The European Commission has put forward a plan to boost production of EU-made, low-carbon steel, cement and renewables in an effort to rely less on other countries.
The proposed “Industrial Accelerator Act” (IAA) aims to boost “resilient and decarbonised” industrial production in EU manufacturing, says the commission.
Under the proposal, a percentage of products bought from “energy-intensive industries” and other sectors under public-procurement deals would be required to be “low-carbon” and made in the EU.
This includes targets for steel, aluminium and electric vehicle (EV) parts.
Non-EU countries with trade agreements, such as the UK and Japan, could also be included in the “Made in Europe” portion of the plan.
The proposal – which must be approved by the European Parliament and EU member states – could save millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2030, claims the commission.
Much of the media coverage on the proposed policy focuses on its aim to tackle reliance on China for low-carbon technologies, while Politico calls it a “climate law in disguise”.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief outlines the key details of the proposal, what must happen for it to take effect and what it could mean for climate change.
Where does the ‘Industrial Accelerator Act’ proposal come from?
The publication of the proposed IAA follows weeks of delays as the EU attempts to boost its manufacturing industries – which have been struggling with international competition and high energy costs – while also supporting decarbonisation.
Industries such as steel, cement and chemicals produce roughly a fifth of the EU’s emissions, so decarbonising them will be essential for achieving the bloc’s net-zero goals.
The IAA is an effort to help energy-intensive industries cut their emissions while remaining globally competitive, in part by “creating lead markets for low-carbon products”.
It was first announced in the European Commission’s 2024 political guidelines, laying out its priorities for the five years out to 2029.
In the section concerning the EU’s plans for a “clean industrial deal” – referring to broader plans to support industries and accelerate their decarbonisation – the guidelines stated:
“We will put forward an industrial decarbonisation accelerator act to support industries and companies through the transition.”
When the clean industrial deal was subsequently released in February 2025, it said the promised act would introduce “clean, resilient, circular, cybersecure” criteria that would “strengthen demand for EU-made clean products”.
The act was also intended to “speed-up permitting for industrial access to energy and industrial decarbonisation” and “develop a voluntary label on the carbon intensity of industrial products”.
Underpinning these plans was the idea of increasing demand for low-carbon products in public and private procurements – in particular, those that were “Made in Europe”.
The proportion of products that will be included under the “Made in Europe” definition remains unclear. In the final proposal, the commission notes it will “tailor requirements to the specific structure, maturity and dependencies of each sector”.
The word “decarbonisation” was dropped from the act’s title by commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her state of the EU address in September 2025, in order “to allow for a broader sectoral and technological scope”.
This reflects wider disputes within the commission itself around the coverage of the IAA. There has also been strong opposition to the proposed “made in Europe” section of the act from different groups of member states.
The debate has also taken place against the background of calls to weaken key parts of EU climate policy – in particular, the EU emissions trading system (ETS).
Environmental groups have voiced concerns about the climate focus of the IAA being sidelined, at the expense of boosting the bloc’s competitiveness.
A major issue in the discussions has been whether the “made in Europe” label should include “trusted partners” from outside the EU, such as the UK and Switzerland.
The commission’s trade directorate has reportedly pushed for a more open system that includes more countries. Germany has been among the member states warning that restrictive rules could deter foreign investment and raise prices.
Meanwhile, Politico reported that the commission’s growth directorate, supported by France, wanted “made in Europe” to be restricted to countries in the European Economic Area – the 27 EU member states alongside Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The publication of the IAA proposal – which follows on from the automotive package adopted by the EU in December 2025 – was delayed numerous times amid the disagreements.
According to Politico, “haggling” continued over the Monday and Tuesday before the proposal was released, before it could be agreed internally within the commission by the “college of commissioners”.
What is in the IAA proposal?
Following these tense internal negotiations, the European Commission released its IAA proposal on 4 March 2026. It says the proposal will “increase demand for low-carbon, European-made technologies and products”.
The act sets a goal of increasing manufacturing’s share of EU GDP to 20% by 2035, up from 14.3% in 2024.
It introduces “targeted and proportionate” low-carbon and “made in EU” requirements for public procurement and public support schemes for specific sectors.
These will initially apply to steel, cement, aluminium, cars and net-zero technologies – defined within the proposal as batteries, battery energy storage systems (BESS), solar PV, heat pumps, wind turbines, electrolysers and nuclear technologies. It also establishes a framework that could be extended to other energy-intensive sectors in the future.
The commission notes that these sectors have been chosen due to their strategic importance, as well as being “essential enablers of the clean transition and vital to downstream industries”.
However, it says they are facing declining production in Europe, slower decarbonisation investments and global competition and market distortions, such as unfair subsidies.
For steel, the proposal would introduce a requirement for public procurement and public support schemes to use low-carbon steel within the automotive and construction industries.
This will help “create market demand” and “give investors confidence and predictability, boosting innovation and making clean steel a core part of the EU’s industrial future”, says the commission.
However, this falls short of the 70% low-carbon steel requirement that had been included in an earlier draft of the act, according to Reuters. Other earlier drafts of the IAA proposal had also included an emissions label for steel.
This voluntary carbon-intensity label had previously been set out within the clean industrial deal and had originally been expected to come into effect in 2025, before being pushed back and, ultimately, excluded from the IAA.
Beyond steel, the IAA sets minimum “Made in EU” requirements for public procurement of 70% for EVs, 25% for aluminium and 25% for cement.
The European Commission will now offer the UK, Japan and other like-minded countries the opportunity to be included under the “Made in Europe” manufacturing targets, if they offer reciprocal access to EU-based manufacturers, according to the Financial Times. The outlet adds that this is being welcomed by the UK government, which had lobbied for such access for months.
The measures within the IAA are in line with the recommendations of the Draghi report on EU competitiveness, says the commission. As such, it says they are designed to “increase value creation in the EU, strengthening our industrial base against the backdrop of growing unfair global competition and increasing dependencies on non-EU suppliers in strategic sectors”.
Alongside the introduction of requirements on public procurement within the bloc, the IAA proposal highlights that the EU is “committed to maintaining that openness as a key source of economic strength and resilience”.
The EU hosted almost a quarter of global foreign direct investment in 2024.
To further support such investment and ensure the benefits extend to technology transfer and job creation, the IAA introduces additional conditions for international investments.
These would apply for investments of more than €100m in emerging sectors such as batteries, EVs, solar PV and critical raw materials by companies that hold more than 40% of global production capacities.
Conditions would include EU companies holding a majority share, technology transfer, integration into EU value chains and job creation, according to the European Commission. There would also need to be a guarantee that a minimum of 50% of employees are European.
The introduction of common conditions across the bloc would mean the IAA “strike[s] a carefully calibrated balance by ensuring that strategic foreign investments contribute to Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and industrial transformation, while preventing fragmentation”, according to the commission.
Additionally, EU member states would be required to set up a single digital permitting process to “speed up and simplify manufacturing projects” under the IAA.
This would include dedicated single points of contact and maximum timelines of 18 months for certain projects, such as energy-intensive industry decarbonisation projects or those located in “industrial acceleration areas”.
Member states would designate these areas to encourage strategic manufacturing clusters, it says. The commission adds that projects within these areas would benefit from improved coordination and access to infrastructure, finance and skills ecosystems, as well as faster permitting.
What comes next?
The commission’s proposal will now be negotiated by members of the European Parliament and then by country ministers at the Council of the EU.
After these negotiations take place, the proposal can be adopted and the act can take effect.
But this may not be a simple process, as many countries remain divided on the key terms of the proposed law. (See: Where does the ‘Industrial Accelerator Act’ proposal come from?)
Nine EU countries pushed back on the proposal last December, reported Politico. The UK has been “lobbying” countries including Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to oppose it, according to Bloomberg. Reuters noted that the plan is backed by France.
EU commissioner for internal market and services, Stéphane Séjourné, told a press conference on 4 March that the “faster” the proposal moves through the EU lawmaking stages, the “more stability we will actually have”.
After the law takes effect, the commission says it will evaluate the key results three years later. A full review is then proposed after five years.
What could the act mean for carbon emissions?
The IAA could save around 30.6m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) in 2030, according to the European Commission.
According to the impact assessment published alongside the proposed act, the changes brought in for the steel, cement, aluminium, battery and vehicle sectors would drive significant CO2 reductions by 2030.
The document breaks down these emissions savings for 2030 as follows:
- Producing more batteries in the EU, rather than relying on imports from China, could save 25.6MtCO2.
- The 25% low-carbon steel target in the automotive and construction sectors could save around 3.4MtCO2.
- Vehicle manufacturing emissions could drop by 0.7MtCO2 due to “shifts in production”.
- The 5% low-carbon cement target could save 0.69MtCO2.
- The 25% low-carbon aluminium target could save 0.22MtCO2.
According to the impact assessment, the emissions required to produce a battery in the EU are around 25% lower than a “Chinese manufactured battery using the average Chinese grid”. This is due to “strict” EU environmental standards, it adds.
The report estimates that all of these savings in CO2 would be worth more than €3bn in avoided climate damages.
Streamlining the process for permitting to “accelerate” decarbonisation projects should also “lea[d] to an accelerated pace of GHG [greenhouse gas] savings”, the document says, but does not list a figure for this.
The impact assessment for the IAA proposal notes that there is currently a “structural imbalance” in the EU’s industrial transition.
It states that although emissions associated with industrial production are declining, this is “largely driven by shrinking production”, rather than improved carbon efficiency.
Carbon emissions and production volumes in the EU iron and steel sectors have dropped “almost in parallel” between 2005 and 2023, says the report.
It adds that projections show that these emissions will need to decline “much faster” to meet future EU climate targets.
The “competitiveness and decarbonisation” of EU manufacturing is “unlikely to improve” without further action, such as the IAA, says the report.
In other words, the IAA effectively aims to ensure that emissions cuts can accelerate while maintaining – or even increasing – industrial production within the EU.
What has the reaction to the IAA been?
While many welcomed the IAA proposal as a “first step”, others criticised the final proposal for walking back on the ambition in earlier drafts.
In a statement released alongside the proposal, Stéphane Séjourné, executive vice-president for prosperity and industrial strategy at the European Commission, said the IAA marked a “major step in the renewal of the European economic doctrine”. He added:
“Facing unprecedented global uncertainty and unfair competition, European industry can count on the provisions of this Act to boost demand and guarantee resilient supply chains in strategic sectors. It will create jobs by directing taxpayers’ money to European production, decreasing our dependencies and enhancing our economic security and sovereignty.”
Others shared his sentiment that in the face of a changing international trade environment, the IAA would boost European competitiveness. Neil Makaroff, director at the European thinktank Strategic Perspectives, said in a statement:
“With its first ‘made in Europe’ policy, the EU is embracing long-overdue economic realism and adapting itself to the new brutal global trade reality. Rather than letting the single market be an open outlet for Chinese overcapacities, each euro of taxpayer money can be directed to rebuild Europe’s manufacturing base. This is how Europeans can start learning the language of industrial powers.”
Tinne van der Straeten, the CEO of WindEurope, said the IAA sent an “important political signal”, but “a simple and harmonised implementation of the new rules is crucial”.
WWF highlighted that public procurement is only a small part of the EU economy and called for complementary measures that also target private consumption.
Camille Maury, senior policy officer on industrial decarbonisation at WWF EU, said:
“The commission has finally pressed the accelerator on clean industry by opening the door to create demand for clean products. However, to win the race to decarbonise, the commission and policy makers will need to put effort into strengthening low-carbon requirement criteria and designing truly green labels for steel and cement that exclude fossil fuel-based production.”
In particular, the lack of a low-carbon label for steel within the IAA drew criticism, with, for example, Daniel Pietikainen, policy manager for steel at climate NGO Bellona Europa, saying:
“The Act no longer provides the basis for a low-carbon steel label. While we can work with the Ecodesign Regulation as the vehicle for a steel label, the commission must commit to an ambitious timeline now. Any operational labelling scheme that is contingent on a delegated act with no clear timeline is not a signal; it is a delay.”
Similarly, the exceptions for international investment in emerging sectors, such as batteries and solar, were labelled as a “very disappointing…watering-down” by Christoph Podewils, secretary general of the European Solar Manufacturing Council. In a statement, he added:
“We need ‘Made in Europe’ to ensure the continent’s long-term energy security. The current explosion in energy prices, caused by the war in Iran, demonstrates the importance of being independent of other regions.
“If the European solar industry has to wait another three years after the legislation is adopted, many companies will have disappeared in the meantime due to ongoing unfair competition from China.”
The post Q&A: What the EU’s new industry and ‘Made in Europe’ rules mean for climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What the EU’s new industry and ‘Made in Europe’ rules mean for climate action
Brazil’s environment minister says he is “very optimistic” that the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) – a new rainforest fund to channel private and public finance to developing nations – can meet a key $10 billion funding target this year, and is not at risk from his country’s elections next month.
The TFFF, launched by Brazil at COP30 in the Amazon last November and co-led by Norway, is intended as an alternative to traditional grant-based forest finance. The fund aims to raise $125bn in public and private capital, invest it in bond markets, and then pay countries that keep their forests standing from the annual returns. Donor contributions needed to get it going have tailed off after an initial burst.
Speaking to Climate Home News on the sidelines of Climate Week in New York, Brazilian environment minister João Paulo Capobianco pointed out that in less than a year since its official launch, the TFFF has already secured $7.3bn from governments.
“How many other initiatives can say that?” he asked. “Of course, if you have $7 billion, it’s easier for more countries to consider their own contribution. And not just countries – non-governmental organisations also. We are expecting even more support.”
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As its initial target, the TFFF aims to raise $10bn in seed capital from governments by the end of 2026, and still needs to fill a gap of $2.7bn. Its backers say that for each dollar in public funding, they can secure $4 from the private sector. Critics say the $10bn goal barely covers the fund’s expenses and would not allow it to make any significant payments to forest countries.
Because setting up its financial architecture, raising the starting capital and making the first investments will take time, experts say the TFFF is unlikely to generate any payments for developing countries before 2028.
Seeking new pledges
Capobianco told Climate Home News that Brazil is still in talks with potential new contributors to the fund, among them China, Korea and Japan, and said he hoped to see more pledges announced at the upcoming biodiversity and climate COPs in October and November. The Netherlands is expected to up its first small contribution and Canada may also come in, according to other sources close to the TFFF.
Because the fund was not created as part of the UN climate talks and is hosted by the World Bank, developing countries can contribute without taking on wider donor responsibilities for climate finance. Brazil and Indonesia – both large emerging rainforest nations – have each pledged $1bn to the TFFF.
Earlier in September, the UK became the latest country to pledge funding – promising a loan of £400 million (about $540 million). Capobianco welcomed the contribution and noted that Britain has also said it will keep “under review” the possibility of putting in more.
Currently the largest donor is Norway, which announced a $3bn pledge last year at COP30 in Belém. However, that pledge came with conditions, among them that the fund must reach $10bn in sponsor capital by 2026, and that Norway’s contribution can’t make up more than 20% of that total. Over the longer term, this means the fund must raise $15bn from governments to unlock Norway’s full investment.
Comment: UK’s budget juggling trick with rainforest loan for bus-fare cap needs transparency
Speaking at a forest finance event in New York, Norway’s environment minister Sigrun Aasland said the country’s pledge was made not “only out of solidarity but because of shared interests”, adding that protecting rainforests is critical for climate and biodiversity goals as well as for national security.
“Tropical deforestation matters to people in the Amazon and in the Congo. But let’s not forget that it also matters to global food production and to the cost of living in Oslo or in London,” she said.
At the event, Guyana’s minister of natural resources Vickram Bharrat said the TFFF is “one in a menu of options” to finance forest protection in developing countries. He added that to boost its capital “maybe we should put some amount of pressure on oil companies to contribute to the fund”.
Upcoming election “not a risk”
Brazil, which has been pivotal to getting the fund off the ground, is now heading into a national election that could see the country swing back to an anti-climate stance if right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro beats current left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Capobianco, however, said the election result does not pose a risk to the TFFF.
“It’s a global initiative, not a Brazilian initiative. We proposed the first idea, but nowadays it’s a global initiative,” he said. “We believe the investor countries and the tropical countries together have the possibility to continue this process.”
In Brazil, the first round of voting is scheduled for Sunday, October 4. If no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes, a run-off ballot will take place on October 25.
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In July, the TFFF board adopted a charter, which outlines the instrument’s objectives and values, including that 20% of the payments made to tropical countries will go directly to Indigenous people and local communities.
The charter also says the TFFF board may comprise up to 12 member countries during the initial phase. Currently, seven seats are filled by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Germany, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Indonesia.
The board has also formally incorporated the Tropical Forest Investment Fund (TFIF) – the TFFF’s investment arm that will trade bonds in financial markets – hosted in Luxembourg.
The post Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone appeared first on Climate Home News.
Brazil confident new rainforest fund will reach $10bn donor milestone
Patrick Schröder is a senior research fellow at Chatham House’s Environment and Society Centre.
A climate summit serious about implementation cannot afford to leave major emissions reductions off the table. Yet, that is the risk COP31 faces unless it makes reducing raw material use central to the way countries decarbonise their economies.
On the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York last week, COP31 host Türkiye laid out proposals to accelerate emissions cuts in the next decade. Its plans include global goals to increase the share of recycled products in material use to at least 15% (up from 6.9% in 2025) and halve waste generation by 2035.
COP31 offers an opportunity to connect efforts to improve material circularity with stronger national climate commitments and mitigation pathways. But these targets could be a lot more ambitious.
The case for circularity
The Paris Agreement cannot be delivered through cleaner electricity alone. We must also reduce the emissions that are embedded in the way we extract resources, manufacture products, build infrastructure and dispose of waste.
Circularity principles are pivotal to credible mitigation pathways: designing technologies and products to last, repairing and reusing them, and reducing demand for virgin resources.
The scale of the opportunity is striking. A recent European Environment Agency review found that adopting such principles could deliver average global emissions reductions potential of 52% in the waste sector against a business-as-usual scenario, 48% in construction and buildings, 28% in transport and mobility, 26% in industry and 24% in agriculture.
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These figures make a compelling case for raising circularity ambitions across the economy, offering the promise of far more than better recycling bins.
In fact, recycling minerals used in cleantech equipment, for example, illustrate the extent of the emissions savings available. The carbon footprint of minerals and metals recovered from secondary sources is up to 80% lower than those produced from new mining and processing, according to the International Energy Agency.
A major EU-funded project estimates that recovered materials could substitute up to 56% of Europe’s primary critical raw material requirements by 2050, provided they achieve the necessary quality. The main takeaway goes beyond Europe: yesterday’s products can become tomorrow’s strategic resources while mitigating climate change.
In this light, a target to increase the share of recovered material use to 15% isn’t enough.
The evidence-based Circularity Gap Report found a 17% target by 2032 is possible and could unlock additional emissions reductions amounting to several gigatonnes of CO2.
Reducing material demand
A higher circularity metric is only part of the answer, however. An economy can increase its recycling rate at the same time as extracting more primary materials if total material demand keeps growing.
The tougher issue governments need to address is identifying what reductions in primary material use are needed.
The Circularity Gap Report uses an indicative benchmark of eight tonnes of virgin materials consumed per person annually. This is already being translated into policy: Germany’s 2024 circular economy strategy aims to reduce primary resource consumption, with the German Federal Environment Agency identifying six to eight tonnes per person as an ambitious target.
Reducing primary material demand will require a closer integration of energy and resource policies. Efficient EVs charged with solar power can complement better public transport and walkable cities, while batteries designed to be repaired and reused for stationary energy storage before being recycled will reduce the materials footprint of transport and clean energy services.
Coordinated infrastructure development and urban planning can prevent unnecessary overbuild, while renovating existing building stock reduces demand for new steel, cement and aluminium, which are emissions-intensive to produce. Connecting industrial waste heat to district heating networks can further reduce energy demand and emissions.
What governments should agree at COP31
COP31 can translate this approach into three concrete commitments.
First, governments should agree a stronger circularity ambition, supported by material-footprint indicators and milestones. The presidency should seek recognition of these priorities in negotiated outcomes, alongside concrete delivery partnerships under its COP31 Action Agenda.
Second, countries should include quantified circular economy measures in their updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and implementation plans. Such measures should include reuse, material efficiency and circularity targets, as well as transparent estimates of emissions savings that avoid double counting across sectors. By the end of 2025, countries had developed 101 national circular economy roadmaps and action plans, yet these often remained disconnected from their NDCs.
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Third, climate finance should support the delivery of circular solutions such as material recovery at scale, investments into circular critical mineral value chains beyond mining, developing a circular plastics economy, and designing buildings and cities that support material reuse. Developing countries need technology, affordable finance and support to deliver these ambitions, including for the informal workers whose livelihoods depend on recovering and recycling materials.
The test for COP31 is to reach an agreement that can start the transformation of our production and consumption systems and how they are financed.
A headline circularity target will achieve little without policies that address absolute resource demand and deliver measurable emissions cuts. But COP31 offers an opportunity to make circularity a central element of climate policy, with targets strong enough to matter and institutions equipped to deliver them.
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COP31 must aim higher to cut emissions from the use of materials
An exceptional El Niño is building. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says it has intensified to very strong levels and is likely to last at least through February 2027. If its current trajectory holds, it could become stronger than anything seen since WMO monitoring began four decades ago.
That is bad news for agriculture. El Niño – a naturally occurring weather phenomenon – can scramble rainfall patterns across the world, bringing drought to some regions and floods to others. And this time it is unfolding against the backdrop of a significantly hotter climate, with farmers already contending with unreliable growing seasons, extreme heat and less predictable rainfall because of global warming.
El Niño expected to bring next record-hot year as soon as 2027
We are seeing the consequences already. In Sri Lanka, drought linked to El Niño has dried wells and reservoirs and cut into crops and farmer incomes. Indonesia is experiencing its worst wildfire season in 11 years, with prolonged drought and extreme heat exacerbated by El Niño. And in Peru, authorities are preparing for the opposite extreme: intense rains, flooding and landslides which the national civil-defence agency says could affect around 1.2 million people.
These impacts will multiply as El Niño intensifies.
And yet, just as the risks to food production are rising, the money available to help farmers withstand them is shrinking.
10% funding decline in 2024
A forthcoming analysis from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that climate-related development finance for agrifood systems is moving in the wrong direction. In 2024, the latest year for which data is available, it fell by 10 percent compared with a 2 percent overall decline. The sectors that put food on our tables — crops, livestock, forestry and fisheries — received just 5 percent.
Yet this is precisely the moment when climate investment in agriculture needs to grow, not shrink. It can help communities adapt, build resilience and protect food security, while unlocking larger flows of public and private finance. Agriculture feeds us, supports the livelihoods of well over a billion people, and is often the first sector hit by drought, floods and extreme heat. Cutting that investment now is a false economy.
One failed harvest can plant the seed for the next crisis, forcing farmers to eat the seed they have saved for planting, sell livestock or tools, or take on debt. It can also deepen food insecurity, disrupt supply chains and drive up prices, showing up months later in supermarket aisles far away.
The Central American Dry Corridor, stretching through much of the region, shows both how exposed farmers are, and what investment can do. Based on an analysis of 41 years of satellite observations, FAO finds that some crop and pasture areas there face more than a 50 percent chance of agricultural drought over the coming months.
About half of Central America’s 1.9 million producers of maize, beans and other basic grains live in the Dry Corridor. Many grow food both for sale and for their own families. When a harvest fails, they lose both income and dinner.
El Salvador project conserves water and soil
In El Salvador, which lies within the Dry Corridor, more than 50,000 farmers have adopted practices to better withstand drought and increasingly unreliable rainfall through RECLIMA, a project financed by the Green Climate Fund and implemented by FAO in partnership with the government of El Salvador. It has substantial national co-financing, including from the country’s Environmental Investment Fund.
El Niño can intensify El Salvador’s annual mid-season dry spell, known as the canícula, turning it into a longer, harsher drought just as maize needs water most.
For María Cristina Corvera de López, a second-generation farmer in rural Nahualapa, adapting means changing how every drop of rain is captured and used. She plants trees alongside her crops to provide shade and minimise evaporation and uses simple irrigation channels and a homemade drip system to conserve water. Instead of burning stalks, leaves and husks after harvest, as generations before her did, she turns them into mulch to hold moisture in the soil.
“The effects of climate change are a constant challenge,” she says. But the new techniques have made her farm more resilient to El Niño as well. Where she once harvested about 50 bags of maize per acre, she now gets around 80, even during droughts. It’s enough to feed her family and sell the surplus.
Managing risk now cuts future costs
Together, these adaptations can mean the difference between losing a crop and getting through a dry season with enough food, seed and income to plant again. They are also the result of climate finance invested before disaster strikes.
RECLIMA shows what that kind of adaptation investment can buy. Adaptation accounted for 45 percent of climate-related development finance to agrifood systems in 2024, and multilateral development banks are directing more agricultural finance towards resilience. That shift reflects a growing recognition that adaptation is a form of risk management, not just a development cost.
We need much more of it. The same investments that help farmers withstand El Niño also enable them to adapt to a hotter, more unpredictable future. Cutting investment in the people who produce our food just as climate risks intensify does not save money. It simply pushes a much larger bill into the next harvest, the next food crisis, and the next El Niño.
The post As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers appeared first on Climate Home News.
As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers
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