Twice as many animals died due to heat stress en route to slaughterhouses during the UK’s record-hot summer in 2025 compared to 2024, according to new Carbon Brief analysis.
Government figures showed that nearly 6,600 animals – mostly chickens – died in transport as a result of the sweltering summer heat in England and Wales from June to August 2025.
This compared to 3,100 in summer 2024 and no official cases in summer 2023.
These figures were still below the more than 18,500 deaths recorded in the summer of 2022 when UK temperatures hit 40C for the first time, as previously reported by Carbon Brief.
The deaths are a “horrifying reminder of what happens when animals are treated as cargo”, said an animal-rights group spokesperson.
Detailed descriptions included in the data on the deaths highlighted thousands of animals dying amid heat stress, high humidity levels and long journeys.
Thousands of animals also died due to cold, wintry conditions, with more than 13,000 deaths recorded between December 2024 and February 2025 – almost double the previous winter.
Heat deaths
Carbon Brief has analysed recent years of “dead on arrival” data focused on livestock that died due to heat or cold stress en route to slaughterhouses.
The data was obtained through the UK Freedom of Information (FOI) Act from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which is responsible for the compliance of slaughterhouses in England and Wales.
At least 1m chickens die in the UK each year while being transported to slaughterhouses due to suffocation, poor transport procedures and other issues, reported the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2018 .
Pigs, cows, sheep and other animals also die in this way in smaller numbers.
The new data showed that 6,595 animals died due to heat stress en route to abattoirs between June and August 2025, which was the warmest summer on record in the UK.
According to the Met Office, human-caused climate change made this summer heat 70 times more likely to occur.
Carbon Brief requested non-publicly accessible details of “dead on arrival cases” that were categorised as “suspected heat/cold stress”.
Each incident contained a detailed description written by a vet with supporting evidence about the condition of the animals, the transport conditions and the suspected cause of death. These are filed to the FSA.
The information showed that certain individual days had particularly high death tolls. Almost 1,000 chickens died in a number of incidents during a heatwave on 11 July 2025. Some chickens showed visible signs of heat stress, such as panting and immobility, the reports said.
On 12 August, amid more high temperatures, 2,154 chickens died in heat-stress incidents.
Body temperatures of some of the chickens that died on this day were as high as 46C.
A chicken will die if its body temperature exceeds 45C and it should ideally stay as close to 41C as possible, according to a 2005 document from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra).
The table below shows the total number of heat- and cold-related deaths of livestock in recent years, based on the data obtained through FOI.
The “dead on arrival” information covered every summer and winter since 2023, alongside the summer of 2022.
The figures were likely an underestimate of the total number of livestock deaths due to high or low temperatures, as they only included deaths with “suspected cold/heat stress” as a listed category.
However, the incident descriptions in many other deaths mentioned high and low temperatures as contributing factors, despite the ultimate cause of death not being labelled as such. These were not included in Carbon Brief’s tally.
The figures covered deaths in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland do not record the cause of deaths en route to slaughterhouses, so it is not possible to single out the cases linked to high or low temperatures.
Preventing deaths
These livestock deaths are a “horrifying reminder of what happens when animals are treated as cargo”, says Alex Harman, campaigns manager at animal rights group Animal Aid. He tells Carbon Brief:
“These 6,600 individuals [in summer 2025] did not just die, they suffered prolonged, agonising heat exhaustion inside metal containers – anyone experiencing the UK’s heatwave this week will be able to empathise.”
Climate change is “simply amplifying the violence already built into animal farming”, he says, adding that the only “compassionate, logical” solution is to “stop viewing animals as products and urgently transition to a plant-based food system”.
Pigs and chickens cannot sweat and face difficulties cooling down on very hot days.
Cramped or long journeys can exacerbate this, combined with high humidity levels, sometimes upwards of 80%, the livestock data showed.
Abigail Penny, the executive director of Animal Equality UK, tells Carbon Brief that “these same scenes of extreme animal suffering play out every summer and, if nothing is done, it’s only going to get worse”.
Workers transporting animals during extreme weather conditions are expected to put in place measures to protect them, according to UK government guidance.
These measures can include ensuring water and ventilation systems function properly on vehicles, avoiding travel during the hottest or coldest parts of the day and recognising signs of heat and cold stress in animals.
The FSA said that the number of “dead on arrival” incidents caused by cold and heat stress increased by more than 50% between April 2024 and March 2025 compared to the same period the year prior.
The FSA and Defra declined Carbon Brief’s request to comment on the new figures.
Cold deaths
Thousands of animals also die due to cold stress while travelling to slaughterhouses each year. Carbon Brief assessed data for these deaths in the winters of 2023-24 and 2024-25.
At least 13,057 livestock animals died due to cold weather conditions between December 2024 and February 2025. This is more than double the number – 6,981 – that died the previous winter.
On 6 February 2025 alone, 4,056 poultry deaths were reported due to cold weather impacts.
Some livestock also died due to cold conditions in the summer months.
For example, 326 animals died amid cold weather in the summer of 2023. No official heat-related deaths were recorded in that period, but a number of incidents referred to hot-weather conditions or heat stress as contributing factors.
Overall, 2023 was a very warm year in the UK, with soaring temperatures in June and September. At least 3,103 animals died from heat stress in September, the figures also showed.
Conditions were cooler and wetter in July and August, which may have contributed to the absence of heat-stress deaths.
Most cold deaths during warmer months occurred in the early hours of the morning or overnight when temperatures dropped, the FOI data shows.
On 28 August 2025, for example, 134 chickens died due to cold stress. The incident description outlined that the animals were “very wet”, dirty and had few feathers, which can reduce a chicken’s ability to hold warmth.
The animals were transported overnight to a slaughterhouse and “suffered distress and pain” because of the weather and other factors, the description noted.
The post Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK record-hot summer of 2025 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Livestock heat deaths in transit doubled in UK record-hot summer of 2025
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
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The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.