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
Trump takes office
ENVIRONMENTAL ORDERS: In his first week in office, US president Donald Trump signed “a flurry of executive orders with implications for Earth’s climate and environment”, the Associated Press reported. Among the orders were one directing the US to withdraw once again from the Paris Agreement and another stating “that the Endangered Species Act cannot be an obstacle to energy development”. He also signed one “halting new federal leases for offshore wind projects”, citing the impacts of offshore wind projects on marine life, according to WBUR. The outlet carried an article refuting the president’s claims.
CORN CAUTION: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump’s nominee for head of the Department of Health and Human Services, is raising alarm in the country’s cornbelt, the Guardian reported. The outlet explained that “Kennedy has vowed to ban high fructose corn syrup and seed oils, a move that would significantly reduce demand for a host of crops”. Vox covered the shift in political alignment for Kennedy, who was once an environmental lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Vox wrote that “his migration to the far right…[is] part of a much broader shift in the environmental movement”.
FUNDING FREEZE: On Monday, the National Science Foundation abruptly cancelled grant-review panels, a move that “sparked confusion among panellists” and researchers alike, according to NPR. The outlet added that “delays in grant approval inevitably mean delays in funding research”. Later that day, a leaked memo from the Office of Management and Budget ordered a pause in all federal grant funding. It “specifically targeted many large federal energy and climate programmes in its sweeping freeze and review of grant funding”, Heatmap reported. The targeted programmes include conservation payments from the US Department of Agriculture and climate and atmospheric research under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A federal judge temporarily blocked the order before it could go into effect on Tuesday, the Washington Post said.
UK’s nature decline
OFF-TARGET: A new report from the UK’s Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) found that the government “is falling short” on meeting its legally binding environmental targets, the Guardian said. The report also highlighted that “the window to stop the decline of England’s nature is swiftly closing”. Separately, the Guardian reported that UK ministers dropped a bill that would have made the country’s international commitments on climate and environment, such as those made at COP, legally binding.
OFFSETTING EXPANSION: Carbon Brief analysis found that the UK would need to plant a forest “twice the size of Greater London” to offset the emissions that would result from the proposed expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports. Operations at these airports would add 92m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) into the atmosphere by 2050, if companies meet their flight targets, the analysis found. The environment minister backed the expansion of the airports, saying mitigation measures can offset the environmental impacts, the Times noted.
FUNDING INFRASTRUCTURE: The UK government announced a new nature-restoration fund, aimed at accelerating new infrastructure projects by allowing developers “to meet their environmental obligations faster”. The fund will cover a range of projects, such as new wind farms, railways, roads and data centres across the country. Currently, builders must comply with their environmental obligations on a project-by-project basis, but the new fund will “[pool] contributions…to fund larger interventions for nature”, the government added. However, environmental groups are concerned about this reform’s environmental impacts, saying “high carbon infrastructure such as airport expansion” could also be covered by the bill, Business Green reported.
Spotlight
Colombia’s land reform conference
At the UN biodiversity summit in October, Carbon Brief interviewed Nury Martínez, president of the Colombian farmers’ organisation Fensuagro. She is also a member of the South America coordinating committee of Vía Campesina, a global organisation representing more than 200 million peasants in 80 countries.
Martínez told Carbon Brief about the main expectations of the peasant movement for the second conference on agrarian reform and rural development, which will address farmers’ demands to access and work larger swathes of land. It will take place in Colombia during the first quarter of 2026.
This second conference will take stock of the first one, held in 2006, which delivered a set of voluntary guidelines for governance and land tenure, and will discuss a new agrarian reform.
What does the proposed agrarian reform consist of?
Land must fulfil a social function. That’s why we say that land is for those who work it – because there are large tracts of land where the owners don’t use it, or [they] have extensive livestock where a cow has four or five hectares and we have no land to produce food.
We propose an integral and popular agrarian reform because we believe that it goes beyond access to land, [but also includes] access to the goods of nature, such as water, seeds, access to territories…[We want] to stop the hoarding [of land] in the hands of a few.
What would be the result of these agrarian reforms? Transforming the way in which food is being produced for the world?
We say strengthen peasant production because we have always produced without chemicals. We are making the transition to agroecology, to rescuing culture and ancestral knowledge. [But] you can’t do agroecology if you don’t have land, territory.
We are proposing food sovereignty because we consider food [to be] a human right. [Also] access to technical assistance, fair commercialisation and [strengthening of] local markets.
Would agrarian reform be implemented at the global level, or only in Colombia?
The second conference will be held in Colombia in the first quarter of 2026, but it is a global event, with the participation of more or less 119 countries that are part of the United Nations.
The countries supported it being in Colombia because the Colombian government is implementing the National Agrarian Reform System. Right now we are having the possibility of access to land after more than 100 years.
News and views
‘NEW PHASE’ OF BIRD FLU: Bird flu is forcing farmers to slaughter their flocks, contributing to a doubling in the price of US eggs since 2023, Associated Press reported. The current outbreak, which started in 2022, has led to the killing of more than 145m of chickens, turkeys and other birds, the newswire noted. The New York Times said the outbreak, which has worsened over the past weeks, has “enter[ed] a new phase”, with some cattle suffering from reinfection. The outlet pointed out that since the virus first struck cattle last year, more than 900 herds and dozens of people have been infected, with one person dying as a result.
TRACEABILITY IN BRAZIL: Brazil’s government will begin to implement a “cattle traceability” system that will be mandatory as of 2027 and must be fully operational by 2032, Infobae reported. The system will “monitor and record the history, location and trajectory of each identified animal” to meet “the health requirements of international markets”, the outlet added. Elsewhere, Reuters reported that the governor of Mato Grosso, one of the largest farming states in Brazil, is set to veto a bill that “sought to weaken protections for endangered biomes”, including the Amazon.
PACIFIC PROTECTION: The Pacific island nation of the Marshall Islands announced its first-ever marine protected area (MPA), Oceanographic Magazine reported. The marine sanctuary will cover 48,000 square kilometres of “the most pristine ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean”, said National Geographic Pristine Seas, an initiative focused on ocean conservation that helped provide the scientific basis for establishing the MPA. The area will “be fully protected from fishing” and will be managed with “special emphasis on traditional knowledge and Indigenous insights”, the outlet wrote.
FIRES AND FOOD: Prospect Magazine wrote that “the insidious effects [of climate change] on global food production and security are barely mentioned” in discussions of the recent LA wildfires. It added that extreme weather’s impacts on crops “can be seen the world over”. Meanwhile, Trump issued an executive order to ignore existing regulations and deliver more water from California’s Central Valley, CalMatters reported. The outlet wrote that “Trump cited the Los Angeles fires [as justification], even though the actions he is ordering…would primarily serve farms”.
COURTING CONSERVATION: Nepal’s supreme court struck down a controversial new law that would allow infrastructure development – “such as hydropower plants, hotels and railway lines” – in protected areas, Mongabay reported. The outlet called the decision “one of the most important in Nepal’s conservation history”. Paraphrasing one judge’s arguments, Mongabay wrote: “It would be wrong to pit development and environment against each other by adhering to the belief that development can take place only when there’s damage to the environment.”
Watch, read, listen
MASS MORTALITY: The New Republic looked at the growing phenomenon of mass animal die-offs and what these events can teach scientists about resilience.
UNITED FOR A RIVER: This Scroll.in video showed how people are leading conservation of southern India’s Jatari river, which is home to unique flora and fauna species.
FARMERS’ LAWSUIT: A comment piece in Nature broke down a lawsuit filed by Swiss farmers suing their government to strengthen climate action.
OLD SOLUTION: A Grist story explored how farmers in the UK and US use the ancient practice of gleaning – collecting leftover crops after the harvest – to cut food waste.
New science
- Fertiliser use has a “large and significant negative effect” on the diversity of pollinators and flowering plants in a grassland ecosystem, according to new research published in npj Biodiversity. The authors wrote that the results of the two-year study “strongly suggest that financial incentives are necessary to offset yield reductions to improve biodiversity outcomes in agricultural grasslands”.
- A study in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B detailed a new metric for assessing the impact of land-use change on species extinctions. The researchers say the maps can be used to “estimate the impact on extinctions of diverse actions that affect change in land cover, from individual dietary choices through to global protected area development”.
- New research in Nature Ecology and Evolution analysed data from 2.2m records of plant species from 1921 to 2021 and found that plant collections grown in botanical gardens have significant constraints with implications for conservation, such as limited growth. The study stresses the “urgent need” for re-evaluating biodiversity management in botanical gardens to fulfil their conservation goals.
In the diary
- 2 February: World Wetlands Day
- 3-8 February: Meeting of the standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) | Geneva
- 25-27 February: Resumed session of the UN biodiversity summit COP16 | Rome
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 29 January 2025: Trump takes office; UK nature ‘falling short’; Egg prices soar appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 29 January 2025: Trump takes office; UK nature ‘falling short’; Egg prices soar
Drought and heatwaves occurring together – known as “compound” events – have “surged” across the world since the early 2000s, a new study shows.
Compound drought and heat events (CDHEs) can have devastating effects, creating the ideal conditions for intense wildfires, such as Australia’s “Black Summer” of 2019-20 where bushfires burned 24m hectares and killed 33 people.
The research, published in Science Advances, finds that the increase in CDHEs is predominantly being driven by events that start with a heatwave.
The global area affected by such “heatwave-led” compound events has more than doubled between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, the study says.
The rapid increase in these events over the last 23 years cannot be explained solely by global warming, the authors note.
Since the late 1990s, feedbacks between the land and the atmosphere have become stronger, making heatwaves more likely to trigger drought conditions, they explain.
One of the study authors tells Carbon Brief that societies must pay greater attention to compound events, which can “cause severe impacts on ecosystems, agriculture and society”.
Compound events
CDHEs are extreme weather events where drought and heatwave conditions occur simultaneously – or shortly after each other – in the same region.
These events are often triggered by large-scale weather patterns, such as “blocking” highs, which can produce “prolonged” hot and dry conditions, according to the study.
Prof Sang-Wook Yeh is one of the study authors and a professor at the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When heatwaves and droughts occur together, the two hazards reinforce each other through land-atmosphere interactions. This amplifies surface heating and soil moisture deficits, making compound events more intense and damaging than single hazards.”
CDHEs can begin with either a heatwave or a drought.
The sequence of these extremes is important, the study says, as they have different drivers and impacts.
For example, in a CDHE where the heatwave was the precursor, increased direct sunshine causes more moisture loss from soils and plants, leading to a drought.
Conversely, in an event where the drought was the precursor, the lack of soil moisture means that less of the sun’s energy goes into evaporation and more goes into warming the Earth’s surface. This produces favourable conditions for heatwaves.
The study shows that the majority of CDHEs globally start out as a drought.
In recent years, there has been increasing focus on these events due to the devastating impact they have on agriculture, ecosystems and public health.
In Russia in the summer of 2010, a compound drought-heatwave event – and the associated wildfires – caused the death of nearly 55,000 people, the study notes.
The record-breaking Pacific north-west “heat dome” in 2021 triggered extreme drought conditions that caused “significant declines” in wheat yields, as well as in barley, canola and fruit production in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, says the study.
Increasing events
To assess how CDHEs are changing, the researchers use daily reanalysis data to identify droughts and heatwaves events. (Reanalysis data combines past observations with climate models to create a historical climate record.) Then, using an algorithm, they analyse how these events overlap in both time and space.
The study covers the period from 1980 to 2023 and the world’s land surface, excluding polar regions where CDHEs are rare.
The research finds that the area of land affected by CDHEs has “increased substantially” since the early 2000s.
Heatwave-led events have been the main contributor to this increase, the study says, with their spatial extent rising 110% between 1980-2001 and 2002-23, compared to a 59% increase for drought-led events.
The map below shows the global distribution of CDHEs over 1980-2023. The charts show the percentage of the land surface affected by a heatwave-led CDHE (red) or a drought-led CDHE (yellow) in a given year (left) and relative increase in each CDHE type (right).
The study finds that CDHEs have occurred most frequently in northern South America, the southern US, eastern Europe, central Africa and south Asia.
Threshold passed
The authors explain that the increase in heatwave-led CDHEs is related to rising global temperatures, but that this does not tell the whole story.
In the earlier 22-year period of 1980-2001, the study finds that the spatial extent of heatwave-led CDHEs rises by 1.6% per 1C of global temperature rise. For the more-recent period of 2022-23, this increases “nearly eightfold” to 13.1%.
The change suggests that the rapid increase in the heatwave-led CDHEs occurred after the global average temperature “surpasse[d] a certain temperature threshold”, the paper says.
This threshold is an absolute global average temperature of 14.3C, the authors estimate (based on an 11-year average), which the world passed around the year 2000.
Investigating the recent surge in heatwave-leading CDHEs further, the researchers find a “regime shift” in land-atmosphere dynamics “toward a persistently intensified state after the late 1990s”.
In other words, the way that drier soils drive higher surface temperatures, and vice versa, is becoming stronger, resulting in more heatwave-led compound events.
Daily data
The research has some advantages over other previous studies, Yeh says. For instance, the new work uses daily estimations of CDHEs, compared to monthly data used in past research. This is “important for capturing the detailed occurrence” of these events, says Yeh.
He adds that another advantage of their study is that it distinguishes the sequence of droughts and heatwaves, which allows them to “better understand the differences” in the characteristics of CDHEs.
Dr Meryem Tanarhte is a climate scientist at the University Hassan II in Morocco, and Dr Ruth Cerezo Mota is a climatologist and a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Both scientists, who were not involved in the study, agree that the daily estimations give a clearer picture of how CDHEs are changing.
Cerezo-Mota adds that another major contribution of the study is its global focus. She tells Carbon Brief that in some regions, such as Mexico and Africa, there is a lack of studies on CDHEs:
“Not because the events do not occur, but perhaps because [these regions] do not have all the data or the expertise to do so.”
However, she notes that the reanalysis data used by the study does have limitations with how it represents rainfall in some parts of the world.
Compound impacts
The study notes that if CDHEs continue to intensify – particularly events where heatwaves are the precursors – they could drive declining crop productivity, increased wildfire frequency and severe public health crises.
These impacts could be “much more rapid and severe as global warming continues”, Yeh tells Carbon Brief.
Tanarhte notes that these events can be forecasted up to 10 days ahead in many regions. Furthermore, she says, the strongest impacts can be prevented “through preparedness and adaptation”, including through “water management for agriculture, heatwave mitigation measures and wildfire mitigation”.
The study recommends reassessing current risk management strategies for these compound events. It also suggests incorporating the sequences of drought and heatwaves into compound event analysis frameworks “to enhance climate risk management”.
Cerezo-Mota says that it is clear that the world needs to be prepared for the increased occurrence of these events. She tells Carbon Brief:
“These [risk assessments and strategies] need to be carried out at the local level to understand the complexities of each region.”
The post Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Heatwaves driving recent ‘surge’ in compound drought and heat extremes
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 6 March 2026: Iran energy crisis | China climate plan | Bristol’s ‘pioneering’ wind turbine
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Energy crisis
ENERGY SPIKE: US-Israeli attacks on Iran and subsequent counterattacks across the Middle East have sent energy prices “soaring”, according to Reuters. The newswire reported that the region “accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of gas”. The Guardian noted that shipping traffic through the strait of Hormuz, which normally ferries 20% of the world’s oil, “all but ground to a halt”. The Financial Times reported that attacks by Iran on Middle East energy facilities – notably in Qatar – triggered the “biggest rise in gas prices since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”.
‘RISK’ AND ‘BENEFITS’: Bloomberg reported on increases in diesel prices in Europe and the US, speculating that rising fuel costs could be “a risk for president Donald Trump”. US gas producers are “poised to benefit from the big disruption in global supply”, according to CNBC. Indian government sources told the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands”. China Daily quoted experts who said “China’s energy security remains fundamentally unshaken”, thanks to “emergency stockpiles and a wide array of import channels”.
‘ESSENTIAL’ RENEWABLES: Energy analysts said governments should cut their fossil-fuel reliance by investing in renewables, “rather than just seeking non-Gulf oil and gas suppliers”, reported Climate Home News. This message was echoed by UK business secretary Peter Kyle, who said “doubling down on renewables” was “essential” amid “regional instability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
China’s climate plan
PEAK COAL?: China has set out its next “five-year plan” at the annual “two sessions” meeting of the National People’s Congress, including its climate strategy out to 2030, according to the Hong Kong-based