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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

Europe focuses on biodiversity

‘WORSE THAN TERRORISM’: Climate change and biodiversity loss pose a more “fundamental threat” to the UK than terrorism or Vladimir Putin, UK foreign secretary David Lammy said in his first major policy address, the Independent reported. Giving a speech at London’s Kew Gardens, Lammy said that climate change and biodiversity loss “may not feel as urgent as a terrorist or an imperialist autocrat”, but they are “more fundamental…systemic…pervasive…and accelerating towards us”, the Independent said. The Financial Times said that Lammy pledged that climate change and biodiversity loss would be “central to all the Foreign Office does”, and that he will create “special representatives” in each area. The Guardian noted this will be the first time the UK has appointed a special envoy for nature.

RISE OF RIBERA: Elsewhere, Teresa Ribera, Spain’s ecological transition minister, has been appointed as EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen’s second-in-command, with a “vast portfolio” including climate and competition policy, Politico reported. The Guardian said that the “outspoken” Ribera is to become one of six vice-presidents in the incoming EU executive led by von der Leyen, which is expected to start work at the end of the year. Euronews said that green activists have “breathed a sigh of relief” at the appointment.

AGRICULTURE COMMISSIONER: Von der Leyen has also appointed a new agricultural commissioner in Christophe Hansen, a Luxembourg MP from the centre-right Christian Social People’s party, the Irish Independent reported. According to the newspaper, von der Leyen has given Hansen “100 days to prepare a vision for the EU agriculture and food sectors”, tasking him with ensuring they are both competitive and “within the boundaries of our planet”. Portuguese news agency Lusa said that Portuguese farmers have “high expectations” that Hansen will prioritise the needs of agricultural workers. Elsewhere, DeSmog has mapped “Ireland’s powerful farming lobby”.

Australia’s deforestation hotspots

OUTLIERS: A new report from the environment and heritage department of the New South Wales government found that more than 45,000 hectares of native vegetation were cleared in 2022 to make way for farming, infrastructure and other projects. Nathaniel Pelle, a campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation, told the Sydney Morning Herald that Australia is an “outlier among wealthy countries for forest loss”. He added: “Europe has been historically cleared, Canada has been historically cleared, the US and Australia have been historically cleared, but what separates us from them is that we’re still doing it.” Deforestation in the state is “among [the] worst in the world”, the newspaper wrote.

‘ZOMBIE INDUSTRY’: The report showed that land clearing has been on the rise since 2015, when the previous government announced upcoming changes to its land-clearing laws, the outlet said. In a separate article, the Sydney Morning Herald called logging in the neighbouring state of Victoria the “‘zombie’ industry that won’t die”. According to the newspaper, “commercial logging officially ended” on 1 January, but timber mills “continue to process native hardwood timbers” – sourced from private landowners and from the government’s “fuel-reduction” wildfire-prevention strategies. The outlet wrote: “Environment groups say logging is now taking place without proper planning or oversight, leaving threatened species at risk.”

EPA ON THE AGENDA: Despite promises to “develop new nature legislation” and put nature “back on the priority list”, Australia’s Labor government – elected in May 2022 – “has not lived up to…early rhetoric” around nature protection, Adam Morton wrote in a column for the Guardian. Morton noted that the push to create a national environment agency, Environment Protection Australia, “look[s] to be in trouble”, as deals with either the Greens or the Coalition look unlikely. Writing in the Conversation, environmental-law expert Dr Justine Bell-James said: “All this is bad news for our threatened species and sick ecosystems. We know what needs to be done. But our government is showing worrying signs of letting industry and developers control their environmental agenda.”

Spotlight

Humans and polar bears collide at Earth’s Arctic research hub 

In this spotlight, Carbon Brief reports from the Earth’s most-northerly human settlement, which is increasingly facing polar bear encounters amid rapid Arctic change.

Ask anyone living and working in Ny-Ålesund – the Earth’s most northern human settlement, located on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean – what they perceive to be the number one threat to their safety and they will each offer the same answer: polar bears.

A little more than 1,200km from the North Pole, the tiny Arctic town of Ny-Ålesund started life as a coal mining district in the early 20th century, but today operates solely as an international climate research hub, hosting about 60 scientists at its busiest time in the summer months.

The vast Arctic wilderness surrounding the town is home to one of the world’s largest permanent polar bear populations. 

Protective measures

Ever since Ny-Ålesund’s inception, the company running logistics in the town has implemented strict protocols with the aim of protecting people from polar bears.

The few roads leading out of town are marked with polar bear hazard signs. Nearly every communal building in the town carries posters with instructions of what to do in the event of a polar bear sighting.

When researchers go out into the field to carry out their research, at least one of them must act as a “polar bear guard” – meaning they need to pass shooting practice and carry a rifle in case they need to kill a bear in an emergency.

“We are entering a habitat that is not ours,” Dorothea Moser, an ice cores researcher with the British Antarctic Survey, the UK’s polar research institute, told Carbon Brief. “With polar bear protection, we’re trying to protect both us as researchers and the polar bear.”

A sign reads"Stop, Polar bear danger" sign."

As part of the protective measures when out in the field, guards carry binoculars and constantly scan the environment around them. If they spot a bear on the horizon, the research team will immediately leave the area and notify the town.

If a polar bear is spotted within contact distance – the animals can run at speeds up to 25 miles per hour – then researchers will let off a flare in an attempt to scare it away.

“We can defend ourselves with flares, we’re scaring away the polar bear and creating more space between us in a defensive way,” Moser added. “Of course, we also have to carry a weapon, but we hope that we never have to use it. In the past 30 years, we have not had any lethal encounters.”

Rapid change

These strict measures have protected both scientists and bears for decades in Ny-Ålesund, but rapid change in the region could threaten this delicate balance.

Svalbard bears were nearly hunted to extinction in the 20th century. However, a ban was put in place in 1973, which saw numbers recover. Now, the Beaufort Sea subpopulation, which includes Svalbard bears, is considered “stable”.

However, climate change is causing Svalbard’s environment to shift rapidly, with temperatures rising seven times faster than the global average.

Rapid warming has had a devastating impact on sea ice, which blankets the Arctic Ocean in the cooler winter months before shrinking back at the height of summer. As the Earth warms, the extent of the sea ice in summer is becoming smaller every year.

This is a problem for polar bears, which use sea ice to hunt seals, their main source of prey. Research has found that the disappearance of sea ice is forcing bears to search further afield for food, sometimes bringing them closer towards human settlements.

Ingrid Kjerstad, research coordinator at the Norwegian Polar Institute in Ny-Ålesund, which oversees all scientific research in the town, told Carbon Brief that their records show the number of polar bears coming into contact with humans in the region has increased in recent years.

An increase in human-bear encounters is a worry for both researchers and wildlife. Although scientists in Ny-Ålesund have avoided shooting a bear, there have been several lethal incidents involving both human and animal fatalities in Svalbard’s capital of Longyearbyen.

The evidence of more human-bear encounters in Ny-Ålesund is still “anecdotal” and has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed science journal, Kjerstad added, but is yet another sign of how rapid environmental change is transforming life at Earth’s northern edge.

News and views

BIODIVERSITY FINANCE: Funding to help developing nations address biodiversity loss grew by more than $4bn in 2022, but mostly in the form of loans, rather than grants, according to new figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported by Climate Home News. The OECD report, which analysed the period from 2015 to 2022, showed that biodiversity funding grew from $11.1bn in 2021 to $15.4bn in 2022. Climate Home News added that the increase came largely from multilateral institutions – mainly development banks – which increased their funding from $2.7bn in 2021 to $5.7bn in 2022, “mostly by offering concessional loans, which are cheaper than borrowing on commercial terms”.

DAM IT: Dams around the world will struggle to cope with increasingly common severe rainfall, “leading to an increased likelihood of failure and risk of catastrophic flooding”, according to two researchers at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. They added that “it is not clear what climate and hydrological data was used to design” most of the world’s dams and spillways. Covering the IHE Delft commentary, Sudanese outlet Dabanga wrote that, due to a lack of preventative maintenance, the Jebel Aulia dam south of Khartoum “may lead to a failed agricultural season” this winter. It added: “A collapse of the dam also threatens people in Khartoum.”

CALI INCOMING: The COP16 nature summit will be a key “political moment and a very important moment for biodiversity”, UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker told a press conference on 23 September. Unlike the previous summit, a number of high-profile politicians are due to attend the upcoming talks in Cali, Colombia – including Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Mexico’s president-elect, Dr Claudia Sheinbaum. There will also be a “very strong presence” of Indigenous peoples at the talks, Colombia’s environment minister, Susana Muhamad, told the press briefing. Muhamad also called on richer countries to put more money into the dedicated fund to support biodiversity goals. Meanwhile, Carbon Brief has updated its interactive tracker of national biodiversity strategies and action plans to include new submissions.

ECOCIDE RECOGNITION: Vanuatu has renewed its push to recognise “ecocide” – “the severe and reckless destruction of nature” – under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Pacific Island News Association reported. The Pacific nation first proposed the addition of ecocide in 2019, the news outlet said, and its bid received a boost from a 2021 independent expert report that “outlined the legal framework for ecocide”. The article quoted Vanuatu’s UN ambassador, Odo Tevi, who said that existing laws protecting nature “are insufficient” and that the definition should “focu[s] on the severity of the outcome rather than specific prohibited behaviours”.

SHAPE UP OR SHIP OUT: Drought in South America is forcing grain shippers “to look for alternatives” as the water level on the Paraná River has dropped precipitously, the Argentine trade publication ArgenPorts reported. Argentine officials noted that while water levels are far below normal at present, the effects of the drought “will not be as cruel and harsh as the one that occurred from 2020 to 2022”. Elsewhere, the “unprecedented drought” in Ecuador has led to “mass power cuts”, forest fires and the declaration of a “red alert” in several parts of the country, according to MercoPress.

Watch, read, listen

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: In Scientific American, science historian Prof Naomi Oreskes argued that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault “illustrate[s] why we need to prevent climate disaster rather than plan for it”.

HISTORY REPEATS: Nigeria’s the Cable examined how a burst dam that displaced 400,000 people in Borno state 30 years ago has flooded once again amid extreme rainfall in the country.

CONTINUED STRUGGLE: Despite legal wins across the world, Indigenous peoples still face evictions from their lands and struggle to obtain the reparations promised to them, a Mongabay investigation found.

PESTICIDE LOOPHOLE: An investigation by Unearthed alleged that companies are exploiting loopholes in France’s landmark pesticide ban to ship growing amounts of harmful chemicals overseas.

New science

  • Extreme permafrost thaw could lead to a “rapid intensification” of wildfires in western Siberia and Canada, said research in Nature Communications. Using a wide range of climate simulations, the study found that warming-driven rapid permafrost thaw could lead to “massive soil drying, surface warming and reduction of relative humidity”, which could in turn boost fires.
  • Prioritising boosting carbon stores on agricultural land could draw down as much CO2 as global tree-planting by 2050 and provide farmers with hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefits, a new Nature Food study found. The authors used an economic land-use model to project how boosting carbon in agriculture could benefit producers and the planet.
  • New research in Environmental Research Letters found that the number of heatwave days affecting global cropland will increase nearly 4.5-fold by the end of the century under a medium-emissions scenario. Using observational data and climate models, researchers found “consistent increases” in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves affecting croplands in the future.

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 25 September 2024: Biodiversity loss ‘worse than terrorism’; Human-polar bear conflict; Australia’s ‘zombie’ forestry appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 25 September 2024: Biodiversity loss ‘worse than terrorism’; Human-polar bear conflict; Australia’s ‘zombie’ forestry

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Coles, Woolworths failing on deforestation commitments 

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SYDNEY, Wednesday 26 August 2026 — New 2026 Sustainability Reports released by supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths this week demonstrate the retailers are failing on their commitments to end deforestation in their supply chains.

Adele Chasson, Nature Policy Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said:

“These so-called sustainability reports are revealing. Despite their public commitments in 2024 and 2025, neither Coles nor Woolworths have taken deforestation-linked beef off their shelves. Meanwhile, bulldozers continue to tear up forests and bushland, pushing wildlife closer to extinction and causing mass toxic runoff to flow into the Great Barrier Reef. Millions of native animals like koalas are losing their homes to beef pastures each year, while the big supermarkets put off action.

“Australians would be shocked to know that beef on the shelves of our biggest supermarkets could be pushing threatened species to the brink of extinction. Collectively Coles and Woolworths have made more than $2 billion in profits in the last year, profiting from the destruction of wildlife and precious Australian nature. Coles and Woolworths owe it to shoppers to deliver on their promises and end deforestation in their supply chains now.

“As big beef buyers, Coles and Woolworths have an essential role to play in keeping Australia’s unique forests standing. They can help stop the Great Barrier Reef from being poisoned by runoff and protect iconic forest wildlife by taking deforestation off their shelves. It’s time these big companies put their money where their mouths are and follow through on their promise of sourcing and supplying deforestation-free beef.”

Coles, Woolworths failing on deforestation commitments 

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New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation

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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.

    New Zealand moves to protect business with law curtailing climate litigation

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

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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.

        The post Indonesia’s nickel production cuts are not enough to create a sustainable industry  appeared first on Climate Home News.

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

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