When I was first invited to participate in the Climate Generation cohort attending COP 28, I was especially interested in learning more about the global impact of climate change on food systems, especially with regard to Indigenous peoples. Once I figured out the logistical challenges of navigating Expo City in Dubai, I spent much of my time at the Food & Health pavilion as well as the nearby Indigenous peoples pavilion. My hope was to augment my work in food sovereignty with a deeper, global understanding of the challenges posed by climate change. And to see the negotiating process up close as a way of clarifying my own responsibility to the health of the earth.
While I appreciated the learning experience that was provided by each session that I attended, there were a few peak experiences that helped reshape my understanding of climate change and the myriad ways in which we, as individuals, can help mitigate these changes.
COP 28 provided a global perspective through the United Nations, as well as a lens into work being done by various governmental levels, from state to city to organization. Since my return home, I’ve been thinking about how I can help translate my understanding of this multi-level, international movement into individual and community based action, especially when there is already widespread fear and paralysis about the future.
One of the experiences that offered pragmatic, useful insight into the negotiating process was an informal conversation our group had with Abby’s sister, who was a climate negotiator for the US. She helped clarify the seemingly overwhelming challenge of achieving consensus among 196 countries with different cultures and very different needs. Within that context, and despite all the politics, I could see the value of this process as it allowed for countries to advocate and educate about their particular climate challenges. Given the political reality of countries failing to achieve their NDCs or even slow down fossil fuel consumption, it also seems unlikely that the United Nations will find the political will to move fast enough to achieve the 1.5 degree goal, and to do it in a just and equitable manner with regard to developing and Indigenous countries. So how can other levels of government, other sectors, artists, farmers, teachers, youth, elders, all contribute to making changes that don’t wait for the UN to fix this for us?
How do I translate the goals of phasing out fossil fuels, empowering Indigenous communities to lead, and limiting warming to 1.5 degrees into my own life?
When I attended the session promoting Minnesota as a model that was hosted by the America Is All In pavilion, it was highly gratifying to learn more about Minnesota’s commitment to a goal of 100% renewable energy sourced electricity by 2040. But the panel was mostly white and completely ignored both the needs and contributions of Indigenous and people of color in Minnesota. Especially disturbing was the statistic quoted in opening remarks that the Midwest would rank 5th in the world for emissions, bypassing many countries, only to have the role of agriculture not mentioned at all. When I asked how much of Minnesota’s emissions are the result of agriculture and what is being done to hold that sector accountable, the panelist from Fresh Energy reassured me that she was on the governor’s advisory panel. Somehow, that didn’t answer my question. Another interesting statistic from that session: one acre of solar panels will generate 18x the amount of energy produced by an acre of corn to be used as ethanol.
One of COP’s great highlights for me turned out to be Soil day at the Food pavilion, with an entire day of programming dedicated to the topic of Soil. I listened to the recordings for most of the sessions, feeling somewhat obsessive in learning as much as I could about the connection between Soil, Nature and People (the overall theme for the day). There was a strong call for Soil to be included in the global stocktake as it was increasingly important to monitor the capacity for countries to maintain stable, healthy food systems. Soil stores 3x more carbon than the atmosphere and healthy soil has the ability to sequester 15 billion tons of carbon, which means that soil plays an important role in the climate crisis.
I also learned that half of the world’s land could be unusable within decades and that we can only achieve a sustainable food system by improving soil health. Soil health unites all food producers because it offers the means to deal with the growing food crisis as well as the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Most importantly, a transition to regenerative agriculture practices that maintain healthy soil, healthy crops, and healthy animals has the potential to help produce 40% more food by 2050 with zero emissions. Now that’s an inspiring goal!
By the end of the week, my head was packed full of ideas, statistics, perspectives, fears, hopes, and new insights. On my last day at COP, I decided to take a break and finally visit the Green Zone. That’s when I wandered into a series of small moments and experiences that would help me redefine and clarify my relationship to healing and protecting the health of the earth and responding to the challenges posed by climate change.
Almost immediately, I was drawn to a large wire and paper sculpture of a massive bee swarm, a piece that promoted Beethechange, an international organization that is supporting bees and pollinators. I was invited to make an origami bee that I could attach to the tail section of the sculpture. The first step was to write a climate intention on the small paper. I wrote, “I will take care of my relatives,” as providing habitat for all pollinators, and especially native bees, is the primary focus of my gardens. Shifting from a week of long meetings to hands-on artmaking was a reminder of the immense power of art to tell this story by emphasizing what we cherish, rather than always trying to motivate people with statistics and reports that can fuel fear and anxiety. This was the core belief I carried with me to COP, that we are strongest when we are protecting what we love.
From there I went in search of the Expo City urban farm that I had been hearing about. On a landscape formed primarily from sand and heat, the garden was impressive, with row upon row of healthy, vibrant vegetables, from kale and tomatoes to corn. Sensing my interest, the farmer came over and we bonded by strolling the rows and appreciating each plant. We talked about the biofertilizer he used that was produced from chicken manure at the farm’s primary location, an hour from Dubai. I asked why he mounded his rows, because I had seen a waffle method used in the arid climate of Arizona to retain water. He explained that the irrigation system along each plant stem could water roots more easily when they were raised. Along our walk, he told me that he was originally a wheat farmer from Syria, had lost everything in the war, and was starting over as a farmer in Dubai. When we passed the hydroponics building, he shrugged and said, it’s only good for growing leaves. What he really meant was that you can’t grow wheat in hydroponics. He added, even if we go to the moon, we need to build soil. And that formed the second small epiphany of my day, that I want to focus on soil as one of the relatives that I care for by improving the health of the soil in my garden. There’s no better way to learn than by getting your hands dirty. By building soil in my own garden, I can extend that understanding to Minnesota’s agricultural issues (5th in emissions!), building food sovereignty on reservations, and to the challenges facing small farmers globally.
I also wanted to connect one last time with the Indigenous Peoples pavilion so I attended a presentation by NDN about their work to establish LandBack as an international movement. Four incredibly smart, passionate, and dedicated Indigenous women spoke eloquently about the critical importance of reclaiming Indigenous land as the keeper and foundation for place-based Indigenous knowledge. One of them, an NDN grantee, spoke about the seed sovereignty work she was engaged in back on her Haudenosaunee reservation. I approached her afterwards to thank her for speaking on behalf of the seeds. As we talked, she told me that her mentor, Terry Lynn Brant, had just passed a few days earlier. I was shocked by the news as I had worked with Terry Lynn and was indebted to her for the seed knowledge she had shared with me. It was such a poignant reminder that we only have so much time on this earth to do our work. Terry Lynn will be remembered as a generous and brilliant, traditional leader.
At the end of the afternoon, my last official stop was the press conference for the Rights of Plants, hosted by WECAN. The Rights of Nature Movement offers a systemic framework for defending biodiversity, communities, and our climate. This growing movement challenges the dominant society perception of nature as a resource to be owned and exploited. Supporters feel that legal protections for Nature, similar to human rights, will persuade humanity to take care of their relatives, recognizing that we are all interconnected. To me, this is a fundamental expression of Indigenous thought, or as the Dakota say, Mitakuye Owasin, we are all related. This is why Indigenous people need to be at the forefront of the climate change movement, leading the way with traditional ecological knowledge.
And finally, as I continue to think about the ways in which I can weave these various threads of change more deeply into my life–bees, soil health, seed sovereignty and LandBack, and the Rights of Plants—I am also grateful for the open-ended process and creative space provided by Climate Generation.
By not imposing burdensome or rigid expectations, they allowed room for exploration and learning, allowing us to move within a creative process.
The deadlines we did have provided structure for reflection, which was also appreciated, given the overwhelming nature of the experience. I felt respected as an artist and given the room I needed to forge my own relationship to climate change and COP 28. This experience will continue to ripple through my writing, my garden, and my community. Pidamaye ye!
Diane Wilson is a Dakota writer, educator, and bog steward, who has published four award-winning books as well as numerous essays. Her novel, The Seed Keeper, received the 2022 Minnesota Book Award for Fiction, and her memoir, Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past, won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award and was selected for the 2012 One Minneapolis One Read program. She has also published a nonfiction book, Beloved Child: A Dakota Way of Life, a middle-grade biography, Ella Cara Deloria: Dakota Language Protector, and co-authored a picture book—Where We Come From. Wilson is a Mdewakanton descendent, enrolled on the Rosebud Reservation. She is the former Executive Director for Dream of Wild Health, an Indigenous non-profit farm, and the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance, a national coalition of tribes and organizations working to create sovereign food systems for Native people.
Diane is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP28. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.
The post FOOD FOR THOUGHT appeared first on Climate Generation.
Climate Change
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In response to the federal government announcing its once-in-a-decade review of Australia’s Marine Parks Network, the following lines can be attributed to Elle Lawless, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific welcomes today’s announcement that the Albanese Government will review Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks Network. This is a rare, once-in-a-decade opportunity to strengthen our marine parks and ban industrial fishing in Australia’s marine protected areas.
“Australians would be appalled to know that more than half of Australia’s Marine Parks Network currently allows for extractive industries, like longlining, bottom trawling and oil and gas mining. These so-called ‘protected’ areas were designed to safeguard our beloved ocean wildlife and underwater ecosystems – that is what Australians expect. Damaging industrial industries should not be given a free pass to trawl, fish, drill or extract from our marine parks.”
“With the first Ocean COP just around the corner, and off the back of Australia’s move to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty earlier this year, the Australian government has a unique opportunity to ride the wave of this momentum and solidify itself as a true global ocean leader.
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling for industrial activities to be banned from our protected waters and for at least 30% of Australia’s ocean to be protected as ocean sanctuaries. This review presents a rare opportunity to create more ocean sanctuaries, true blue havens where ocean life can recover, thrive and repopulate the surrounding waters.”
—ENDS—
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026.
These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration to lead the US Global Change Research Program.
However, these charts paint a misleading picture as they are skewed by encompassing the entirety of Russia in the data – including the vast plains of Siberia.
These charts also use data that include fires that are deliberately lit to manage cropland, which is a declining practice across much of Europe.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief shows that the area burned by wildfires across the European Union in 2026 is second only to 2022 for this time of year.
The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) also shows that France has set a new modern record for area burned and Spain’s wildfire season is among the worst on record.
The fires have displaced more than a third of a million people across south-western Europe, while an impending heatwave has also raised fears of the fires worsening in the coming days.
‘Quietest year’
On 27 July, as wildfires raged across multiple European countries, former Conservative peer and climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley posted on Twitter that “2026 is the quietest year for wildfires in Europe by some distance”.
Ridley, who sits on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based climate-sceptic lobby group that refuses to reveal the sources of its funding, was responding to an article by Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.
Stanley’s column, headlined: “Climate change is real – and the right needs to get serious about it”, warned:
“This is no longer a matter of speculation: the wildfires of Europe, pitiless and persistent, are the way we live now.”
Ridley included a chart from Our World In Data, showing the cumulative area burned by wildfires by week for Europe. The chart puts 2026 as having the smallest area for this time of year in a dataset going back to 2012.
Ridley’s post was widely shared by prominent rightwing figures – including Richard Tice, deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and multiple commentators.
Separately, Wielicki also shared a chart on Twitter to imply that wildfires in Europe are declining. Wielicki has previously claimed that the “science is not settled on climate change”.
The charts posted by Ridley and Wielicki both use data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). The GWIS category for “Europe” encompasses all the countries on the continent and includes the whole of Russia.
As a result, Russia accounts for about 74% of the area included in the GWIS definition of “Europe”.
Wildfires in Russia typically account for 80-90% of the burned area in the GWIS Europe dataset. In 2026, fires in Russia are substantially below average. Therefore, including Russia in this comparison creates the false impression that wildfire activity across Europe is unusually low.
Dr Calum Cunningham, a research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire Centre, says that such claims are “highly misleading”, noting that “they rely on aggregating fire activity across an enormous and climatically diverse region”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“A relatively quiet season in Russia can easily mask an exceptionally active season in France or Spain. If the analysis is focused on the regions actually experiencing the current fires, the picture is very different.
“The reality is that western Europe has experienced an extraordinary sequence of climate conditions this year.”
In contrast, the EFFIS provides a subset of wildfire data specifically for the area covered by the 27 nations of the EU, which, therefore, excludes Russia.
Another difference between the two datasets is that GWIS monitors all fires – including those on agricultural land that are intentionally set alight. The burned area as measured by GWIS contains significant cropland area.
By contrast, EFFIS uses land-cover data and other information to filter specifically for forest fires.
Looking at the EU-only data from EFFIS reveals that Europe is far from having its “quietest” year. The bloc’s burned area, as of 29 July, is almost 435,000 hectares (ha) – second only to 2022 for this time of year.
Notably, Wielicki has actually continued to post charts based on GWIS data, even after acknowledging that “includ[ing] all of Russia, including vast areas of Siberia…isn’t a good proxy for Europe”.
French fires
Even looking at EU-wide data misses the scale of this year’s wildfires for some individual countries.
The chart below shows the surge in burned area in France since mid-July.
For much of the first half of the year, the country was having a wildfire season that was only slightly above average in terms of total burned area. However, a notable uptick began in the first week of July.
The third week of the month saw France break its previous cumulative annual record by more than 19,000ha. That gap has widened as the fires continue to burn; as of 29 July, the cumulative burned area in France during 2026 was nearly 24,700ha above the previous record.
The fires in France follow a record-breaking June heatwave that “dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly”, wrote the New York Times.
On 27 July, French president Emmanuel Macron called a “crisis cabinet meeting” in order to address the fires “ravaging several areas of south-west France”, said France 24.
More than 220,000 people have been evacuated due to the Gironde fire, west of Bordeaux, in “what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation”, reported the Associated Press.
In the Conversation, Cunningham and two other University of Tasmania researchers write that evacuation orders “protec[t] human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them”. They add:
“There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.”
Central Spain scorched
While Spain’s fire season has not broken records in the same way that France’s has, it is on track to be among the worst since EFFIS began reporting data in 2006.
The chart below shows the rapid increase in burned area in Spain since 8 July. The latest data from EFFIS reveal that, as of 29 July, Spain has almost matched its previous record at this point in the year. It is also nearly five times the average area burned for this time of year.
In Spain, the wildfires have been concentrated in the central part of the country, near Madrid.
BBC News reported that the fires outside the capital have burned “an area more than twice as large as the city itself”.
Nearly 90,000 people were forced from their homes in central Spain by the fires, said the Associated Press.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change.
Meanwhile, the UK, French and Spanish governments have issued joint statements this week in response to the fires. The UK/Spain statement begins:
“This summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life.”
Related
The post Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
The general public often underestimate support for climate action, while overestimating the real-world actions taken by other people to address the problem, according to new research.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, explores the differences between people’s support for climate change, their behaviour and their assumptions about other people’s behaviour.
It is based on multiple surveys of more than 5,000 people across Germany and the US.
The study expands on previous research on how the general public systematically underestimate the climate commitment of their peers.
The difference between actual and perceived support for climate action among the public is sometimes known as a “perception gap”.
The surveys tested how people’s perceptions of climate attitudes and behaviours relate to their own willingness to contribute and undertake “climate-friendly” actions.
One of the authors tells Carbon Brief that this perception gap is not due to “ignorance or bias”, but because “people are just not good at making good estimations”.
The research also reveals that people’s opinions and behaviours are more “nuanced than previously assumed” and suggests that simply “correcting misperceptions” does not automatically lead to greater climate action.
Measuring climate actions
The study notes that correcting the perception gap is often seen as a “cost-effective” way to promote public engagement and drive action to reduce the intensification and impacts of climate change.
Most studies that explore the perception gap have primarily focused on surveys that have asked people to report their willingness to support climate change.
In other words, researchers have relied upon people saying they would support efforts to tackle climate change, rather than measuring people’s real-world actions, such as financial donations, attending protests or changing their behaviour.
To fill this gap, the researchers behind the new study surveyed a total of more than 5,000 people in Germany and the US over 2024-25. Surveys were split across five different experiments, each focused on public perceptions of climate attitudes and how they relate to individuals’ actual behaviour:
| Experiment | What they did |
| Survey one | Participants were asked if they were willing to donate 1% of their household income to WWF – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many actually donated to the charity. |
| Survey two | Participants read a constitutional complaint against the German government, led by Greenpeace, which demands for stricter climate policies. They were asked if they were willing to participate as a claimant and/or donate to the cause – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many went on to support the complaint. |
| Survey three | Participants were requested to complete an online “work for environmental protection task” where the more “pages” they completed resulted in more donations to WWF. They then predicted how many pages their peers completed. Participants also rated their individual behaviours and support for eight climate policies and then estimated the same for other people. |
| Surveys four and five | Participants were split into three groups that were either informed that 4% of participants had donated 1% of their household income to WWF, that “68% were willing to contribute” or given no information. They then had to state whether they were willing to support WWF and then were given the opportunity to do so. |
The authors note that Germany and the US are two of the “top 10 CO2 emitters” and are places where climate action is “especially necessary”. However, they add that the two countries are not reflective of “diverse cultural contexts” and further research is needed across the world.
The perception gap
The researchers find that most of their participants supported climate action, but much fewer actually performed verifiable behaviours.
For example, survey one finds that 37% of participants said they were willing to donate to WWF, yet just 4% did when given the opportunity.
Participants generally overestimated the climate actions of their peers, predicting that 23% of other people donated. Willingness, on the other hand, was slightly underestimated with respondents averaging around 34%.
The results from survey three suggest that this perception gap is likely due to general cognitive processes within the human brain that make accurate estimations about large groups difficult, say the authors.
The chart below shows the actual percentage of people who supported different environmental policies and performed climate-friendly behaviours (blue dots) compared to average predictions from the surveys (red dots).
They reveal a “consistent pattern” where “small proportions were overestimated and large ones were underestimated”, the authors say, driving predictions towards the middle. This phenomenon is known as “regression to the mean”.
In other words, where public support for a policy was high, participants in the survey estimated it was lower than it was. When the support was lower, estimates would be higher.
The study finds that individual and environmental factors played a role in shaping people’s perceptions of their peers’ climate actions, which were distinct from general misestimations.
For example, people who were already involved in climate action, had more frequent climate discussions and consumed more climate-focused news and media predicted a higher proportion of climate support “across the board”.
The results from the fourth and fifth surveys show that knowing the context of other people’s beliefs and behaviour in surveys can impact the attitudes of participants.
Participants that were told that 68% of people were willing to donate 1% of their household income to the WWF were more willing to donate.
In contrast, participants that were told that 4% of people actually donated did not report more willingness to “discuss climate change, sign petitions or donate” than the control group.
However, there was no obvious impact on actual donations for any of the three groups, the study notes.
Lead study author Dr Kevin Tiede, scientific managing director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour at the University of Erfurt, tells Carbon Brief that the findings suggest that “just telling people how many people support climate action is likely not enough to really change something”.
However, Tiede adds that “direct comparability” between people saying they would donate and actually donating is “limited” and that giving people more time to answer and autonomy over where to donate might result in more people taking action.
‘Pluralistic ignorance’
Tiede explains that the study findings demonstrate the existence of “pluralistic ignorance”, where a person believes their own views differ from the majority.
For climate change, this means that the “vast majority of people around the world support climate action, but people considerably underestimate the extent of this support”, the study says.
However, the surveys reveal that pluralistic ignorance “in the climate domain” is more nuanced than previously thought, say the authors.
Prof Madalina Vascleanu, an assistant professor at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that encouraging climate action is complex.
It may take multiple and repeated “attempts” at effective communication, or for people to directly “experience” the “norm” that climate change is widely supported, she says, rather than simply being told.
“Observable” behaviours, such as “identity signalling” – which could involve anything from protesting to vegetarianism – might have more of an impact on encouraging climate action among peers than “private behaviours like donations”, she adds.
The study is a “great addition to the literature”, Vascleanu says, because “correcting” the perception gap did not have an effect on climate-friendly behaviour, as “scholars had previously assumed”. She adds that it has “sparked several new hypotheses” that her “lab is now working on”.
Prof Mauro Bertolotti, associate professor of social psychology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, explains that the “attitude-behaviour gap” revealed by the research is a “rather common finding”.
However, he is “sceptical” of the “simplified and abstract” measures, warning that experiment environments often come with “assumptions and expectations” that are different from real life.
As a result, they might not “replicate” the process people go through when choosing to “make a donation to an environmental cause”, he says.
‘Targeted’ communication strategies
The researchers argue that it is more effective to focus on “targeted” communication strategies – encouraging climate-friendly behaviours that aim to reach the majority who already support climate action, rather than trying to convert climate sceptics.
They call for attention to be paid to the attitude-behaviour gap between people saying they support efforts to tackle climate change and following up with real-world climate actions.
The study suggests strategies for decision-makers to reduce the attitude-behaviour gap, such as “facilitating climate-friendly behaviour” with “convenience and subsidies”. They also recommend ensuring environmental policy prioritises fairness to gain visible and widespread public support.
They add that the public would benefit from understanding the “effectiveness and co-benefits” of climate action.
Tiede, K.E. et al. (2026) People systematically under- and overestimate public engagement in climate action, Nature Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02668-z
Related
Scientists are ‘most trusted’ source of climate information in global-south survey
Survey: ‘Very few’ Africans place responsibility for climate action on ‘rich nations’
Guest post: How public attitudes towards ‘CO2 removal’ differ in the UK and US
Guest post: How ‘discourses of delay’ are used to slow climate action
The post Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action
-
Greenhouse Gases12 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change12 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy9 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测