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
Amazon summit leaves observers ‘frustrated’
MISSING THE TARGET: The fifth summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) took place last Friday, with the release of the Bogotá Declaration coming the next day, Agência Brasil reported. The meeting was a “platform to update the commitments of the countries” that share the Amazon rainforest, the outlet said. The declaration “emphasised the urgency of coordinated action against deforestation and biodiversity loss”, but there was an “absence of clearer targets”, which “frustrated” observers and civil-society groups. Agência Brasil also said that the “issue of energy transition and fossil-fuel exploration” was divisive at the summit.
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INDIGENOUS INCLUSION: Ahead of the meeting, Indigenous groups were “demanding that oil be left underground…[and] that the Amazon be declared the world’s first no-go zone for fossil-fuel exploration and exploitation”, EFE Verde reported. According to Stand.earth, the summit “strengthen[ed] Indigenous participation” despite “fail[ing]” to meet the fossil-fuel demands. The summit resulted in the creation of the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples Mechanism (MAPI), which Stand.earth explained “establishes a co-governance structure” for ACTO where each country is represented by both a government and an Indigenous delegate.
FUND THE FACILITY: Another element of the Bogotá Declaration was a pledge to support the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF), Climate Home News reported. The outlet added that the declaration “invites” countries to “announce substantial contributions” in order to “guarantee the fund’s quick activation”. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said: “We’re fed up with promises…I want to see who’s going to put up the money to keep the forest standing.” Meanwhile, ((o))eco reported that Brazil saw an 84% increase in international climate finance from 2019-20 to 2021-22, but forests received just 2%.
Wildfires continue to burn
NEW EU RECORD: Wildfires have ravaged more than 1m hectares in the EU in 2025, the largest area since records began in 2006, according to an analysis by Agence France-Presse. The news agency analysed data from the European Forest Fire Information System and found that Spain, Cyprus, Germany and Slovakia have been the hardest hit over the past two decades. Additionally, satellites revealed that wildfires across the Iberian peninsula released 13m tonnes of carbon dioxide this year – six times larger than 2022 levels, El Periódico reported.
HARDEST HIT: Six firefighters died while combatting “devastating wildfires exacerbated by an enduring heatwave” in Spain and Portugal, according to France24. More than 343,000 hectares were “ravage[d]” this year in Spain, setting a new national record, the outlet said. Scientists identified the primary cause of the fires in both countries as an “overabundance of flammable vegetation on abandoned land and authorities’ failure to take preventive measures,” which prompted Spain’s environmental prosecutor to initiate an “investigation into the lack of prevention plans”, Politico added.
US FIRES: Wildfires in California and Oregon led to the evacuation of thousands of homes, the Associated Press reported. In Oregon, the fire began Thursday and “grew quickly amid hot, gusty conditions”, the newswire said. A “sweltering” heatwave has hospitalised people in the western US, it added. Mongabay covered the “scientific standoff” surrounding the “active management” of forests, which consists of using controlled burning and thinning of forests to promote regeneration and resilience. It added that forest managers are “grappl[ing] with the growing effects of climate change”.
News and views
PRIVATE SECTOR CALL: Nature loss will reduce UK GDP by 5% without a “greater effort” from the private sector to halt the decline, the Guardian said. A report from the Green Finance Institute and WWF said that companies in many sectors can receive economic returns from investment in nature. The outlet noted that some businesses “are failing to reform or are unaware of the impact of their actions on nature and the climate”. The report listed suggestions for companies to take action on nature decline.
SOLAR SLOWDOWN: The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced it will “heighten scrutiny of some solar and wind projects” on farmland across the country, reported Reuters. The agency said it will stop funding larger renewable energy facilities and will not allow the use of foreign-made solar panels. Inside Climate News said the agency had expressed concern about the possible expansion of wind and solar facilities on productive farmland. However, the outlet cited a 2024 USDA analysis finding that renewables occupy 0.05% of the 897m acres of pasture and cropland in the country.
FISHERY REFORM: Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama signed a “sweeping” fisheries and aquaculture reform act into law last week that the government believes will “ensure sustainability…and better protection for the country’s fishing communities”, according to Ghana Broadcasting Corporation. One provision in the bill is an expansion of the country’s inshore exclusion zone, which prevents industrial trawling ships from encroaching on artisanal fishing grounds. News Ghana reported that the law is “designed to address EU trade sanctions”, which threaten the country’s $425m annual seafood exports.
POLARISED POLICY: A new forest land policy in the Philippines has been touted by officials as a “major shift in forest governance”, but has been questioned by civil society organisations, Mongabay reported. Under the policy, farmers are able to carry out multiple different land uses – including reforestation, ecotourism, conservation and commercial use – in designated forest areas. The secretary of the Philippines’s environment department said the reform is an attempt to “unlock the economic potential” of the country’s forests and scale up sustainable investment. The outlet said that environmental groups warned of the policy resulting in forest degradation, the displacement of Indigenous peoples and greenwashing.
PARAGUAYAN PLANTATIONS: Apple purchased carbon credits associated with the use of agrochemicals harmful to communities on eucalyptus plantations in Paraguay, a joint investigation for Consenso and Climate Tracker revealed. The investigation used documents, field visits and satellite images to show that the forestry company selling these carbon credits does not “comply with agrochemical regulations”. It added that eucalyptus monocultures cover more than 300,000 hectares in Paraguay. Residents have pointed out the risks of wildfire due to “persistent drought” conditions in the country over the past five years. Apple had not responded to the allegations at the time of the investigation’s publication.
Spotlight
Extreme heat could triple lost work hours by century’s end
This week, Carbon Brief covers a new UN-backed report that examines the impacts of climate change on labour productivity and health.
Manual labourers, such as farmworkers and fisherfolk, are “already” being impacted by rising temperatures, according to two UN agencies.
A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) examined the effects of climate change on heat stress in the workplace and offered technical guidance for employers, workers and policymakers.
The report called occupational heat stress a “global societal challenge”.
It also noted that both the direct and indirect impacts of environmental heat stress will worsen and spread geographically as the world continues to warm.
In a press conference prior to the release of the report, Dr Rüdiger Krech, interim director of the WHO’s environment, climate change and migration programme, said the report offered the “most comprehensive evidence yet on how rising temperatures are harming workers”.
‘Adverse consequences’
In 1969, the WHO published a technical report on the potential health threats of working under environmental heat stress. The report concluded that “knowledge relating to occupational heat exposures is inadequate in many respects”. It recommended several priorities for further research.
The new report updated the 1969 report with decades’ worth of research showing that workplace heat stress “directly threatens workers’ ability to live healthy and productive lives and leads subsequently to worsening poverty and socioeconomic inequality”.
It found that around half of the global population currently experiences “adverse consequences of high environmental temperatures”. Agricultural work is “often regarded as [one of] the highest-risk occupations” for work-related heat illness, it said.
Farmworkers typically work with little or no shade during the hottest hours of the day. Some groups of agricultural workers – such as those who manually spray pesticides or other agrochemicals – face added risk of heat stress due to the protective gear that they must wear.
The report warned that, while several early warning systems are in place to protect people during heatwaves, these systems may not be adequate to protect workers, who differ in their exposure to heat and their ability to adapt.
Raising the risk
The new report also examined the changing risks of occupational heat exposure in the context of climate change.
Citing the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it noted that each additional 0.5C of warming “significantly raises the risk of longer and more severe heatwaves”. The largest relative shifts will take place in the temperate mid-latitudes, but the frequency of dangerous events will also increase in the tropics, which have the “greatest workplace heat stress problems at present”.
Under the emissions scenario that aligns with current national climate policies, the worst-affected countries will face annual work hour losses of up to 11% by the end of the century – up from 2-4% today, the report said.
Previous research has found that 3C of warming could reduce global labour capacity by up to 50%, driving up food prices and requiring higher levels of agricultural employment to make up the shortfall.
Krech told the press conference:
“Protecting workers from extreme heat is not only a health priority, it is essential to building resilient, equal and sustainable societies in a warming world.”
Watch, read, listen
ACCESS ISSUES: Civil Eats covered a group in northern California that works to bridge the gap between emergency-relief organisations and local food-systems workers during emergencies.
DELVING INTO THE DEPTHS: NPR Shortwave addressed the importance of mapping the entire seafloor for “improving human life”, from tsunami alerts through to renewable energy.
CONSEQUENCES IN CALIFORNIA: A California state legislator and the president of the California Farm Bureau wrote in the New York Times how immigration raids on farmworkers increase food waste and drive up prices.
‘MESSY GARDENS’: A CBC News video explored how having a “messy garden” can bring benefits for biodiversity and contribute to mitigating climate change.
New science
- A study published in One Earth found that the “planetary boundary” of ecosystem integrity may have already been breached on up to 60% of the Earth’s land surface. Researchers modelled ecological disruption and found that 38% of the Earth is “already at high risk of degradation”.
- Research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that if global temperatures rise 2.3C above pre-industrial temperatures, soil bacterial and fungal diversity would be reduced by 16 and 19%, respectively. It also found that soil organic carbon would drop by 18% under that level of warming.
- Eating a diet of biodiverse, plant-based foods can have “modest benefits” for both sufficient nutrition and environmental health, according to new research published in Nature Food. The study found that diversity of animal-sourced foods was inversely associated with both greenhouse gas emissions and land use.
In the diary
- 18-29 August: Second session of the preparatory commission for the Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction | New York
- 31 August-5 September: Africa Food Systems Summit | Dakar, Senegal
- 2-5 September: Subregional dialogue on biodiversity monitoring and reporting | Bangkok, Thailand
- 14-18 September: International Mountain Conference | Innsbruck, Austria
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 27 August 2025: ‘Frustrating’ Amazon summit; Workplace heat hazards; Record European wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
June Rubis is a steering group committee member for the Cali Fund, from Sarawak in Malaysian Borneo.
At COP16 in Cali, governments made a significant commitment: at least half of the funding from the new Cali Fund should support the self-identified needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including women and youth. It was a watershed moment for multilateral benefit-sharing.
The challenge now is to translate that commitment into access arrangements that recognise the different institutions, priorities and decision-making processes of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
For generations, biodiversity and traditional Indigenous knowledge have provided significant value to companies who depend on nature’s genetic diversity to discover new drugs that fight diseases, create products that improve health, and grow crops resilient to extreme heat and flooding events. While some compounds are sampled directly from the source country, increasingly the digital blueprints are held in online public databases which are freely accessible to use for innovation and research.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
The Cali Fund was established at COP16 to encourage commercial users of Digital Sequence Information, or DSI, to share benefits arising from its use. Estimates suggest it could generate over $3.5 billion a year – a stark contrast to the modest $10,656 currently committed to the fund from just five SMEs, underlining how much progress must be made at COP17 over the next two weeks.
The COP16 decision that set up the fund offers two routes for money to reach Indigenous Peoples and local communities: through government authorities, and through direct payments to institutions identified by Indigenous Peoples and local communities themselves.
Varied ways of organising
Indigenous Peoples and local communities organise through a wide range of institutions. Some have national or regional organisations experienced in managing international grants. Others work through territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations, cooperatives or networks. Some have professional finance teams and audited accounts; others have extensive experience governing territories, collective resources or conservation work without having been organised around international funding requirements.
For direct access, some questions are already apparent. Which institutions should be able to receive funds? How should they be identified? What fiduciary standards should apply? How should safeguards and accountability work where institutional capacities differ? What support may be needed where institutions have strong community mandates but less experience with international finance?
Comment: Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity
If access is designed mainly around institutions that already meet the expectations of large international finance mechanisms, early funding will tend to favour those already familiar to funders. They will gain further experience and become better positioned for future funding, while institutions with less administrative capacity may remain outside the system despite strong community mandates and long histories of stewardship.
These first decisions matter most, because they set the terms for everyone who follows.
The role of intermediaries requires care. Some Indigenous organisations may want a fiscal host to hold and manage funds on their behalf. Communities may choose to work through an NGO they trust. Government-facilitated arrangements may work well in particular national contexts.
What matters is the function an intermediary performs and the authority that comes with it. Providing administrative support is different from deciding which Indigenous organisations qualify, which priorities can receive support, or how success will be assessed. Direct access means communities keep that decision-making authority.
Decision-making power
The COP16 decision refers to institutions that Indigenous Peoples and local communities identify. But authority among Indigenous Peoples does not sit in one kind of body. It may sit with territorial organisations, customary institutions, community associations or combinations of these. Legal recognition and customary authority do not always align neatly.
Global deforestation slowed in 2025 but Brazil’s election could undo “fragile” gains
An important feature of the Cali Fund’s governance is that Indigenous Peoples and local communities participate as full members of the Steering Committee, rather than as observers. Seven Indigenous Peoples and local community representatives, one from each of the seven socio-cultural regions, participate in consensus-based decision-making alongside representatives of governments and UN entities. Six additional representatives from civil society, scientific institutions and the private sector participate as observers.
That representation carries responsibility. Institutional legitimacy, access and representation take different forms across the seven socio-cultural regions. Indigenous Peoples and local communities members therefore have an important role in bringing those differences into the Fund’s governance and in ensuring that arrangements developed for one context do not become the assumed model for everyone else.
Safeguards and clear responsibilities
COP17 can establish the core principles and direction, while allowing operational pathways to develop in ways that respond to different regional contexts. The decisions countries take in Yerevan will shape how that flexibility is realised in practice.
The choices made around access will influence which institutions are able to participate, which routes become established and which forms of authority are recognised within the funding architecture. The aim should be an architecture with enough structure to maintain confidence while allowing for different forms of Indigenous and community governance.
A credible direct-access pathway will need safeguards, financial oversight and clear responsibilities. This would give the 50% commitment a stronger institutional foundation.
The Cali Fund’s importance will ultimately depend not only on how much funding reaches Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but on whether they are able to determine how the money is accessed, governed and used. This requires access pathways that recognise their institutions, priorities and decision-making processes, rather than requiring them to conform to a single predetermined model.
The post COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP17 must settle who decides how Cali Fund money is disbursed
The UK government has approved extraction at the Jackdaw gas field in the North Sea, despite acknowledging that this decision could make it harder for Britain to convince other countries to move away from fossil fuel production.
UK energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved the drilling on Wednesday after months of high-profile debate, fuelled in part by interventions from US President Donald Trump. She argued that the project would boost energy security in the wake of the Middle East fossil fuel crisis, protect hundreds of jobs and add £2.9 billion ($3.88bn) to the UK economy.
She said Jackdaw’s gas would be cleaner than imported gas and would not prevent the UK from meeting its legally-binding carbon targets and its goal of net zero by 2050. As the field is already licensed, she said extraction was consistent with the Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto promise not to issue any new oil and gas licenses.
The same morning, the government announced a new Energy Wealth Fund to reinvest oil and gas revenues in the climate transition. It will start with £2 billion ($2.67bn) from the government and be topped up over time with tax revenues from offshore oil and gas production.
Climate campaigners in the UK and abroad were quick to condemn the decision, while a leading legal expert told Climate Home News it goes against the advice of the International Court of Justice. Meanwhile, the government’s own documents reveal that it recognises the drilling could damage the UK’s reputation and its ability to push forward the global transition away from fossil fuels.
“Climate leadership” blow
The 92-page decision document says Fahnbulleh “acknowledges that international standing on climate is important and accepts that a decision to grant consent may not further the UK’s international climate leadership.”
It adds: “She acknowledges concerns about the potential implications for the UK’s credibility and influence – including the difficulty inherent in encouraging other states to move away from fossil fuel production while the UK continues, in a limited and transitional way, to draw on its own domestic resources.”
While noting that Jackdaw has not been issued with a new license – just permission to extract gas – the document says Fahnbulleh “accepts this does not fully resolve the underlying tension in the UK’s position” but “considers this alongside the substance of the UK’s wider record [on emissions reduction], which remains significant”.
It continues that she accepts these concerns are “legitimate” and weigh against approving gas extraction, but only gives this argument a “moderate negative weight” set against the benefits of gas production.
“Huge” wrong signal
In international climate talks, the UK has long supported the transition away from fossil fuels and is one of very few major oil and gas producers to ban new licenses. Across the North Sea, the Norwegian government continues to make offshore areas available for oil and gas exploration through annual licensing rounds.
Climate experts and campaigners shared the concern, acknowledged in the decision document, that approving Jackdaw could set a precedent for fossil fuel production elsewhere. Sam Fankhauser, professor of climate change economics at Oxford University, said the direct climate impact of Jackdaw is “much smaller than the debate around it would suggest” but the “wrong signal it sends, however, is huge”.
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