplace of Mumbai’s vada pav, or potato burger, which has been described as the “soul of the [city’s] working class” – has shut its doors. Ramashraya – serving south Indian breakfasts since 1939 – had to turn away customers who have been coming there for decades.
However, hot lunches – cooked at home or purchased from the city’s many canteens – continue to travel the length of Mumbai in tiered steel tiffins carried by the iconic dabbawallahs.
Ramdas Karwande, president of the Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Association, told Carbon Brief that, of the 80,000 lunches that dabbawallahs carry across the city each day, 40% are typically from caterers. That number has halved in the past weeks, he said.
Karwande explained:
“People who come to this city from places far away have no choice but to eat canteen food. But home food is still on the move, because everyone needs to eat somehow.”
Fuel to firewood
In an address to parliament on Monday, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi likened the fallout of the war to that of the Covid-19 pandemic – a comparison that has drawn criticism.
The cooking gas shortages have prompted an exodus of migrant workers leaving cities for their home states, where biomass cooking remains accessible.
Cities, such as Delhi and Mumbai, have put a pause on emissions curbs for dirtier fuels since 14 March, as poorer families facing soaring black-market gas prices turn to wood, kerosene and coal.
While government gas and biogas schemes have led to a decrease in firewood usage in many states over many years, analysts have said the current crisis “offers a critical moment to rethink India’s cooking energy mix”.
In Mumbai’s wealthy suburb of Khar, induction stoves have been “flying off shelves”, Jaffair Sheikh, who sells appliances at an upmarket electronic retail store, told Carbon Brief. He added:
“We’re selling 20 units a day, when we used to sell almost zero before this war.”
However, only 5% of India’s households have access to electric cooking devices and the country’s grid is still largely powered by coal.
Away from the cities, there is a looming fear of the war’s impact on agriculture, given India’s dependence on the Gulf for fertiliser imports.
Siraj Hussain, India’s former agriculture secretary, told Carbon Brief:
“Gas is the main raw material for urea – and urea stocks are grossly insufficient to meet even kharif season (May to July) demand. But if the government can reduce supply to states where excessive fertiliser is used and increase supply to states where consumption is low, to some extent, this deficit will not be as harmful as it would be otherwise.”
Crop stock and biofuel fears
Punjab’s farmers, meanwhile, were already worried about the impact of an early summer on wheat production.
However, Hussain told Carbon Brief that India’s food security in terms of wheat and rice “will not be affected too much” because the country is “sitting on” excessive stocks. He added that he hopes the war will “persuade the government” to reduce its use of rice for ethanol production.
Still, food inflation is already being felt across the country. Karwande added:
“Everyone is tense. The monthly payments we get are going down and running a house is now difficult: the same problems we had during lockdown are back. Oil, sugar, everything has become expensive. This is not just our problem; this is everybody’s problem. The government has to do something.”
Watch, read, listen
FARMERS’ FUTURES: High Country News explored how farmers in the Colorado River basin are dealing with water shortages “amid deep political divisions about the river’s future”.
FOOD SHOCK: Experts on Al Jazeera’s Counting the Cost podcast looked at whether the US-Israel war on Iran could “trigger the next global food shock”.
LYNX IN BIO: BBC News featured the winning images from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award. The photos will be on display at London’s Natural History Museum until 12 July.
ECO BREAKDOWN: Mongabay detailed the causes of the “mental health crisis” impacting conservationists, including biodiversity decline, climate change, low wages and burnout.
New science
- Less than half of the Amazon rainforest that was affected by the 2023-24 drought is “expected to recover to pre-drought conditions” within seven years | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Climate change-induced heat could result in half a trillion hours of lost productivity by 2055 in a low-emissions scenario, disproportionately impacting low-income countries and agricultural workers | GeoHealth
In the diary
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
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 25 March 2026: Seabed mining talks stall | ‘Blueprint’ for land use | India feels Iran war impacts appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Scientists have vowed to keep working on the next flagship set of reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), after a political row over the timeline for their release saw its latest session suspended on Friday evening without agreement.
During the weekend, government officials and scientists alike expressed disappointment over the inability to reach a compromise before some delegates from developing countries and small island states had to leave the week-long meeting in Ethiopia to catch flights home.
The disagreement – which has persisted since early 2024 – turns on whether the three key parts of the AR7 assessment should all be published before the conclusion of the UN’s next Global Stocktake of global climate action, which is due to be completed in late 2028.
The IPCC issued a statement after the close of the session, saying that “key agenda items” – the timelines for the three AR7 reports, as well as the IPCC budget – remain open and under discussion. It said the IPCC’s plenary session and its deliberations on the pending agenda “will resume at the earliest opportunity”, giving no further details of when.
IPCC Chair Jim Skea told delegates in closing remarks that recent months had been some of the most turbulent for the climate science panel and that, if there were stronger words than “profound disappointment” he would use them, according to a summary published by the Earth Negotiators Bulletin (ENB). IPCC discussions happen behind closed doors.
IPCC scientists remained committed
In an open letter, issued on Monday, a group of nearly 120 scientists – from a total of 664 AR7 authors – said they “stand committed to continue working to deliver the AR7 reports in a manner that is rigorous, timely and inclusive, in line with our mandate to be policy-relevant”.
“An assessment that arrives after the decisions it is meant to inform cannot serve its purpose,” they emphasised. “The second Global Stocktake in 2028 is such a decision point, and the world should not have to face it without the IPCCʼs latest assessment.”
Europe, small islands and the least developed countries, plus many Latin American and developed nations, want the IPCC to meet this deadline, arguing that the findings from the UN climate science body are irreplaceable in the UN climate policy-making process.
However, around a dozen developing countries plus Russia have argued that the reports should come later in order to allow for greater research input from the Global South – something that, in their view, would make the findings fairer. They also claim that a shorter timeline would put excessive pressure on experts.
-
Who shapes climate science? The equity question facing the IPCC
Early completion of the next global climate science assessment reports risks excluding research from the Global South, which is key to ensuring the findings are fair -
Governments that support climate science must stand firm against naysayers
The IPCC is meeting to decide the timing of its next major report, as some countries try to delay it and weaken the case for faster emissions cuts
The most vocal of this group at last week’s meeting were India and Saudi Arabia, according to the ENB summary and a developed country diplomat. Critics see this push for a longer timeline as an excuse to deprive government decision-makers of the latest science and ease pressure on emerging economies to raise their ambition, particularly on cutting emissions.
Commenting on last week’s meeting, France’s ambassador for climate negotiations Benoît Faraco said a broad coalition of developed and developing countries from all five continents, “united in their support for science and the timeline proposed by scientists”, had withstood pressure “from a few countries” seeking to slow down the process of adopting the IPCC reports.
He added that France would not back down and would “continue to fight tirelessly for science, protect the integrity of information, and convince our partners that without the best available scientific data, we will be less effective in tackling climate change and protecting our populations”.
Inclusivity proposal stalled
In a bid to unlock a solution for the AR7 timeline, countries discussed ways to improve the inclusivity of the IPCC’s work. One option put on the table was for the IPCC to expand its funding for delegates from developing countries to attend some or all of its sessions from one to two participants, according to the ENB summary and a delegate speaking to Climate Home News.
That would increase the costs for the IPCC to complete AR7 by up to a quarter, according to an assessment shared by the secretariat. The panel’s budget is under severe strain and its officials have warned that, without additional voluntary contributions, it risks running out of money before it can deliver on this assessment cycle.
Climate Home News understands that some of the IPCC’s traditional donors – which mainly include European countries, Japan and Australia – indicated a willingness to support funding for an additional developing country participant. But without an agreement over the budget or the timeline for the reports, that option was ultimately not adopted.
‘Disappointed and worried’
The three reports are managed by working groups that collate and draw overall findings from the latest scientific studies and data on the physical effects of global warming around the world, how to adapt to it, and pathways for cutting planet-heating emissions in order to meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.
Winston Chow, an urban climate professor at Singapore Management University who co-chairs Working Group II on adaptation, wrote in a LinkedIn post that he was “disappointed and worried” for the IPCC authors who have worked “extraordinarily hard” to assess the relevant climate science over the past two years.
He said he shared their concern that “the rigour, time and goodwill they’ve invested are now being put at risk by the Panel’s stalemate”.
As science comes under attack at UN talks, climate movement splits over how to respond
For Working Group II, a meeting for 250 experts writing that report is scheduled for January 2027, followed by the approval of a special report on cities and climate change in Singapore next March.
But because the IPCC’s budget has not been confirmed due to uncertainty about the AR7 schedule, travel support for those researchers is at risk, wrote Chow. “If they cannot participate, our assessments will lose vital expertise, perspectives and scientific breadth, and the collective effort of our authors will be undermined,” he warned.
Scientific work continues
Despite the political holdups, he – together with French climate scientist Robert Vautard, co-chair of Working Group 1 – agreed with IPCC head Skea who told the IPCC’s closing session on Friday: “The engine room of the IPCC is working, and it’s healthy.”
Vautard commented in a separate post on LinkedIn after it ended: “The boat is at full steam.” Working groups I and II are due to start revising the first drafts of their reports, while Working Group III on reducing emissions is finalising its first draft which will be out soon, he wrote.
“The most exciting two years of the cycle are ahead, for the authors. The momentum in the engine room is here and now. Trust the engine room!” he added.
The IPCC and some scientists report that progress has been made towards achieving an equitable balance of authors from the Global North and the Global South.
The group of researchers who signed the open letter on Monday noted that “inclusivity is at the heart of how we work”, with author teams bringing together experts from developed and developing countries with diverse backgrounds and at different stages of their careers.
Plea to overcome political differences
The signatories include several scientists from some of the countries opposed to the alignment of all IPCC reports with the Global Stocktake.
“We are committed to an assessment in which the knowledge, experience and priorities of every region are fully reflected, a commitment we share with the leadership of the IPCC.
Equity is built into how our assessment is being drafted,” they added.
They appealed to governments that make up the IPCC “to overcome their political differences and work together as we do as a global scientific community, so that we can deliver the IPCC reports the world needs to hear”.
In a statement published on Monday, IPCC chair Skea said reaching consensus on the schedule for the reports is “vital”. He added that the assessments provide authoritative scientific evidence to inform national climate policies, strengthen adaptation and resilience and support access to climate finance, as well as helping communicate the scale of the climate crisis and the urgency of efforts to tackle it.
The post IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock appeared first on Climate Home News.
IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock