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
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
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