Stientje van Veldhoven is vice-president and regional director for Europe at the World Resources Institute. María Mendiluce is the CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition.
Europe aspires to be a competitive, innovative and investment-friendly economic bloc. Yet the foundations of such a market – political and financial stability and strong regulatory frameworks, as any economist will tell you – are exactly what the EU is undermining with its handling of the once pioneering EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
The constant shifts in approach to this landmark law designed to counter global deforestation are bewildering, eroding Europe’s credibility as a stable, predictable market. The integrity of the EUDR suffered another blow last week in a vote by the European Parliament to further delay a year and simplify the regulation, which risks considerably changing the trajectory and the impact of the directive.
With no COP30 roadmap, hopes of saving forests hinge on voluntary initiatives
We call on the EU Commission to avert further horse-trading by withdrawing its earlier proposal to adjust the regulation.
Adopted in 2023 after years of negotiation, the EUDR is a well-communicated commitment to ensuring that goods – including coffee, cocoa, wood, beef and a few other commodities – placed on the EU market are not linked to deforestation or forest degradation. In effect, with the EUDR, the regulation draws a line between goods that deplete scarce natural capital and those that don’t.
Technical IT pause spirals
The stakes could not be higher. The EU is the second largest ‘deforester’ in the world, responsible for roughly 10% of global deforestation, despite representing only 6% of the world’s population. With that footprint comes the responsibility to limit its impact.
Since the directive passed, companies and producer-country governments have invested heavily in improving the traceability and transparency of their supply chains in preparation for the EU’s implementation. Yet the last two years have seen the regulation repeatedly weakened by one delay after another, each defended on ever more ambiguous grounds.
Comment: Investor action is crucial to maintaining progress on deforestation risk
To understand how we got here, it’s worth remembering that the European Commission’s initial proposal for a delay had a narrow and reasonable goal: resolving urgent, unforeseen technical issues with the EUDR’s IT system. There were also some smaller adjustments to reporting rules for micro and small companies directly selling their products on the EU market.
But what began as a technical pause to solve IT issues has spiralled into something far more unpredictable, political and messy. The new proposals approved by the EU Parliament now include another delay until the end of 2026 and a potential review of the impact of the regulation in April 2026, before it even comes into force. This would effectively open it back up for negotiation.
Rainforests suffering
What makes the EU’s capriciousness even more glaring are the near-simultaneous pleas at COP30 in Belém, made in front of many EU states, by Brazil’s President Lula and Environment Minister Marina Silva: to adopt a concrete, time-bound global forest roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030.
Their message was stark: the Amazon has suffered one of its most extreme droughts on record, accompanied by over 140,000 fires, mostly linked to land clearing for agriculture.
According to WRI’s Global Forest Watch, the world lost 6.7 million hectares of primary rainforest in 2024 alone – an area roughly the size of Ireland, or 18 football fields every minute. Emissions from these fires alone exceed India’s annual fossil fuel combustion.
Three problems of a weak EUDR
Being there, on the edge of the Amazon’s vast and breathtakingly biodiverse expanse, made the EU’s change of direction even more baffling to us. We see three major shortcomings in the EUDR proposals under consideration:
First, the proposal undermines market stability and business certainty. Major multinationals, including Nestlé, Mars, Ferrero, Danone, Olam Agri and Barry Callebaut have publicly warned against delaying the EUDR or inserting a review clause that would alter the contents of the law. They have invested heavily in traceability systems, supply-chain mapping and partnerships with producer countries, all under the assumption that the EUDR would be implemented as agreed. Reversing course now erodes trust, not just in the EUDR, but in the EU’s broader predictability as a market.
Second, delay allows European consumers to continue unknowingly driving deforestation. Most Europeans strongly reject the idea that their everyday purchases – from coffee and chocolate to steak or rubber tires – could be linked to forest destruction. Without the law in force, this environmental harm remains hidden in routine purchases, stripping consumers of their agency to ‘vote’ with their wallets.
Third, postponing the EUDR will slow global progress to halt and reverse deforestationat a moment when forests need urgent protection. Rainforests are far more than carbon reserves; they are the lungs and lifeblood of our planet, powering the global water cycle, sending rain across continents, and sustaining agriculture, rivers and food production for billions of people worldwide.
Commission should act now
The EUDR is not perfect, but the position of the EU Council and Parliament will only lead to more uncertainty. In previous cases, where the political compromise drifted far from the European Commission proposal, it has used its prerogative to withdraw an amended proposition.
The Commission now faces a clear choice: defend the EUDR, secure Europe’s market credibility, help protect forests that sustain life worldwide – or risk eroding all three.
The post Europe must defend its deforestation law – for forests, business and its reputation appeared first on Climate Home News.
Europe must defend its deforestation law – for forests, business and its reputation
Saturday, 17 October 2026
7.18 AM AWST
Hi folks! We’re joining you live from the Rainbow Warrior where we will be providing you with updates as our four activists continue scaling and occupying Woodside’s gas platform. The activists are peacefully protesting against Woodside’s latest gas expansion plans, the Browse project, which would see up to 57 toxic wells drilled at Scott Reef.
“Right now our activists are scaling Woodside’s massive Floating Production Unit. They are scaling the South-East pillar and the underside of the Helideck. They’ll be setting up camp soon and have plenty of provisions with them – so stick around!”
5:45 AM AWST
Our RHIBS are in the water! We’ve deployed our four activists and our ship crew on our small fast boats, headed to the gas platform. We’re carrying crew and equipment, plenty of food, all of our safety climbing gear, some big banners, cameras and a whole lot of heart… someone even has something to read after they get settled in.
5:26 AM AWST
Before sunrise activists prepared to launch RHIBS from the Rainbow Warrior.
Looking for a front seat view?
You can follow along with the Live Rainbow Warrior bow cam here!
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Follow us on Instagram for a peek behind the scenes and hear from our Rainbow Warrior crew.
Live blog: Greenpeace activists occupy Woodside gas project to save Scott Reef
Climate Change
Greenpeace activists climb and occupy Woodside’s Scarborough gas project calling on the Australian government to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”
PERTH, Saturday 17 October 2026 — Four Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are scaling and occupying a Floating Production Unit at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project off the coast of Western Australia, displaying banners reading: “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
- Photos and video available here and here. More will be uploaded throughout the day.
- Content and live updates will be uploaded to a live blog and to Instagram
Early this morning at 05:45 AWST, Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists launched from the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, scaling and attaching themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth.
Woodside has since confirmed it has initiated a temporary shut down of the FPU.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific is occupying the gas platform in peaceful protest of Woodside’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef as part of its Browse proposal.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Greenpeace Australia Pacific is taking action today to expose the unacceptable risk to Scott Reef posed by Woodside’s plans.
“Australians love our oceans. Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal would turn the magnificent Scott Reef into an industrial gas zone. Woodside wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells around Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles, and endangered species like pygmy blue whales and the dusky sea snake; it is a place like nowhere else on Earth.
“Woodside has an alarming track record of oil spills, incidents and environmental neglect, and can’t be trusted with our oceans. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coasts to protect our oceans.
“There’s no future in new gas projects. Our future is in secure homegrown renewable energy, green industry and exports, where communities and places like Scott Reef are protected — there’s no future in dirty gas shipped offshore.
“The prospect of drilling for oil or gas on the Great Barrier Reef would be considered absolute madness today, but that is exactly the decision before the government: save Scott Reef or risk its destruction at the hands of a gas corporation.”
From aboard the Floating Production Unit, Dr Chris Holden, Greenpeace Australia Pacific activist said: “As a doctor, when I see new fossil fuel projects like Woodside’s Browse project being put forward, I can’t help but think about the impact this is going to have on the health of our communities and planet, and feel a sense of duty to act.
“Not only will this project do irrevocable harm to nature at Scott Reef, it will have a terrible impact on our climate, putting all of our lives at risk.
“On the Rainbow Warrior I’m carrying a copy of the 2025 Lancet countdown report, which warns that health impacts of climate change are worsening, with millions dying needlessly each year due to fossil fuel dependence, growing emissions, and failure to adequately adapt.
“With warnings like this from the leading global health professionals, our government simply can’t allow fossil fuel projects like Woodside’s Browse project to go ahead. It is their duty to do what is in the best interest of our communities.”
Almost half a million people have signed a petition calling on the government to Save Scott Reef and Woodside’s Browse gas project.
-ENDS-
Notes:
- Dial-in, SimSat and Zoom interviews with Geoff Bice, WA Campaign Lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, currently aboard the Rainbow Warrior, can be organised separately
Media contact:
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404
The board of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) will decide on Thursday on whether to “provisionally set aside” $20 million for Nepal to deal with some of the effects of the climate-driven flood it suffered in August.
The motion, seen by Climate Home News, has been drafted by a group of board members from both developed and developing countries and so is likely to pass easily at the fund’s first-ever extraordinary board meeting on October 22.
It invites the government of Nepal to submit a proposal for how to use the money, with the board then deciding at one of its regular board meetings whether to approve the proposal or not.
While Nepali officials have described $20 million as merely “symbolic” in the face of the $4.8 billion estimated costs of recovery and reconstruction, it would be the first time the new FRLD – agreed in 2022 months after devastating floods in Pakistan – has set aside money for a specific disaster.
Until now the fund has only taken requests through a single call for proposals, launched at COP30 in Belém last November, that gave countries six months to submit requests.
Most of the 180 projects the FRLD is currently considering are designed to help countries avoid damage from future climate disasters, for example by strengthening responses to floods in Bangladesh and Lagos.
The draft decision says Nepal’s proposal will serve as a pilot for how funding requests can be submitted outside of the fund’s current timetable. That could let governments seek funds quickly after a climate disaster strikes, rather than waiting for the next call.
This arrangement would set the fund apart from other United Nations funds designed for climate adaptation or cutting emissions like the Green Climate Fund.
Climate campaigners from Fill the Fund said the draft decision is “a real step forward” as it is “the first time this Fund has moved to respond to a specific disaster”.
Too little, too late
The FRLD was agreed by governments at COP27, set up and operationalised at COP28 in 2023 but has yet to award any money. The 180 funding requests it is currently considering would cost around $2.8 billion, but it only has $350 million to allocate.
The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has described the amount of money available in the fund as “ridiculously small” and Fill the Fund said $20 million “is a meaningful signal but it is a drop against an ocean of need”.
A glacial rock and ice collapse sent a torrent of water and debris through Nepal and the Chinese-administered region of Tibet on August 26. It killed more than 1,400 people, left thousands more missing and destroyed homes, bridges, roads and hydropower plants. Nepal’s finance and environment ministers quickly appealed to the FRLD board for funds, saying that “time is of the essence”.
Their call was followed swiftly by a letter from developing country FRLD board members urging the board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary meeting to allocate funds to Nepal.
But developed countries initially called for an informal consultation rather than a full board meeting. It took a further 45 days for the board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary board meeting for October 22 and to draft a motion for adoption.
Fill the Fund called for a permanent way of the fund rapid responding to disasters as “Nepal should not have required historic letters, an informal drafting group and the Fund’s first-ever extraordinary meeting simply to unlock an emergency response. The next country cannot wait two months and a bureaucratic marathon. Speed must be built in, not improvised.”
The post UN’s loss and damage fund set to give Nepal $20m for flood recovery appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN’s loss and damage fund set to give Nepal $20m for flood recovery
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Live blog: Greenpeace activists occupy Woodside gas project to save Scott Reef
Greenpeace activists climb and occupy Woodside’s Scarborough gas project calling on the Australian government to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”
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