The year 2025 has seen exceptionally dry conditions in many parts of the UK.

At the time of writing, a large area of England is officially “in drought” and hosepipe bans are in force for more than 8m households.

This follows severe drought episodes in the summers of 2022 and 2018 – which raises the question of whether these events are part of a pattern towards a drier future.

However, the intervening periods between these drought events have been associated with major floods.

There is good reason to assume this “hydrological volatility” could be linked to climate change.

Writing for Carbon Brief in 2020, we explored how climate change might be impacting UK river flooding.

Here, we revisit this theme – but ask whether global warming is driving a long-term trend towards increasing drought severity in the UK.

To do so, we draw from the findings of a 2023 Environment Agency report, a chapter of which we authored and has now been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Key findings include:

• Future projections indicate hydrological droughts will become more severe in the UK, especially over the months of April to September, due to hotter, drier summers.
• However, observations from the past 50 years – and longer where records allow – do not provide evidence of worsening drought.
• This apparent conflict is largely because natural climate variability can obscure underlying trends driven by climate change.
• An increasingly variable climate in the UK means planners still need to prepare for more severe droughts, as well as more floods.

The 2025 hydrological drought

Droughts are complex events that vary in duration, time of year, location and severity.

They are often categorised into different types. For example, a meteorological drought is defined by a lack of rainfall – whereas agricultural drought is a period when there is not enough water for crops to grow.

Here, we are focusing on hydrological drought, which is when a lack of rainfall results in less water in streams, lakes, rivers and reservoirs.

In particular, we look at deficits in river flow. It is through dwindling river flows that droughts have some of their greatest impacts on society and the environment.

Over March-July of this year, flows for many UK rivers were at their lowest level on record. Hosepipe bans have been introduced by water companies, while the Environment Agency has imposed restrictions on extracting water from rivers and warned of widespread environmental impacts, such as fish die-offs and algal blooms in rivers, streams and lakes.

The map below shows how a significant number of rivers in the UK this spring saw exceptionally low flows (marked by a dark red circle) or notably low flows (marked by an orange circle) compared to the 1991-2020 average. This includes many rivers in northern parts of Great Britain – which is typically wetter the south-east.

The graphs on the right, meanwhile, show how flows in the River Derwent and the River Wye (black line) in 2025 have been at equivalent levels, or lower, than in major past droughts (red, green and orange lines). This includes the record-breaking drought of 1976 (orange line), often used as a benchmark.

How is climate change going to affect droughts in the UK?

Globally, climate change causes an intensification of the hydrological cycle. This means that both wet and dry extremes – floods and droughts – are likely to become more frequent and severe.

One way of understanding the impact of climate change on hydrological drought is to use rainfall and temperature projections from climate models to drive hydrological models that simulate how the flow of water through river catchments could change in the future.

There are numerous studies that provide such projections of UK drought. (A summary of these can be found in the chapter on modelling in the 2023 Environment Agency report, linked above.)

Across these studies, river flow models generally show that, in the future, the UK should expect lower summer river flows, increasing drought severity and decreasing minimum flows – in other words, the lowest flows in each year will get lower.

The graphs below show projections of changing low flows for a selection of UK rivers from the 1980s to the 2080s over consecutive 30-year moving averages (1983-2012, 1984-2013 and so on, through to 2050-79).

These projections are based on the “enhanced future flows and groundwater” (Eflag) dataset, which provides simulated river flows for 200 catchments around the UK, using four river flow models. These are driven by the “regional” projections from the Met Office’s UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18), a 12-member climate model “ensemble” which uses the very-high-emission RCP8.5 scenario.

(For more on why this regional data is only available under this pathway, read Carbon Brief’s in-depth Q&A on UKCP18.)

The multiple lines on each plot – which indicate different projections for low flows – show the uncertainties arising from the different climate model runs and river flow models used.

The charts reveal that, across all rivers and different future trajectories, the trend points in the same direction – towards diminishing minimum flows. This suggests a drier future across the UK, most notably in the summer.

Past trends in drought

Given these projections, we would expect to see a similar trend of decreasing minimum flows emerging in observational data over the last few decades.

However, our research concludes that there is little compelling evidence for any evidence of a widespread worsening of UK droughts over the last half century – yet.

The maps below show how river flows have changed since 1965 across the UK for very low (Q95), medium-low (Q70) and median (Q50) flows.

For much of the north and west of the UK, the lowest flows in each year have, in fact, increased since 1965 (blue triangles). In the south and east of the country, there are decreases (inverted red triangles), but it is a mixed picture. Overall, the number of statistically significant trends is modest.

But, while these river flow records span more than 50 years, this is still a relatively short timeframe.

As a result, we also explored much longer records, including “reconstructed” river flows, which stretch back to 1890. Here, too, we find there is no consistent trend towards worsening drought over these long periods.

In fact, our research shows how trends in the last 50 years are often unrepresentative of longer-term changes. Some of the apparent decreasing trends from the maps above disappear when a longer view is taken.

Mismatch between past trends and future projections

There is a clear contradiction between future projections and past trends. We do not yet see much evidence of the drier future that climate models project.

However, this apparent contradiction is unsurprising once uncertainties inherent in both future projections and historical observations are considered.

Future projections are highly uncertain and span a wide range of possibilities – as shown by the multiple lines in the Eflag graphs above.

Caution is needed in interpreting trends in observations, too. While 50 years seems a reasonably long period, trends can be influenced by variability associated with natural atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns.

The trends towards increasing river flows in the north and west are consistent with changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) – the atmospheric pressure system that influences the UK’s weather on year-to-year and decade-to-decade timescales.

There is a growing list of drivers of drought variability, including the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the role of the influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic due to the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

In a recent paper, we highlighted that long-term trends in low river flows for many UK catchments may not be detectable for decades due to being obscured by natural climate variability.

This is shown by the plot below, which illustrates how projected trends of very low river flows over the 21st century (red line) contrasts with the estimated range of historical river flow variability (dashed lines). (The grey shading shows the range of different climate models.)

It shows that for some catchments – for example, the Lambourn River in south-east England – significant trends do not emerge until the 2050s.

Part of the mismatch between historical observations and climate projections for UK summer is due to a run of wet summers from the late 2000s onwards. This climate variability has ‘masked’ an underlying trend that could eventually emerge and bring a more worrisome consistency with the projections of climate models.

That this masking has often entailed living with an excess of water, in the form of widespread, damaging flooding, only highlights the challenges water managers face.

A drier and wetter future

Further research is required into how different types of hydrological drought will evolve.

We are confident we will see more droughts in April-September, typically associated with heatwaves, as in 2025, 2022 and 2018. This is because warming temperatures – which, unlike rainfall trends, are certain – will exacerbate droughts.

The increased likelihood of hot, dry summers also means more rapid-onset “flash droughts”, which have impacts on soil moisture as well as river flows.

As such, the droughts of recent years should be interpreted as a warning that hotter temperatures will worsen drought impacts.

However, we are much less confident that we will see more long, multi-annual droughts driven by dry winters that fail to replenish reservoirs and aquifers, such as those seen in 1988-93, 2005-06 and 2010-12. This is because climate models generally predict wetter winters for the UK. (These multi-annual droughts have, historically, posed some of the greatest challenges to water management.)

Nevertheless, climate variability means that even if winters get wetter, there will always be runs of dry years. This is a cause for concern, as the greatest problems occur when wet winters combine with dry summers. (It was the dry winter of 1975-76 which made the 1976 drought so severe). 

Our finding that it is difficult to confirm whether droughts are, overall, becoming more severe offers little comfort to water managers preparing for the future.

Our research offers a number of recommendations for water planners trying to navigate this complexity. This includes using large climate model “ensembles” to test the resilience of water supply systems to different types of droughts. Although model projections are uncertain, they provide a way to assess the UK’s vulnerability to a range of future outcomes.

Furthermore, the hydrological volatility of the recent past indicates the importance of preparing for both a drier and wetter future in the UK.

The UK is known for its variable weather, but it will have a future climate that is even more variable and extreme.

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The post Guest post: Is climate change making UK droughts worse? appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Guest post: Is climate change making UK droughts worse?

Artificial intelligence (AI) has undergone a rapid expansion in recent years.

Tech leaders have hailed an “AI revolution” – predicting “transformative” effects for humanity – while some governments have set their sights on AI-driven economic growth.

Yet, the industry is also facing scrutiny on many fronts, from inaccuracies in AI outputs through to the threat it poses to democracy.

One major critique concerns the environmental impact of AI, particularly the intensive energy use and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of the data centres that power it.

Campaigners, journalists and researchers have warned that the rapid expansion of data centres could slow down or even reverse the global shift towards net-zero.

The topic is complex, not least because the future of AI – and the role it could play in increasing or potentially helping to reduce emissions – remains highly uncertain.

Below, Carbon Brief takes a look at some of the best available figures, largely from the International Energy Agency (IEA), to explore the energy and emissions impact of AI.

1. Data centres currently account for a small share of global emissions and electricity use
2. Around a tenth of the electricity demand growth by 2030 is set to be driven by data centres
3. Data centres could account for half of electricity demand growth in some countries
4. Fossil-fuel use will likely expand to power data centres, but clean-energy supplies are set to grow faster
5. There is a lot of uncertainty about how much data centres will expand

1. Data centres currently account for a small share of global emissions and electricity use

The process of training and deploying AI models relies on data centres – large, energy-intensive facilities that house computing infrastructure.

Data centres already underpin the internet, among other things, making them essential for modern life. But as hype around AI has grown in recent years, investment in new data centres has ballooned.

The global electricity consumption of expanding data centres has grown by around 12% each year since 2017, according to the IEA’s recent “energy and AI” report.

Concerns about “skyrocketing” electricity demand have also prompted warnings of data centres driving up CO2 emissions, as fossil fuels still generate much of the world’s power.

Indeed, companies, such as Google, Meta and Microsoft, have reported large emissions spikes over the past few years due to data-centre expansion, despite their net-zero pledges.

One research paper concludes that the electricity demand of AI “runs counter to the massive efficiency gains that are needed to achieve net-zero”. Others have voiced concerns that data centres will “overwhelm” and “undermine” both national and company-level climate targets.

Reporting often mentions the electricity demand of data centres – or their emissions – “doubling”, “tripling” or increasing by some other large percentage in the coming years.

But these increases, while potentially dramatic in relative terms, are starting from a low baseline. As shown in the chart below, data centres are currently responsible for just over 1% of global electricity demand and 0.5% of CO2 emissions, according to IEA data.

Given this starting point, even as data centres expand, the IEA suggests that they will make a relatively small contribution to climate change, in the short term.

The agency estimates that data-centre emissions will reach 1% of CO2 emissions by 2030 in its central scenario, or 1.4% in a faster-growth scenario.

Nevertheless, it notes that this is one of the few sectors where emissions are set to grow – alongside road transport and aviation – as most will likely decarbonise in the coming years.

2. Around a tenth of the electricity demand growth by 2030 is set to be driven by data centres

The world is entering what the IEA describes as a “new age of electricity”, in which the electrification of transport, buildings and industry drives a surge in demand for power.

Along with electric cars and factories, data centres are frequently highlighted by analysts as a key “emerging driver” of this demand.

Under the IEA’s central scenario for data-centre growth, the sector’s global electricity consumption would more than double between 2024 and 2030, reaching 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) by the end of the decade. This is equivalent to the current electricity demand of Japan.

The IEA describes AI as “the most important driver of this growth”.

As it stands, AI has been responsible for around 5-15% of data-centre power use in recent years, but this could increase to 35-50% by 2030, according to another report prepared for the IEA.

However, the 530TWh rise in electricity demand in data centres by 2030 would only be 8% of the overall increase in demand that the IEA projects, as shown in the chart below.

This is less than electric vehicles (838TWh) or air conditioning (651TWh). It is considerably less than the 1,936TWh growth expected in industrial sectors by 2030.

If data-centre electricity use rose in line with the IEA’s faster-growth scenario, the facilities would be responsible for around 12% of global demand growth overall.

While the IEA says “uncertainties widen” when considering electricity demand growth beyond 2030, it expects a continued – albeit slower – increase to 1,193TWh by 2035.

This would mean annual demand growth roughly halving, from around 90TWh per year out to 2030, down to less than 50TWh a year out to 2035.

3. Data centres could account for half of electricity demand growth in some countries

While the global picture suggests a relatively modest role for data centres in driving near-future electricity demand growth, it could be far more pronounced in some countries.

Data centres are very geographically concentrated, both in terms of their global distribution and within leading countries. Today, nearly half of their electricity consumption takes place in the US, 25% in China and 15% in Europe, according to the IEA.

US data centres used around 4% of the nation’s electricity in 2023 and this is set to rise to 7-12% by 2028, according to analysis by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In Ireland – regarded as a European “tech hub” – around 21% of the nation’s electricity is used for data centres. The IEA estimates that this share could rise to 32% by 2026.

Data-centre electricity demand tends to be further localised in certain regions. In the US state of Virginia, these facilities already consume 26% of electricity, while in the Irish capital, Dublin, the figure is 79%, according to analysis by Oeko-Institute.

Much of the commentary on AI threatening climate goals comes from “advanced economies” in the global north, where the IEA estimates that, on average, a quarter of electricity demand growth by 2030 will be driven by data centres.

(In many of these countries, electricity demand has previously been flat or falling for years.)

Roughly half of the power demand growth in the US and Japan over the next five years is expected to come from data centres, according to the IEA, as shown in the figure below.

While there are some notable exceptions, such as Malaysia, data centres are set to be a relatively small portion of electricity demand growth in developing and emerging markets.

Around the world, electricity grids are under strain, with many developed countries, in particular, seeing long wait times for grid connections and new transmission lines. Data-centre growth is raising this pressure.

There are also growing concerns, notably in the US, about the impact data-centre growth could have on energy bills.

The IEA says that demand growth presents “advanced economies” with a “wake-up call” for the electricity sector to invest in infrastructure, otherwise “there is a risk that meeting data-centre load growth could entail trade-offs with other goals, such as electrification”.

4. Fossil-fuel use will likely expand to power data centres, but clean-energy supplies are set to grow faster

The extent to which data-centre growth increases emissions depends on which energy sources power those data centres.

Data centres can use power from the grid, in which case their electricity mix will reflect that of the region they are in and could therefore become cleaner as nations decarbonise.

They can also be powered by “captive” sources, built to supply specific facilities, such as solar panels, small nuclear reactors or gas turbines.

There are concerns that data-centre expansion will be used to justify the prolonged use of fossil fuels, “locking in” a future of elevated emissions.

Indeed, the likes of Shell have framed AI in such terms and some data-centre operators have been explicitly seeking gas connections to meet their electricity needs.

Currently, coal is the biggest single electricity source for data centres globally, largely due to the numerous facilities in China.

Overall, fossil fuels provide nearly 60% of power to data centres, according to the IEA. Renewables meet 27% of their electricity demand and nuclear another 15%.

(These figures are based on the electricity these facilities consume, rather than any contracts they have to buy clean energy credits.)

In the IEA’s central scenario, by 2035 the ratio of the data-centre electricity mix switches from around 60% fossil fuels and 40% clean power to 60% clean power and 40% fossil fuels, as shown in the chart below.

This is expected to be driven primarily by the wider global expansion of renewables, although some projects will be funded directly by data-centre companies.

However, the IEA says significantly more gas and coal power would likely still be required to meet data-centre demand, both from ramping up existing plants and building new ones.

Gas-power generation for data centres is expected to more than double from 120TWh in 2024 to 293TWh in 2035, with much of this growth in the US, according to the IEA.

About 38GW of captive gas plants currently “in development” – roughly a quarter of all such projects – are planned to power data centres, according to Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

The US has doubled the amount of gas- and oil-fired capacity it has in development over the past year, driven partly by the energy demand of the “burgeoning AI industry”, according to GEM.

However, these projects are facing long lead times and “sharply” rising costs, with GEM noting, as a result, that many may never materialise.

5. There is a lot of uncertainty about how much data centres will expand

Currently, there are no comprehensive global datasets available on data-centre electricity consumption or emissions, with few governments mandating any reporting of such numbers.

All figures concerning the energy and climate impact of AI are therefore estimates.

The IEA has assessed hundreds of available estimates and forecasts, noting that even historical data can be “widely divergent”, due in part to a lack of common definitions.

On top of this, there are major uncertainties, including over how quickly AI will be adopted. Despite the enthusiastic uptake of generative AI by individuals and companies, some argue that the business case for continued, rapid growth may be weaker than suggested.

Another uncertainty is how energy-efficient AI will be. Experts have already identified efficiency improvements resulting from better chips, more efficient training algorithms and larger data centres, all of which could continue curbing electricity demand.

(Google has also reported a substantial drop in the electricity use required for individual AI search queries, which is already small compared to the power needed to train AI models.)

A final uncertainty is over how many proposed data centres will actually get built, with some speculative requests for grid capacity relating to plans that may never materialise.

As a result of these knowledge gaps, there have been numerous estimates of short-term electricity demand growth from data centres, which have produced very different results, as shown in the chart below.

Some estimates – such as one from the Gas Exporting Countries Forum arguing that more gas exports will be needed to fuel meteoric rises in electricity demand for AI – have been deemed less credible in reviews by independent experts.

Another area of great uncertainty concerns the impact that the application of AI could have on electricity use and emissions.

Some researchers have attempted to calculate how much AI could curb emissions, by helping to identify efficiency gains in other parts of the energy system, or by making technological breakthroughs.

In some “exploratory” analysis, the IEA says such gains could cancel out any extra data-centre emissions due to the growth of AI.

However, it adds that despite the AI hype, “there is currently no existing momentum of AI adoption that would unlock these emissions reductions”.

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The post AI: Five charts that put data-centre energy use – and emissions – into context appeared first on Carbon Brief.

AI: Five charts that put data-centre energy use – and emissions – into context

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

Flooded food baskets

AG EMERGENCY: Flash flooding has destroyed thousands of acres of crops in Punjab, a province that accounts for 68% of Pakistan’s total annual food grain production, Bloomberg reported. Around 60% of the province’s rice crops and 30% of its sugarcane have been lost, according to preliminary estimates by the Pakistan Business Forum. Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that the forum has written to the prime minister to ask the government to declare an “agricultural emergency”. The New York Times spoke to farmers affected by the flooding.

CROSS-BORDER IMPACTS: In Indian Punjab, at least 148,000 hectares of cropland have been “submerged” by floodwaters, BBC News reported. It continued: “Punjab is often referred to as the ‘food basket’ of India and is a major source for agricultural production, particularly of staples like wheat and rice.” It added that a “quarter of Punjab’s 30 million people depend on agriculture” for their livelihoods. The Guardian spoke to Indian farmers left reeling from the impacts of flooding on their crops. Reuters reported that flooding has driven up the prices of aromatic basmati rice, grown exclusively in India and Pakistan.

CLIMATE ‘VULNERABLE’: In its coverage, Al Jazeera reported that there has not yet been a formal assessment of the role of climate change in the ongoing floods, but it is likely to be a key factor in their severity. It added that Pakistan “ranks among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations, but it contributes less than 1% of global emissions”. The Washington Post covered how deforestation has conspired with accelerating glacier melt and harsher monsoon rains to drive worse flash floods in the country.

‘Tropical forests forever’

FLAGSHIP FUND: Brazil is planning to make its Tropical Forest Forever Facility one of two priority initiatives at the COP30 climate summit in the Amazon city of Belém in November, according to a Financial Times report from São Paulo and Brasília. First proposed at COP28 in 2023, the facility aims to leverage finance from developed nations and philanthropic foundations to make protecting tropical forests in developing nations profitable, the Financial Times explained in a second report.

RAISING BILLIONS: A “crucial” aspect of the plan is to “not rely on donations”, the newspaper said, adding: “Instead it would be financed entirely by interest-bearing debt.” It noted that the fund “would become the world’s biggest ‘blended finance’ vehicle if it can get anywhere close to its target size [of $125bn]”. There are 74 developing countries with a total of more than 1bn hectares of tropical forests that could be eligible for the scheme if they can prove that they have an annual deforestation rate of less than 0.5%, the newspaper added.

SUBSIDY REFORM: Meanwhile, Astrid Schomaker, the executive secretary of the UN biodiversity convention, has written to countries urging them to identify subsidies that are harmful to nature in their long-overdue national biodiversity plans and “take concrete implementation action” to reform them. Reducing the amount spent on subsidies harmful to nature by $500bn by 2030 was one of the targets of the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). However, countries have so far done little to identify such spending or conceptualise paths for reform at talks following the agreement of the GBF, Carbon Brief reporting has shown.

News and views

TREATY AHOY?: Two more countries – Cape Verde and Saint Kitts and Nevis – ratified the landmark High Seas Treaty during preparatory meetings last week, Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported. Grenada and Cambodia also ratified the agreement, meaning only four more countries need to officially sign before the treaty can enter into force. Separately, the Philippines “br[oke new] ground” by establishing the 370-acre Bitaug marine protected area, creating a “safe space” for sharks and rays and allowing revenue-sharing from eco-tourism, Forbes reported.

ACT-ING UP: ACT, part of New Zealand’s ruling coalition, called for the country to leave the “broken” Paris Agreement, citing the “real cost to firms, farms and families” from net-zero targets, Radio New Zealand reported. The country’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, pushed back against pulling out from the accord, it added, telling reporters that it would be the “quickest way” to hurt New Zealand farmers and that “competitor countries would like nothing more than to see New Zealand products off their shelves”.

FIRE-PROOFING: In the aftermath of August’s “heatwave-fuelled” wildfires, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced a 10-point plan to prepare the country for climate change, including a “rethink of forest management and land use”, the Guardian reported. Sanchez was quoted as saying: “If we don’t want to bequeath our children a Spain that’s grey from fire and flames, or a Spain that’s brown from floods, then we need a Spain that’s greener.” CBS News reported that two climate activists were arrested for throwing paint at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia while protesting government “complicity” in the fires, which they attributed to livestock farming.

OCTOPUS ‘PLAGUE’: An unusual explosion in octopus numbers in English waters this summer has left UK shellfish harvesters at a loss, Agence France-Presse reported. A long-lasting marine heatwave gave a boost to octopus populations earlier in the year, delighting some fishers that were able to profit from the boom, but harming others that make a living from shellfish, the newswire said. “The tentacled molluscs are notoriously voracious eaters, hoovering up crustaceans such as crabs and shellfish,” the article explained, adding that many UK crab potters found their traps empty when octopus numbers increased.

JAGUARS RETURN: Jaguar numbers in Mexico have risen by 30% over the past 15 years following a “conservation drive”, the Guardian reported. Based on a census carried out with 920 motion-capture cameras across 414,000 hectares, researchers estimated that there are now 5,326 jaguars in Mexico, the newspaper said. A local expert listed three main reasons for the uptick: “Maintaining natural protected areas where jaguars can roam freely, reducing the conflict between cattle ranchers and jaguars and a publicity campaign that has put the jaguar on the map.”

LEGAL EFFORTS: Four residents of the Indonesian island of Pari are seeking damages from the world’s largest cement producer, the Swiss company Holcim, due to the impact of climate change on their lives, Reuters reported. A hearing was held in the Swiss city of Zug on 3 September, but ended with no decision, according to the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. Elsewhere, Climate Home News reported on how farmers in Zambia are threatening to sue a Chinese copper company following a “massive toxic spill”.

Spotlight

Grains of truth

This week, Cropped talks to the authors of a new graphic novel about food sovereignty and resilient rice cultures in India’s eastern Indigenous heartlands.

The eastern Indian state of Jharkhand is better known for its rich coal reserves than for its grain.

Unlike India’s breadbasket in the north-west, less than 10% of Jharkhand’s cultivated land is irrigated, making its rainfed paddy highly reliant on a changing Indian monsoon.

In 2022, the state received its lowest rainfall in 121 years.

‘Plastic’ rice

The previous year, many of Jharkhand’s Indigenous villages were among the first to taste the outcome of a new Indian government strategy to combat malnutrition and anaemia: fortified rice.

Essentially, “fortification” involves mixing broken rice kernels and rice powder with nutrients, such as iron and vitamin B12. After being passed through an extrusion machine, these new “grains” are then mixed with regular rice that is distributed to India’s poor under India’s National Food Security Act, the world’s largest and most far-reaching food safety scheme.

According to a three-part investigation by journalist Anumeha Yadav in the Wire, Jharkhand’s Indigenous rice-growing communities were not convinced of the new grain’s benefits, dubbing it “plastic rice” and questioning its effects on their health.

The Indian government attributed farmers’ reactions to a “lack of awareness” and has since expanded the programme.

Yadav’s reportage led to the publication of a new graphic novel, Our Rice Tastes of Spring, illustrated by Bangalore-based studio Spitting Image.

Yadav told Carbon Brief she wrote the novel to document diverse food cultures and as a response to “tech fixes” being promoted to address climate change and achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

According to Yadav, there’s widespread consensus that farming methods ushered in by the Green Revolution have made diets cereal-heavy and depleted India’s soils, meaning the “food we’re eating is much, much worse than what even our parents ate”.

At the same time, the industrial agricultural industry – and even some NGOs – are pushing a “tech fix” aimed at India’s poor that “makes money for themselves”, she added.

Drawn from real life

Lead illustrator Sandhya Visvanathan told Carbon Brief she combined Yadav’s photographs – of “life and people as they are” on Jharkhand’s Netarhat plateau – with “painterly” drawings of daily life in a community “whose lives are intertwined with the land”.

While the plot is set in a fictional Indigenous village, the conversations, rituals and rice varieties the book depicts are very real.

For instance, Ranikajal rice grows longer stems as floodwaters rise and iron-rich red Agni-sal grain has stems known to resist even cyclones.

Anumeha warns that many of these varieties – and the creative, traditional knowledge systems associated with them – are at risk of being lost forever, as India promotes and procures input-intensive white rice.

She concluded:

“Many people looked at the images and said: ‘Hey, that seed used to grow here.’ But there’s also a question of dignity and agency here: even farmers know there is corporate interest involved in these saviour[-like] solutions. Someone actually said that to me: ‘The market is not the only principle in our life.’”

Watch, read, listen

SECTS, SOYA AND CATTLE: A new documentary by the Gecko Project investigated the key drivers behind the worst fires on record in Bolivia’s Chiquitano forest.

DURIAN DURIAN: The New York Times profiled “self-described fanatics” of the “odoriferous” durian fruit, who gathered in Puerto Rico to sample durian in a “judgment-free zone”.

SAVING THE ‘FATTEST PARROT’: The Guardian reported on efforts to protect New Zealand’s kakapos, the “world’s fattest parrot”, by vaccinating them against bird flu.

BEGIN AGAIN: A Financial Times column explored how “why veganism lost” out to “influencers and gym bros” pushing protein and how it could regain momentum in the public.

New science

• Human impacts on global marine ecosystems are expected to more than double by the mid-century | Science
• Deforestation accounted for about three-quarters of the reduction in rainfall and surface temperature increase recorded during the dry season in the Brazilian Amazon over the past 35 years | Nature Communications
• Nearly 40% of the world’s transboundary river basins could see conflicts arising from water scarcity in 2041-50, although these conflicts could be mitigated by “proactive measures” | Nature Communications

In the diary

• 18 September: Earthed Summit 2025: Generation Restoration | London
• 19 September: Call for evidence on EU fertiliser product regulation | Online
• 21-28 September: New York Climate Week | New York City
• 24 September: UN General Assembly high-level week climate summit | New York City
• 29 September-1 October: FAO global conference on sustainable livestock transformation | 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

Cropped 27 August 2025: ‘Frustrating’ Amazon summit; Workplace heat hazards; Record European wildfires

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27.08.25

Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund

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13.08.25

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

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30.07.25

Cropped 16 July 2025: EU deforestation law pushback; Agri emissions; US lobster disease

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16.07.25

The post Cropped 10 September 2025: Flooded ‘food baskets’; Brazil eyes forest finance; Resilient rice appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Cropped 10 September 2025: Flooded ‘food baskets’; Brazil eyes forest finance; Resilient rice