The EU’s law to restore nature was given the green light by the European parliament this week.
The long-awaited “nature restoration” law aims to repair the EU’s damaged ecosystems over the next few decades.
The final vote on the law came amid farmer protests across the EU and, in response, rollbacks of some of the bloc’s other environmental plans.
The law became a focal point for misinformation in recent months and saw strong levels of opposition from different groups.
It passed through a final parliament vote on 27 February, with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions – a larger margin of approval than a knife-edge vote last summer.
It now needs to be approved by the council of the EU before it can take effect.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explains the aims of the nature restoration law, the challenges it faced, its scientific backing and what it will mean for climate change and biodiversity loss in the EU.
- What is the EU nature restoration law?
- Will the law help the EU meet its climate and biodiversity goals?
- What is the scientific backing behind the law?
- What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?
- What has been the reaction to the EU’s nature restoration law?
What is the EU nature restoration law?
Proposed in June 2022, the nature restoration law is seen by the European Commission as a key part of meeting the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals.
It aims to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030.
Within this wider goal, countries need to restore 30% of habitats covered by the new law (including forests, rivers and wetlands) that are already degraded by 2030. This increases to 60% by 2040 and at least 90% by 2050.
Sabien Leemans, a senior biodiversity policy officer at WWF EU, says the law is a “very big opportunity” for nature – and a rare one in terms of EU policy. She tells Carbon Brief:
“It is comparable to the habitats directive that was adopted in the early 90s – more than 30 years ago. It’s not like in the climate sphere that you have legislation coming up every year or every couple of years.
“For nature, with a proposal that would really impact how we use land and sea in Europe, I think this is really historic and [it is] not happening even every decade.”
The law is intended to work alongside other environmental policies on a range of issues, including birds, habitats, water and invasive alien species. Its goals also align with the new EU 2030 forest strategy, which intends to protect and restore forests across the bloc.
The law states that EU countries should, “as appropriate”, prioritise restoring habitats that are “not in good condition” and also located in Natura 2000 sites – an EU network of protected areas containing at-risk species and ecosystems – until 2030.
These areas are “essential” for nature conservation, the law says, and there is an existing EU obligation to ensure that Natura 2000 areas are covered by long-term restoration measures.
EU countries will need to submit national restoration plans to the commission to show how they plan to deliver on key targets, with requirements for monitoring and reporting on their progress towards those goals. Leemans tells Carbon Brief:
“The member states will choose where they will restore, what they will restore, how they will restore. And together the national restoration plans need to add up to the targets.”
More than 110,000 people and organisations responded to an online public consultation on the proposal in early 2021. The results showed “overwhelming support” for legally binding targets, with 97% of respondents in favour of general EU restoration targets across all ecosystems, the commission said.
The law scraped through a parliament vote in July 2023, which saw elements of the text “watered down”. (See: What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?)
After further negotiations, the commission, parliament and council of the EU provisionally agreed the terms of the new law in November 2023. This passed through the final parliament vote on 27 February 2024.
There was a “last-ditch attempt from rightwing parties” to reject the law in this vote, the Guardian reported. The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the parliament, voted against the law alongside “far-right lawmakers”, the newspaper said.
Civil society organisations such as the European Environmental Bureau and Friends of the Earth Europe celebrated the EU parliament passed the law “despite EPP & far-right’s attempts to block the text”.
Politico noted that the proposal’s “narrow survival underscored broader trends likely to hamper green lawmaking” after the upcoming European parliament elections in June.
The law still has to be adopted by the council of the EU before it can take effect. This is usually a formality, but Deutsche Welle reported that “it is not guaranteed and some recent EU policies have faced blockages and delays because of domestic pushback”.
The parliament’s lead negotiator on the proposal, César Luena, said the EU can now “move from protecting and conserving nature to restoring it”.
Will the law help the EU meet its climate and biodiversity goals?
The commission’s original proposal for the law said that “more decisive action” is needed to achieve the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals, adding that the bloc “has so far failed to halt the loss of biodiversity”. It said:
“The outlook for biodiversity and ecosystems is bleak and shows that the current approach is not working.”
Global and national targets are in place around the world to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. But, currently, greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and biodiversity is declining at a level described by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as “unprecedented”.
Despite the fact that many elements have been weakened since the first proposal, the law is intended to be one part of several solutions needed to bridge this gap between goals and action. Leemans tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s quite clear from all reports that we are still losing nature. More than 80% of the natural habitats in Europe that are listed on the habitats directive are not in a good condition. So there is really a lot of work to do.
“It’s really important to protect nature…But it’s not enough – you also need to start restoring nature where it has been lost and bring it back.”
The EU’s 2030 biodiversity strategy sets out the bloc’s plans to protect nature and improve ecosystems.
Healthier ecosystems would have a range of wider benefits, including being more resilient to climate change, reducing the impact of extreme weather and helping to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, 26% of the EU’s land and 12% of marine areas are protected.
Romina Pourmokhtari, the Swedish climate and environment minister, says the nature restoration law will hopefully help the EU “rebuild a healthy level of biodiversity, fight climate change and meet our international commitments under the Kunming-Montreal agreement”.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is a set of goals and targets aiming to “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss by the end of this decade. It includes a target to conserve 30% of the world’s land and 30% of the ocean by 2030. (See Carbon Brief’s recent Q&A on progress one year since the framework was agreed.)
The map below, taken from a 2023 study, shows the existing European network of protected areas under strict protection (light blue), not-strict protection (yellow) and new protected area corridors (dark blue). EU countries are shown in dark grey. The level of the protection is based on categories from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The areas under the strictest protection have minimal presence of humans.
According to an impact assessment study published by the commission earlier this year, the economic benefits of restoring a number of different EU ecosystems – including peatlands, forests and lakes – by 2050 range at around €1.86tn, compared to the estimated €154bn cost of these actions.
The report added that, in a number of ways, the “climate mitigation benefits alone outweighed the cost of restoration action required”.
What is the scientific backing behind the law?
The scientific rationale for the EU’s nature restoration law is laid out in the commission’s impact assessment study, which considers both ecosystem restoration needs and the financing needed to implement such targets in the EU.
About 80% of habitats in the EU have “bad” or “poor” conservation status, and only 15% are in “good” condition, according to the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) 2020 “state of nature in the EU” report.
More than half of peatlands – including bogs, mires and fens – and half of dune habitats are in bad condition, the report says. Coastal habitats have the smallest area remaining in good condition.
The chart below, taken from the report, shows the percentage of habitat in good (green), unknown (grey), poor (yellow) and bad (red) condition.
As a result of the degradation of habitats, many species across the EU are in decline.
For example, pollinators are crucial for food production, but one in three bee and butterfly species are in decline, according to the council. It points out that €5bn of the EU’s annual agricultural output “can be directly attributed” to those species, but about half of the areas where pollinator-dependent crops are grown “do not provide suitable conditions for pollinators”.
The EEA assessment provides a map of the conservation status in the EU habitats, shown below. Regions in red have “bad” conservation status, regions in yellow are classified as “poor” conservation status and green areas have a “good” conservation status.
During a webinar hosted by the European Geosciences Union at the end of last year, Damien Thomson, a political advisor working within the European parliament, said the law is “largely scientifically based, but there’s room for improvement”.
In the webinar, Thomson emphasised that the commission considered the scientific merit of the legislation, but said that the scientific evidence did not hold equal weight to the political voices in the parliament.
The EU set its first nature restoration target in 2010, as part of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. That strategy contained a target aimed to restore “at least 15% of degraded ecosystems” by 2020.
However, the bloc did not achieve any of the six targets set out in that strategy, the impact assessment found. It stated that the restoration target was hindered by several issues, such as the lack of legally binding targets and the “ambiguity” as to which ecosystems and restoration activities it was referring to.
The new restoration law stems from the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, which aims to establish legally binding targets to restore “significant areas of degraded and carbon-rich ecosystems by 2030”.
The strategy aims to legally protect a minimum of 30% of the land, including inland waters, and 30% of the sea in the EU by 2030. It additionally set a target to ensure that 30% of EU species and habitats reach “a favourable conservation status” and to restore at least 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers by that date.
It adds that the commission and the EEA will guide countries to “select and prioritise the species and habitats for restoration measures”.
The restoration law also acknowledges that the GBF requires that at least 30% of degraded ecosystems worldwide – including terrestrial, inland water and marine and coastal ecosystems – should be “under effective restoration” by 2030.
However, the law ultimately required restoration of 20% of the EU’s lands and seas by 2030.
In a joint statement after the final vote, BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau and WWF EU said they were “relieved that MEPs listened to facts and science, and did not give in to populism and fear-mongering”. The statement added:
“Now, we urge member states to follow suit and deliver this much-needed law to bring back nature in Europe.”
What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?
One of the main objections against the new law was around restoration requirements for drained peatlands used for agriculture and came from political and farming groups.
Specifically, member states are required to establish measures to restore organic soil in 30% of agricultural lands lying in drained peatlands by 2030.
This can be achieved by a range of actions, which include converting cropland to permanent grassland, establishing peat-forming vegetation or fully rewetting drained peatlands to allow padiculture – sowing of crops on peatlands or on rewetted peats.
The initial proposal was intended to reach 50% of such areas by 2040 and 70% by 2050; however, the final regulation slashed those percentages to 40% and 50%, respectively.
This target faced political resistance from conservative parties, who argued that the law would threaten the livelihoods of farmers and fishers, decrease food production and push up prices. These groups raised a “relentless campaign to bring down the text”, Euronews reported.
The European People’s Party (EPP) also sought “to drastically reduce the scope of [the] plans for” peatland restoration and was “against the conversion of agricultural land for other uses”, including restoring peatlands, Deutsche Welle reported.
In response to these concerns, member states “added flexibility” to targets linked to the rewetting of peatlands and green urban spaces into their proposal, according to Euronews.
The outlet reported that Pourmokhtari, the Swedish minister, said the country’s presidency of the council had “listened carefully to all member states who had different concerns and remarks on the proposal”.
Another target that spurred strong political objection was the restoration of forest ecosystems.
The final law mandates member states to “achieve an increasing trend at national level of at least six out of seven” forest indicators, which include traits such as the amount of non-living woody biomass in standing and lying deadwood, organic carbon stocks, forest connectivity and tree species diversity.
By June 2031, EU countries need to inform the commission about their progress on restoring nature between when the law takes effect and 2030.
After this, countries need to report progress at least every six years. The first draft of the law had proposed assessments every three years.
Countries also must, by June 2028, report other information to the commission, including details around which areas will be restored.
The law says that when considering forest and other ecosystem restoration actions, countries “shall aim to contribute” to the EU’s existing goal to plant at least 3bn trees across the bloc by 2030, prioritising native tree species and adapted species.
Nordic countries “had previously pushed back against previous forestry-related targets” and were expected to oppose the nature restoration law, a parliamentary representative told Euractiv.
Sweden, for example, was “believed to be opposed” to the targets of forest management contained in the law, Euronews reported.
Opposition parties accused Finland’s government of a “failure to protect national interests” and pointed out that the law would be costly, the Helsinki Times reported in November. Riikka Purra, chairperson of the right-wing populist Finns Party, said:
“We won’t stand by pillaging Finnish forests a lot, but also not for pillaging them a bit less.”
In response, Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, said her country would accept the proposal if it included amendments and met “Finland’s overall interests”, the outlet said. It added that the government was pushing for the restoration measures to be “voluntary for land owners”, since forest policy “falls strictly” within national policy.
Following negotiations by the EU parliament, commission and council last year, a statement from WWF said the law had been “watered down”, with “disappointing” exemptions and “excessive flexibility” on some requirements.
Despite this, Leemans believes the law will lead to improvements for European ecosystems. But, she adds:
“The key will be the implementation.”
What has been the reaction to the EU’s nature restoration law?
Since the law was first proposed in 2022, it has received support from a range of groups, including wind energy and solar power associations, hundreds of scientists, dozens of major companies, an EU organic farming representative group and NGOs such as WWF, BirdLife International and Greenpeace.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature called on the EU to adopt the law and Wetlands International Europe, a non-governmental group of wetland preservation organisations, said the law will help to “secure the future of our vital wetlands”.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was among a group of climate activists calling for a strong nature restoration law outside the European parliament building in Strasbourg last July.
There were two key opponents to the proposed law – the major agricultural lobby group Copa-Cogeca and the EPP.
The EPP made a number of debunked remarks about the law, including that it would “turn the entire city of Rovaniemi” – the alleged “hometown” of Santa Claus – into a forest.
The party also claimed that the targets will lead to a “global famine” alongside higher food prices and increased imports of “unsafe food that does not meet EU standards”. These claims have been rebutted by a number of experts.
An open letter signed by 3,000 scientists in June last year pushed back on claims that the law will harm farmers and threaten food security. The letter says that these kinds of claims “not only lack scientific evidence, but even contradict it”, Reuters reported.
“Green-minded” lawmakers, scientists and environmental groups said the EPP was opposing nature and climate policies to “score political points in rural constituencies” in the upcoming parliament elections, Politico reported last November.
In a correspondence to the scientific journal Nature, Dr Kris Decleer, a researcher at Belgium’s Research Institute for Nature and Forest, and Prof An Cliquet, a researcher at Ghent University, wrote that opponents to the law were “influenced by lobbyists in favour of intensive agriculture, fisheries and the forestry industry, who say that the law would cut jobs and undermine food and energy security”.
Many farmers will be directly impacted by the nature restoration law and it featured among the concerns of farmers protesting across the EU in recent months (see Carbon Brief’s analysis of how these protests relate to climate change).
The commission’s impact assessment for the law said that the farming, forestry and fishery sectors are likely to be most impacted through, for example, lost income from less intensive extractive management in forestry. However, it also said that these sectors stand to benefit in the long-term, as they will be more resilient to extreme weather and reduce the risks of pest outbreaks as a result.
There are also farm-related exemptions in the law, including an option to halt certain targets for agricultural ecosystems in case of any “unforeseeable and exceptional events outside of the EU’s control and with severe EU-wide consequences for food security”. This was added to the text in November last year. (See: What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?)
The law includes further leeway for countries to potentially set lower restoration targets for certain ecosystems in specific circumstances.
Leemans, from WWF EU, tells Carbon Brief that criticisms from the EPP and others were “mainly misinformation, and really on an unprecedented scale”. She says:
“We’ve never seen such an aggressive campaign against a legal proposal coming from the commission. It was really putting the [EU] Green Deal in jeopardy because the nature restoration law is the biodiversity pillar of the Green Deal, and it’s really a very important piece of the puzzle.”
She adds that while the EPP may claim it is “protecting or defending the farmers’ concerns”, she believes “they are doing the opposite”. She says:
“All science tells you the same – it’s healthy ecosystems that need to be in place to ensure food security. Agriculture needs healthy soils, needs water retention, needs flooding and drought prevention, pollination and all this depends on healthy ecosystems.
“It’s very cynical to tell people that you’re defending farmers and actually blocking one of the solutions for farmers.”
The post Q&A: What does the EU ‘nature restoration’ law mean for climate and biodiversity? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does the EU ‘nature restoration’ law mean for climate and biodiversity?
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
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
Food inflation on the rise
DELUGE STRIKES FOOD: Extreme rainfall and flooding across the Mediterranean and north Africa has “battered the winter growing regions that feed Europe…threatening food price rises”, reported the Financial Times. Western France has “endured more than 36 days of continuous rain”, while farmers’ associations in Spain’s Andalusia estimate that “20% of all production has been lost”, it added. Policy expert David Barmes told the paper that the “latest storms were part of a wider pattern of climate shocks feeding into food price inflation”.
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NO BEEF: The UK’s beef farmers, meanwhile, “face a double blow” from climate change as “relentless rain forces them to keep cows indoors”, while last summer’s drought hit hay supplies, said another Financial Times article. At the same time, indoor growers in south England described a 60% increase in electricity standing charges as a “ticking timebomb” that could “force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation”, wrote the Guardian.
‘TINDERBOX’ AND TARIFFS: A study, covered by the Guardian, warned that major extreme weather and other “shocks” could “spark social unrest and even food riots in the UK”. Experts cited “chronic” vulnerabilities, including climate change, low incomes, poor farming policy and “fragile” supply chains that have made the UK’s food system a “tinderbox”. A New York Times explainer noted that while trade could once guard against food supply shocks, barriers such as tariffs and export controls – which are being “increasingly” used by politicians – “can shut off that safety valve”.
El Niño looms
NEW ENSO INDEX: Researchers have developed a new index for calculating El Niño, the large-scale climate pattern that influences global weather and causes “billions in damages by bringing floods to some regions and drought to others”, reported CNN. It added that climate change is making it more difficult for scientists to observe El Niño patterns by warming up the entire ocean. The outlet said that with the new metric, “scientists can now see it earlier and our long-range weather forecasts will be improved for it.”
WARMING WARNING: Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Center announced that there is a 60% chance of the current La Niña conditions shifting towards a neutral state over the next few months, with an El Niño likely to follow in late spring, according to Reuters. The Vibes, a Malaysian news outlet, quoted a climate scientist saying: “If the El Niño does materialise, it could possibly push 2026 or 2027 as the warmest year on record, replacing 2024.”
CROP IMPACTS: Reuters noted that neutral conditions lead to “more stable weather and potentially better crop yields”. However, the newswire added, an El Niño state would mean “worsening drought conditions and issues for the next growing season” to Australia. El Niño also “typically brings a poor south-west monsoon to India, including droughts”, reported the Hindu’s Business Line. A 2024 guest post for Carbon Brief explained that El Niño is linked to crop failure in south-eastern Africa and south-east Asia.
News and views
- DAM-AG-ES: Several South Korean farmers filed a lawsuit against the country’s state-owned utility company, “seek[ing] financial compensation for climate-related agricultural damages”, reported United Press International. Meanwhile, a national climate change assessment for the Philippines found that the country “lost up to $219bn in agricultural damages from typhoons, floods and droughts” over 2000-10, according to Eco-Business.
- SCORCHED GRASS: South Africa’s Western Cape province is experiencing “one of the worst droughts in living memory”, which is “scorching grass and killing livestock”, said Reuters. The newswire wrote: “In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.”
- NOUVELLE VEG: New guidelines published under France’s national food, nutrition and climate strategy “urged” citizens to “limit” their meat consumption, reported Euronews. The delayed strategy comes a month after the US government “upended decades of recommendations by touting consumption of red meat and full-fat dairy”, it noted.
- COURTING DISASTER: India’s top green court accepted the findings of a committee that “found no flaws” in greenlighting the Great Nicobar project that “will lead to the felling of a million trees” and translocating corals, reported Mongabay. The court found “no good ground to interfere”, despite “threats to a globally unique biodiversity hotspot” and Indigenous tribes at risk of displacement by the project, wrote Frontline.
- FISH FALLING: A new study found that fish biomass is “falling by 7.2% from as little as 0.1C of warming per decade”, noted the Guardian. While experts also pointed to the role of overfishing in marine life loss, marine ecologist and study lead author Dr Shahar Chaikin told the outlet: “Our research proves exactly what that biological cost [of warming] looks like underwater.”
- TOO HOT FOR COFFEE: According to new analysis by Climate Central, countries where coffee beans are grown “are becoming too hot to cultivate them”, reported the Guardian. The world’s top five coffee-growing countries faced “57 additional days of coffee-harming heat” annually because of climate change, it added.
Spotlight
Nature talks inch forward
This week, Carbon Brief covers the latest round of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which occurred in Rome over 16-19 February.
The penultimate set of biodiversity negotiations before October’s Conference of the Parties ended in Rome last week, leaving plenty of unfinished business.
The CBD’s subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) met in the Italian capital for four days to discuss a range of issues, including biodiversity finance and reviewing progress towards the nature targets agreed under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
However, many of the major sticking points – particularly around finance – will have to wait until later this summer, leaving some observers worried about the capacity for delegates to get through a packed agenda at COP17.
The SBI, along with the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA) will both meet in Nairobi, Kenya, later this summer for a final round of talks before COP17 kicks off in Yerevan, Armenia, on 19 October.
Money talks
Finance for nature has long been a sticking point at negotiations under the CBD.
Discussions on a new fund for biodiversity derailed biodiversity talks in Cali, Colombia, in autumn 2024, requiring resumed talks a few months later.
Despite this, finance was barely on the agenda at the SBI meetings in Rome. Delegates discussed three studies on the relationship between debt sustainability and implementation of nature plans, but the more substantive talks are set to take place at the next SBI meeting in Nairobi.
Several parties “highlighted concerns with the imbalance of work” on finance between these SBI talks and the next ones, reported Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
Lim Li Ching, senior researcher at Third World Network, noted that tensions around finance permeated every aspect of the talks. She told Carbon Brief:
“If you’re talking about the gender plan of action – if there’s little or no financial resources provided to actually put it into practice and implement it, then it’s [just] paper, right? Same with the reporting requirements and obligations.”
Monitoring and reporting
Closely linked to the issue of finance is the obligations of parties to report on their progress towards the goals and targets of the GBF.
Parties do so through the submission of national reports.
Several parties at the talks pointed to a lack of timely funding for driving delays in their reporting, according to ENB.
A note released by the CBD Secretariat in December said that no parties had submitted their national reports yet; by the time of the SBI meetings, only the EU had. It further noted that just 58 parties had submitted their national biodiversity plans, which were initially meant to be published by COP16, in October 2024.
Linda Krueger, director of biodiversity and infrastructure policy at the environmental not-for-profit Nature Conservancy, told Carbon Brief that despite the sparse submissions, parties are “very focused on the national report preparation”. She added:
“Everybody wants to be able to show that we’re on the path and that there still is a pathway to getting to 2030 that’s positive and largely in the right direction.”
Watch, read, listen
NET LOSS: Nigeria’s marine life is being “threatened” by “ghost gear” – nets and other fishing equipment discarded in the ocean – said Dialogue Earth.
COMEBACK CAUSALITY: A Vox long-read looked at whether Costa Rica’s “payments for ecosystem services” programme helped the country turn a corner on deforestation.
HOMEGROWN GOALS: A Straits Times podcast discussed whether import-dependent Singapore can afford to shelve its goal to produce 30% of its food locally by 2030.
‘RUSTING’ RIVERS: The Financial Times took a closer look at a “strange new force blighting the [Arctic] landscape”: rivers turning rust-orange due to global warming.
New science
- Lakes in the Congo Basin’s peatlands are releasing carbon that is thousands of years old | Nature Geoscience
- Natural non-forest ecosystems – such as grasslands and marshlands – were converted for agriculture at four times the rate of land with tree cover between 2005 and 2020 | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Around one-quarter of global tree-cover loss over 2001-22 was driven by cropland expansion, pastures and forest plantations for commodity production | Nature Food
In the diary
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean | Brasília
- 5 March: Nepal general elections
- 9-20 March: First part of the thirty-first session of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) | Kingston, Jamaica
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.
Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org
The post Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 25 February 2026: Food inflation strikes | El Niño looms | Biodiversity talks stagnate
Rising temperatures across France since the mid-1970s is putting Tour de France competitors at “high risk”, according to new research.
The study, published in Scientific Reports, uses 50 years of climate data to calculate the potential heat stress that athletes have been exposed to across a dozen different locations during the world-famous cycling race.
The researchers find that both the severity and frequency of high-heat-stress events have increased across France over recent decades.
But, despite record-setting heatwaves in France, the heat-stress threshold for safe competition has rarely been breached in any particular city on the day the Tour passed through.
(This threshold was set out by cycling’s international governing body in 2024.)
However, the researchers add it is “only a question of time” until this occurs as average temperatures in France continue to rise.
The lead author of the study tells Carbon Brief that, while the race organisers have been fortunate to avoid major heat stress on race days so far, it will be “harder and harder to be lucky” as extreme heat becomes more common.
‘Iconic’
The Tour de France is one of the world’s most storied cycling races and the oldest of Europe’s three major multi-week cycling competitions, or Grand Tours.
Riders cover around 3,500 kilometres (km) of distance and gain up to nearly 55km of altitude over 21 stages, with only two or three rest days throughout the gruelling race.
The researchers selected the Tour de France because it is the “iconic bike race. It is the bike race of bike races,” says Dr Ivana Cvijanovic, a climate scientist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, who led the new work.
Heat has become a growing problem for the competition in recent years.
In 2022, Alexis Vuillermoz, a French competitor, collapsed at the finish line of the Tour’s ninth stage, leaving in an ambulance and subsequently pulling out of the race entirely.
Two years later, British cyclist Sir Mark Cavendish vomited on his bike during the first stage of the race after struggling with the 36C heat.
The Tour also makes a good case study because it is almost entirely held during the month of July and, while the route itself changes, there are many cities and stages that are repeated from year to year, Cvijanovic adds.
‘Have to be lucky’
The study focuses on the 50-year span between 1974 and 2023.
The researchers select six locations across the country that have commonly hosted the Tour, from the mountain pass of Col du Tourmalet, in the French Pyrenees, to the city of Paris – where the race finishes, along the Champs-Élysées.
These sites represent a broad range of climatic zones: Alpe d’ Huez, Bourdeaux, Col du Tourmalet, Nîmes, Paris and Toulouse.
For each location, they use meteorological reanalysis data from ERA5 and radiant temperature data from ERA5-HEAT to calculate the “wet-bulb globe temperature” (WBGT) for multiple times of day across the month of July each year.
WBGT is a heat-stress index that takes into account temperature, humidity, wind speed and direct sunlight.
Although there is “no exact scientific consensus” on the best heat-stress index to use, WBGT is “one of the rare indicators that has been originally developed based on the actual human response to heat”, Cvijanovic explains.
It is also the one that the International Cycling Union (UCI) – the world governing body for sport cycling – uses to assess risk. A WBGT of 28C or higher is classified as “high risk” by the group.
WBGT is the “gold standard” for assessing heat stress, says Dr Jessica Murfree, director of the ACCESS Research Laboratory and assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Murfree, who was not involved in the new study, adds that the researchers are “doing the right things by conducting their science in alignment with the business practices that are already happening”.
The researchers find that across the 50-year time period, WBGT has been increasing across the entire country – albeit, at different rates. In the north-west of the country, WBGT has increased at an average rate of 0.1C per decade, while in the southern and eastern parts of the country, it has increased by more than 0.5C per decade.
The maps below show the maximum July WBGT for each decade of the analysis (rows) and for hourly increments of the late afternoon (columns). Lower temperatures are shown in lighter greens and yellows, while higher temperatures are shown in darker reds and purples.
Six Tour de France locations analysed in the study are shown as triangles on the maps (clockwise from top): Paris, Alpe d’ Huez, Nîmes, Toulouse, Col du Tourmalet and Bordeaux.
The maps show that the maximum WBGT temperature in the afternoon has surpassed 28C over almost the entire country in the last decade. The notable exceptions to this are the mountainous regions of the Alps and the Pyrenees.
The researchers also find that most of the country has crossed the 28C WBGT threshold – which they describe as “dangerous heat levels” – on at least one July day over the past decade. However, by looking at the WBGT on the day the Tour passed through any of these six locations, they find that the threshold has rarely been breached during the race itself.
For example, the research notes that, since 1974, Paris has seen a WBGT of 28C five times at 3pm in July – but that these events have “so far” not coincided with the cycling race.
The study states that it is “fortunate” that the Tour has so far avoided the worst of the heat-stress.
Cvijanovic says the organisers and competitors have been “lucky” to date. She adds:
“It has worked really well for them so far. But as the frequency of these [extreme heat] events is increasing, it will be harder and harder to be lucky.”
Dr Madeleine Orr, an assistant professor of sport ecology at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the paper was “really well done”, noting that its “methods are good [and its] approach was sound”. She adds:
“[The Tour has] had athletes complain about [the heat]. They’ve had athletes collapse – and still those aren’t the worst conditions. I think that that says a lot about what we consider safe. They’ve still been lucky to not see what unsafe looks like, despite [the heat] having already had impacts.”
Heat safety protocols
In 2024, the UCI set out its first-ever high temperature protocol – a set of guidelines for race organisers to assess athletes’ risk of heat stress.
The assessment places the potential risk into one of five categories based on the WBGT, ranging from very low to high risk.
The protocol then sets out suggested actions to take in the event of extreme heat, ranging from having athletes complete their warm-ups using ice vests and cold towels to increasing the number of support vehicles providing water and ice.
If the WBGT climbs above the 28C mark, the protocol suggests that organisers modify the start time of the stage, adapt the course to remove particularly hazardous sections – or even cancel the race entirely.
However, Orr notes that many other parts of the race, such as spectator comfort and equipment functioning, may have lower temperatures thresholds that are not accounted for in the protocol, but should also be considered.
Murfree points out that the study’s findings – and the heat protocol itself – are “really focused on adaptation, rather than mitigation”. While this is “to be expected”, she tells Carbon Brief:
“Moving to earlier start times or adjusting the route specifically to avoid these locations that score higher in heat stress doesn’t stop the heat stress. These aren’t climate preventative measures. That, I think, would be a much more difficult conversation to have in the research because of the Tour de France’s intimate relationship with fossil-fuel companies.”
The post Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Dangerous heat for Tour de France riders only a ‘question of time’
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Preparing for 3C
NEW ALERT: The EU’s climate advisory board urged countries to prepare for 3C of global warming, reported the Guardian. The outlet quoted Maarten van Aalst, a member of the advisory board, saying that adapting to this future is a “daunting task, but, at the same time, quite a doable task”. The board recommended the creation of “climate risk assessments and investments in protective measures”.
‘INSUFFICIENT’ ACTION: EFE Verde added that the advisory board said that the EU’s adaptation efforts were so far “insufficient, fragmented and reactive” and “belated”. Climate impacts are expected to weaken the bloc’s productivity, put pressure on public budgets and increase security risks, it added.
UNDERWATER: Meanwhile, France faced “unprecedented” flooding this week, reported Le Monde. The flooding has inundated houses, streets and fields and forced the evacuation of around 2,000 people, according to the outlet. The Guardian quoted Monique Barbut, minister for the ecological transition, saying: “People who follow climate issues have been warning us for a long time that events like this will happen more often…In fact, tomorrow has arrived.”
IEA ‘erases’ climate
MISSING PRIORITY: The US has “succeeded” in removing climate change from the main priorities of the International Energy Agency (IEA) during a “tense ministerial meeting” in Paris, reported Politico. It noted that climate change is not listed among the agency’s priorities in the “chair’s summary” released at the end of the two-day summit.
US INTERVENTION: Bloomberg said the meeting marked the first time in nine years the IEA failed to release a communique setting out a unified position on issues – opting instead for the chair’s summary. This came after US energy secretary Chris Wright gave the organisation a one-year deadline to “scrap its support of goals to reduce energy emissions to net-zero” – or risk losing the US as a member, according to Reuters.
Around the world
- ISLAND OBJECTION: The US is pressuring Vanuatu to withdraw a draft resolution supporting an International Court of Justice ruling on climate change, according to Al Jazeera.
- GREENLAND HEAT: The Associated Press reported that Greenland’s capital Nuuk had its hottest January since records began 109 years ago.
- CHINA PRIORITIES: China’s Energy Administration set out its five energy priorities for 2026-2030, including developing a renewable energy plan, said International Energy Net.
- AMAZON REPRIEVE: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has continued to fall into early 2026, extending a downward trend, according to the latest satellite data covered by Mongabay.
- GEZANI DESTRUCTION: Reuters reported the aftermath of the Gezani cyclone, which ripped through Madagascar last week, leaving 59 dead and more than 16,000 displaced people.
20cm
The average rise in global sea levels since 1901, according to a Carbon Brief guest post on the challenges in projecting future rises.
Latest climate research
- Wildfire smoke poses negative impacts on organisms and ecosystems, such as health impacts on air-breathing animals, changes in forests’ carbon storage and coral mortality | Global Ecology and Conservation
- As climate change warms Antarctica throughout the century, the Weddell Sea could see the growth of species such as krill and fish and remain habitable for Emperor penguins | Nature Climate Change
- About 97% of South American lakes have recorded “significant warming” over the past four decades and are expected to experience rising temperatures and more frequent heatwaves | Climatic Change
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Repealing the US’s landmark “endangerment finding”, along with actions that rely on that finding, will slow the pace of US emissions cuts, according to Rhodium Group visualised by Carbon Brief. US president Donald Trump last week formally repealed the scientific finding that underpins federal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, although the move is likely to face legal challenges. Data from the Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, shows that US emissions will drop more slowly without climate regulations. However, even with climate regulations, emissions are expected to drop much slower under Trump than under the previous Joe Biden administration, according to the analysis.
Spotlight
How a ‘tree invasion’ helped to fuel South America’s fires
This week, Carbon Brief explores how the “invasion” of non-native tree species helped to fan the flames of forest fires in Argentina and Chile earlier this year.
Since early January, Chile and Argentina have faced large-scale and deadly wildfires, including in Patagonia, which spans both countries.
These fires have been described as “some of the most significant and damaging in the region”, according to a World Weather Attribution (WWA) analysis covered by Carbon Brief.
In both countries, the fires destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands, displacing thousands of people. In Chile, the fires resulted in 23 deaths.
Multiple drivers contributed to the spread of the fires, including extended periods of high temperatures, low rainfall and abundant dry vegetation.
The WWA analysis concluded that human-caused climate change made these weather conditions at least three times more likely.
According to the researchers, another contributing factor was the invasion of non-native trees in the regions where the fires occurred.
The risk of non-native forests
In Argentina, the wildfires began on 6 January and persisted until the first week of February. They hit the city of Puerto Patriada and the Los Alerces and Lago Puelo national parks, in the Chubut province, as well as nearby regions.
In these areas, more than 45,000 hectares of native forests – such as Patagonian alerce tree, myrtle, coigüe and ñire – along with scrubland and grasslands, were consumed by the flames, according to the WWA study.
In Chile, forest fires occurred from 17 to 19 January in the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions.
The fires destroyed more than 40,000 hectares of forest and more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including eucalyptus and Monterey pine.
Dr Javier Grosfeld, a researcher at Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) in northern Patagonia, told Carbon Brief that these species, introduced to Patagonia for production purposes in the late 20th century, grow quickly and are highly flammable.
Because of this, their presence played a role in helping the fires to spread more quickly and grow larger.
However, that is no reason to “demonise” them, he stressed.
Forest management
For Grosfeld, the problem in northern Patagonia, Argentina, is a significant deficit in the management of forests and forest plantations.
This management should include pruning branches from their base and controlling the spread of non-native species, he added.
A similar situation is happening in Chile, where management of pine and eucalyptus plantations is not regulated. This means there are no “firebreaks” – gaps in vegetation – in place to prevent fire spread, Dr Gabriela Azócar, a researcher at the University of Chile’s Centre for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2), told Carbon Brief.
She noted that, although Mapuche Indigenous communities in central-south Chile are knowledgeable about native species and manage their forests, their insight and participation are not recognised in the country’s fire management and prevention policies.
Grosfeld stated:
“We are seeing the transformation of the Patagonian landscape from forest to scrubland in recent years. There is a lack of preventive forestry measures, as well as prevention and evacuation plans.”
Watch, read, listen
FUTURE FURNACE: A Guardian video explored the “unbearable experience of walking in a heatwave in the future”.
THE FUN SIDE: A Channel 4 News video covered a new wave of climate comedians who are using digital platforms such as TikTok to entertain and raise awareness.
ICE SECRETS: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast explored how scientists study ice cores to understand what the climate was like in ancient times and how to use them to inform climate projections.
Coming up
- 22-27 February: Ocean Sciences Meeting, Glasgow
- 24-26 February: Methane Mitigation Europe Summit 2026, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 25-27 February: World Sustainable Development Summit 2026, New Delhi, India
Pick of the jobs
- The Climate Reality Project, digital specialist | Salary: $60,000-$61,200. Location: Washington DC
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), science officer in the IPCC Working Group I Technical Support Unit | Salary: Unknown. Location: Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Energy Transition Partnership, programme management intern | Salary: Unknown. Location: Bangkok, Thailand
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 20 February 2026: EU’s ‘3C’ warning | Endangerment repeal’s impact on US emissions | ‘Tree invasion’ fuelled South America’s fires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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