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.
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Key developments
Weather drives food price spike
BITTER TRUTHS: Cocoa futures contracts being traded on the New York commodities exchange “hit an all-time high above $12,000 per tonne in April”, but fell below $9,000 this week “on the news of rains arriving in west Africa”, the Financial Times reported. The “wild swings” that are “enough to be bankrupting for a lot of people” are “a sign of market volatility and stress following successive poor harvests in Ivory Coast and Ghana” – the world’s two top producers of cocoa. Both countries, along with Nigeria and Cameroon, “have seen drastically reduced crop yields amid droughts, fires and other climate change-induced weather phenomena”, African Business reported, further “exacerbated by decades of underinvestment in the sector”. Farmers are having to “pursue alternative revenue streams”, the outlet added. The crisis facing the cocoa sector points to a systemic problem, the Guardian wrote: “Faced with global heating, increasing conflict and energy price instability, depending on the free market is a poor bet.”
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‘HEATFLATION’: A global olive oil shortage brought on by drought and extreme heat in Europe has driven prices to record highs and even “fuelled a crime surge”, CNBC News reported. Spain, the world’s largest olive supplier, saw output cut between 30-50% of its usual 1.3m-tonne harvest, with Spanish supermarkets reporting that “olive oil had become the most stolen item” across the country, the story added. Helena Bennett at policy thinktank Green Alliance UK “unequivocally attributed the record spike in olive oil prices to climate change”, telling CNBC: “It’s happening to other food crops too…Olive oil today, everything else soon.” The experts who predicted last year that “heatflation” would send olive oil price’s skyrocketing “were right”, Salon wrote.
‘SOGFLATION’: Meanwhile, the UK is staring at the costs of “sogflation”, according to Bloomberg. Bread, beer and biscuit prices “look set to rise sharply” after a wet winter impacted crops across the UK, according to new analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), the Press Association reported. According to ECIU, yields of key crops such as wheat, barley, oats and rapeseed “might drop by 4m tonnes” compared to 2023, with wheat slated to see a 27% drop. Between October 2022 and March 2024, England experienced “the wettest 18-month period since records began in 1836”, the Guardian said, resulting in “crops either being flooded[,] damaged…or farmers not being able to establish crops at all.”
Hotter ocean, burning mountains
MARINE HEATWAVES: The Indian Ocean “is experiencing unprecedented and accelerated warming” and could hit a rate of 1.7-3.8C per century “unless greenhouse gas [emissions] are reduced immediately”, Down to Earth wrote, reporting on new research. The work – which forms the chapter of a new book – found that marine heatwave days “are expected to rise” from 20 to 220-250 a year, meaning that “most of the Indian Ocean could be in a near-permanent state of marine heatwave conditions”, the story said. This could cause tropical cyclones to intensify rapidly, “putting fisheries and people living along the coastline at risk”, Mongabay wrote, reporting on the same study.
LAKSHADWEEP LOSS: The Hindu reported that researchers at India’s Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) recorded “widespread bleaching impacting coral reefs in the Lakshadweep Sea owing to marine heatwaves” this week. Since October last year, the Lakshadweep Sea – bordering India, Maldives and Sri Lanka – saw temperature “rises greater than 1C”, CMFRI scientists told the paper. “If the situation continues to rise, it could precipitate an unprecedented biodiversity crisis due to multispecies mortality,” said Dr KR Sreenath, senior scientist at the CMFRI. “The degradation of these ecosystems can lead to the collapse of local marine food webs, affecting a wide range of marine species, from fish communities to marine mammals like dugongs and dolphins,” he added.
FIRE IN THE MOUNTAIN: Meanwhile, on land, India reported a record 75,000 forest fires in April, according to the Hindustan Times. The eastern states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh and the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand were among the worst affected, with a senior forest official telling the paper that a “warmer-than-usual April and drier winter this year are the reasons for sudden spurt”. The mountainous state of Uttarakhand lost more than 142 hectares of forest to fires in just 72 hours, with “scanty winter rain” playing a major role in the 6,701 blazes that broke out in the hill state last month, another Hindustan Times story reported. A NewsLaundry investigation reported that Uttarakhand’s district authorities “ignored” warnings and deployed nearly all of their forest staff and vehicles for election duty during peak fire season, affecting “official preparedness to deal with the [fires]”.
Spotlight
Nature loss and climate change fuelling infectious diseases
In this spotlight, Carbon Brief reports on a new study finding that biodiversity loss is the largest driver of infectious diseases, with climate change, pollution and invasive species also increasing outbreak risks.
The role of environmental problems, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, in spreading infectious diseases to humans and animals has received renewed focus since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The root cause of the pandemic has never been identified, but some researchers suspect that the virus passed from bats to humans through an unknown intermediary animal, possibly a pangolin.
An infection or disease that has passed from an animal to a human is known as a “zoonosis”. Back in 2020, a range of scientists told Carbon Brief that such events could be increasing because of climate change, biodiversity loss and habitat destruction, which are each creating new opportunities for humans and animals to come into contact.
A new study in Nature conducted a meta-analysis of the available scientific literature to try to understand what the main global drivers of infectious disease risk could be for both humans and wildlife.
Data crunching
For the research, the scientists identified studies on the links between infectious disease and environmental change, a category that included biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, climate change, habitat loss or change and invasive alien species.
They extracted the relevant data from these studies to create a database detailing nearly 3,000 observations of infectious disease spread or harm in response to environmental change.
The next step was to standardise the data so that they could compare how different environmental change drivers affect infectious disease risk.
The results showed that biodiversity loss was the largest driver of infectious disease risk across the studies included in the database, co-lead author Prof Jason Rohr, an ecology and public health researcher at the University of Notre Dame in the US, told Carbon Brief:
“Biodiversity loss, climate change and alien species tend to increase infections, and urbanisation tends to decrease infections. These results were generally consistent across human and non-human diseases.”
Disease surveillance
The results could help policymakers to channel financial resources for tackling infectious diseases more effectively, Rohr said:
“The findings [we] uncovered should help target disease management and surveillance efforts towards global change drivers that increase disease.
“Specifically, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing ecosystem health and preventing biological invasions and biodiversity loss could help to reduce the burden of plant, animal and human diseases, especially when coupled with improvements to social and economic determinants of health.”
News and views
MAASAI MAROONED: Forty tourists and staff members marooned in Kenya’s Maasai Mara Game Reserve due to flooding were rescued by local authorities, the Star reported. Dozens “narrowly escaped death at dawn” when the Talek River, which runs through the park, burst its banks after “torrential” rains, the East African reported. The outlet added that visitors and workers were “forced to climb trees” after the camps became waterlogged. At least 11 people have died due to the floods in Narok and Bomet counties, the Nation said. Gazelles and giraffes were the most affected wild animals, with the floods “disrupting habitats, food sources and water availability”.
EARTH ANGELS: Seven environmental defenders from six different continents were awarded this year’s Goldman Prize. Widely described as the “green Nobel”, the prize is given out to campaigners for “sustained and significant” efforts to protect the environment, Reuters wrote, profiling India’s Alok Shukla and his role in the decade-long movement to protect the Hasdeo Arand forest from coal mining. Marcel Gomes, executive secretary at Repórter Brasil, won the prize for coordinating an international investigation that “pressured big European retailers to stop selling illegally sourced” beef, Mongabay reported. Other winners this year include Murrawah Johnson from Australia’s First Nations, Nonhle Mbuthuma from South Africa and Spain’s Teresa Vincente.
NICKEL FOR FORESTS: According to a Global Forest Watch report, primary forest loss in Indonesia increased by 27% in 2023 compared to the previous year, the Associated Press reported. While the report said this loss is “still seen as historically low compared to the 2010s”, some experts “saw concern in the recent uptick”, tying it to the “world’s appetite for mining Indonesia’s vast deposits of nickel, which is critical for the green energy transition”, the newswire wrote. AP added that Global Forest Watch’s data on deforestation is “higher” than official Indonesian figures.
BRAZIL FLOODS: Storms and flooding in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul have killed at least 78 people and displaced a further 115,000 people, Al Jazeera reported. The floods have caused damage to roads and bridges, triggered landslides and caused the partial collapse of a dam at a small hydroelectric power plant, the outlet noted. A second dam in the area is also at risk of collapsing due to rising water levels, according to BBC News. It added that the extreme weather has been caused by “a rare combination of hotter than average temperatures, high humidity and strong winds”.
G7 MEETING: A meeting of ministers from the G7 – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – in Turin saw countries restate and add detail to climate, energy and biodiversity commitments. Along with a much-publicised pledge to end new coal power by 2035, the G7 also committed to a “swift, full and effective implementation” of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and to submit new national biodiversity plans ahead of the COP16 biodiversity summit in October. (France and Japan are the only G7 nations to have submitted plans so far and the US is not party to the UN biodiversity convention.) The G7 also said it would hold a workshop on implementing the GBF, with a focus on invasive species.
‘FIELDS OF FILTH’: Intensive meat and dairy farms in England have breached environmental regulations thousands of times in the past few years, according to a new investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. The organisation obtained investigation records from England’s Environment Agency describing more than 3,000 incidents, including “routine discharge of slurry and dirty water, maggot-infested carcass bins and the illegal incineration of pigs”. An Environment Agency spokesperson told the publication that there was a clear need for improvement, noting that around 80% of pig and poultry farm inspections resulted in advice and guidance, 16% resulted in a warning and around 2% resulted in a formal caution or prosecution.
Watch, read, listen
RESTORATION RETHINK: Dr Forrest Fleischman gave a talk at the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery on the relationship between ecosystem restoration and social science, as large-scale restoration projects gain more traction as a climate solution.
OFFSETS INVESTIGATED: The BBC’s flagship investigations show Panorama exposed serious issues with company net-zero claims that rely on carbon offsets.
KILLER GANG: A Mongabay story reported on how a single poaching ring may have “wip[ed] out 10% of the entire global population of the critically endangered” Javan rhino.
SEDIMENT STRATEGY: A deep dive in Nature unpacked Maldives’ “race” to reclaim land from the sea to combat sea level rise, but critics say the environmental costs are too high.
New science
Asymmetric impacts of forest gain and loss on tropical land surface temperature
Nature Geoscience
A new study found that land-surface warming caused by tropical forest loss is stronger than the cooling produced by forest gain – a significant finding, since tree-planting is often viewed as a key climate solution. The authors used multiple sources of satellite data to understand how land temperatures responded to forest loss and gain, finding that loss caused warming of about 0.56C and afforestation only brought down temperatures by around 0.10C. This asymmetry has not been captured by current Earth-system models and “could overestimate the cooling effect of afforestation in future”, the authors said.
Global trends and scenarios for terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services from 1900 to 2050
Science
Climate change could become the largest driver of biodiversity loss by the middle of the century, new research suggested. The study used modelling to examine past and future drivers of global biodiversity loss. It found that during the 20th century, global biodiversity declined by 2-11%, with land-use change as the major driver. However, projections for the future suggested that climate change is likely to overtake land-use change to become the biggest driver by mid-century, especially under high emissions scenarios, the researchers said. They added that the findings “robustly show that renewed policy efforts are needed to meet the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity”.
The positive impact of conservation action
Science
New research found that conservation actions improved the state of biodiversity – or at least slowed down biodiversity loss – but did not halt it “more than half of the time”. Researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 186 studies that measured biodiversity over time and contrasted conservation outcomes against areas where there were no measures in place to protect nature. Of all the conservation actions studied, invasive species control, habitat loss reduction and restoration, creation of protected areas and sustainable management had the highest impact. The authors concluded: “Conservation actions are investments rather than payments – and, as our study demonstrates, they are typically investments that yield genuine, high-magnitude positive impacts.”
In the diary
- 6-10 May: Nineteenth session of the UN Forum on Forests | New York City
- 13-29 May: Meetings of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s subsidiary bodies | Nairobi
- 14-17 May: FAO Regional Conference for Europe | Rome
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org.
The post Cropped 8 May 2024: Food price spike; Infectious diseases; Indian ocean heatwave appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 8 May 2024: Food price spike; Infectious diseases; Indian ocean heatwave
Four Ugandan farmers filed a case with London’s High Court on Tuesday, aiming to stop the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) from starting to operate by asking the court to apply Uganda’s laws against the project’s UK-registered company.
The controversial 1,443-kilometre (897-mile) pipeline, majority-owned by French energy company TotalEnergies, aims to carry crude from Ugandan fields for export through neighbouring Tanzania. About 80% has been built so far, according to its developers.
The pipeline’s first oil exports are expected as soon as October, according to its developers, and the campaign group Avaaz, which is backing the farmers’ crowdfunded lawsuit, called it “one final chance to stop one of the worst oil pipelines on the planet”.
The claim, filed by London law firm Leigh Day, argues that EACOP Ltd’s role in developing and operating the pipeline breaches Ugandan laws that protect citizens’ right to a clean and healthy environment.
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Ugandan farmers use British court to try to stop East Africa oil pipeline
The farmers and their lawyers will argue that a UK-based entity linked to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline has breached Ugandan law and construction should halt -
French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions
Oil and gas giant TotalEnergies has been given six months by a court to publish a more robust climate plan -
Uganda cites contentious IEA fossil fuel scenario backed by Trump administration
Critics of the African nation’s oil ambitions say referencing the International Energy Agency’s most pessimistic scenario for climate action is a risky policy
One of the claimants, Racheal Tugume, told a press conference she had been displaced from her land due to the pipeline’s construction, which she said had damaged local rivers, wildlife and ecosystems that communities depend on for their livelihoods just as erratic weather linked to climate change takes an increasing toll.
“I am very happy that there are people in countries like the UK who are listening to us, who are behind us and who have come to support us,” Tugume said, adding that she hoped the case would bring justice to communities affected by the pipeline.
Ugandan law in UK court
While the pipeline is a joint venture led by TotalEnergies, with smaller stakes owned by Ugandan, Tanzanian and Chinese national oil firms, it is operated by EACOP Ltd, a company registered to an office in London’s Canary Wharf financial district.
EACOP Ltd did not respond to a request for comment.
The claim appears to be the first attempt to have Uganda’s climate and environmental protections enforced in a foreign court, partly reflecting concerns over whether cases challenging the multibillion-dollar pipeline would get a fair trial in Uganda.
Ugandans living near new oil pipeline let down by compensation programmes
Concerns about access to a fair hearing are among the issues the court will consider when deciding if it should take on the case, said Matthew Renshaw, partner at Leigh Day.
Renshaw said that precedents including the Nigerian oil pollution case against Shell have shown that claims against British-registered companies for harms overseas can be successfully fought in UK courts.
“We are proud to represent the four brave principled individuals,” Renshaw said.
Constitutional protections
The pipeline project has already been subject to repeated lawsuits in several countries, none of which have succeeded. A climate lawsuit filed in Uganda more than a decade ago by a group of young people has yet to conclude. Another at the East African Court of Justice, brought by campaign groups against Uganda and Tanzania, was rejected on procedural grounds last November.
A separate ongoing lawsuit in TotalEnergies’ home country of France – a refiled version of an earlier failed claim – cannot stop EACOP going ahead, but it does seek damages from TotalEnergies for affected communities.
With the newly launched case, Leigh Day’s legal adviser Marc Willers said the claim draws on specific Ugandan laws in a bid to stop EACOP’s operations.
Uganda may see lower oil revenues than expected as costs rise and demand falls
These include the Ugandan constitution, a 2019 environmental law and the National Climate Change Act 2021, which gives Ugandans the right to bring a case before a court in circumstances where anyone or any entity threatens the country’s ability to mitigate climate change.
Stopping a “carbon bomb”
The pipeline, which will link Uganda’s Lake Albert oil fields to Africa’s east coast in Tanzania, has already displaced thousands of people and cuts through the Lake Victoria basin, one of East Africa’s major freshwater systems and a critical water source for around 40 million people.
According to the BankTrack non-profit, when the pipeline is at peak production, it will carry 216,000 barrels of crude oil per day and release over 33 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year. Over its full lifetime of 25 years, it is estimated to release about 379 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain including construction, refining and product use.
A May 2026 report from Earth Insight also warns that the pipeline and related infrastructure could affect 158 wetlands in Uganda, 11 rivers, 44 protected areas and seven key biodiversity areas while disrupting about 2,000 square km of protected wildlife habitats.
This is why the primary focus of the UK court case is to stop the operation of the pipeline in its tracks, Leigh Day’s Willers said, calling it a “carbon bomb” that would worsen the world’s climate crisis.
Long wait for first hearing
While the purpose of the case is to stop the pipeline from launching operations, Renshaw said it could take about 12 months before the case gets a first hearing and about 18 months before it goes to trial.
Billions unlocked as Green Climate Fund agrees to spend more and save less
The farmers are, however, seeking an injunction to stop EACOP Ltd from proceeding with operations. In the event that shipments begin, the lawsuit will still seek to stop the pipeline from then on, Renshaw said.
“We will be doing what we can to expedite matters but it is possible that EACOP will have started operating the pipeline before the claim is heard. If that is the case, the claim would intend to halt operations from that point. For example, the pipeline may operate for just one year rather than 30-plus, resulting in far less harm,” he said.
The post Ugandan farmers launch UK court case against East African oil pipeline appeared first on Climate Home News.
Ugandan farmers launch UK court case against East African oil pipeline
Climate Change
Cited 7 July 2026: ‘Impossible’ heat | Global ocean record | Climate change and the ozone hole
Welcome to Cited, your essential guide to new climate research.
In the news
‘HEAT ALERT’: At least 25 people died as a “heat dome” smothered the eastern half of the US, reported the Guardian, with more than 20 states under “stifling temperatures more than 100F (38C)”. More than 140 million people were under heat alerts, the outlet said, with dead bodies found in “homes with no air conditioning, outside their residences, on the street and in parked cars”. Analysis by World Weather Attribution (WWA) found that the combined heat and humidity would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused warming, reported the New York Times.
‘MORTALITY WILL RISE FURTHER’: Meanwhile, extreme heat continued to hit Europe, with Le Monde reporting on temperatures of 40C in France, Portugal and Spain again this past weekend, alongside “devastating” wildfires. Public Health France doubled its preliminary estimate of the “excess deaths” from the extreme heat in late June, from 1,000 to more than 2,000, according to the Guardian. The higher figure was still “probably an underestimate”, the agency said. Analysis published by Carbon Brief put the figure at 2,700 heat-related deaths. A WWA attribution study, covered by Carbon Brief, found that Europe’s June heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” even 50 years ago.
‘BOOST TO GLOBAL TEMPERATURES’: The UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) “raised its forecast for the rapid emergence of a strong El Niño in the coming months, warning that the phenomenon is likely to drive global temperatures higher”, reported Reuters. A WMO scientist told the newswire that “El Niño conditions have emerged in the equatorial Pacific and there is a remarkable agreement between forecast models that this will be a strong El Niño”.
Research picks
Extremes
- The annual season when “intense” tropical cyclones occur has lengthened by 10-14 days per decade across the world since the 1980s | Nature Communications
- There is an “increasing” and “overlooked” global threat from glacial outburst floods from small lakes | Nature Sustainability
- Female smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa experience crops losses 2-2.5 times greater than male smallholders in periods of extreme heat | Nature Sustainability
Policy
- The summaries for policymakers in Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mitigation reports over 2001-22 “have not yet become more solution-oriented while abiding by their policy-neutrality principle” | npj Climate Action
- Two-thirds of countries address inequality in their national pledges under the Paris Agreement – particularly in “countries with lower levels of human development and greater income inequality” | Climate and Development
- To “future proof” the Paris Agreement’s “well-below 2C” limit, it should be interpreted as a median “peak warming” of 1.6-1.8C, rather than a 66-90% chance of staying below 2C | Nature Climate Change
Land sink
- From 2001 to 2015, northern Eurasia absorbed about 0.47bn tonnes of carbon each year – around one-third of the total global land carbon sink | Global Biogeochemical Cycles
- Model simulations of potential land-use carbon emissions out to 2100 show that “deforestation and forest regrowth dominate variability” of emissions, with policy timing and ambition “exerting strong control” | Nature Communications
- Tropical forests are facing an increase in areas that exceed critical temperatures where their “photosynthetic system breaks down” | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Captured
On 21 June, global average sea surface temperature (SST) reached a record high for the day of the year, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). Daily SST for the global ocean, excluding polar regions, reached 20.86C on 21 June, exceeding the 20.83C reached on the same day in both 2023 and 2024, the C3S said. Global SST has remained at record levels for every day since. The conditions “could indicate the beginning of a new phase, leading, once more, to uncharted territory”, said C3S director Carlo Buontempo.
56 hours and 30 hours
The amount of time that the average lifespan of tropical cyclones in the north-east and north-west Pacific has shortened, respectively, over 1982-2024, according to a study in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. This shorter lifespan “compresses the time available for weather forecasting and disaster preparedness”, the authors said.
Spotlight
The ozone hole and climate change
As a new “thought experiment” asks whether the hole in the ozone layer could, theoretically, have been identified decades before it was discovered, Carbon Brief explores the interactions between climate change and the ozone hole.
It is now more than 40 years since the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, detailed in the journal Nature in 1985.
A study more than a decade earlier had predicted that chlorine-based substances – such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – could lead to the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere.
So, in theory, how early could the ozone hole have been detected?
New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explored this very question.
Study co-author Prof Susan Solomon from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a leading atmospheric scientist. In the late 1980s, Solomon and colleagues identified the mechanism behind how CFCs were causing ozone depletion.
The new study is a “thought experiment”, Solomon told Carbon Brief, asking when scientists could have discovered the ozone hole had they had access to modern satellite observations.
“We found that depletion could have been detected as early as 1957 in the tropical upper stratosphere, where natural variability is especially small,” explained Solomon.
This would have been before the use of CFCs became widespread, Solomon added. Instead, early ozone depletion was caused by carbon tetrachloride, a chemical used as a cleaning agent, as well as in fire extinguishers and for producing refrigerants.
For many decades, the ozone hole and global warming have often been confused by the public and the media, Solomon explained:
“It’s common to imagine that because ozone is so important at shielding us from the UV [ultraviolet] light that causes skin cancer, then having less ozone must mean the Earth would warm up.”
For example, in a 1995 editorial, the Los Angeles Times congratulated the Nobel prize-winning chemists who identified the threat of CFCs to the ozone layer. The newspaper noted that these processes “threaten calamitous global warming by damaging the Earth’s protective layer of ozone”.
However, said Solomon, “the Earth is warmed much more by visible light – UV doesn’t really contribute, so ozone depletion doesn’t cause significant warming”.
Regional impacts
The depletion of ozone actually has a very small cooling effect at the Earth’s surface. But this is more than outweighed by the warming impact of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances.
This warming impact means that efforts to reverse ozone depletion have had a beneficial impact on the climate.
The Montreal Protocol, a 1987 international agreement to phase out CFCs, “has played – and is playing – a very substantial role in safeguarding climate too”, said Solomon:
“It turns out that the CFCs and their replacement gases HCFCs [hydrochlorofluorocarbons] are strong greenhouse gases, so phasing out their production has not only avoided a lot of ozone depletion that would otherwise have occurred, it also had a big influence on global warming.”
HCFCs were considered as “transitional substitutes” for CFCs – they still damaged ozone, but to a lesser extent – until ozone-safe alternatives were commercially available.
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are not ozone depleting, began to be used widely in the 1990s. However, HFCs are also potent greenhouse gases. HFCs and similar replacements are now being phased out under the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
While the ozone hole itself has only a very small impact on global temperatures, it does have a clear impact on the regional climate over Antarctica.
Prof David Thompson from Colorado State University, working with colleagues including Solomon, has published research demonstrating that “changes in southern-hemisphere winds linked to the stratospheric ozone losses extend all the way down to the ground in some seasons”, explained Solomon.
This has “reduc[ed] warming that would have occurred in interior Antarctica and enhanc[ed] warming in the Antarctic Peninsula region”, she said.
The knock-on impacts include “wind changes [that] actually extend beyond Antarctica to the mid-latitudes of the southern hemisphere, where they even affect rainfall”, she added.
Preprints to watch
Carbon Brief’s pick of new papers under review
- The drying impact over Africa from using stratospheric aerosol injections to stabilise global temperatures would only be minimised “when combined with a strong decarbonisation effort” | Earth System Dynamics
- The El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Indian Ocean Dipole could “shape” the playing conditions at the Rugby World Cup 2027 in Australia | Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science
- A “strong” weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would “profoundly alter the climate-carbon cycle system”, underscoring the “importance of explicitly accounting for AMOC risks in long-term climate assessments” | Earth System Dynamics
Noticeboard
- 6 July-25 September: Registration open for experts to review the first-order draft of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Working Group I report
- 7-15 July: UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, New York
- 19 July: Application deadline for a postdoctoral scholar in transdisciplinary climate research at Penn State University, US | Salary: unknown
- 22 July: Application deadline for PhD project on “climate change impacts on the Antarctic coastal ocean carbon sink” at the University of East Anglia, UK
- 26 July: Application deadline for PhD projects on “AI for land-atmosphere feedbacks during hydroclimatic extremes” at the Helmholtz School for Integrated Data Science in Environmental & Life Sciences, Germany
- 29 July: Application deadline for an assistant professor in Earth and environmental geosciences (palaeoclimatology) at Colgate University, US | Salary: $97,500-101,500
- 31 July: Application deadline for PhD project on Arctic Ocean methane oxidation at Stockholm University, Sweden
Cited is researched and written by Cecilia Keating, Robert McSweeney, Ayesha Tandon, Daisy Dunne and Dr Giuliana Viglione.
Please send tips, feedback and upcoming climate research to cited@carbonbrief.org
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cited email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post Cited 7 July 2026: ‘Impossible’ heat | Global ocean record | Climate change and the ozone hole appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cited 7 July 2026: ‘Impossible’ heat | Global ocean record | Climate change and the ozone hole
In June 2026, a record-breaking heatwave swept across Europe, with France among the first and hardest hit countries.
In a new analysis, we estimate that the extreme conditions caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths in France.
We also show how France’s extreme temperatures in June exceeded projections from climate models.
Our findings illustrate the human toll of extreme weather as the world warms.
We also highlight the challenges in projecting the magnitude of future heatwaves and their impacts on people.
Outpacing projections
For most of this century, Europe has seen summer heat extremes that outpace projections from climate models.
Several different factors likely explain this trend, including reductions in planet-cooling aerosols as nations have cleaned up their air pollution, as well as changes in atmospheric circulation patterns, which models struggle to represent.
In June 2026, daily high temperatures averaged across France reached 36.9C, shattering the previous June record set in 2022 by 2.4C.
[For more on the impacts and coverage of Europe’s June heatwave, see Carbon Brief’s explainer.]
The rise in observed temperatures in France has outpaced projections made by climate models, with June maximum temperatures more in line with what was expected for the 2070s.
This is illustrated in the figure below, which shows how France’s average maximum daily high temperature for June recorded in 2026 (black line) compares to climate model projections (blue and orange lines).
Counting the death toll of climate change
The downstream impacts of these extreme temperatures are lethal.
Scientists are able to estimate the death toll of high temperatures in many locations, depending on the availability of mortality and climate data.
There are several ways to do this.
One option is to examine death certificates to see which deaths have been directly recorded by physicians as related to heat. However, there is strong evidence that this method significantly undercounts heat-related deaths, as most death certificates do not consider environmental factors such as heat when diagnosing the cause of death.
Alternatively, it is possible to calculate the rate of total (“all-cause”) mortality in a given time period relative to previous time periods – for example, by comparing the total number of deaths in June 2026 compared to the average of previous Junes. This “excess deaths” figure can be used as an estimate of the deaths from a heat wave.
Using this approach, Public Health France attributed around 2,000 deaths in France to the extreme heat in the week of 22-28 June.
Finally, scientists can use long-term data on overall mortality and correlate changes in mortality with changes in temperature to understand the statistical relationship between the two.
Research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025 that used this third approach found that mortality rates in France increase rapidly in cold or hot conditions as daily maximum temperatures depart further from approximately 20C.
This pattern of a U-shaped response of mortality to temperature – shown in the figure below – is very consistent across time periods and regions around the world.
To calculate the death toll of the June 2026 heatwave in France, we compared observed temperatures over 12-29 June to their baseline average over 1980-2025.
The difference between these two temperatures helps us understand how many more people died than they would have in the absence of such extreme conditions.
Over 12-29 June, we found that France has experienced around 2,700 heat-related deaths above the average baseline. Day-to-day heat-related mortality rates rose from less than 100 to almost 300 on the hottest days of 24 and 25 June.
This is shown in the graph below, which illustrates the cumulative total heat-related deaths seen in France over the two-and-a-half week period. The inset shows how heat-related deaths fluctuated on a day-to-day basis during this time.
Recent analysis by World Weather Attribution has already shown that human-caused climate change increased the frequency and intensity of the June heat wave across Europe.
Meanwhile, previous research has shown there is substantial evidence that heat-related mortality in Europe has already been elevated by greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, we can be confident that at least some of the more than 2,700 deaths already seen in France are directly due to the burning of fossil fuels.
Calculating climate risk
In April, the UN-led body responsible for coordinating the work of climate modelling centres – the Coupled Modelling Intercomparison Project (CMIP) – unveiled a set of seven new emissions scenarios.
These are designed to replace the previous scenarios that have been used by scientists to understand how the climate might change in the future. They will feed into the upcoming seven assessment report (AR7) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The range of future emissions in the new CMIP scenarios is smaller, with scenarios of very high or very low emissions no longer on the table.
The retirement of the very-high emissions scenario – known as “RCP8.5” – led to certain commentators in the media and in politics, including US president Donald Trump, arguing that the risks of climate change had been “overstated”.
[For more on false and misleading claims around the new emissions scenarios, see Carbon Brief’s factcheck.]
Our analysis of June’s heat-related deaths in France suggests that, even if the most severe emissions pathways are no longer needed, climate impacts are taking a heavy toll on society.
Moreover, the temperatures seen in France show that climate models continue to underpredict the magnitude of heatwaves for a particular level of global warming.
This is because greenhouse gas emissions are only a first step in estimating the impacts of climate change.
The second step is converting emissions to changes in the climate at both the global and local levels – or hazards. This includes heatwaves, flash floods and droughts.
The third step is to determine how changes in the hazards will affect local populations. This can be determined by calculating people’s exposure and vulnerability to hazards.
Substantial uncertainty persists at every stage of this sequence.
For example, scientists do not know exactly how the global climate will react to ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions – nor the extent to which global temperature increases will drive local climate hazards. We also do not know how climate change at a local level impacts human health outcomes.
Managing the future of heat risk
Almost all heat-related deaths are preventable.
Adaptation options, such as air conditioning, heat action plans and social support for isolated people, will be crucial as the climate moves away from the typical conditions that people are used to.
Our previous research showed that France made a lot of progress reducing heat-related mortality after the deadly 2003 summer heatwave by taking many of these actions.
Adaptation can reduce deaths, but it cannot eliminate the risk created by continued warming.
Without a move away from fossil fuels, future heatwaves will keep testing the limits of public health systems and more people will die.
The post Guest post: France’s June heatwave caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Guest post: France’s June heatwave caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths
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