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.
Key developments
Still at sea
DARK OXYGEN: Scientists discovered “dark oxygen” being produced in the deep ocean, “apparently by lumps of metal on the seafloor”, BBC News reported. The study challenges the “long-held assumption” that oxygen is produced exclusively through photosynthesis, CNN reported. Ocean scientist and lead author Dr Andrew Sweetman “observed the phenomenon time and time again over almost a decade” at several locations in the mineral-rich Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the Pacific, the outlet added. Canada’s The Metals Company, which partially funded Sweetman’s research, “attempted to poke holes in the study”, according to E&E News, but Sweetman stood by his team’s findings.
O CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN: The study created ripples at the ongoing seabed mining talks in Kingston, Jamaica, delegates told Carbon Brief. However, nations negotiating rules to govern the sector are also “face[d with] a critical vote” to decide who will head the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a decision “that could impact the nascent industry for years”, the Guardian wrote. Ahead of “one of the world’s most important elections…you’ve never heard of”, Foreign Policy carried an in-depth interview with Brazilian oceanographer Leticia Carvalho. Carvalho is standing for election against the ISA’s current chief Michael Lodge, “who has been criticised for allegedly having cosy ties to eager mining firms”.
RUDDERLESS WORLD: Despite heated talks, the meeting is drawing to a close with mining rules “still far from finalised”, but no mining authorised, according to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. Malta, Honduras, Tuvalu and Guatemala announced they were joining in the call for a “precautionary pause” on deep-sea mining, taking the number of countries pushing for a moratorium, pause or ban to 31 countries, according to the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. Palau’s president lamented: “We are once again at the mercy of powerful external forces, reminiscent of colonial exploitation that scarred our history.” For a detailed breakdown of country positions, evolving science and state of play, read Carbon Brief’s new Q&A on deep sea mining, published today.
UN hunger report
FOOD INSECURITY: Around one in five people in Africa faced hunger in 2023 as “major drivers”, including climate change and conflict, became “more frequent and severe”, a new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found. More than 700 million people around the world were undernourished in 2023, the report estimated – an increase of around 150 million people compared to 2019. “Transforming agrifood systems is more critical than ever,” the director general of the FAO, Dr Qu Dongyu, said in a statement. He added that the FAO is “committed to supporting countries in their efforts to eradicate hunger and ensure food security for all”.
AFRICA IMPACTS: Food insecurity is an issue in many parts of the world, “but Africa is at the epicentre of the crisis, with hunger on the rise across the continent”, Context News said in its coverage of the report. East Africa had the highest number of people going hungry on the continent – more than 138 million people in 2023, the outlet noted. Dr David Laborde, director of the agrifood economics division at FAO, told the New Humanitarian that “hunger level remains high, higher than in 2015” – the year that countries adopted the UN sustainable development goals for 2030, which include an aim to end hunger.
DROUGHT: Meanwhile, the prime minister of Lesotho, Sam Matekane, declared a “national food insecurity disaster” as around 700,000 people in the small African country face drought-related hunger, according to the Lesotho Times. The “critical” situation needs “national, regional and international humanitarian intervention”, the president said. Lesotho and other southern Africa countries including Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi were hit by drought in recent months, scorching crops and leaving millions at risk of hunger, the Associated Press reported earlier this year. A rapid attribution study found that the El Niño weather pattern was the key driver behind this drought.
Spotlight
What Venezuela’s election means for the Amazon
In this Spotlight, Carbon Brief looks at what Venezuela’s disputed election results could mean for illegal mining in the Amazon rainforest.
Earlier this week, Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the Venezuelan presidential election by the “government-controlled electoral authority”, the Guardian reported.
The country’s opposition disputed the results as “fraudulent”, BBC News said, while protests broke out in the country’s capital of Caracas.
Pre-election polls showed Maduro, who has served as Venezuela’s president for the past 11 years, falling behind as “voters express[ed] exhaustion over Venezuela’s economic crisis and political repression”, Al Jazeera said.
According to Mongabay, there was “little room for discussion about environmental issues” in the build-up to the election amid focus on whether the vote would be “anything close to free and fair”. The outlet said that this is “despite the fact that the country has plunged into a crisis so severe that many observers now call it an ecocide”.
Amazon impacts
Venezuela is among the world’s most biodiverse countries and it holds almost 7% of the Amazon region.
In 2022, Mongabay reported that more than 140,000 hectares of primary forest were lost in the Venezuelan areas of the Amazon over 2016-20.
New Scientist also reported in 2022 that pristine forest loss in the Venezuelan Amazon “is estimated to be increasing by around 170% annually” due to “a state-sanctioned boom in gold mining”.
Luis Jiménez, the general coordinator of the Venezuelan conservation NGO Phynatura, believes that Maduro remaining in power would continue the “exponentially accelerated” destruction of the Amazon.
He tells Carbon Brief that mining has impacted “important protected natural areas” in Venezuela, such as the Canaima and Yapacana national parks, which “apart from protecting large, megadiverse forest spaces, are home to 31 Indigenous ethnic groups”.
Jiménez believes another Maduro term would continue this “extractivist economy, which in no way benefits local communities or the rest of Venezuelans”.
Indigenous rights
In 2022, the NGO Human Rights Watch “documented horrific abuses” of Indigenous peoples “by groups controlling illegal gold mines in southern Venezuela, operating with government acquiescence”.
Last year, the Venezuelan government launched a military option to “expel more than 10,000 illegal miners from the Amazon, according to an Agence France-Presse article published in Deutsche Welle.
The article noted that Maduro said illegal mining was “destroying” the Amazon.
On deforestation, Venezuela and Bolivia were the only Amazon countries to not sign a 2021 global pledge to work towards halting deforestation by 2030.
But, in 2022, Venezuela and Colombia proposed relaunching the 1978 Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organisation, a pact between Brazil, Bolivia, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela to protect the Amazon.
The countries then met for the first time in 14 years last August, committing to act together to prevent the rainforest “from reaching the point of no return” – but stopped short of agreeing on a common target to end deforestation.
Politicians in the US, Chile, Argentina and around the world have cast doubt over the Venezuelan election results, Reuters said. Maduro has allegedly pledged to release the full voting records, a Brazilian government official told Bloomberg, amid continued protests and tension in the country.
News and views
MILKING THE SYSTEM: Big meat and dairy corporations are “mobilis[ing] significant resources to delay and derail progressive environmental legislation”, a Changing Markets Foundation investigation found. An examination of 22 of the biggest meat and dairy corporations across four continents revealed the use of distract, delay and derail tactics, mirroring those of “big oil”. Distraction tactics, such as greenwashing, steer the spotlight away from the lack of climate action, the report said, adding that companies are using “industry-funded academic research to downplay” the sector’s environmental impact. Delay tactics “ask governments to slow down any regulation by claiming that [companies] are already taking voluntary action”. Finally, the “most aggressive” derail tactics focus on political activity, including millions spent on donations and lobbying, the report said.
COP16 THREAT MONITORING: The organising committee of the COP16 UN biodiversity summit, which will be held in Cali, Colombia in October, sought to reassure delegates after online threats from a “dissident rebel group”, reported the Guardian. The organisers reiterated that “the safety and wellbeing of all participants, attendees and collaborators are our top priority”, the newspaper added. This came after threats made by the Central General Staff (EMC) in a post on Twitter that was addressed to Colombian president Gustavo Petro and said that COP16 would “fail”. The threat came during a ceasefire breakdown between the Colombian government and factions of the EMC, which is active near Cali. The organising committee has assured that it is “closely monitoring the situation and working to establish the validity of the [threats] on social media”.
NEW GROUPS: The new European parliament agriculture committee has been formed of “predominantly right-leaning” politicians, Euronews reported. The “heightened political significance” of the committee after EU farmer protests earlier this year “has attracted top-tier MEPs and lawmakers with little ties to the agricultural world”, Euractiv reported. Some “unexpected faces” in the committee formed after the June parliament elections include a “Spanish far-right YouTuber Luis ‘Alvise’ Pérez”. Meanwhile, the bloc’s yet-to-be-announced agriculture commissioner could be Luxembourg’s Christophe Hansen from the European People’s Party, Politico speculated.
BIRD FLU BROILER: Extreme heat may have played a key role in the bird flu outbreak that infected five workers in the US state of Colorado earlier this month, the Guardian reported. The newspaper said the workers, tasked with culling poultry with the virus, became infected themselves, as their protective gear failed to work correctly amid extreme temperatures. CNN said temperatures at the time were above 40C, with large industrial fans being used to try to control the heat. “We understand those large fans…were moving so much air…the workers were finding it hard to maintain a good seal or a good fit either between the mask or with eye protection,” said Dr Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told CNN.
WASTE NOT: Leaders of Pacific Island states have come to an agreement with Japan over the latter’s “controversial” discharge of treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, according to the Pacific Islands News Association. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida assured the Pacific Islands Forum that the practice was being done “in compliance with international safety standards and practices”, while Pacific leaders “emphasised the need for Japan to continue providing sincere and transparent explanations” about the process. However, Prof Robert Richmond, the director of the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Kewalo Marine Laboratory, “voiced significant concerns” about the efficacy of the treatment and the monitoring programme that is currently in place, the outlet said.
DAMAGED GOODS: A cattle rancher in Brazil has had his assets frozen in the “largest civil case brought for climate crimes in Brazil to date”, the Guardian reported. Dirceu Kruger will be compelled to pay more than $50m in “compensation for the damage he had caused to the climate through illegal deforestation”, according to the newspaper. The price tag was calculated based on the number of hectares that Kruger was found to have deforested, the average greenhouse gas emissions from damaging the rainforest and a calculation of the “social cost” of carbon. The money will be paid into the country’s climate emergency fund and the rancher will also “have to restore the land he degraded so it can become a valuable carbon sink again”, the outlet said.
Watch, read, listen
CLIMATE FINANCE: Dialogue Earth explored uncertainties around ocean communities being able to access “loss and damage” funding for those impacted by climate change.
US ELECTION: The “record on the environment” of Kamala Harris – US vice president and Democratic frontrunner for the country’s presidential election – was discussed on the NPR Living on Earth podcast.
GROWING PAINS: A feature in Al Jazeera looked at the “uncertain future” for women coffee farmers in the “conflict-ridden” eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
HOT WATER: The Financial Times examined the “dangerous effects of rising sea temperatures”.
New science
Indigenous food production in a carbon economy
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A new study has revealed that replacing locally harvested foods with imported market substitutes in Canada’s Inuvialuit Settlement region “would cost over C$3.1m [US$2.3m]…and emit over 1,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions” annually. The study modelled the cost of substituting local food harvests with market replacements in the region. The study found that gasoline use would add about “C$295,000 [US$213,611] [to harvesting costs] and result in 315 to 497 tonnes of emissions”, in contrast to the much higher costs and emissions associated with substituting local foods with imports. Disregarding local food systems could, therefore, “undermine emissions targets and adversely impact food security and health in Arctic Indigenous communities”, the study added.
Global atmospheric methane uptake by upland tree woody surfaces
Nature
New research found that tree bark can absorb methane from the atmosphere, meaning that the climate benefits of protecting forests “may be greater than previously assumed”. Researchers measured the methane exchange on tree stems in a range of forests in the Amazon, Panama, UK and Sweden. They found that microbes in bark could help trees to take in between 25-50m tonnes of atmospheric methane each year, with tropical forests taking in the highest levels of methane. The researchers conclude that identifying tree species that can absorb the most methane could help to tackle the global growth of the potent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
Cost-effectiveness of natural forest regeneration and plantations for climate mitigation
Nature Climate Change
A new research effort has created global maps illustrating what is likely to be the most cost-effective reforestation method in 138 low- and middle-income countries. To create the maps, the researchers used machine learning to combine data on the likely implementation costs of passive natural regeneration and reforestation through plantations, as well as household survey data on the opportunity costs of reforestation, data on the most suitable tree species to plant in each area and the likely carbon accumulation in each area. The research found that plantations offer the most cost-effective form of reforestation over 54% of the land included in the study, while natural regeneration would be most effective over 46% of the land.
In the diary
- 9 August: International day of the world’s Indigenous peoples
- 11-15 August: World Water Congress and Exhibition | Toronto
- 12-16 August: Working group on benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information | Montreal, Canada
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Antara Basu also contributed to this issue. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 31 July 2024: Deep-sea mining talks; UN hunger report; Venezuela election and the Amazon appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 31 July 2024: Deep-sea mining talks; UN hunger report; Venezuela election and the Amazon
Climate Change
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
- GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
- ‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
- EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
- SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
- PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
- A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
- A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Factchecking Trump’s climate report
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.
Coming up
- 17 August: Bolivian general elections
- 18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
- 18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
- 21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama
Pick of the jobs
- Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
- EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Climate Change
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
The specter of a “gas-for-wind” compromise between the governor and the White House is drawing the ire of residents as a deadline looms.
Hundreds of New Yorkers rallied against new natural gas pipelines in their state as a deadline loomed for the public to comment on a revived proposal to expand the gas pipeline that supplies downstate New York.
New York Already Denied Permits to These Gas Pipelines. Under Trump, They Could Get Greenlit
A “critical assessment” report commissioned by the Trump administration to justify a rollback of US climate regulations contains at least 100 false or misleading statements, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists.
The report – “A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate” – was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation.
The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed”.
It also states misleadingly that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”.
Compiled in just two months by five “independent” researchers hand-selected by the climate-sceptic US secretary of energy Chris Wright, the document has sparked fierce criticism from climate scientists, who have pointed to factual errors, misrepresentation of research, messy citations and the cherry-picking of data.
Experts have also noted the authors’ track record of promoting views at odds with the mainstream understanding of climate science.
Wright’s department claims the report – which is currently open to public comment as part of a 30-day review – underwent an “internal peer-review period amongst [the] DoE’s scientific research community”.
The report is designed to provide a scientific underpinning to one flank of the Trump administration’s plans to rescind a finding that serves as the legal prerequisite for federal emissions regulation. (The second flank is about legal authority to regulate emissions.)
The “endangerment finding” – enacted by the Obama administration in 2009 – states that six greenhouse gases are contributing to the net-negative impacts of climate change and, thus, put the public in danger.
In a press release on 29 July, the US Environmental Protection Agency said “updated studies and information” set out in the new report would “challenge the assumptions” of the 2009 finding.
Carbon Brief asked a wide range of climate scientists, including those cited in the “critical review” itself, to factcheck the report’s various claims and statements.
The post Factcheck: Trump’s climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims appeared first on Carbon Brief.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-trumps-climate-report-includes-more-than-100-false-or-misleading-claims/
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