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
Nature finance
‘FORESTS FOREVER’: Brazil unveiled a new “tropical forests forever” fund proposal at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai on Friday, Reuters reported. Launched by environment minister Marina Silva and finance minister Fernando Haddad, the proposal aims to provide 80 tropical countries with finance to help maintain trees, with annual payments based on hectares conserved or restored, according to the newswire. It added that Brazil hopes to raise $250bn from sovereign wealth funds and other investors, including the oil industry. Elsewhere, Bloomberg reported that the UK pledged an additional $38m to Brazil’s Amazon Fund at the talks. According to Dubai’s Khaleej Times, French president Emmanuel Macron used his appearance at the summit to confirm funding for three forest finance packages, including $100m for Papua New Guinea, $60m for the Democratic Republic of Congo and $50m for the Republic of Congo. It added that some of this finance would be through carbon-offset credits (see Carbon Brief’s explainer on the risks of such credits).
DEBT SWAPS FOR NATURE: African leaders called for debt relief for climate action and are receiving guidance from the UN Economic Commission for Africa on how to negotiate agreements at COP28, the Economist reported. However, debt swaps for nature are questioned for their “minimal fiscal impact”, the Mail and Guardian reported. The South African outlet noted that in 35 years this mechanism has only generated $318m of the $280bn needed for the continent to adapt to climate change. Elsewhere, the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean and other 28 civil-society organisations called on international finance institutions and developed countries at COP28 to agree on debt treatment and restructuring. Their call to action included cancelling debt for nations with low financial capacities, enabling debt-for-climate action swaps for emerging countries and creating mechanisms to ensure that those countries can allocate the resources in climate mitigation and adaptation while conserving biodiversity. A group of eight multilateral development banks issued a joint declaration aiming to create a task force on sustainability-linked sovereign financing for nature and climate. This seeks to mobilise credit enhancement – mechanisms to lower risk by investors on sovereign debt – for sustainability-linked sovereign financing for nature and climate.
POOR APPETITE: While much of the attention at COP28 is on fossil fuel phase-out, the latest text of the global stocktake does not mention harmful agricultural subsidies. Carbon Brief examined the text and found no explicit mention of agriculture in the draft, except in an oblique reference to food production and in “noting” the importance of switching to patterns of sustainable consumption and production, encouraging the former and silent on the latter. Oceans and other ecosystems have a slightly more pronounced presence: halting and reversing deforestation by 2030 is listed as a mitigation option to meet Paris Agreement goals in the next five years, while the need for more research on climate “tipping points” is mentioned twice, a key ask by countries of the Amazon and small island states.
CARBON MARKET CONCERNS: Meanwhile, Indigenous activists associated with the Indigenous Environmental Network expressed “very serious concerns” about Article 6 negotiations on carbon markets in a press conference at the start of COP28. Eriel Deranger, the executive director of Indigenous Climate Action, pointed out that “carbon-trading mechanisms and fossil fuel systems depend on continued growing emissions” and that phasing out fossil fuels is a matter of “life and death for our communities”. While key decisions on market and non-market approaches will be taken this coming week, World Bank president Ajay Banga told reporters that controversial voluntary carbon offsets were the “best way to move money from the developed world to the developing world”.
COP greenwashing
MEATY: Key players in the meat industry planned a “large presence” at COP28, aiming to “tell its story and tell it well”, according to documents seen by DeSmog and the Guardian. Members of the industry-funded Global Meat Alliance, which produced the documents, were “asked to stick to key comms messages, which include the idea that meat is beneficial to the environment”, the Guardian said. They also featured a messaging summary with talking points framing meat as “sustainable nutrition” – despite meat’s high climate impact. A GMA spokesperson told the outlets that the group works to “simplify and distil public information” around global events “which are often dominated by an anti-meat narrative”.
PARAGUAY PLANS: In Paraguay, agribusiness groups allegedly “modified” the guidance document for the country’s stance on talks at COP28, El Surtidor reported. The news outlet looked at a previous draft of this document and found that mentions of “reaffirming” commitment to the Paris Agreement and increasing heatwaves were removed from the final text, following comments from agribusiness representatives. El Surtidor said the final document also “call[s] into question” official figures on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
MAMMOTH TASK: In a woolier story from Dubai, a Russian billionaire who “made a fortune in coal and fertiliser” outlined a plan to “bring a slice of Russia’s ecology back 14,000 years”, Bloomberg reported. Andrey Melnichenko proposed an “eccentric” way to control methane emissions from the thawing Siberian permafrost by “recreating a time when woolly mammoths roamed the tundra”, the outlet said. (For the latest science on methane emissions and permafrost thaw, read Carbon Brief’s recent coverage of a report on how climate change is affecting the cryosphere.)
Spotlight
Food systems declaration garners 134 signatures
In this spotlight, Carbon Brief explains the Emirates Declaration on food systems – released at COP28 in Dubai last week – and the reaction on the ground from food-systems experts and civil society groups.
During the world climate action summit on the first day of COP28, UAE climate and environment minister Mariam Almheiri announced the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action, a three-page document endorsed by 134 governments. Among the notable signatories are Brazil, China, EU, Indonesia, UK and US.
Almheiri pointed out that the countries who had signed the declaration were home to more than 5.7 billion people and responsible for more than three-quarters of the world’s total food systems emissions. (Research shows that food systems overall account for nearly one-third of total global greenhouse gas emissions.)
The declaration begins with a recognition of the “unprecedented” impacts that climate change is having on food systems and the importance of food and agriculture to lives and livelihoods around the world. It also recognises the “need to ensure access to safe, sufficient, affordable and nutritious food for all”.
The document then lays out five objectives: to enhance food-systems resilience; to promote food security and nutrition; to support agricultural workers; to strengthen freshwater management; and to maximise the climate and environmental benefits of agriculture. Alongside these are areas where countries have promised to strengthen their efforts: integrating food systems into national plans and strategies, scaling up finance and science and strengthening trade.
Among these, several observers pointed to the integration of food systems into plans such as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans as a promising step. As with all such declarations at COPs, the food declaration is not legally binding. But that is not to say it carries no weight, Ed Davey, partnerships director at the Food and Land Use Coalition, told Carbon Brief. He added that while declarations are “not as important as the negotiated outcome and they never will be…they are a way of signalling that something is important”.
Representatives of several civil society groups told Carbon Brief that the declaration was a mixed bag. “There are some good elements there – it’s about transformation,” said Million Belay, the general coordinator of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. “But there’s heavy reliance on ‘technology will solve the problem’ kind of thinking…What kind of technology? Who owns the technology?”
A non-state actors call to action, released on the same day, was signed by more than 150 farmers’ groups, businesses, philanthropies, research institutions and other groups. That document calls for parties to “act with appropriate urgency, effort and scale” to create food systems that “deliver significant, measurable progress for people, nature and climate”.
News and views
EU BUMPER: There have been three notable EU policy updates related to agriculture. First, lawmakers rejected a plan to significantly cut pesticide use, the Associated Press reported, which one green politician described as a “black day” for the environment and farmers. The proposed nature restoration law, on the other hand, is one step closer to the finish line after it was approved by the European parliament’s environment committee, according to Carbon Pulse. And, finally, plans to sign off on the EU-Mercosur trade deal (covered previously in Cropped) look unlikely in the coming weeks, partly due to political hesitancy in Argentina, CNN Brasil reported.
COLOMBIA LEADS: Colombian president Gustavo Petro announced at COP28 that his country will officially join an alliance of countries seeking a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. The group is calling for a global transition away from fossil fuels and now counts 10 countries as its members, the Guardian reported. Petro said that, although his country relies on fossil fuels, “being here, we are trying to halt a suicide, the death of everything that is alive”. According to Spanish newswire EFE Verde, the Latin American country is also pushing debt-for-nature swaps at the climate negotiations in Dubai, after setting up that agenda at a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean environment ministers held in Panama earlier this year.
INDIGENOUS VOICES: A Brazilian minister became the first Indigenous head of a UN climate negotiations delegation, Carbon Brief’s Daisy Dunne reported. Sônia Guajajara took on the position after environment minister Marina Silva departed the climate summit. She will hold the role until 7 December, according to a press release. Guajajara said in a statement: “Indigenous peoples are often the first to bear the harmful effects of climate change…They are also ideally positioned to bring forward solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation, so it is essential that their voice is heard.” Elsewhere, Grist reported on the Indigenous advocates at COP28 hoping to “ensur[e] that their communities aren’t overlooked by global leaders”.
DEEP-SEA DEVELOPMENTS: The Norwegian government has given a “green light” to deep-sea mining in an area of the Arctic Ocean south-west of the Svalbard archipelago, in a decision that Norway Greenpeace head Frode Pleym said was “a disaster for the sea”, according to the Associated Press. The deal was struck between four political parties, including the ruling Labor and Center party coalition government and two conservative parties, the newswire said. Norway’s parliament will reportedly “approve the first development projects, in the same way as it has done for certain extraction projects in the petroleum sector”. The country’s petroleum and energy minister said the country “will do this carefully” and gather knowledge before assessing whether extraction is feasible.
UPS AND DOWNS: Blue whales have returned to the Seychelles archipelago, within the Indian Ocean, after being wiped out in that area by whaling ships in the 1960s, BBC News reported. Researchers and filmmakers recorded the largest animal on Earth both on film and using a “sound trap”, which captured whale calls during breeding season. Scientists described the whales’ return as a “conservation win”. However, on western Australia’s Pilbara coast, whales are reportedly threatened by a new gas extraction project by Woodside, the country’s top oil and gas producer, Australia’s ABC News wrote. The company won approval for seismic testing, which is used to identify fossil gas reserves under the seafloor. In response, traditional owner and Indigenous woman Raelene Cooper told the outlet that she would consider legal actions against the project. Woodside told ABC News that the seismic testing would not occur near known whale migration routes.
OLIVE HARVEST: Palestinian olive farmers are experiencing “growing violence” and “economic devastations” from the impact of the Israel-Hamas conflict on their harvest, Mongabay reported. Ghassan Najjar, a farmer in the West Bank, told the outlet: “Many farmers rely completely on their olive harvest…It’s our livelihood, our source of life.” More than 3,000 olive trees have been “destroyed by the illegal settlers” in recent weeks. Mongabay said. According to Human Rights Watch, satellite imagery “shows that orchards, greenhouses and farmland in northern Gaza have been razed since the beginning of Israel’s ground invasion” in October.
Watch, read, listen
DARK HEDGES: The Economist explained how an avenue of ancient beech trees in Northern Ireland is being lost due to tourism after Game of Thrones made them famous.
MEAT PHASEDOWN: BBC Future Planet looked at Denmark’s new dietary roadmap for discouraging the consumption of meat and dairy and boosting plant-based foods.
‘PLASTIC RICE’: A three-part series in the Wire outlined concerns from farmers and health experts about a rice fortification scheme in India.
CALL OF THE WILD: Perk your ears up to an album of Australia’s most threatened mammals – featuring “a chorus of shrieks, screams and bellowing”.
New science
Community forest governance and synergies among carbon, biodiversity and livelihoods
Nature Climate Change
Empowering local forest governance may support multiple objectives of forest restoration, a new paper found. The researchers used a dataset of more than 300 “forest commons” in human-dominated landscapes in 15 tropical countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. They looked at the links between carbon storage, tree species richness and livelihoods of local communities. The analysis showed that formal recognition of the community’s role in forest management, including local participation in rule-making, was a predictor of positive outcomes. The study said that considering governance and interconnections among those benefits may contribute to “effective interventions” for tropical forests.
Tillage agriculture and afforestation threaten tropical savanna plant communities across a broad rainfall gradient in India
Journal of Ecology
Agricultural conversion of and tree-planting in old-growth savannahs in India imperil plant communities that are hard to later recover, according to a new paper. The researchers analysed the impacts of tillage agriculture, agricultural fallows and tree plantations on herbaceous plant communities of old-growth savannahs in western Maharashtra, India. They found that the three types of land conversion decreased native species richness and cover of native plants, and increased cover of invasive species. The study suggested that conservation in India should account for the savannah biome and limit the conversion of old-growth savannahs.
Risk to rely on soil carbon sequestration to offset global ruminant emissions
Nature Communications
A new study noted that relying solely on grasslands to sequester global ruminant emissions – those from cattle, sheep, goats and buffalo – “is not feasible”, since it would require nearly twice the global carbon stock currently in grasslands. Researchers found that about 135bn tonnes of carbon sequestration is required to offset ongoing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from this sector. The authors argued that previous studies used a methodology that does not account for the climate impacts of short- and long-term emissions, and that their new research overcomes those shortcomings while accounting for historical warming. The study concluded that reducing sources of emissions and increasing soil organic carbon stocks is needed.
In the diary
- 30 November-12 December: UNFCCC COP28 | Dubai
- 7 December: FAO webinar: Scaling up agroforestry | Online
- 6-8 December: EU Agri-food days | Brussels
- 9 December: COP28 thematic day on nature | Dubai
- 10 December: COP28 thematic day on food | Dubai
- 11 December: International Mountain Day
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 6 December 2023: COP28 greenwashing; Nature finance; Food pledge appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 6 December 2023: COP28 greenwashing; Nature finance; Food pledge
Starting on Monday, about 10,000 government negotiators, scientists, journalists and campaigners will gather at a purpose-built venue in a national park in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar to discuss how to stop land turning into desert as the world warms.
Drought is currently sweeping much of the Northern hemisphere, leaving normally green urban parks looking like dry savannah, causing crops to fail, food prices to rise and billions to be shaved off economic output.
On Wednesday, Britain’s prime minister chaired an emergency meeting of the government’s Cobra committee. These are usually reserved for wars, terrorist attacks, riots and pandemics – but this one was on the extreme heat and drought the UK has been suffering since May.
With many countries facing far worse with fewer resources than the UK, the issues to be discussed at the UN’s COP17 summit in Mongolia – often overlooked – should be nearer the top of policy-makers minds.
But what is COP17? What will be decided and announced there over the next two weeks? How does it relate to climate change and how will it help restore the lands on which we all rely for our food, water and other essential resources? Climate Home News explains all below.
What is COP17?
It is the conference of parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). The parties are 196 governments, which includes all of the countries recognised by the UN.
The convention was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, at the same time as the other two larger “Rio trio” conventions on climate and biodiversity.
While the climate convention’s COP takes place every year, the UNCCD COP happens only once every two years. COP17 will be its seventeenth gathering.
What is desertification?
It is the process by which land degrades and becomes more like a desert, making it harder – and sometimes impossible – to grow crops or graze livestock there.
Climate change and other human activities – like excessive irrigation which depletes ground water – are making this process worse, causing poverty, hunger, health problems, forced migration and loss of species.
It’s a widespread problem. The UN estimates that half a billion people live within areas that have experienced desertification since the 1980s and that two-fifths of the world’s land is degraded.
What has it got to do with climate change?
The planet’s climate is heating up, mainly due to humans burning fossil fuels, and drying out its land. This kills plants and exposes the soil which can then be blown away by wind and washed away by water.
Without a top layer of soil, plants struggle to grow again and the land gets closer to being a desert. So combating desertification is a way of adapting to climate change.
It is also a way of lessening the pace of climate change, as land degradation releases carbon dioxide previously stored in healthy soils and plants.
What will be negotiated at COP17?
The main issue is what form a new initiative to tackle drought could take. The last COP saw Africa push hard for this to be a protocol – a kind of binding sub-treaty to the UNCCD.
But the US, Europe, Argentina and others argued that would take too long to set up, cost too much and take money away from what can be spent on the ground. They prefer a legally weaker alternative – a framework instead of a protocol.
Negotiations went late into the last night of talks in Riyadh, with the Saudis hosting informal consultations, but eventually governments had to agree to disagree and pick up talks again in Ulaanbaatar.
As Earth dries out, countries fail to reach drought agreement
Governments will also negotiate a new policy on protecting rangelands and pastoralists from degradation. Rangelands are areas where animals graze. They cover around half the Earth’s land and include almost everything other than forest, deserts, farms, glaciers and cities. Pastoralists are people who herd animals on these rangelands, often moving from place to place to find fresh pasture.
COP17 host country Mongolia has a lot of both – and pushed successfully for the UN to declare 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. It is keen to agree a decision at COP17 bringing those issues more to the forefront of the UNCCD.
Negotiators will also debate the UNCCD’s post-2030 strategic framework, which they hope to adopt at COP18 in 2028. Campaign groups like the World Wildlife Fund want a stronger focus on biodiversity and nature-positive food systems.
What will happen when?
The COP will formally open with a ceremony on Monday August 17, followed by opening statements by governments and the adoption of the agenda.
Negotiations will begin, mostly behind closed doors for two weeks until the closing plenaries on Friday August 28.
While talks rumble on in the background, the second week will see senior government representatives including ministers get involved, with a “high-level segment” running from August 24-26.
They will discuss issues like drought resilience, finance and pastoralist communities. This is likely to be when any announcements – of new funding, for instance – are made.
On Monday August 24, there will also be an open dialogue between government officials and civil society members. Here, local practitioners are likely to share stories of how they are helping their communities reverse land degradation. UNCCD prides itself on being a bottom-up convention.
Unlike climate COPs, which often end a day or two over time, UNCCD COPs usually finish on the evening of their last day and – while they have gone late into the night – have never run into the next day.
What else should we watch out for?
At the last COP two years ago, host Saudi Arabia led the creation of an initiative called the Riyadh Global Drought Resilience Partnership to help 80 of the poorest nations deal with drought.
It received $12 billion in pledges, mainly from Gulf-based development finance institutions. Saudi Arabia is expected to report back on whether these pledges have been delivered and how the money will reach those in need now.
There are also hopes that governments will announce financial support for Mongolia’s Rangelands Flagship Initiative, which aims to mobilise investment in projects to fight land degradation.
Who will preside over COP17?
While the last five and the next two climate COPs have been or will be presided over by men, COP17 will be woman-led with Mongolia’s foreign minister, Battsetseg Batmunkh, as president.
This will also be the first COP for the UNCCD’s new executive director Yasmin Fouad. Before being appointed environment minister in her native Egypt, Fouad was a scientist and lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s special report on desertification. She played a key role at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt in 2022.
Although Saudi Arabia’s UNCCD COP presidency is ending, the Gulf power house will likely continue to be influential. It has supported the COP financially as part of the Riyadh-Ulaanbaatar action agenda and will be following up on initiatives announced two years ago.
While Saudi Arabia is often blamed for obstructing progress at climate talks, as a desert nation it is generally thought to have played a constructive role at UNCCD COPs.
What are the negotiating dynamics?
The UNCCD has six main negotiating groups: Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Northern Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe, and developed donor countries. Governments can also speak in their own capacities.
While divisions between the Global North and Global South do exist at UNCCD COPs, they are not as stark as at climate COPs. The Global South’s umbrella group – the G77 and China – usually only speaks on finance issues, on which developing countries tend to be united.
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Civil society groups are present but not as vocal or as confrontational as at climate COPs. There are generally no protests and campaigners tend to try to hold governments accountable more quietly. There are likely to be far fewer journalists than at climate COPs too.
What role will the US play?
While the US has left the UN’s climate convention, it remains in the UNCCD and is expected to bring a delegation of officials from its departments of agriculture and state. It is likely to resist any renewed push from Africa for a drought protocol.
The post Will the world’s drying lands get relief from COP17 in Mongolia? appeared first on Climate Home News.
Will the world’s drying lands get relief from COP17 in Mongolia?
Helen Phillips’ book, ‘Hum’, is set in a dystopian near future, in a city suffering the effects of climate breakdown and with dire air quality. Robots (the Hums) press advertising messages during conversations, meetings and even as they carry out medical procedures.
The Hums are vehicles for these ad messages, which are often for products like cosmetics, sweets or anything that might be relevant during interactions with humans. This advertising is poorly disguised, and merges with sentiments that lean towards concerns of well-being, convincing people how much better off they’ll be if they make a purchase.
While the novel is futuristic, the insidious way advertising permeates daily life is resonant of how adverts show up in our world today. And these ads are directly contributing to the worsening future climate Phillips describes in her book.
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Already by the summer of 2026, Europe had seen a 57% increase in wildfires in just four years with western Europe recording the hottest ever June and July on record. We’re facing droughts and floods, as well as predicted hikes in food costs or even chronic food shortages – and that’s before the expected additional effects of a strong El Niño later this year.
Frequent flying and bigger burgers
A portion of this climate breakdown is fuelled by over-consumption in richer countries, particularly of products that are high carbon – for which advertising can take some of the blame. Research shows that adverts drive citizens to consume about a third more goods and services in general, over and above what they might have purchased.
Yet despite a clear link between promoting high-carbon behaviours and climate breakdown, little advertising regulation exists in the UK. Take frequent flying for instance, one of the most carbon-intensive activities we can partake in.
EasyJet’s latest ad campaign is called “Drop Everything”. It encourages consumers to book cheap flights departing within the next 48 hours for presumably short or weekend getaways. Rather than promoting a specific destination, “Drop Everything” promotes a mindset that encourages indiscriminate consumption of flying. The ads were shown on billboards with clever creative slogans, as well as on digital media and through influencer campaigns.
Overall, flight numbers are increasing. The UK Civil Aviation Authority reported the highest number of UK passengers in the first quarter of 2026 (more than 61 million, breaking previous records for travel between January and March). It seems we’re still not joining the dots between flying and a worsening climate.
And how about meat consumption? Scientists advocate for less meat-eating, especially beef which has the highest carbon footprint of nearly all foods. Yet adverts from McDonald’s proliferate, helping make it one of the highest-volume sellers of fast-food chain beef burgers. In 2024, the outdoor advertising budget for McDonald’s UK rose to £86 million, an increase of 71% on previous years.
Small share for sustainability
While over half of UK ad professionals feel increasingly queasy about their profession and its effects on the climate crisis, the people running the show – the UK trade bodies – prefer to focus on the growth advertising brings.
In the first three months of 2026, they stated that UK advertising spend increased by 9.3%, reaching a total of £11.7 billion for that quarter, fuelling consumption and market growth.
But how many of those adverts actually promote low carbon goods and services? Kantar’s Sustainable Ads Tracker shows the percentage of ads featuring sustainability messaging in 2026 is around 4.3%. That’s woefully low, and much of this is made up of messaging that promotes recycling.
Additionally, the ad industry continues to happily produce adverts for the large oil and gas corporations that are fuelling climate breakdown. These adverts only narrowly pass the Advertising Standards Authorities’ advertising codes, allowing the continued greenwashing of the world’s most polluting brands.
There is essentially no leadership from the UK trade bodies, likely because they are directly funded by the brands and advertisers themselves. They are essentially ‘ad shushing’ – pushing for indiscriminate growth and directing attention to their sustainability awards, while confusingly denying that adverts drive higher consumption overall.
Let’s ‘un-shush’
Where does this leave us as we are subjected to hundreds, if not thousands, of persuasive advertising messages every day that support high-carbon lifestyles? Most ad professionals are unable to push back against this agenda at work, often due to the threat of job loss. The advertising trade bodies won’t take the lead as they work in service to big brands and advertisers.
NGOs urge Brazil to prevent fossil fuel capture of COP30 climate summit
So, who can push for the changes we need? Members of the public.
Through pressuring our city officials and governments, we can force through restrictions, such as the watershed bans on unhealthy foods on TV before 9pm in the UK. Through supporting the efforts of organisations such as Ad Free Cities and others, we can help achieve bans on outdoor advertising for fossil fuels, aviation, meat and even single-use plastics in cities and regions such as Amsterdam, The Hague, Edinburgh, Florence, Uppsala and many more.
If we’re serious about climate change and stopping big global brands pushing their high-carbon products onto us, then advertising restrictions are one of the best ways to achieve this. If we don’t want a world like the one Phillips describes in her book, we need to make our voices heard above the advertising noise.
The post Pushing the climate crisis: How advertising fuels high-carbon lifestyles appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pushing the climate crisis: How advertising fuels high-carbon lifestyles
An upcoming UK government consultation on weakening targets for electric vehicles (EVs) could cost consumers as much as £3bn a year by 2030, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
It could require the UK to import an extra 17m barrels of oil in 2030, raising expected net imports by 8%, as well as adding 2.5% to national emissions that year, the analysis shows.
After years of fierce lobbying by parts of the car industry – and despite the significant savings on offer for EV drivers – media reports suggest that EV targets could be “watered down”.
Under current rules, battery EVs – BEVs, those which run only on electricity – must make up a rising share of new car sales in the UK.
This policy, known as the “zero-emission vehicles” (ZEV) mandate, was introduced by the previous Conservative government and sets a goal for 33% BEV sales in 2026, rising to 80% in 2030.
(Carmakers are able to use “flexibilities” to help meet their targets, which reduces the effective target under the ZEV mandate to an estimated 25% of sales in 2026.)
Now, the government under new Labour prime minister Andy Burnham is reported to be considering a cut in the BEV target for 2030 to just 50% of new car sales, alongside options for 60% or 70%.
Carbon Brief understands that a consultation on weakening the ZEV mandate is being reviewed by the prime minister’s office in Number 10, ahead of being formally released.
If the mandate is weakened to 50% by 2030 – and if carmakers make more use of “flexibilities” – there could be up to 3m fewer BEVs on UK roads by 2030, according to the NGO T&E.
Previous Carbon Brief analysis found that BEVs are around £1,100 cheaper to run per year than a petrol car, thanks to far lower fuel costs.
Overall, BEVs are more than £1,000 per year cheaper to own than either petrol cars or plug-in hybrids (PHEVs, which can run on petrol or electricity).
This is according to analysis of the “total cost of ownership” by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), including purchase price, fuel costs, insurance and proposed pay-per-mile charges.
In total, Carbon Brief analysis shows that UK drivers could be hit with an extra £3bn in annual ownership costs by 2030, if the ZEV mandate is weakened, as shown below.
A weaker ZEV mandate could “put billions of pounds of committed investments at risk”, reports BusinessGreen, including in the EV charging network and battery supply chains.
Industry group Energy UK says that the mandate is “working in the way it was designed to work” and that it is the “single biggest driver of emissions reductions” in government climate plans.
However, Carbon Brief analysis shows that a weaker ZEV mandate could result in an extra 7.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions (MtCO2) in 2030. This would add the equivalent of 2.5% to national emissions in 2030, under the UK’s international climate goal for that year.
In addition, a weaker ZEV mandate could result in the UK needing to import an extra 17m barrels of oil in 2030, equivalent to 8% of projected net imports that year.
Energy UK says that shifting to EVs will help to reduce household energy bills “for everyone”. This is not only through direct cost-of-ownership savings for EV drivers, but also by spreading the costs of upgrading the electricity system across a wider user base.
Car industry group the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders claims that its members are spending “blilions…on discounts, finance incentives and marketing support” and that “natural” EV demand is below the level required to meet the current ZEV mandate. Its claims are disputed.
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The post Analysis: Weaker EV targets could cost UK consumers £3bn a year by 2030 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Weaker EV targets could cost UK consumers £3bn a year by 2030
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