Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.
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COP29 skirts nature
BIODIVERSITY BLANK: Despite taking place just days after a major UN biodiversity summit, the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, produced few new commitments on food, forests, land and nature. Countries negotiated a new text “reaffirming” the “importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature”. However, countries failed to adopt this document during COP29’s chaotic final plenary session. The COP29 presidency also organised a “high level” event on a new “Rio trio” initiative, which seeks to strengthen ties between the UN Rio conventions on climate change, biodiversity loss and desertification. But many of the event’s speakers failed to show up, as the event coincided with the start of the endgame in the negotiations.
CARBON MARKETS: Elsewhere at COP29, countries did manage to find agreement on the remaining sections of Article 6 on carbon markets, meaning all elements of the Paris Agreement have now been finalised – nearly 10 years after it was signed. The COP29 presidency hailed the agreement as a “breakthrough” that “achieves full operationalisation of Article 6”, a COP “win” that it pushed from day one of the two-week talks. Observers, however, raised concerns that the agreed rules may not do enough to ensure that past issues with carbon offsets, including human rights violations and a failure to meaningfully cut emissions, are not repeated. Read Carbon Brief’s summary of all the key takeaways for food, land, forests and nature at COP29.
CIAO, COP16: Following an abrupt end in November triggered by negotiators needing to catch flights home, the COP16 biodiversity summit will resume for a three-day session in Rome in February 2025, the Convention on Biological Diversity has confirmed. Countries will aim to agree to the remaining items on COP16’s agenda, which include a monitoring framework for tracking progress on tackling biodiversity loss, a plan for reviewing progress at future COPs and – most contentiously – the issue of developed nations mobilising enough funds to help developing countries protect nature. Carbon Brief has tracked where countries stand on these issues in an interactive grid.
Historic climate case
CLIMATE CASE: A historic legal case on who bears responsibility for climate change has begun at the UN international court of justice (ICJ) at the Hague in the Netherlands. The Guardian reported that the case “is the culmination of years of campaigning by a group of Pacific island law students and diplomacy spearheaded by Vanuatu”, an island nation at risk of losing land from sea level rise. In 2025, it will deliver a verdict on “on what obligations states have to tackle climate change and what the legal consequences could be if they fail to do so”, it added.
‘BIGGEST IN HISTORY’: Over the next two weeks, the court will hear statements from 98 countries, including small island nations and least-developed countries most vulnerable to climate impacts, as well as large historical emitters, the Guardian said. The participation of so many countries means “we can safely say that this is the biggest case in human history”, Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, legal counsel for Vanuatu’s ICJ case and international lawyer at Blue Ocean Law, told Justice Info, an international-law news site.
‘MORAL WEIGHT’: Justice Info added that ICJ opinions are non-binding, but “do carry legal and moral weight, often taken into account by national courts”. However, “there are difficulties in dealing with states such as China, who never accepted the compulsory jurisdiction of the court, or the US who withdrew from it”, according to the outlet. As part of the advisory opinion process, the court is publishing written statements from countries, which include nations’ views on who should take responsibility for climate change and personal testimonies from those most affected.
‘Land’ COP underway
This week, Carbon Brief looks at what is on the agenda for the “largest ever” UN land conference that is underway in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In a “triple COP” year, few expected the desertification COP to receive as much attention as its higher-profile climate and biodiversity cousins. In fact, getting international and regional media to engage with the lesser-known Rio treaty – the 30-year old UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) – is one of the actual objectives of the talks that began in Riyadh on Monday.
The headline numbers are stark.
According to the UNCCD’s own estimates, 1.2 billion people and 1.5bn hectares of land are affected by degradation, with another 100m hectares of land degrading each year.
A new report looking at land use through the lens of “planetary boundaries” found that “a third of humanity now lives in drylands, which include three-quarters of Africa”. It added that unsustainable agricultural practices are the “main culprit” of degradation. And a newly released world drought atlas presents an even starker – but complex – picture of the state of the world’s land.
Gaining prominence
With all this daunting research placed before its delegates, the two-week Riyadh COP marks a small series of firsts. According to the UN, it is the largest land conference ever and the first to be held in the Middle East and North Africa region, “which knows first-hand the impacts of desertification”.
Mirroring what has become the norm in other COPs, it is also the first time that the conference has a separate “action agenda” for leaders to announce voluntary commitments on thematic days, in addition to the official, negotiated decisions.
Interestingly, the “land COP” has drawn several leaders and ministers to Riyadh who gave Cali and Baku a miss.
Fresh from steering his party to an election win in the drought-prone state of Maharashtra, India’s climate minister Bhupender Yadav hailed India’s “proactive drought strategy”, reiterated a 26m-hectare land restoration pledge and support for the G20’s trillion trees initiative.
Aside from high-profile ministerial discussions, delegates will have to undertake a midterm review of actions over 2018-30 and agree on what is holding back countries from implementing the drought convention.
Resources required
Finding resources to build drought resilience remains the running theme in Riyadh.
On Monday, the UNCCD’s executive secretary, Ibrahim Thiaw, quantified the cost of “restoring the world’s degraded land and holding back its deserts” for the first time, calling for “at least $2.6tn” in investment by the end of the decade, according to Reuters. Thiaw also drew attention to the fact that the world spends as much on harmful subsidies each year, Earth Negotiations Bulletin reported.
Mohlago Flora Mokgohloa, South Africa’s deputy director general of biodiversity and conservation outlined her delegation’s key negotiation priorities to Carbon Brief. She said:
“The African position is ensuring we come out with an ambitious decision on drought, which is deciding on a drought protocol. This is one convention that does not have a protocol, so it does not have an implementation mechanism.”
A protocol is a legally-binding instrument that interprets a treaty and can establish additional rights and obligations. A drought management protocol, for instance, could set up clear obligations for who should pay for restoration and could link the UNCCD to climate and biodiversity conventions.
Mokgohloa told Carbon Brief:
“We are also saying that a decision on a protocol must also come with a discussion around how it’s going to be financed, because that affects all of us, and we can’t just say ‘let’s decide on the money after’. The 54 countries of Africa are not moving on our position.”
IRA-TE FARMERS: US farmers “are urging the White House to crack down on Chinese imports of used cooking oil”, the Financial Times reported. The country’s farmers “invested in green fuel crops such as corn, camelina and soybeans” based on an expected surge in demand for low-carbon fuels after the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was passed, the story said. However, it points out that the IRA’s rules “have not been finalised” and the law – which does not limit incentives just to domestic farmers – “may be scrapped by Donald Trump’s incoming administration”. Meanwhile, used cooking oil imports from China “have reached record highs”, driving fears that imports could “undercut” tax credits to US farmers even before they take effect in January, according to the story.
SHOOTS, NOT BOMBS: At the recent G20 summit in Rio, Mexico’s president Dr Claudia Sheinbaum proposed “dedicating 1% of the military annual budgets of the world’s biggest economies” towards global reforestation efforts, Mongabay reported. If successful, the programme could reforest 15m hectares of land “across the globe”, according to the story. Sheinbaum also “plans to continue” the country’s existing Sembrano Vida (planting life) programme, which incentivises farmers to protect trees, it added. While that programme has “reforested 1.1bn trees” since 2018, it is currently mired in “serious allegations of corruption, labour threats and data manipulation”, a column in El Siglo De Durango pointed out.
GAZA FOOD CRISIS: Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed more than 90% of cattle and destroyed 70% of cropland, a UN analysis of satellite imagery has found, according to the Guardian. More than three-quarters of Gaza’s orchards, known for producing olive oil and fruits, have also been destroyed, the Guardian said. Before the violence started in October last year, 40% of Gaza was covered by farms and food production met around a third of local demand, the newspaper reported. It added that aid officials in Gaza have described the situation in much of Gaza, where more than two-thirds of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, as “apocalyptic”.
‘FRANKENCHICKENS’: Fast food chain KFC has ditched a pledge in the UK to improve its animal welfare by sourcing chicken from slower-growing breeds by 2026, the publication Restaurant reported. Back in 2019, KFC committed to transition away from using so-called “Frankenchickens”, which are bred at an accelerated rate that is linked to a range of health issues, including higher mortality rates, lameness and muscle disease, the publication said. However, speaking at the UK’s egg and poultry industry conference in November, a representative of the fried-chicken giant said the UK’s poultry industry is not yet in a “commercial or operational position” to allow the delivery of such a pledge, according to Restaurant.
AMAZON AT RISK: Several Brazilian states “are trying to rid themselves of rainforest protections, bowing to pressure from cattle ranchers and soybean growers to cut down trees and expand agriculture”, the Associated Press reported. It said that the Acre state unanimously passed a new law allowing the privatisation of almost 900km2 of protected forest, an area the size of New York City. In neighbouring Rondonia state, lawmakers are seeking to annul 11 “conservation units” covering thousands of square kilometres of pristine rainforest, the publication reported. Another Amazonian state, Pará, is pushing a similar initiative, it added. Brazil is the world’s fifth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, with deforestation accounting for more emissions than any other driver, AP noted.
MISSING MAU: Kenya’s Mau forest, which plays a key role in capturing water for millions of people, experienced a sharp rise in deforestation this year, according to satellite data reported on by Mongabay. The ecosystem, which is one of the largest forests in east Africa and is home to endangered African bush elephants, African golden cats and bongo antelopes, lost a quarter of its tree cover between 1984 and 2020. Forest loss slowed over 2021-22, but has since increased dramatically, according to Global Forest Watch data seen by Mongabay. Separately, Mongabay covered how the Kenyan government has spent years evicting Indigenous Ogiek communities from Mau forest over unfounded claims that they are to blame for deforestation.
‘THE GREAT ABANDONMENT’: A long read in the Guardian looked at “what happens to the land left behind” when people and development are displaced by climate change.
REIMAGINING BRETTON WOODS: A talk by Dr Nicola Ranger for the Leverhume Centre for Nature Recovery explored how the global financial system can be reformed to address biodiversity loss and climate change.
COLD TURKEY: From meat-free days to making plant-based foods “taste at least as good”, Bloomberg listed strategies to “shift diets at scale away from meat-centric meals”.
‘TOXIC TRADE’: An investigation by SourceMaterial and Data Desk uncovered evidence of European companies shipping high-sulphur car fuels to west Africa, with catastrophic impacts for local people.
- China’s forests increased in size by 4m hectares a year over 2000-15 and by 2m hectares a year over 2015-22, according to a new Geophysical Research Letters study. The research used high-resolution satellite data to examine how tree cover has changed in the world’s fastest “greening” nation.
- A Science Advances study uncovered “compelling evidence” that temperature can affect the immune performance of wild capuchin monkeys. The results “offer insight into how climate change will affect the immune system of wild mammals”.
- Reducing deforestation pressure and forest fires in the Amazon region “leads to a reduction” in hospitalisation and deaths arising from respiratory health problems, a new study in Communications Earth & Environment found. Researchers estimated a decrease of 678 deaths and almost $6m in savings from hospitalisation costs each year.
Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to [email protected]
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