The invigorating thing about public speaking is that you never quite know who is in the audience. There’s always a chance, of course, that someone wants to have a bit of a go at you, or maybe there’s an attendee with a particular take on things, who wants to ask one of those ‘questions that is more of a statement’; and then there’s those precious moments when the stars align and a memorable connection is made.
A couple of weeks ago, I’d participated in a panel discussion at an event, and the crowd was beginning to dissipate when a couple of strangers approached me to introduce themselves and say ‘hello’.
It turned out that Helen, Miranda, and I had all been in the same room in April, when each of us was part of the Greenpeace contingent inside Woodside’s 2026 Annual General Meeting in Perth, though we did not meet that day.
AGMs are significant set-piece occasions for companies, at which their corporate leadership wants to project competence and boost investor confidence. But for those of us with other concerns on our minds, an AGM is an opportunity to hold corporate leaders to account.
This year, a significant number of community advocacy groups, including Greenpeace, were present at Woodside’s AGM to challenge the company on its plans to drill for gas around Scott Reef—Australia’s largest freestanding oceanic reef atoll, and host to an incredible array of rare and endangered creatures, including green sea turtles and pygmy blue whales.
My role was to accept a shareholder proxy, suit up, and ask the company’s chair, Richard Goyder, some direct questions about the environmental damage that Woodside’s plans threaten to Scott Reef and the global climate.
Helen and Miranda, though, were present to play a completely different role. ‘We were a bit nervous that day’, Miranda told me. And no wonder, given what they were planning to do.
As new CEO Liz Westcott took the lectern, she was abruptly interrupted by a literally unearthly sound: whale song, playing from a speaker that Greenpeace activists had snuck into the room.
It was an aural haunting of Woodside’s AGM by the ghosts of its business strategy. Westcott opted to try to continue speaking, while security moved among the rows, attempting without success to work out where the sound was coming from.
When the whale track had played through, the relief on the podium felt palpable; but the return to corporate calm was short-lived.
Miranda, Helen, and other small groups of choristers—all evidently talented singers in their own right—began to stand up in small groups to perform a bespoke ‘Save Scott Reef’ variation on an iconic Australian song:
Hands off Scott Reef
Don’t be so Reckless
She don’t like that kind of behaviour…
It is a cliche, but true, to say that bravery comes in many different forms. It demands guts and resolve to stand up in a closed and heavily securitised room, with an unsympathetic audience; and to sing a song of no denying to one of the most powerful corporations in Australia, unaccompanied, from a cold start, with only your voices to fill the cavernous corporate space.
It was a wonderful thing to witness: the moral clarity of the message and the bold cheekiness of the activity; and a profoundly galvanising thing to feel, the indefatigable lifting of the spirit that we experience when we hear human voices rising in harmony and purpose. Miranda, Helen and their mates were brilliant.
Don’t be so Reckless…
As each small group rose in choreographed turn to pick up the song, they were apprehended by security and escorted out, singing to the last, as they were exited from the room.
Already, more than 500,000 people have joined the campaign to stop Woodside from drilling gas at Scott Reef. So when Helen, Miranda and friends stood up to sing, they did so on behalf of more than half a million people.
‘I’d never done anything like that before’, Helen told me, ‘I’d definitely do it again’.
Protest songs are both catalytic and emblematic of dynamic moments of social change. There is beauty, creativity, defiance, camaraderie and love to be found in singing together.
Helen and Miranda, it was great to meet you both. To you and all the other amazing folks who stood up and sang, thank you for your courage, commitment and the power of your voices. Your singing mattered for the half million, for the whales and the other creatures of Scott Reef, and for life in the ocean and on earth itself.
*As anyone of a certain age will probably recognise, the phrase is derived from the Midnight Oil anthem, US Forces.
Q and A
A few people have asked me recently about where the implementation of the national nature law reforms stand? Specifically, It seemed like good news when the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) reforms were passed last year, but now it appears that they could be going wrong in the implementation. What’s happening?
We welcomed the Australian parliament’s passing of long-awaited nature law reforms just before Christmas last year as a fulfilment of an election promise, but remained clear-eyed that the proof of these reforms would be in how well they were implemented.
At this stage, the first two draft National Environmental Standards (NES) released by Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt’s department fall well short of what is required to actually protect nature. So things are once again in the balance.
The NES are the rules intended to guide decisions on projects that require assessment under the EPBC Act. They should draw a hard line to protect nature, but instead, the proposed standards are full of loopholes that legal experts warn are inimical to achieving the whole point of the Act–the protection of nature.
Glenn Walker who is Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s Head of Nature Program has mapped out the shortcomings of the NES in great detail on our blog. Greenpeace has made is views clear to both the Federal Environment Department and Minister Murray Watt, urging that the NES must be fixed, as have many others.
We are continuing to work closely with other environmental organisations, both to engage closely and to campaign publicly–there is still the opportunity to get this right to achieve the potential of the amended EPBC Act to actually do what it says on the cover–protect the environment.
But a $345 million U.S. verdict against the environmental group hangs over the case.
A lawsuit filed by Greenpeace International against the U.S.-based fossil fuel company Energy Transfer in the Netherlands is moving forward after a Dutch court recently ruled in favor of the environmental organization in rejecting the company’s bid to toss out the case.
Greenpeace’s Dutch Anti-SLAPP Case Against Oil Pipeline Giant Advances
Go behind the scenes with executive editor Vernon Loeb and oceans correspondent Teresa Tomassoni as they discuss the search for heat-resilient coral reefs that are somehow defying the odds to survive a warming planet.
The world has already lost more than half of its coral reefs, and most of what remains is at risk of disappearing in the next 25 years.
Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
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 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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