Published

3 months ago

July 30, 2025

Alice Rush

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

UN food insecurity report

HUNGER DECLINES: The prevalence of hunger dropped in most parts of the world in 2024, according to a new report covered by Carbon Brief – but rates are still rising in much of Africa and western Asia. The UN’s annual report on food security and nutrition found that around 673 million people experienced hunger in 2024. Other key findings were that the cost of a “healthy” diet increased in 2023 and 2024 and that food price inflation “significantly” outpaced general inflation over the past five years. The price inflation was mostly driven by global factors, but also by localised shocks such as “climate extremes” disrupting food production, the report said.

‘UNEVEN’ PROGRESS: Global progress on tackling hunger is “encouraging”, but “uneven”, the director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Dr Qu Dongyu, said in a statement. The new report found that the entire population in Gaza faced “high levels of acute food insecurity” in 2024, alongside more than half of people in Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen and Haiti. Elsewhere, the UN World Food Programme said that hunger levels in Gaza are “catastrophic”, while Reuters reported warnings from a global hunger monitor that a “worst-case scenario of famine is unfolding” there. UN chief António Guterres told the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake this week in Ethiopia: “We must never accept hunger as a weapon of war.”

‘CLIMATEFLATION’: Elsewhere, a thinktank report said the UK faces “climateflation” impacts that could “drive up food prices by more than a third by 2050”, the Guardian said. The Autonomy Institute said that “increasing numbers of heatwaves and droughts would imperil staple crops, disrupt supply chains and intensify inflationary pressures”, the outlet added. UK food price inflation increased in July for the sixth consecutive month, partly driven by “rising meat and tea prices”, BBC News reported. Carbon Brief mapped out the findings of a new study showing links between extreme weather and food price spikes around the world.

Africa’s clean-cooking and nature goals

‘UNREACHABLE GOAL’: Sub-Saharan Africa will not reach the UN 2030 goal of providing clean cooking for all, according to a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). “Large gaps” in financing and infrastructure mean universal access by 2040 is “more realistic”, it continued. The number of Africans without access to clean cooking “has continued to grow” and is currently around 1 billion people, Climate Home News reported. The report stated that $37bn in investment is required to achieve universal access. In a statement, IEA’s executive director, Fatih Birol, said that lack of clean cooking “remains one of the great injustices in the world”.

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WILDLIFE BONDS: The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has planned a new wave of wildlife conservation bonds to provide up to $1.5bn to “help African countries” save endangered species and ecosystems, Reuters reported. The GEF’s head of programming told the newswire that the bonds, which provide low-cost funding in return for curbing poaching or other conservation measures, will be issued for every country in Africa. The bonds will help poorer countries receive funding without adding to government debt. While such bonds usually target “emblematic” species, the GEF hopes to use the bonds to cover entire ecosystems, such as wetlands, Reuters said.

CONGO’S BIOFUELS: Italian oil company Eni has closed one biofuels pilot project in the Republic of Congo, but two other such projects remain in an experimental phase, InfoNile reported. Eni previously signed a 50-year agreement with the Congolese government to develop the country’s agro-biofuel sector, with a plan to cover 150,000 hectares of agricultural land by 2030. However, local farmer Chris Nsimba told InfoNile that, although Eni has brought economic development to his district, the company has made “little contribution” to local food security.

‘DRAMATIC EXPANSION’: Tenders for oil development are now available across “more than half” of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a new report from Earth Insight and other groups found. The government recently launched a licensing round for 55 oil blocks, the report said – a “dramatic expansion” which poses “major threats” to forests and protected areas. The oil blocks overlap with 8.6m hectares of “key biodiversity areas” and 66.8m hectares of intact tropical forests. This decision highlights “stark contradictions between the DRC’s fossil-fuel agenda and its stated commitments to biodiversity protection, climate action and community rights”, the report said.

Spotlight

‘Unprecedented’ marine heatwaves gripped the globe in 2023

This week, Carbon Brief covers a new study, published in Science, which found that 96% of the global ocean experienced a marine heatwave during 2023.

More than 95% of the world’s expanse of oceans experienced a marine heatwave – a period of abnormal ocean warming lasting at least five days – in 2023, according to new research.

The study, published in Science, used an ocean model that incorporates satellite and observational data to identify marine heatwave events and investigate the drivers of the unusual ocean heating.

It found that 2023 was an “unprecedented” year for marine heatwaves in terms of duration, extent and intensity of the events.

Many of the events had “immediate ecological and societal consequences”, the authors wrote.

‘Comprehensive investigation’

In 2023, marine heatwaves bleached corals in the Florida Keys, boosted the prevalence of a giant-clam-killing parasite in the Mediterranean and even intensified heatwaves on land during Europe’s “hellish” summer that year.

Using satellite data and an ocean model that incorporates different streams of data, the team of researchers “conducted a comprehensive investigation” of the global ocean’s state in 2023, they wrote. Together, the authors wrote, that year’s marine heatwaves had the “longest durations, widest extents and highest intensities on record”.

They found that the average duration of marine heatwaves in 2023 was 120 days, compared to an average duration of just under 36 days between 1982-2022. Spatially, the 2023 heatwaves covered 96% of the global ocean, compared to a historical average extent of around 74%.

Prof Regina Rodrigues, a physical oceanographer at Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, told Carbon Brief that, while the science underlying the study is “sound”, the study itself “does not bring many new aspects”. Rodrigues, who was not involved in the new research, added:

“The results are not different from those of many previous studies, except for the analysis of these regions together and for the same year.”

Driving factors

The researchers identified four main “hotspots” of the ocean that had the highest marine heatwave “cumulative intensity”: the tropical eastern Pacific, the south-west Pacific, the north Pacific and the north Atlantic. (Cumulative intensity is a metric that accounts for both intensity and duration of a heatwave.)

The researchers then used the ocean model to investigate the underlying drivers of marine heatwaves in each hotspot.

For example, in the north Pacific, they found that a combination of low cloud cover – allowing more sunlight to reach and warm the ocean’s surface – and weak winds resulted in around 1C of average warming throughout the year. A lack of cloud cover also contributed significantly to the heatwaves in the north Atlantic and south-west Pacific, they wrote.

It is “no surprise at all” to find that marine heatwaves have increased in frequency, intensity, duration and extent, “given that the ocean absorbs 90% of the heat from manmade climate change”, Rodrigues told Carbon Brief.

She pointed to a Nature study published earlier this year that examined the global record sea-surface temperatures of 2023-24. That study concluded:

“Without a global warming trend, such an event would have been practically impossible.”

News and views

WETLANDS SUMMIT: More than 3,000 delegates met in Zimbabwe for the 15th conference of the Ramsar Convention (COP15) to discuss the future of the world’s wetlands. Opening the event, Zimbabwe’s president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, called for the implementation of “collaborative approaches” towards wetlands protection, Down To Earth reported. Several southern African countries officially launched the Southern Africa Ramsar Regional Initiative to promote wetland conservation and sustainable use across borders, EnviroNews Nigeria reported. Additionally, China Daily reported that nine more Chinese locations were awarded “wetland city accreditation” at the conference, which concludes this Thursday.

‘DEVASTATION BILL’: Politicians in Brazil approved a bill to ease environmental licensing, a move criticised as the country’s “most significant environmental setback in nearly 40 years”, Mongabay said. The so-called “devastation bill” includes rule changes which would allow projects to be approved “by simply filling out an online form”, the outlet reported. It would also create a “special environmental licence” for “strategic” projects, “such as oil exploration on the Amazon coast”. Mongabay noted that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva can block or enact the bill, but “congress would likely overturn a veto”. It added: ”The law is bound to be challenged in the Supreme Court.”

SEABED STRIFE: Members of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) condemned the move earlier this year by a deep-sea mining company to “bypass the authority’s protocols by applying for a permit to mine in international waters under US law”, Inside Climate News reported. Oceanographic said that the ISA has “launched an official investigation” into contracting companies “over action taken to circumvent” existing protocols. The outlet said the decision was a “critical step in protecting the deep sea”. However, delegates at the recently concluded ISA meeting once again “failed” to reach an agreement on whether or not to allow seabed mining to proceed in international waters, reported Common Dreams.

FARMER FUNDS: The EU’s new long-term budget proposal featured cuts to agricultural spending, but the European Commission “insists” farmers will not be impacted, Euronews reported. The proposal outlined plans to combine agricultural subsidies and regional development funds into one “mega-fund worth €865bn”, the outlet said. Politico reported that the proposed changes mean “biodiversity goals have no earmarked funding at all – and will have to compete with the EU’s other environmental aims, including climate change, water security, the circular economy and pollution”.

‘TOXIC’ ALGAE: A toxic algal bloom along South Australia’s coastline has shown “no sign of abating” four months in, after killing sharks, rays, fish, dolphins and seals, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The algae grew and spread due to a marine heatwave in September 2024, which caused ocean temperatures to be 2.5C warmer than usual. Marine ecologist Dr Scott Bennet told CNN: “This is symptomatic of climate-driven impacts that we’re seeing across Australia due to climate change.” Meanwhile, Reuters reported on a “revolution” in farm management that has boosted Australia’s wheat production “despite hotter, drier conditions”.

Watch, read, listen

CLOUD COVER: The New York Times profiled the scientists attempting to save the Great Barrier Reef by increasing cloud cover to cool the Pacific Ocean.

SYCAMORE SENTENCE: In Bloomberg, Josie Glausiusz argued that prosecuting the men who felled the Sycamore Gap tree in northern England in 2023 “mean[s] little” without stronger action to protect the natural world.

DECLINING SUPPLY: The Guardian visualised how Donald Trump’s “assault” on immigrants in the US could affect the country’s food supplies.

AN ICONIC TREE: Mongabay explored whether the Joshua Tree – a yucca plant native to the south-western US – can survive in the face of increasing drought, fires and development.

New science

A Nature Communications study found that lands managed by Afro-descendant communities in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname experience up to 55% less deforestation than lands managed by others. The study highlighted the adaptation of African knowledge, the authors said, calling for a greater inclusion of Afro-descendants in environmental decision-making.
Fewer than 10% of predicted “hotspots” of a type of fungi around the world are currently contained in protected areas, according to a Nature study. The findings can benefit conservation, monitoring and restoration of the “largely hidden component of Earth’s underground ecosystems”, the study authors wrote.
New research, published in Science Advances, found that the prioritisation of creating “biodiversity-friendly landscapes” through conservation activities may actually accelerate biodiversity loss by improving conditions for invasive alien species. The authors called for a “shift” towards “landscape-wide strategies to stop the ongoing decline of farmland biodiversity”.

In the diary

5-14 August: Fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on plastic pollution (part two) | Geneva
9 August: UN international day of the world’s Indigenous peoples
13-15 August: African Union-AIP water investment summit 2025 | Cape Town, South Africa

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Svetlana Onye also contributed to this issue. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org

The post Cropped 30 July 2025: ‘Unprecedented’ ocean heatwaves; ‘Uneven’ hunger progress; Brazil’s ‘devastation bill’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 30 July 2025: ‘Unprecedented’ ocean heatwaves; ‘Uneven’ hunger progress; Brazil’s ‘devastation bill’

Climate Change

Efforts to green lithium extraction face scrutiny over water use

Published

2 days ago

October 13, 2025

Alice Rush

Mining companies are showcasing new technologies which they say could extract more lithium – a key ingredient for electric vehicle (EV) batteries – from South America’s vast, dry salt flats with lower environmental impacts.

But environmentalists question whether the expensive technology is ready to be rolled out at scale, while scientists warn it could worsen the depletion of scarce freshwater resources in the region and say more research is needed.

The “lithium triangle” – an area spanning Argentina, Bolivia and Chile – holds more than half of the world’s known lithium reserves. Here, lithium is found in salty brine beneath the region’s salt flats, which are among some of the driest places on Earth.

Lithium mining in the region has soared, driven by booming demand to manufacture batteries for EVs and large-scale energy storage.

Mining companies drill into the flats and pump the mineral-rich brine to the surface, where it is left under the sun in giant evaporation pools for 18 months until the lithium is concentrated enough to be extracted.

The technique is relatively cheap but requires vast amounts of land and water. More than 90% of the brine’s original water content is lost to evaporation and freshwater is needed at different stages of the process.

One study suggested that the Atacama Salt Flat in Chile is sinking by up to 2 centimetres a year because lithium-rich brine is being pumped at a faster rate than aquifers are being recharged.

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Energy

Global renewables goal slips off course after Trump, China moves

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Lithium extraction in the region has led to repeated conflicts with local communities, who fear the impact of the industry on local water supplies and the region’s fragile ecosystem.

The lithium industry’s answer is direct lithium extraction (DLE), a group of technologies that selectively extracts the silvery metal from brine without the need for vast open-air evaporation ponds. DLE, it argues, can reduce both land and water use.

Direct lithium extraction investment is growing

The technology is gaining considerable attention from mining companies, investors and governments as a way to reduce the industry’s environmental impacts while recovering more lithium from brine.

DLE investment is expected to grow at twice the pace of the lithium market at large, according to research firm IDTechX.

There are around a dozen DLE projects at different stages of development across South America. The Chilean government has made it a central pillar of its latest National Lithium Strategy, mandating its use in new mining projects.

Last year, French company Eramet opened Centenario Ratones in northern Argentina, the first plant in the world to attempt to extract lithium solely using DLE.

Eramet’s lithium extraction plant is widely seen as a major test of the technology. “Everyone is on the edge of their seats to see how this progresses,” said Federico Gay, a lithium analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. “If they prove to be successful, I’m sure more capital will venture into the DLE space,” he said.

More than 70 different technologies are classified as DLE. Brine is still extracted from the salt flats but is separated from the lithium using chemical compounds or sieve-like membranes before being reinjected underground.

DLE techniques have been used commercially since 1996, but only as part of a hybrid model still involving evaporation pools. Of the four plants in production making partial use of DLE, one is in Argentina and three are in China.

Reduced environmental footprint

New-generation DLE technologies have been hailed as “potentially game-changing” for addressing some of the issues of traditional brine extraction.

“DLE could potentially have a transformative impact on lithium production,” the International Lithium Association found in a recent report on the technology.

Firstly, there is no need for evaporation pools – some of which cover an area equivalent to the size of 3,000 football pitches.

“The land impact is minimal, compared to evaporation where it’s huge,” said Gay.

A drone view shows Eramet’s lithium production plant at Salar Centenario in Salta, Argentina, July 4, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Matias Baglietto)

The process is also significantly quicker and increases lithium recovery. Roughly half of the lithium is lost during evaporation, whereas DLE can recover more than 90% of the metal in the brine.

In addition, the brine can be reinjected into the salt flats, although this is a complicated process that needs to be carefully handled to avoid damaging their hydrological balance.

However, Gay said the commissioning of a DLE plant is currently several times more expensive than a traditional lithium brine extraction plant.

“In theory it works, but in practice we only have a few examples,” Gay said. “Most of these companies are promising to break the cost curve and ramp up indefinitely. I think in the next two years it’s time to actually fulfill some of those promises.”

Freshwater concerns

However, concerns over the use of freshwater persist.

Although DLE doesn’t require the evaporation of brine water, it often needs more freshwater to clean or cool equipment.

A 2023 study published in the journal Nature reviewed 57 articles on DLE that analysed freshwater consumption. A quarter of the articles reported significantly higher use of freshwater than conventional lithium brine mining – more than 10 times higher in some cases.

“These volumes of freshwater are not available in the vicinity of [salt flats] and would even pose problems around less-arid geothermal resources,” the study found.

The company tracking energy transition minerals back to the mines

Dan Corkran, a hydrologist at the University of Massachusetts, recently published research showing that the pumping of freshwater from the salt flats had a much higher impact on local wetland ecosystems than the pumping of salty brine. “The two cannot be considered equivalent in a water footprint calculation,” he said, explaining that doing so would “obscure the true impact” of lithium extraction.

Newer DLE processes are “claiming to require little-to-no freshwater”, he added, but the impact of these technologies is yet to be thoroughly analysed.

Dried-up rivers

Last week, Indigenous communities from across South America held a summit to discuss their concerns over ongoing lithium extraction.

The meeting, organised by the Andean Wetlands Alliance, coincided with the 14th International Lithium Seminar, which brought together industry players and politicians from Argentina and beyond.

Indigenous representatives visited the nearby Hombre Muerto Salt Flat, which has borne the brunt of nearly three decades of lithium extraction. Today, a lithium plant there uses a hybrid approach including DLE and evaporation pools.

Local people say the river “dried up” in the years after the mine opened. Corkran’s study linked a 90% reduction in wetland vegetation to the lithium’s plant freshwater extraction.

Pia Marchegiani, of Argentine environmental NGO FARN, said that while DLE is being promoted by companies as a “better” technique for extraction, freshwater use remained unclear. “There are many open questions,” she said.

AI and satellite data help researchers map world’s transition minerals rush

Stronger regulations

Analysts speaking to Climate Home News have also questioned the commercial readiness of the technology.

Eramet was forced to downgrade its production projections at its DLE plant earlier this year, blaming the late commissioning of a crucial component.

Climate Home News asked Eramet for the water footprint of its DLE plant and whether its calculations excluded brine, but it did not respond.

For Eduardo Gigante, an Argentina-based lithium consultant, DLE is a “very promising technology”. But beyond the hype, it is not yet ready for large-scale deployment, he said.

Strong regulations are needed to ensure that the environmental impact of the lithium rush is taken seriously, Gigante added.

In Argentina alone, there are currently 38 proposals for new lithium mines. At least two-thirds are expected to use DLE. “If you extract a lot of water without control, this is a problem,” said Gigante. “You need strong regulations, a strong government in order to control this.”

The post Efforts to green lithium extraction face scrutiny over water use appeared first on Climate Home News.

Efforts to green lithium extraction face scrutiny over water use

Climate Change

Maryland’s Conowingo Dam Settlement Reasserts State’s Clean Water Act Authority but Revives Dredging Debate

Published

2 days ago

October 12, 2025

Alice Rush

The new agreement commits $340 million in environmental investments tied to the Conowingo Dam’s long-term operation, setting an example of successful citizen advocacy.

By Aman Azhar

Maryland this month finalized a $340 million deal with Constellation Energy to relicense the Conowingo Dam in Cecil County, ending years of litigation and regulatory uncertainty. The agreement restores the state’s authority to enforce water quality standards under the Clean Water Act and sets a possible precedent for dozens of hydroelectric relicensing cases nationwide expected in coming years.

Maryland’s Conowingo Dam Settlement Reasserts State’s Clean Water Act Authority but Revives Dredging Debate

Climate Change

A Michigan Town Hopes to Stop a Data Center With a 2026 Ballot Initiative

Published

4 days ago

October 10, 2025

Alice Rush

Local officials see millions of dollars in tax revenue, but more than 950 residents who signed ballot petitions fear endless noise, pollution and higher electric rates.

By Tom Perkins

This is the second of three articles about Michigan communities organizing to stop the construction of energy-intensive computing facilities.