Prof Louise Heathwaite CBE became the executive chair of the National Environment Research Council (NERC), the UK’s main agency for funding natural science research, in March 2024.
She was the chair of the Science Advisory Council of the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and has previously served as chief scientific adviser to the Scottish Government for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment. She is a leading hydrochemist.
- On realising human’s environmental impact: “When the ozone hole was being discussed. So I knew from a long, long time ago that we were doing damage.”
- On funding climate research: “You can’t look at climate research just as climate research. It’s a nexus. It’s thinking about climate change, the implications for biodiversity loss and other changes like pollution.”
- On funding solar geoengineering: “A few years ago, I think this council and many others would not have gone into solar geoengineering in any sense. We’re getting closer and closer to 2050. That starts you looking for more extreme routes.”
- On Brexit’s impact on UK research: “I think that led to some breakage of communication and links with people working in Europe particularly.”
- On reaching net-zero in the farming sector: “So far, that vision hasn’t been much beyond ‘we’re going to plant trees everywhere, and cows are bad’.”
- On transforming land-use in the UK: “We do need it, but it’s hard to see who’s going to really have the oversight.”
- On lack of public attention on biodiversity loss compared to climate change: “I think pollution and biodiversity loss are lagging behind as it’s much more complex to understand that system.”
Carbon Brief: You have a long standing career as a hydrologist and a pollution expert, when did you first become aware that humans were having a large impact on the natural world through pollution and agriculture?
Prof Louise Heathwaite: Before I went to university – well before I went to university. At school I studied maths, economics and geography and put it together in that sort of sense. Then I went on to do an environmental science degree at the University of East Anglia. At that point, there were only two places you could do environmental science, UEA or Lancaster. Lancaster was far too close to home for me [Heathwaite is from Leeds]. UEA were doing some really cutting edge science. That’s when the ozone hole was just being discussed. So I knew from a long, long time ago that we were doing damage. So it’s been with me all that time. And that progression with working with the Natural Environment Research Council started at that point. I went from doing a degree to doing a PhD at Bristol and that was funded by NERC.
CB: What was your PhD in?
LH: I was looking at peatlands, wetland hydrology and hydrochemistry. I was looking at the impact of [peatland] drainage on water quality. The place I was working was the first SSSI [site of special scientific interest] ever declared in the country. It was a place called West Sedgemoor in the Somerset Levels. It was a real interesting challenge there, looking at the difference between what the [wildlife charity] RSPB wanted to do to protect that site versus the farming community, who wanted to actually farm that site, and how you get some sort of shared understanding. It was really fascinating. And underneath that there were some real chemistry questions to answer as to why the river was getting polluted and what the issues were. And it wasn’t anything to do with the farming community at all. It was to do with the geology of the site. Really interesting.
CB: This year, you became the executive chair of NERC. What are the key areas of climate research that NERC is looking to fund?
My perspective is you can’t look at climate research just as climate research. I think there are three parts to this, it’s a nexus. It’s thinking about climate change, the implications for biodiversity loss and other changes like pollution. So I always argue you’ve got to think of it through that three-way nexus. The direction of travel I’m trying to take NERC through in terms of our forward look is developing thinking that I’m starting to call “beyond carbon”. So when you talk to communities like the financial industry, what they’re looking for when they want to understand biodiversity loss is another metric, like carbon, that can tell them how to deal with the problems. [We need to] get to the realisation that, for biodiversity loss, there is no single metric. And a lot of what the climate change drivers are doing are causing feedback loops, which damage biodiversity, create other sorts of challenges, and how do we understand that? So there’s a whole load of work to do in that sort of space. So that’s one bit where climate change is a real driver. The other bit is around national security and health. Your floods, your droughts, risk for wildfires, risk for temperature and heat and what that does to people. That’s another area.
Then the third area you might think will be quite unusual for NERC, which is starting to look at what we’re calling “responsible innovation”. So NERC has just got a call out around solar radiation management. Now, a few years ago, I think this council and many others would not have gone into solar geoengineering in any sense. But the position we’re getting into now is we’re getting closer and closer to 2030 and to 2050 and trying to get to things like net-zero. That starts you looking for more extreme routes. I think it’s important that a research council tries to understand what the implications are of anybody following those extreme routes. I need to be clear, we’re not doing out-of-door experiments, it’s more around modelling and maybe some laboratory work to try and understand that. But if we don’t understand solar radiation management, or we don’t understand the sort of interventions you might do in the oceans, then we’re not going to be able to advise on the implications. And, with the Natural Environment Research Council, we’ve got everything at our fingertips, really, because we do deep ocean to upper atmosphere. We do pole to pole. We do air, land, water. And that captures the global capacity. And so actually addressing those climate change challenges sits right in our remit, at a very difficult time, really.
CB: How has NERC research funding been impacted by Brexit? Does NERC have all the resources it needs at the moment?
Brexit or everything else after Brexit? We’ve had Brexit, then we have Covid, and then we had Ukraine and inflation and all of those things. From a Brexit context, and this is a personal view, I think that led to some breakage of communication and links with people working in Europe particularly. Now we’re part of Horizon again [the EU’s €96bn research programme], I can see that coming back, which is absolutely fantastic, it’s really important. I think also within NERC, all of those issues that I just mentioned have also led us to perhaps start looking [at] more UK-wide, rather than global and international science. That’s something I want to change. That international science is absolutely critical, particularly as we’ve got many of our scientists working with the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and IPBES [Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services]. And we’ve got the new UN Environment Programme around pollution and waste. So those three areas I mentioned before, we’ve now got intergovernmental panels which are actually looking at them. I think of our opportunity as to how we bring them together and think about it as a system.
CB: You recently stood down as the chair of the Science Advisory Council for Defra. What did it entail, how often were you briefing ministers and what kind of information were you sharing with them?
LH: So this was the highest level advisory committee within Defra, but part of our role was very particularly to help support and advise the chief scientific adviser [CSA], so that they were getting the best sort of advice. So the way that that worked was to basically take challenges from across Defra and [answer questions such as] are we doing this right? What’s your advice? How could we do this sort of thing? And get that [answered] by a wide range of people on the committee. [This was] to actually ensure two things: that the right sort of questions were being asked of the science and the right sort of evidence was being gathered, and that evidence was being used effectively. So the route was really to make sure that the CSA had a group of “critical friends”, in a sense, but also was [well] informed. Briefing ministers was the CSA’s job. Acting as a science advisory committee [and] actually making sure that the CSA and others in Defra were actually being coherent in their messages around the science – it was fascinating. But I’d been on Defra’s Science Advisory Council before, so that was really exciting. I’ve been a chief scientific adviser in the Scottish Government for Rural Affairs, food and environment before, so that fitted really well with that role. But it’s an important entity providing that sort of independent advice, that critical friend bit, is always important.
CB: Farming and land use have been a weak spot in UK climate plans, and now agriculture is a bigger emitter than power plants, for example. What do you think is needed to help the farming sector get to net-zero?
LH: I guess let’s start with the end point, getting to net-zero by 2050. It’s going to be a challenge to ever get to [actual] zero [emissions]. And what does getting to the “net” in net-zero mean? We need to have that national security of still being able to turn the lights on. I think that’s important. By setting targets and target dates, this is the bit I mentioned about geoengineering, it tends to get more and more desperate measures because you’ve got a target. I tend to think of it more as a transition. How do we transition, both in terms of behaviours, but also in terms of the science and the interventions we can put in to actually get to those sorts of places? So that seems to me to be really, really important and how we actually capture that moving forward is critical.
CB: So how do we transition the farming sector?
LH: That is always going to be a challenge because you’ve got two things. One, I think we need to look at farming and the farming community and landowners as being part of the solution, not the problem. Think of them as custodians of land and of the environment. Therefore, you start having a different conversation, which isn’t, “this is wrong, having cows and sheep is wrong”. But: “How do we actually get to a better place where we can have a shared understanding of what the environment’s about? What alternative livelihoods do people have?” Even down to evaluating whether we pay the right sort of amount for the meat we want to eat. So if people were prepared to pay more but eat less of it, that might actually change the economics of how farming might work. But none of that works if you go to the supermarket and buy something that’s been shipped in from some other country, either. So I think it’s a conversation, a shared conversation, about what the vision is for the future. And I think, so far, that vision hasn’t been much beyond “we’re going to plant trees everywhere, and cows are bad”. You’ve got to turn it into “we’ve got a fabulous landscape, we’ve got a very dense population, we want to do all these other things with our land, how can we actually have a conversation to get us to the right place?” And that’s not going to be easy, but what I’m seeing is now much more cross-government thinking about how to get there.
If you actually mapped out all the policies that we want to achieve from our land, we haven’t got enough area, nowhere near enough area, to actually achieve them. So we’ve got to think about the nature of the interventions and what we achieve. It’s a really exciting space. From my perspective, coming from where I came from as a scientist, understanding how those changes might impact on other parts of the system. So like the freshwater environment, which is always the bucket in which all the problems end, and then we pass that on to the marine environment, and we pass it up to the atmospheric environment, how can we actually get a more sustainable solution there? So it’s an opportunity, But if you turn it into a problem, all you do is back people into a corner.
CB: The new Labour government has come in, and it has a lot on its in-tray when it comes to food, land in nature, including a land-use framework and its international nature pledge under the UN biodiversity convention. Which of these documents would you like to see being published soon, and what sort of details do you think will be critical for those documents?
LH: Big question, massive question. I’ll probably answer this a bit tangentially because it’s really a matter of how you can achieve what you can achieve. This government has got a very strong focus on delivery for people quickly. And there are some quite exciting and quite interesting projects around clean energy by 2030, as an example. So what does that mean for things like land use that we’ve just been talking about, biodiversity and all of those things? Is it a really good pledge, but the ones around the land-use strategy are really, really challenging. Because, say, clean energy for 2030, if we can make that work, we’ll need to make sure we get the transition mechanisms in place to move energy around from generation points to to where it actually needs to be delivered. If we can do that for energy, we can probably do that for land. So we do need it, but it’s hard to see who’s going to really have the oversight. And everybody wants a piece of this pie. But all the things that this new government is wanting can’t be achieved without some joined-up thinking. So I put that quite high.
I also think making clear our commitment to work in the international space [is important]. My council, the National Environmental Research Council, is the one that thinks at long timescales, large scales, global. So actually having that international presence and keeping our science cutting edge and curiosity driven is just so important in that sort of space. So I’d be articulating that through the new government that the research and innovation part is really, really critical, because that’s where you’ve actually got that curiosity driving new thinking, but you’ve also got the innovation which takes that new thinking and now converts it into something useful. Some of it’s shovel-ready now, but actually, some of it’s going to take time to actually get us there.
CB: So, finally, we touched on this before, but the issues of pollution and biodiversity loss tend to receive less attention at a national and international level than climate change. Why do you think that is and how can that be addressed?
LH: I think it’s only that climate change has been thought of as being doable – because it’s carbon, and we’ve got that single metric – and therefore business and industry can buy into that and they can think about how to build it into their business models. The reason I think pollution and biodiversity loss are lagging behind is it’s much more complex to understand that system and we’re only getting together now with the science to actually help us do that and develop those metrics. But there is no single metric to say we can understand biodiversity loss. It’s going to take some more systematic thinking. And one of the really good things I think about where NERC is now placed within UKRI [UK Research and Innovation, a government department] is that we’ve got that cross-research council thinking, which allows you to pull from all the various disciplines to get a solution.
The post The Carbon Brief Interview: Prof Louise Heathwaite appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Greenhouse Gases
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Blazing heat hits Europe
FANNING THE FLAMES: Wildfires “fanned by a heatwave and strong winds” caused havoc across southern Europe, Reuters reported. It added: “Fire has affected nearly 440,000 hectares (1,700 square miles) in the eurozone so far in 2025, double the average for the same period of the year since 2006.” Extreme heat is “breaking temperature records across Europe”, the Guardian said, with several countries reporting readings of around 40C.
HUMAN TOLL: At least three people have died in the wildfires erupting across Spain, Turkey and Albania, France24 said, adding that the fires have “displaced thousands in Greece and Albania”. Le Monde reported that a child in Italy “died of heatstroke”, while thousands were evacuated from Spain and firefighters “battled three large wildfires” in Portugal.
UK WILDFIRE RISK: The UK saw temperatures as high as 33.4C this week as England “entered its fourth heatwave”, BBC News said. The high heat is causing “nationally significant” water shortfalls, it added, “hitting farms, damaging wildlife and increasing wildfires”. The Daily Mirror noted that these conditions “could last until mid-autumn”. Scientists warn the UK faces possible “firewaves” due to climate change, BBC News also reported.
Around the world
- GRID PRESSURES: Iraq suffered a “near nationwide blackout” as elevated power demand – due to extreme temperatures of around 50C – triggered a transmission line failure, Bloomberg reported.
- ‘DIRE’ DOWN UNDER: The Australian government is keeping a climate risk assessment that contains “dire” implications for the continent “under wraps”, the Australian Financial Review said.
- EXTREME RAINFALL: Mexico City is “seeing one of its heaviest rainy seasons in years”, the Washington Post said. Downpours in the Japanese island of Kyushu “caused flooding and mudslides”, according to Politico. In Kashmir, flash floods killed 56 and left “scores missing”, the Associated Press said.
- SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION: China and Brazil agreed to “ensure the success” of COP30 in a recent phone call, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
- PLASTIC ‘DEADLOCK’: Talks on a plastic pollution treaty have failed again at a summit in Geneva, according to the Guardian, with countries “deadlocked” on whether it should include “curbs on production and toxic chemicals”.
15
The number of times by which the most ethnically-diverse areas in England are more likely to experience extreme heat than its “least diverse” areas, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- As many as 13 minerals critical for low-carbon energy may face shortages under 2C pathways | Nature Climate Change
- A “scoping review” examined the impact of climate change on poor sexual and reproductive health and rights in sub-Saharan Africa | PLOS One
- A UK university cut the carbon footprint of its weekly canteen menu by 31% “without students noticing” | Nature Food
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Factchecking Trump’s climate report
A report commissioned by the US government to justify rolling back climate regulations contains “at least 100 false or misleading statements”, according to a Carbon Brief factcheck involving dozens of leading climate scientists. The report, compiled in two months by five hand-picked researchers, inaccurately claims that “CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed” and misleadingly states that “excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial”80
Spotlight
Does Xi Jinping care about climate change?
This week, Carbon Brief unpacks new research on Chinese president Xi Jinping’s policy priorities.
On this day in 2005, Xi Jinping, a local official in eastern China, made an unplanned speech when touring a small village – a rare occurrence in China’s highly-choreographed political culture.
In it, he observed that “lucid waters and lush mountains are mountains of silver and gold” – that is, the environment cannot be sacrificed for the sake of growth.
(The full text of the speech is not available, although Xi discussed the concept in a brief newspaper column – see below – a few days later.)
In a time where most government officials were laser-focused on delivering economic growth, this message was highly unusual.
Forward-thinking on environment
As a local official in the early 2000s, Xi endorsed the concept of “green GDP”, which integrates the value of natural resources and the environment into GDP calculations.
He also penned a regular newspaper column, 22 of which discussed environmental protection – although “climate change” was never mentioned.
This focus carried over to China’s national agenda when Xi became president.
New research from the Asia Society Policy Institute tracked policies in which Xi is reported by state media to have “personally” taken action.
It found that environmental protection is one of six topics in which he is often said to have directly steered policymaking.
Such policies include guidelines to build a “Beautiful China”, the creation of an environmental protection inspection team and the “three-north shelterbelt” afforestation programme.
“It’s important to know what Xi’s priorities are because the top leader wields outsized influence in the Chinese political system,” Neil Thomas, Asia Society Policy Institute fellow and report co-author, told Carbon Brief.
Local policymakers are “more likely” to invest resources in addressing policies they know have Xi’s attention, to increase their chances for promotion, he added.
What about climate and energy?
However, the research noted, climate and energy policies have not been publicised as bearing Xi’s personal touch.
“I think Xi prioritises environmental protection more than climate change because reducing pollution is an issue of social stability,” Thomas said, noting that “smoggy skies and polluted rivers” were more visible and more likely to trigger civil society pushback than gradual temperature increases.
The paper also said topics might not be linked to Xi personally when they are “too technical” or “politically sensitive”.
For example, Xi’s landmark decision for China to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 is widely reported as having only been made after climate modelling – facilitated by former climate envoy Xie Zhenhua – showed that this goal was achievable.
Prior to this, Xi had never spoken publicly about carbon neutrality.
Prof Alex Wang, a University of California, Los Angeles professor of law not involved in the research, noted that emphasising Xi’s personal attention may signal “top” political priorities, but not necessarily Xi’s “personal interests”.
By not emphasising climate, he said, Xi may be trying to avoid “pushing the system to overprioritise climate to the exclusion of the other priorities”.
There are other ways to know where climate ranks on the policy agenda, Thomas noted:
“Climate watchers should look at what Xi says, what Xi does and what policies Xi authorises in the name of the ‘central committee’. Is Xi talking more about climate? Is Xi establishing institutions and convening meetings that focus on climate? Is climate becoming a more prominent theme in top-level documents?”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP EFFECT: The Columbia Energy Exchange podcast examined how pressure from US tariffs could affect India’s clean energy transition.
NAMIBIAN ‘DESTRUCTION’: The National Observer investigated the failure to address “human rights abuses and environmental destruction” claims against a Canadian oil company in Namibia.
‘RED AI’: The Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment studied the state of current research on “Red AI”, or the “negative environmental implications of AI”.
Coming up
- 17 August: Bolivian general elections
- 18-29 August: Preparatory talks on the entry into force of the “High Seas Treaty”, New York
- 18-22 August: Y20 Summit, Johannesburg
- 21 August: Advancing the “Africa clean air programme” through Africa-Asia collaboration, Yokohama
Pick of the jobs
- Lancaster Environment Centre, senior research associate: JUST Centre | Salary: £39,355-£45,413. Location: Lancaster, UK
- Environmental Justice Foundation, communications and media officer, Francophone Africa | Salary: XOF600,000-XOF800,000. Location: Dakar, Senegal
- Politico, energy & climate editor | Salary: Unknown. Location: Brussels, Belgium
- EnviroCatalysts, meteorologist | Salary: Unknown. Location: New Delhi, India
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 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report appeared first on Carbon Brief.
DeBriefed 15 August 2025: Raging wildfires; Xi’s priorities; Factchecking the Trump climate report
Greenhouse Gases
Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund
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
‘Deadly’ wildfires
WINE BRAKE: France experienced its “largest wildfire in decades”, which scorched more than 16,000 hectares in the country’s southern Aude region, the Associated Press said. “Gusting winds” fanned the flames, Reuters reported, but local winemakers and mayors also “blam[ed] the loss of vineyards”, which can act as a “natural, moisture-filled brake against wildfires”, for the fire’s rapid spread. It added that thousands of hectares of vineyards were removed in Aude over the past year. Meanwhile, thousands of people were evacuated from “deadly” wildfires in Spain, the Guardian said, with blazes ongoing in other parts of Europe.
MAJOR FIRES: Canada is experiencing its second-worst wildfire season on record, CBC News reported. More than 7.3m hectares burned in 2025, “more than double the 10-year average for this time of year”, the broadcaster said. The past three fire seasons were “among the 10 worst on record”, CBC News added. Dr Mike Flannigan from Thompson Rivers University told the Guardian: “This is our new reality…The warmer it gets, the more fires we see.” Elsewhere, the UK is experiencing a record year for wildfires, with more than 40,000 hectares of land burned so far in 2025, according to Carbon Brief.
-
Sign up to Carbon Brief’s free “Cropped” email newsletter. A fortnightly digest of food, land and nature news and views. Sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
WESTERN US: The US state of Colorado has recorded one of its largest wildfires in history in recent days, the Guardian said. The fire “charred” more than 43,300 hectares of land and led to the temporary evacuation of 179 inmates from a prison, the newspaper said. In California, a fire broke out “during a heatwave” and burned more than 2,000 hectares before it was contained, the Los Angeles Times reported. BBC News noted: “Wildfires have become more frequent in California, with experts citing climate change as a key factor. Hotter, drier conditions have made fire seasons longer and more destructive.”
FIRE FUNDING: “Worsening fires” in the Brazilian Amazon threaten new rainforest funding proposals due to be announced at the COP30 climate summit later this year, experts told Climate Home News. The new initiatives include the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, which the outlet said “aims to generate a flow of international investment to pay countries annually in proportion to their preserved tropical forests”. The outlet added: “If fires in the Amazon continue to worsen in the years to come, eligibility for funding could be jeopardised, Brazil’s environment ministry acknowledged.”
Farming impacts
OUT OF ORBIT: US president Donald Trump moved to “shut down” two space missions which monitor carbon dioxide and plant health, the Associated Press reported. Ending these NASA missions would “potentially shu[t] off an important source of data for scientists, policymakers and farmers”, the outlet said. Dr David Crisp, a retired NASA scientist, said the missions can detect the “glow” of plant growth, which the outlet noted “helps monitor drought and predict food shortages that can lead to civil unrest and famine”.
FARM EXTREMES: Elsewhere, Reuters said that some farmers are considering “abandoning” a “drought-hit” agricultural area in Hungary as “climate change cuts crop yields and reduces groundwater levels”. Scientists warned that rising temperatures and low rainfall threaten the region’s “agricultural viability”, the newswire added. Meanwhile, the Premium Times in Nigeria said that some farmers are “harvest[ing] crops prematurely” due to flooding fears. A community in the south-eastern state of Imo “has endured recurrent floods, which wash away crops and incomes alike” over the past decade, the newspaper noted.
SECURITY RISKS: Food supply chains in the UK face “escalating threats from climate impacts and the migration they are triggering”, according to a report covered by Business Green. The outlet said that £3bn worth of UK food imports originated from the 20 countries “with the highest numbers of climate-driven displacements” in 2024, based on analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit. The analysis highlighted that “climate impacts on food imports pose a threat to UK food security”. Elsewhere, an opinion piece in Dialogue Earth explored how the “role of gender equity in food security remains critically unaddressed”.
Spotlight
Fossil-fuelled bird decline
This week, Carbon Brief covers a new study tracing the impact of fossil-fuelled climate change on tropical birds.
Over the past few years, biologists have recorded sharp declines in bird numbers across tropical rainforests – even in areas untouched by humans – with the cause remaining a mystery.
A new study published this week in Nature Ecology and Evolution could help to shed light on this alarming phenomenon.
The research combined ecological and climate attribution techniques for the first time to trace the fingerprint of fossil-fuelled climate change on declining bird populations.
It found that an increase in heat extremes driven by climate change has caused tropical bird populations to decline by 25-38% in the period 1950-2020, when compared to a world without warming.
In their paper, the authors noted that birds in the tropics could be living close to their “thermal limits”.
Study lead author Dr Maximilian Kotz, a climate scientist at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain, explained to Carbon Brief:
“High temperature extremes can induce direct mortality in bird populations due to hyperthermia and dehydration. Even when they don’t [kill birds immediately], there’s evidence that this can then affect body condition which, in turn, affects breeding behaviour and success.”
Conservation implications
The findings have “potential ramifications” for commonly proposed conservation strategies, such as increasing the amount of land in the tropics that is protected for nature, the authors said. In their paper, they continued:
“While we do not disagree that these strategies are necessary for abating tropical habitat loss…our research shows there is now an additional urgent need to investigate strategies that can allow for the persistence of tropical species that are vulnerable to heat extremes.”
In some parts of the world, scientists and conservationists are looking into how to protect wildlife from more intense and frequent climate extremes, Kotz said.
He referenced one project in Australia which is working to protect threatened wildlife following periods of extreme heat, drought and bushfires.
Prof Alex Pigot, a biodiversity scientist at University College London (UCL), who was not involved in the research, said the findings reinforced the need to systematically monitor the impact of extreme weather on wildlife. He told Carbon Brief:
“We urgently need to develop early warning systems to be able to anticipate in advance where and when extreme heatwaves and droughts are likely to impact populations – and also rapidly scale up our monitoring of species and ecosystems so that we can reliably detect these effects.”
There is further coverage of this research on Carbon Brief’s website.
News and views
EMPTY CALI FUND: A major voluntary fund for biodiversity remains empty more than five months after its launch, Carbon Brief revealed. The Cali Fund, agreed at the COP16 biodiversity negotiations last year, was set up for companies who rely on nature’s resources to share some of their earnings with the countries where many of these resources originate. Big pharmaceutical companies did not take up on opportunities to commit to contributing to the fund or be involved in its launch in February 2025, emails released to Carbon Brief showed. Just one US biotechnology firm has pledged to contribute to the fund in the future.
LOSING HOPE: Western Australia’s Ningaloo reef – long considered a “hope spot” among the country’s coral reefs for evading major bleaching events – is facing its “worst-ever coral bleaching”, Australia’s ABC News reported. The ocean around Ningaloo has been “abnormally” warm since December, resulting in “unprecedented” bleaching and mortality, a research scientist told the outlet. According to marine ecologist Dr Damian Thomson, “up to 50% of the examined coral was dead in May”, the Sydney Morning Herald said. Thomson told the newspaper: “You realise your children are probably never going to see Ningaloo the way you saw it.”
‘DEVASTATION BILL’: Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, signed a “contentious” environmental bill into law, but “partially vetoed” some of the widely criticised elements, the Financial Times reported. Critics, who dubbed it the “devastation bill”, said it “risked fuelling deforestation and would harm Brazil’s ecological credentials” just months before hosting the COP30 climate summit. The newspaper said: “The leftist leader struck down or altered 63 of 400 provisions in the legislation, which was designed to speed up and modernise environmental licensing for new business and infrastructure developments.” The vetoes need to be approved by congress, “where Lula lacks a majority”, the newspaper noted.
RAINFOREST DRILLING: The EU has advised the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against allowing oil drilling in a vast stretch of rainforest and peatland that was jointly designated a “green corridor” earlier this year, Climate Home News reported. In May, the DRC announced that it planned to open the conservation area for drilling, the publication said. A spokesperson for the European Commission told Climate Home News that the bloc “fully acknowledges and respects the DRC’s sovereign right to utilise its diverse resources for economic development”, but that it “highlights the fact that green alternatives have facilitated the protection of certain areas”.
NEW PLAN FOR WETLANDS: During the 15th meeting of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, held in Zimbabwe from 23 to 31 July, countries agreed on the adoption of a new 10-year strategic plan for conserving and sustainably using the world’s wetlands. Down to Earth reported that 13 resolutions were adopted, including “enhancing monitoring and reporting, capacity building and mobilisation of resources”. During the talks, Zimbabwe’s environment minister announced plans to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded wetlands by 2030 and Saudi Arabia entered the Convention on Wetlands. Panamá will host the next COP on wetlands in July 2028.
MEAT MADNESS: DeSmog covered the details of a 2021 public relations document that revealed how the meat industry is trying to “make beef seem climate-friendly”. The industry “may have enlisted environmental groups to persuade people to ‘feel better’ about eating beef”, the outlet said, based on this document. The strategy was created by a communications agency, MHP Group, and addressed to the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. One of the key messages of the plan was to communicate the “growing momentum in the beef industry to protect and nurture the Earth’s natural resources”. MHP Group did not respond to a request for comment, according to DeSmog.
Watch, read, listen
MAKING WAVES: A livestream of deep-sea “crustaceans, sponges and sea cucumbers” has “captivated” people in Argentina, the New York Times outlined.
BAFFLING BIRDS: The Times explored the backstory to the tens of thousands of “exotic-looking” parakeets found in parks across Britain.
PLANT-BASED POWER: In the Conversation, Prof Paul Behrens outlined how switching to a plant-based diet could help the UK meet its climate and health targets.
MARINE DISCRIMINATION: Nature spoke to a US-based graduate student who co-founded Minorities in Shark Science about her experiences of racism and sexism in the research field.
New science
- Applying biochar – a type of charcoal – to soils each year over a long period of time can have “sustained benefits for crop yield and greenhouse gas mitigation”, according to a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study.
- New research, published in PLOS Climate, found that nearly one-third of highly migratory fish species in the US waters of the Atlantic Ocean have “high” or “very high” vulnerability to climate change, but the majority of species have “some level of resilience and adaptability”.
- A study in Communications Earth & Environment found a “notable greening trend” in China’s wetlands over 2000-23, with an increasing amount of carbon being stored in the plants growing there.
In the diary
- 18-29 August: Second meeting of the preparatory commission for the Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction | New York
- 24-28 August: World Water Week | Online and Stockholm, Sweden
- 26-29 August: Sixth forum of ministers and environment authorities of Asia Pacific | Nadi, Fiji
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 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Cropped 13 August 2025: Fossil-fuelled bird decline; ‘Deadly’ wildfires; Empty nature fund
CCL submits a formal comment on EPA’s proposed endangerment finding rollback
By Dana Nuccitelli, CCL Research Manager
On July 29, the EPA proposed to rescind its 2009 endangerment finding that forms the basis of all federal climate pollution regulations.
Without the endangerment finding, the EPA may not be allowed or able to regulate greenhouse gas pollution from sources like power plants or vehicle tailpipes, as they have done for years. News coverage has framed this as a “radical transformation” and a “bid to scrap almost all pollution regulations,” so it has appropriately alarmed many folks in the climate and environment space.
At CCL, we focus our efforts on working with Congress to implement durable climate policies, and so we don’t normally take actions on issues like this that relate to federal agencies or the courts. Other organizations focus their efforts on those branches of the government and are better equipped to spearhead this type of moment, and we appreciate those allies.
But in this case, we did see an opportunity for CCL’s voice — and our focus on Congress — to play a role here. We decided to submit a formal comment on this EPA action for two reasons.
First, this decision could have an immense impact by eliminating every federal regulation of climate pollutants in a worst case scenario. Second, this move relates to our work because the EPA is misinterpreting the text and intent of laws passed by Congress. Our representatives have done their jobs by passing legislation over the past many decades that supports and further codifies the EPA’s mandate to regulate climate pollution. That includes the Clean Air Act, and more recently, the Inflation Reduction Act. We at CCL wanted to support our members of Congress by making these points in a formal comment.
There has been a tremendous public response to this action. In just over one week, the EPA already received over 44,000 public comments on its decision, and the public comment period will remain open for another five weeks, until September 15.
To understand more about the details and potential outcomes of the EPA’s actions, read my article on the subject at Yale Climate Connections, our discussion on CCL Community, and CCL’s formal comment, which represents our entire organization. As our comment concludes,
“In its justifications for rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, the Reconsideration has misinterpreted the text of the Clean Air Act, Congress’ decadeslong support for the EPA’s mandate to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles and other major sources, and the vast body of peer-reviewed climate science research that documents the increasingly dangerous threats that those emissions pose to Americans’ health and welfare. Because the bases of these justifications are fundamentally flawed, CCL urges the EPA to withdraw its ill-conceived Reconsideration of the 2009 endangerment finding. The EPA has both the authority and the responsibility to act. Americans cannot afford a retreat from science, law, and common sense in the face of a rapidly accelerating climate crisis.”
After the EPA responds to the public comment record and finalizes its decision, this issue will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court several years from now.
In the meantime, CCL will continue to focus our efforts on areas where we can make the biggest difference in preserving a livable climate. Right now, that involves contacting our members of Congress to urge them to fully fund key climate and energy programs and protect critical work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and Department of Energy. We’ve set an ambitious goal of sending 10,000 messages to our members of Congress, so let’s all do what CCL does best and make our voices heard on this critical issue.
This action by the EPA also reminds us that federal regulations are fragile. They tend to change with each new administration coming into the White House. Legislation passed by Congress – especially when done on a bipartisan basis – is much more durable. That’s why CCL’s work, as one of very few organizations engaging in nonpartisan advocacy for long-lasting climate legislation, is so critical.
That’s especially true right now when we’re seeing the Trump administration slam shut every executive branch door to addressing climate change. We need Congress to step up now more than ever to implement durable solutions like funding key climate and energy programs, negotiating a new bipartisan comprehensive permitting reform bill, implementing healthy forest solutions like the Fix Our Forests Act, and advancing conversations about policies to put a price on carbon pollution. Those are the kinds of effective, durable, bipartisan climate solutions that CCL is uniquely poised to help become law and make a real difference in preserving a livable climate.
For other examples of how CCL is using our grassroots power to help ensure that Congress stays effective on climate in this political landscape, see our full “Holding the Line on Climate” blog series.
The post Holding the line on climate: EPA appeared first on Citizens' Climate Lobby.
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Spanish-language misinformation on renewable energy spreads online, report shows
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change1 year ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Carbon Footprint1 year agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Why airlines are perfect targets for anti-greenwashing legal action
-
Renewable Energy2 months ago
US Grid Strain, Possible Allete Sale
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Some firms unaware of England’s new single-use plastic ban