The global push toward renewable energy, intended to reduce climate-aggravating emissions, has revealed how the environmental and social costs of extracting the minerals it requires fall disproportionately on local communities and ecosystems.  

Many argue that electromobility and renewable energy technologies will help mitigate climate change – but adopting them on a large scale would require a massive increase in the mining of minerals such as lithium, which are key to their development.  

According to the World Bank, the extraction of 3 billion tons of minerals over the next 30 years is crucial to powering the global energy transition. The International Energy Agency further predicts a four-fold increase in mineral extraction by 2040 to meet climate targets.  

However, the rush for these so-called “critical” minerals risks amplifying the very crises it seeks to help solve, exacerbating ecological degradation and perpetuating socio-economic injustice in the Global South. 

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

The very naming of these transition minerals as “critical” creates a false sense of urgency, reinforcing the current damaging system of extraction, and failing to consider the protection of communities, ecosystems, and species in areas of exploitation. 

While mainstream strategies emphasize technological fixes, a deeper examination reveals that, without addressing the broader implications of mineral extraction, the quest for a greener future may only deepen existing environmental and human rights violations.  

UN-backed principles 

The UN Secretary-General’s Panel on Critical Energy Transition Minerals was formed in April this year to identify common and voluntary principles that will help developing countries benefit from equitable, fair and sustainable management of these minerals.  

The Panel brings together strange bedfellows – not least China and the US – and will need to work hard to create consensus to identify principles and recommendations for governments, companies, investors and the international community on human rights, environmental protection, justice and equity in value chains, benefit-sharing, responsible investments, transparency and international collaboration. It must raise the level of ambition and listen directly to civil society organizations and rights-holders, including local communities.  

Our reflection on what the Panel cannot ignore points to three elements: a status quo approach to “development”; a high level of technological optimism concerning mining; and a lack of urgency regarding ecosystem limits and communities’ rights.  

Indonesia turns traditional Indigenous land into nickel industrial zone

First, we acknowledge that the Panel is under pressure from powerful actors, but it will need to resist the assertion that mining is always beneficial to the economic growth and prosperity of nations. This status-quo perspective reinforces the notion of unlimited natural resources for human consumption, mirroring the economic development promises of the early 20th century, which contributed to the current climate crisis.   

The Panel must not fail to consider the possibility of degrowth or the imposition of limits on mining activities that could lead to reduced material and energy consumption. Nor should it neglect other forms of traditional and local knowledge that may offer possibilities for alternative development. 

Then, on the impacts, pollution and other ecosystem disruptions caused by mining, it is consistently stated that assessments and evaluations are necessary – and that these can preserve ecosystem integrity.  

The Panel must acknowledge the irreversibility of certain mining impacts on ecosystems, which are already evident. This belies the optimistic view that all mining problems can be resolved through technology, a notion that is both false and unrealistic. What’s more, it undermines the precautionary principle, which calls for protective action from suspected harms, even before scientific proof exists.  

Finally, in the dominant narrative, transition minerals are found in “empty” places, deemed void of life, where only the resources to be extracted are counted. This ignores both the biodiversity and traditional communities that inhabit these areas.  

Indigenous rights at risk 

More than half of the minerals needed for the energy transition are found in or near indigenous territories, which are already facing the consequences of the climate and ecological crisis, such as extreme aridity, permanent water shortages and scarce water availability.  

These impacts may be increased by mining project pressures and mineral extractive activities, which are already facing the impacts of the climate and ecological crisis, such as extreme aridity, permanent water shortages or scarce water availability.  

It is essential to ensure respect for the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination; to obtain their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) before projects are begun; to carry out human rights and environmental due diligence; and to ensure not only remediation of impacts but also the ability of local people to maintain their own cultural, social, economic and political ways. 

Lithium tug of war: the US-China rivalry for Argentina’s white gold

In addition, current plans for the extraction of transition minerals are limited to the scale of the mining concession in question, without considering the cumulative impacts derived from others operating in the same area and ignoring the socioeconomic activities already taking place in these ecosystems.  

Instead, it is essential to ensure the bio-capacity of ecosystems to maintain their life-supporting functions and the diversity of uses by communities in territories, not just industrial ones. Decisions on mineral extraction should not be based solely on market demand, but also on the biophysical limits of ecosystems and, more sensibly, on the balance of water systems.    

The UN Panel has been established at a time when we can apply the lessons learned from the historical impacts of mining worldwide. This calls for the Panel to raise the level of ambition of its work by generating and advancing binding guidelines and mechanisms.  

Gathered this week in Nairobi, the Panel is working to set the rules of the game, defining principles and recommendations which will be officially presented in September during the UN General Assembly. It has a unique opportunity to oversee substantive changes to the global energy system – one that we cannot afford to miss. 

The post The UN can set a new course on “critical” transition minerals   appeared first on Climate Home News.

Former and current FAO officials and academics have criticised the document, seen by Climate Home News, for pro-industry bias, cherry-picking data and even “disinformation” about the environmental impacts of animal farming. 

The FAO told Climate Home that a final version of the report – part of an assessment consisting of various documents – would be launched in 2025 and that conclusions should not be drawn from the draft text at this stage. 

Estimates of livestock’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions vary, ranging from 12%-20% of the global total – mostly in the form of methane from ruminants like cows and sheep, and carbon dioxide (CO2) released when forests are cut down for pasture.  

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Methane, which is emitted in cow burps and manure, is a short-lived greenhouse gas that is 84 times more potent than CO2 over 20 years, making it one of the few available levers to prevent climate tipping points being reached in the near term.   

In a 2024 survey of more than 200 scientists and sustainable agriculture experts, about 78% said livestock numbers should peak globally by 2025 to start bringing down emissions and help keep global warming to internationally agreed limits.   

But the FAO’s draft study offers strong support for growth of the sector, saying livestock’s contributions to food security, nutrition and raw materials for industry make it a “linchpin for human well-being and economic development”.  

It is also described as “critical” for food security, “crucial” for global economies, and “indispensable” for development in sub-Saharan Africa.  

World Bank tiptoes into fiery debate over meat emissions

The report will be submitted to the FAO’s agriculture committee, which has 130 member nations, although the text could change as national representatives thrash out a final version. 

Private-sector lobbyists participating as advisors in national delegations are sometimes also able to influence texts under discussion, according to a July report by the Changing Markets Foundation. 

One FAO insider, who did not want to be named, told Climate Home the draft FAO report had been “biased towards pushing livestock [with] many national interests behind it”.   

The FAO receives around a third of its budget in direct donations from member countries, and the rest in voluntary contributions from the same states and other actors, including businesses and trade associations.   

Tech fixes  

The 491-page draft report, which was overseen by a scientific advisory committee of 23 experts and peer reviewers, does not assess how diets with more plant protein could improve food security.   

One advisory committee member, Professor Frederic Leroy of Vrije Universiteit Brussel, told Climate Home a shift to entirely plant-based diets “would severely compromise the potential for food security worldwide because many of the food nutrients which are already limited in global diets are found in livestock. How much you can move (away from livestock) should be the real investigation.” 

This table from a World Bank report (Recipe for a Livable Planet), published in May 2024, shows that vegan diets are the lowest in emissions (Screenshot/World Bank)

The report’s analysis assumes rising meat production as demand surges among a growing world population with higher incomes. In this context, it proposes “expanding the (livestock) herd size”, increasing production through intensified systems, better use of genetic techniques, and improved land management.   

“Technological innovations” such as feed additives and supplements to suppress methane are another idea backed by the FAO. Those could include experimental methods such as a vaccine announced last week and funded by a $9-million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund that aims to reduce the number and activity of methane-producing microbes in a cow’s stomach.    

Herdsman Musa takes cattle to graze along the Dodowa-Somenya road in Ghana, April 12, 2024. According to environmentalist Kwame Ansah, ‘The unchecked grazing is not only destroying crops but also eroding soil fertility exacerbating land degradation.’ (Photo: Matrix Images/Christian Thompson/via Reuters)

The report’s findings, once approved, will be fed into a three-part roadmap for bringing agricultural emissions in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.  

The first instalment, published at the COP28 climate summit, was viewed internally by some FAO experts as a generic placeholder which largely followed an industry-friendly agenda.    

One ex-FAO official, who requested anonymity, told Climate Home the latest draft report on livestock ploughs a similar furrow and would set expectations for part two of the 1.5C roadmap.   

“The reality is that if they do a (nearly) 500-page report and put 23 experts’ names in front of it, it’s to impress you and say: ‘This is what is going to happen. We’re going to defend the sector’,” the former UN official said.  

Making the case for meat 

The expert added that the study’s panel was skewed toward intensified livestock systems and had “cherry picked” evidence to justify recommendations pointing in that direction.  

Several of the report’s advisory committee members have previously advocated for meat-based diets, and 11 of the study’s contributors work for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), including one of the paper’s committee advisors.

According to the ex-FAO official, ILRI “has been pushing intensified livestock all its life. It’s their identity. It’s what they do.”

The institute co-founded an agribusiness-backed initiative – Pathways to Dairy Net Zero (P2DNZ) – which de-emphasised livestock emissions, framing them as just one of several problems for the industry to tackle.

ILRI did not respond to a request for comment.

IPCC’s input into key UN climate review at risk as countries clash over timeline

Shelby C. McClelland, of New York University’s Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, told Climate Home she was shocked by a repeated claim in the draft FAO report of “a lack of consensus among scientists regarding the contribution of livestock to global greenhouse gas emissions”.  

“This downplays and outright ignores overwhelming scientific evidence from the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], high-profile papers, and other recent studies,” McClelland said. “A statement like this in a supposedly scientific and evidenced-based review by the UN FAO is alarming given their influence on agenda-setting for global climate action.”

Advisory committee member Leroy countered that it was “dangerous” to talk about a scientific consensus when the metrics used to measure methane compared to other greenhouse gases are constantly evolving.  

“This should be part of an open and transparent debate,” he added. “I don’t think we have reached consensus on the way we interpret the effects of livestock agriculture on climate change, the degree of it, how we can measure it and how we can deal with it.” 

Scientists at the FAO first alerted the world to the meat industry’s climate footprint when they attributed 18% of global emissions to livestock farming in the seminal 2006 study, Livestock’s Long Shadow. This analysis found that, far from enhancing food security, “livestock actually detract more from total food supply than they provide.”  

However, the paper sparked a backlash felt by key experts in the agency’s Rome headquarters, as the FAO hierarchy, industry lobbyists and state donors to its biannual $1-billion budget exerted pressure for a change of direction.      

By the time of last December’s COP28, the FAO’s stance had shifted so far that two experts cited in another livestock emissions study called publicly for its retraction. They argued it had distorted their work and underestimated the emissions reduction potential from farming less livestock by a factor of between 6 and 40. 

A deforested and burnt area is seen in an indigenous area used as cattle pasture in Areoes, Mato Grosso state, Brazil, September 4, 2019. (Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Landau)

No ‘carte blanche’ 

Guy Pe’er, a conservation ecologist at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, accused the FAO of turning a blind eye to widespread “hyper-intensive grazing practices” and land use change caused by the world’s growing number of mega-farms.

“We’re currently using more land to feed livestock than humans, and that is causing rapid deforestation in Brazil. Ignoring that is outrageous. When an official organisation is producing disinformation like this, I find it extremely irresponsible,” he said.  

Leroy told Climate Home that different types of livestock farming should not be conflated. “If you have over-grazing and the pollution of water sources, that’s clearly wrong, but other types of animal agriculture are also net-positive [for the environment],” he said.  

If the advisory committee “sees advantages in having livestock agriculture as part of the food system, I think there’s a sound scientific basis to assume that,” he added. “It doesn’t mean that it’s carte blanche or ‘anything goes’ at all.” 

(Reporting by Arthur Neslen; editing by Megan Rowling and Joe Lo)

The post FAO draft report backs growth of livestock industry despite emissions  appeared first on Climate Home News.

The regulation, which tasks the EU’s 27 member states with reviving their land and water habitats and planting billions of trees, was narrowly passed by EU environment ministers.

The controversial law only gained enough backing because Austria’s minister for climate action, Leonore Gewessler, defied her country’s leader and voted in favour of it, a decision which may be challenged legally. 

But, while celebrating the bill’s approval, climate campaigners and scientists warned that its ambition had been diluted and it must be implemented effectively to reverse the destruction of Europe’s natural carbon sinks.

EU warns “delaying tactics” have made plastic treaty deal “very difficult”

The law requires each EU country to rejuvenate 20% of their degraded land and water habitats by 2030 and all of them by 2050, and to plant three billion more trees across the bloc by 2030.

It also requires countries to restore 30% of their drained peatlands by 2030 and 50% by mid-century.

Peatlands that have been drained, largely for farming, forestry and peat extraction, are responsible for 5% of Europe’s total greenhouse gas emissions. 

Climate breakthrough

Belgium’s climate minister Zakia Khatattabi told Climate Home that the law’s passing is “not only a breakthrough for nature but also for the climate”, and would enable the EU to meet its emissions-cutting targets.

Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said that “without it, carbon neutrality in Europe would have been put beyond reach”.

The amount of carbon dioxide sucked in by Europe’s carbon sinks – including forests, peatlands, grassland, soil and oceans –  has been falling since 2010. For forests, the World Resources Institute blames logging for timber and biomass and more wildfires and pests for the decline.

The amount of carbon sucked in is shrinking (black line) when it needs to increase to meet targets for 2030 (orange dot) and 2050 (blue dot)

But the EU’s plan to meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 involves halting this decline and reversing it into a 15% increase on 2021 levels by 2030.

Jette Bredahl Jacobsen, vice-chair of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, told Climate Home the new nature law “can contribute substantially to this, as healthy ecosystems can store more carbon and are more resilient against climate change impacts”.

The law is extremely popular with the EU public, with 75% of people polled in six EU countries saying they agree with it and just 6% opposing.

Watered down

But farmer trade associations were fiercely against it, and it became a symbolic battleground between right-wing and populist parties on one side and defenders of the EU Green Deal on the other.

Several of the law’s strongest passages ended up diluted before it reached ministers for approval, including caveats added to an obligation for countries to prevent any “net loss” of urban green space and tree cover this decade.

A new clause was introduced to deter EU states from using funds from the Common Agricultural Policy or Common Fisheries Policy to finance nature restoration – raising questions as to where money to implement the law will come from.

And, most importantly, an obligation to restore peatlands that have been drained for farming – a major source of emissions – was weakened.

A peat bog under restoration in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, pictured in January 2022. (Photo: Imago Images/Rüdiger Wölk via Reuters)

The original regulation would have instructed countries to rewet 30% of peatlands drained for agricultural use by 2030 and 70% by 2050 – the most effective way of restoring them. 

But, as a concession to farmers, the final version of the nature law mandates rewetting just 7.5% of these peatlands by 2030 and 16.7% by 2050, with exceptions possible for actions such as replacing peatlands drained for agriculture with other uses.

Rewetting usually involves blocking drainage ditches. As well as reducing emissions, this helps an area adapt to climate change, protecting it from floods, and improving the water quality, soil and biodiversity.

But the Commission will also count other actions as peatland “restoration”, such as the partial raising of water tables, bans on the use of heavy machinery, tree removal, the reintroduction of peat-forming vegetation or fire prevention measures. 

That’s despite the European Commission’s own rulebook describing these measures as “supplementary to gain better results” and saying that “peatland restoration should always primarily focus on rewetting”.

Lessons from trade tensions targeting “overcapacity” in China’s cleantech industry

Where rewetting does take place, as with all restoration measures in the final version of the regulation, EU states will be obliged to prioritise action in particular areas known as Natura 2000 sites. These cover around 18% of the EU’s territory, and should already have been restored under existing legislation.  

Environmentalists maintain that the legislation still has tremendous potential, pointing to possible actions such as the restoration of seagrass meadows which cover less than 0.1% of the ocean floor but absorb more than 10% of its carbon.    

EU countries will now draft national nature restoration plans over the next two years showing how they intend to meet their targets, for assessment by the Commission.

(Reporting by Arthur Neslen; editing by Joe Lo and Megan Rowling)

The post Despite dilution, officials say new nature law can restore EU carbon sinks appeared first on Climate Home News.

As this European Parliament term began, Fridays for Future school strikes, inspired by Greta Thunberg, were sweeping Europe, with young people demanding that political leaders act decisively against climate change’s mortal threat. 

Five years on, as the parliament entered its final chapter, very different protests erupted in Brussels and across Europe – this time led by farmers, who clashed with police and brought the city to gridlock. The farmers’ grievances were many, from rising energy and fertiliser costs, to cheap imports and environmental rules.  

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Just as Fridays for Future signified growing pressure on politicians to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, the farmers’ protests have been seen as a stark warning of the rural backlash against doing so. 

In reality, the reasons for the farmers’ anger are more diffuse.     

Climate and forests centre-stage 

In the early days of the current parliament, the school strikers’ message appeared to be getting through. Tackling climate change was  “this generation’s defining task”, the European Commission declared. Within 100 days of taking office, the new Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met her manifesto promise of launching the European Green Deal. 

The following few years saw climate and forests take centre-stage in EU policymaking to an unprecedented degree: from the Climate Law, which wrote into the statutes the EU’s goal to be climate neutral by 2050, to the Nature Restoration Law (NRL), setting binding targets to bring back nature across Europe, and the EU Regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR), the first legislation of its kind in the world, which aims to stop EU consumption from devastating forests around the world. 

Then came the backlash. 

Despite exit, EU seeks to save green reforms to energy investment treaty

Over the past year, vested industry interests and EU member states have tried to sabotage key pieces of the European Green Deal, including the NRL and the EUDR. 

This pushback against laws to protect the natural world is now a battleground in EU parliamentary elections, with populist, far-right and centre-right parties seeing it as fertile vote-winning territory. 

The centre-right European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, has been campaigning against key planks of the Green Deal, including the NRL, while promoting itself as the defender of rural interests. 

But the views of the rural constituencies whose votes they covet are not as simplistic or polarised as widely depicted. 

Deep listening 

At Fern, we’ve increasingly worked with people who share the same forest policy goals but are bitterly opposed to one another.

This is why we commissioned the insight firm GlobeScan to run focus groups among rural communities in four highly forested countries: Czechia, France, Germany and Poland. We wanted to find out what those whose concerns have been used to justify the backlash against green laws really think. The results contradict the prevailing narrative. 

All participants – selected with a balance of genders, occupations, political views and socio-economic statuses – felt that forests should be protected by law, and unanimously rejected the idea that such protection measures are a threat to rural economic development or an assault on property rights.

They felt deeply attached to their forests, saw them as public goods, were concerned about the state of them, and had a strong sense of responsibility and ownership towards them. They also wanted to see action to improve industrial forest management practices and mitigate climate change. 

Climate, development and nature: three urgent priorities for next UK government

While there was some sympathy for concerns around too much bureaucracy, even those who expressed this view felt forests should be protected by laws. Moreover, they saw the EU as having a primary role in providing support and incentives, and developing initiatives to fight the climate and biodiversity crises.  

Given how much EU politicians have put rural concerns at the heart of their arguments for rolling back the Green Deal – and are now using them in their election campaigns – it’s telling that their narratives on this do not resonate widely. Even foresters with right-leaning political views saw most of them as extreme and oversimplified. 

The lesson here is that the simplistic, divisive arguments that dominate the public debate over rural people and laws to protect nature do not reflect the complex reality of peoples’ lives or their attitudes. Where a divide exists between those pushing for strong laws to protect nature and the rural communities supposedly resisting them, it’s far from irreconcilable. 

Bridging any such gaps by listening and understanding each other’s perspectives is vital for all our futures. Those elected to the next EU Parliament would be wise to heed this. 

For further information, see: Rural Perspectives on Forest Protection 

The post Right-wing pushback on EU’s green laws misjudges rural views  appeared first on Climate Home News.

When the Stade de France in Paris is filled to capacity, it holds 81,400 people. You would then need another 2,484 to reach the number of badge-wearing participants at last year’s UN COP28 climate change conference in Dubai. This illustrates the sheer size of what was the world’s most important climate-focused event in 2023. 

But it also begs the question, do these annual ‘mega-gatherings’ actually deliver anything? 

One thing is abundantly clear: despite almost three decades of COPs and ballooning attendance, our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, and the world continues to warm. 

Process hijacking purpose  

My colleagues and I at Clim-Eat – the think-and-do-tank for food and climate that I founded in 2021 – recently published a paper examining the efficacy of COP summits, specifically in relation to food and agriculture. We found several failures. 

Firstly, negotiations on food and agriculture have moved at a snail’s pace over the past 17 years. In spite of numerous meetings, workshops, submissions and decisions, there has been literally no real-world impact as a result.  

Secondly, the trend of COP host countries – known as Presidencies – launching special initiatives on specific issues of interest has achieved little. These initiatives receive plenty of media attention when announced but amount to little more than virtue signalling. 

Rich nations meet $100bn climate finance goal – two years late

For example, at the launch of COP21’s 4p1000 Initiative, France’s then-Minister of Agriculture said it could reconcile aims of food security and the fight against climate change. Today, the initiative has yet to report anything on the positive climate action it sought to create.  

The same goes for Morocco’s COP22 initiative on Adaptation in African Agriculture. It no longer mentions its ambitious target of raising $30 billion to support farmers – presumably because it hasn’t been reached. There are plenty of other examples of special initiatives being quietly ushered out of the spotlight.  

Unwarranted optimism

Let’s remember that COP negotiations first recognised agriculture as the key to solving climate change in 2006. It then took six years to agree on the next steps. Then, only in 2022, 16 years after the initial point, did the negotiations agree that “socioeconomic and food security dimensions are critical when dealing with climate change in agriculture and food systems.” Sixteen years to build a sentence to combat a third of global emissions.  

This suggests there’s little reason to be optimistic about the Emirates Declaration on Food and Agriculture, a special initiative launched at last year’s COP28. Signed by 159 countries, it called for action to adapt food systems to climate change, but the summit’s official negotiations on food and agriculture failed to acknowledge the declaration or reflect its priorities. The declaration itself is a creative collection of various adjectives and adverbs, reaffirmations and goals to ‘strengthen’ commitments. And six months after its launch, it is not clear whether it has led to anything at all; placing faith in its outcomes is utterly fanciful. 

The path forward

This cycle of the UNFCCC and COP Presidencies applauding special initiatives in the short term without holding countries responsible in the long term has to stop. The hamster wheel of inaction continues to spin.  

But we can slow it down and perhaps get off the wheel altogether. To do this, my colleagues and I concluded that the UN needs to: 

• Reform the UNFCCC process to prioritise measurable results and impacts, shifting its role to that of a watchdog ensuring action from all actors rather than merely organising large, costly meetings. 
• Make COPs leaner and less frequent/hold them every other year, reducing participant numbers and focusing on productive meetings. 
• Increase transparency regarding the financial costs of COPs, participation and emissions, to hold the UN accountable. 

Implementing these recommendations will not be easy. It means changing entrenched ways and tackling entrenched interests. There will be push-back.  

But as the UN’s mid-year climate talks begin in Bonn this week, observe the promises made with little follow-through, the unwarranted yet celebratory atmosphere filling the air – largely destined to be forgotten. Notice that when the clapping has stopped, and the initiators are no longer in the spotlight, they will slink back into the shadows, waiting to resurface onto the next grand stage at COP29 in Azerbaijan.  

The post The great COP food systems illusion: UN climate talks deliver no real-world action appeared first on Climate Home News.

While scientists have long recognised that vegan and vegetarian diets are far better for the climate than typical Western meat-eating ones, governments and international bodies have often shied away from explicit calls for the public to consume fewer animal products.

Experts told Climate Home that diets are an emotive issue. Western politicians and lobbyists opposed to climate action have spread disinformation about green policies that affect food, falsely claiming that governments will limit hamburgers, tax T-bones or make citizens eat low-carbon forms of protein like insects.

Shift subsidies

The bank’s new “Recipe for a Livable Planet” report outlines a “menu of solutions” governments can take to reduce their planet-warming emissions from food production, including using more renewable energy, harvesting food from trees instead of cutting them down, and restoring forests.

It calls on high-income countries, whose diets are most polluting for the planet, to take the lead by providing finance for green measures to low and middle-income nations and by shifting subsidies away from high-emitting food sources like cattle for beef. This “would reveal their full price and help make low-emission food options cheaper in comparison”, the report says.

UN agrees carbon market safeguards to tackle green land grabs

Report author William Sutton, the bank’s lead on climate-smart agriculture, told Climate Home an example of a subsidy that is “not necessarily helpful for the environment” is providing free or cheap land for grazing livestock. While Sutton declined to single out countries, the US government, for example, allows cows to graze on public land for a knock-down price.

If subsidies for meat were reduced in line with its “true cost” to the planet, prices would be 20-60% higher, Sutton said. “Allow the price of meat to more accurately reflect its true cost and let consumers decide whether that’s what they want to consume or whether they would rather consume lower-emissions, lower-cost alternatives,” he added.

Options not prescriptions

Despite its report, the World Bank is not keen to be seen telling people what to eat or arguing for veganism. “The approach that we’ve taken is not to be prescriptive – not to tell people what they should and shouldn’t do – but to provide options on what they could do if they should so choose,” Sutton said.

The report contrasts high-emitting foods like red meat and dairy with “low-emission foods like poultry or fruits or vegetables”. While poultry meat, which is mainly chicken, is much less emissions-intensive than lamb or particularly beef, it is more polluting than plant-based proteins, as the report’s data shows.

This table from the report shows that vegan diets are the lowest emissions (Screenshot/World Bank)

Sutton said that changing to a more sustainable diet “doesn’t mean eliminating meat necessarily. It could be switching from beef or lamb to something like chicken or even pork.” But, he added, people “could also switch to soy or other types of beans… That will reduce emissions even more but we don’t think it’s useful to prescribe that.”

Greenpeace EU food campaigner Sini Eräjää agreed that promoting full vegetarianism or veganism is too “black and white”. But, she added, encouraging poultry consumption gives out the wrong message. “I know that there are different kinds of calculations between different kinds of meats,” she said, but “first and foremost we need to change to more plant-based diets”.

Paul Behrens, an environmental change professor at Leiden University, agreed, telling Climate Home that chicken farms drive zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance and pollute rivers and air, while poultry feed causes deforestation.

The World Bank still has investments in the meat and dairy sector. Last year, its International Finance Corporation arm loaned $47.3m for a company to develop a pig-rearing complex in China and invested $32.6m in a Brazilian dairy producer, despite opposition from environmentalists.

Asked about this, Sutton said the organisation had to “walk the talk” and had increased its support for adapting farming to climate change and reducing its emissions.

But, he added, the bank does support some investments in livestock “after careful consideration”, if it thinks it can improve a company’s approach by increasing efficiency, cutting emissions, and providing jobs and nutritious food to the poor.

Political hot-potato

Other international bodies have avoided criticising meat too explicitly. Former officials of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have said their employers censored them when they tried to criticise livestock. Meanwhile scientists have accused the FAO of misusing their research to underplay the role that changing diets can play in cutting climate-heating emissions.

In 2021, scientists working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change faced pressure from Brazil and Argentina – two major beef and animal feed producers – to remove from a report a mention of plant-based diets and reduction of meat and dairy consumption as being good for the climate.

Edward Davey, an advisor to the Food and Land Use Coalition, said that national governments in particular “tend to be quite shy about talking about this issue because they fear the political repercussions of being perceived to be telling people what to eat”.

The US government has made no moves to reduce meat consumption but right-wing media outlets like Fox News have falsely claimed that “Biden’s climate requirements” will restrict Americans to “one burger per month”.

The Australian government likewise has no policies to curb meat-eating. But opposition politicians there have spread misinformation that the country signing up to a global methane pledge amounts to a “T-bone tax” and the end of the Australian barbeque.

We heard warnings about an end to the Aussie barbeque, a T-bone tax and so on if Australia joins 120 other countries in signing a pledge to reduce methane emissions.

But for rhetorical flourish – no one was ever going to outdo Barnaby Joyce.#Insiders #auspol pic.twitter.com/ZHYkbS0HJ2

— Insiders ABC (@InsidersABC) October 15, 2022

Greenpeace EU’s Eräjää said she had seen early drafts of European Commission documents that included warnings about red meat’s health impact before those warnings were stripped out of the final version. “Meat is a four-letter word,” she said.

David Powell has researched the issue for Climate Outreach, a group that specialises in communicating effectively on climate change. He said that “what we see as normal to eat is closely linked with our identities and is very personal”.

“For most people, climate arguments alone won’t help persuade them to change what they eat,” he said, adding it is better to talk about the health benefits of eating less meat and dairy in a positive way rather than shaming people.

High-income countries eat more servings of animal-sourced products than the global average

Both Sutton and Davey stressed that the debate over meat-eating is largely a wealthy country concern. People in higher-income regions eat three times as many servings of meat, seafood, eggs and dairy per day than their counterparts in South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Many, many people in the world – typically richer people in wealthier societies but also in unequal middle-income countries – need to eat much less meat for the purpose of their health, as well as for the climate, and many of the world’s poorer people need to eat more animal  protein for their health, well-being and nutrition,” said Davey.

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)

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Conservationists have challenged the road construction project in the East African nation’s courts since 2009, arguing it threatens the region’s rich ecosystem and wildlife. But in January, President William Ruto declared his government would proceed with the works, a decision critics said undermined his climate-friendly image on the global stage. 

The road – now a rough dirt track punctuated with mounds of elephant dung – dissects the Aberdare Forest in central Kenya, cutting through an expanse of dense woods mingled with thick bamboo and colourful alpine vegetation. It also crosses the mountainous Aberdare National Park, a haven for wildlife including lions, antelope and elephants. 

The government wants to widen and tarmac the picturesque road to connect the two agricultural counties of Nyandarua and Nyeri, which it says would reduce local travel time and the cost of farm produce while boosting tourism. 

Environmentalists argue that the potential negative consequences for the forest, biodiversity and climate change far outweigh the purported benefits.   

“I don’t feel that this is what we want to offer to the Kenyan people in terms of connectivity,” Christian Lambrechts, executive director of conservation trust Rhino Ark, told journalists during a trip to the Aberdare Forest in Nyeri County.  

“We feel that this road is not justifiable from a socioeconomic standpoint. It will cut the Aberdare ecosystem into two, and lead to road user-wildlife conflicts.”   

Rhino Ark Executive Director Christian Lambrechts addresses journalists in Nyeri County, Kenya, during a media tour of Aberdare Forest and National Park on February 29, 2024. (Photo: Joseph Maina)

Threat to wildlife and water

In March, the East African Wild Life Society – in response to Ruto’s decision to press ahead with the project – filed a fresh petition to a local court in Nyeri. It ordered the road’s construction to be put on hold, pending a hearing in early June. 

Conservationists are calling for the government to upgrade an alternative road instead, which largely skirts around the forest, saying it will still cut travel time while protecting wildlife and the Aberdare ecosystem that is vital for the water cycle. 

Enock Ole Kiminta, CEO of KeNAWRUA, a national organisation bringing together local water user associations, told Climate Home that expanding the Ihithe-Ndunyu Njeru road in the Aberdare Forest would destroy almost 400 hectares of indigenous forests and 327 water springs. 

It would also negatively impact close to 70 percent of local biodiversity, including endangered birds and animals, and elephant breeding areas, he added.   

“And yet the president appears to be saying, ‘To hell with you – go to court. We don’t care what the courts will say; we’ll still go ahead and do it’,” Kiminta said, before the latest suspension of the project.    

A scene in the Aberdare National Park, central Kenya, pictured on March 1, 2024 (Photo: Joseph Maina)

In January, the National Environment Management Authority approved the road’s construction in a surprise move, after earlier opposing it, and issued a license for the roadworks to the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA).   

It did, however, give instructions to reduce the road’s width from 40 metres to 25 metres in sections traversing the Aberdare Forest and the Aberdare National Park.  

On a tour of the region that month, Ruto asked a local crowd if they wanted the road’s expansion to proceed or to wait for the court’s final decision. After gaining their backing, Ruto instructed government officials to allocate funds to push ahead immediately.   

Neither KeNHA nor the Kenya Wildlife Service responded to requests for comment for this article.  

International accolades  

Kenyan climate policy experts told Climate Home the Aberdare case symbolises a wider disconnect between Ruto’s vocal support for greater climate action on the global stage and decisions by his government that threaten natural ecoystems and carbon sinks at home.   

Ruto has pushed for more climate finance for the African continent and hosted the African Climate Summit last September in Nairobi, which secured $23 billion in funding for green projects for the continent.  

Last November, he made it onto Time Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential leaders driving business to real climate action. 

He also rolled out an ambitious plan in 2022 to plant 15 billion trees in Kenya by 2032, in a bid to reach 30% tree cover, with all ministries urged to allocate funds for the initiative.  

Loss and damage board speeds up work to allow countries direct access to funds

“His right hand doesn’t know what his left is doing,” said Kiminta. “He’s not being honest when he’s out of the country speaking all about climate change in rosy terms and doing something different on the ground.”   

While attempting to plant billions of trees, the Kenyan authorities have also been dishing out permits to timber dealers, Kiminta added. 

According to the Global Forest Watch monitoring service, tree loss in Kenya increased to 11,000 hectares in 2023, of which about 10,000 hectares was natural forest. That rise followed a two-year decline in 2021 and 2022, when the country recorded its lowest deforestation levels since 2001. 

Failed effort to lift logging ban  

The Aberdare row is not the first time Ruto has pitted himself against the justice system over decisions involving forests.  

Last July, less than two years after coming to power, he unilaterally lifted a six-year logging ban in the country’s forests, saying it would benefit local economies – sparking a legal backlash.  

The Law Society of Kenya (LSK) petitioned against the move, saying it disregarded the crucial role forests play in mitigating climate change, preserving biodiversity and safeguarding vital ecosystems. 

“It may be for lack of vision, foresight, or even commitment to sustainable development, but it is by all means a blow to Kenya’s environmental conservation efforts and international standing,” wrote Faith Odhiambo, the current LSK president, in a post on Twitter.   

The LSK argued the public had not been involved in the process leading to the decision to lift the ban, as stipulated in the constitution – and in October succeeded in its push for the Environmental and Lands Courts to void the president’s directive.  

Farmers tilling land cleared from the forest in Kinale on March 7, 2024 (Photo: Joseph Maina)

Indigenous rights 

Another row erupted last year over the Mau Forest Complex in Kenya’s Rift Valley, following an effort by the government to evict indigenous communities who have resisted such attempts for years.   

The evictions are part of an official strategy to protect Kenya’s principal water catchment areas, with speculation the latest round may also have been tied to a deal with UAE-based firm Blue Carbon to generate carbon credits for use under the Paris Agreement on climate change. 

The Mau – Kenya’s largest forest – has been the theatre of drawn-out conflict between the government and forest communities, particularly the Ogiek, a minority ethnic group that lays claim to the forest as its ancestral land.  

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights determined in 2022 that the state had violated the Ogiek’s rights over a substantial period and directed it to adopt appropriate measures to prevent the recurrence of abuses.   

But in a surprise twist last October, the government embarked on another forceful eviction of forest communities, including the Ogiek.    

Damaris Bonareri, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and senior programme advisor for legal affairs at the Kenya Human Rights Commission, told Climate Home the Ogiek people are protected by the constitution and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 

“According to our constitution, the Ogiek have a right to be in that forest. The president is wrong,” she added, noting that Ruto has spoken about the country’s judiciary in ways that could turn public opinion against it. 

Indigenous lands feel cruel bite of green energy transition

The president has publicly defended his green agenda, and often ties climate change and its causes to the extreme weather hitting the country, including torrential rains that have caused severe flooding and landslides in recent weeks, killing around 230 people. 

“We must be careful on environmental issues,” Ruto told a political rally in March in Kericho, one of four counties covered by the Mau Forest, stressing that his administration would not permit people to graze animals or cultivate crops in forests. 

“You have heard about climate change. Kenya was almost destroyed by adverse weather conditions just the other year and it was because of environmental degradation,” he said.

(Reporting by Joseph Maina; editing by Megan Rowling)

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Gathered in NYC in mid-April, 87 Indigenous leaders from 35 countries met to hammer out a set of demands to address a common scourge: the green energy transition that has our peoples under siege.  

Worldwide, we are experiencing land-grabs and a rising tide of criminalization and attacks for speaking out against mining and renewable energy projects that violate our rights with impacts that are being documented by UN and other experts. Their research confirms what we know firsthand.     

And yet political and economic actors continue to ignore the evidence, pushing us aside in their rush to build a system to replace fossil fuels, while guided by the same values that are destroying the natural world.  

Ironically, we released this declaration amid the UN’s sustainability week – renewable energy was on the agenda. We were not.  

Q&A: What you need to know about clean energy and critical minerals supply chains

Indigenous peoples are not opposed to pivoting away from oil and gas, nor are we opposed to investing in renewable energy systems as an alternative.  

But we must have a say. More than half the mines that are expected to produce metals and minerals to serve renewable technologies are on or near the territories of Indigenous peoples and peasant communities.  

Resource extraction causing triple crisis  

In the words of the UN’s Global Resource Outlook 2024, released in March with little fanfare by the UN Environment Programme: “the current model of natural resource extraction…is driving an unprecedented triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution”. 

Mining companies have been offered a path to sustainability. Few have started down that path.  

And they won’t unless global and national decision-makers take advantage of this key moment in history to demand change. Indigenous leaders need to be at the table too.

As donors dither, Indigenous funds seek to decolonise green finance

We are not willing to have our territories become the deserts that mining companies create, leaking toxins into our rivers and soils and poisoning our sources of water and food, and by extension our children. 

The playing field for Indigenous peoples is massively unjust. The authors of the Global Resources Outlook cite evidence of national governments that favor companies’ interests “by removing the judicial protection of Indigenous communities, expropriating land…or even using armed forces to protect mining facilities”.  

Why should this matter to people on the other side of the planet? 

Proven to outperform the public and private sectors, Indigenous peoples conserve some of the world’s most biodiverse regions. Negotiators at global climate events do cite our outsize conservation role, but treaty language allows our governments to decide when and whether to recognize or enforce our rights.  

Companies are advised to “engage” with our communities – not so they can avoid harming us, but to prevent costly conflicts that arise in response to outdated and destructive practices. 

These “externalities” that chase us from our ancestral homes and damage our health and the ecosystems we treasure are revealed only when they become “material”, of concern to investors and relevant to risk analysts. 

Tensions rise over who will contribute to new climate finance goal

Our resistance is costly and material. Failure to properly obtain our consent before sending in the bulldozers can bring a project to a halt, with a price tag as high as $20 million a week. And communities are learning to use the tools of the commercial legal system to defend themselves. 

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School report that, over time, shareholders benefit most when companies heed the demands of their most influential stakeholders. Indigenous peoples are the stakeholders to please.  

Our communities disrupt supply chains, but when our rights are respected, we can also be the best indicators of a company’s intention to avoid harm to people and planet. 

Call for ban on mining in ‘no-go’ zones 

In the declaration we released in New York earlier this month, we called for laws to reduce the consumption of energy worldwide, and we laid out a path for ensuring that the green transition is a just one. 

We urged our governments to recognize and protect our rights as a priority; to end the killings, the violence and the criminalization of our peoples; and to require corporations to secure our free, prior and informed consent, and avoid harming our lands and resources. 

A growing body of evidence suggests that Indigenous peoples rooted to their ancestral lands can draw on traditional knowledge, stretching back over generations, to help nature evolve and adapt to the changing climate. We understand the sustainable use of wild species and hold in our gardens genetic resources that can protect crops of immeasurable economic and nutritional value. 

Current practices for extracting metals and minerals put our peoples at risk and endanger climate, biodiversity, water, global health and food security. Researchers warned earlier this year that the unprecedented scale of demand for “green” minerals will lay waste to more and more land and drive greater numbers of Indigenous and other local peoples from our homes. 

Q&A: What you need to know about critical minerals

So our declaration also calls on governments to impose a ban on the expansion of mining in “no-go” zones – those sites that our peoples identify as sacred and vital as sources of food and clean water. Indigenous communities, rooted in place by time and tradition, can help stop the green transition from destroying biomes that serve all humanity. 

The UN Secretary-General launches a panel on critical minerals today that seems to recognize the importance of avoiding harm to affected communities and the environment.  

This is a step in the right direction, but Indigenous peoples and our leaders – and recognition and enforcement of our rights – must be at the centre of every proposal for mining and renewable energy that affect us and our territories. This is the only way to keep climate “response measures”, made possible by the Paris Agreement, from harming solutions that exist already. 

The post Indigenous lands feel cruel bite of green energy transition  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Set against the global backdrop of poverty, hunger, climate change, debt and conflict, it can feel hard to be hopeful at present. But there is a real win-win opportunity – as well as a deep moral obligation – to heal geopolitical divisions, foster peace, alleviate poverty, ensure food and nutrition security, address the climate crisis, and deliver a better, fairer future for people and planet. It lies in the reforms of the global financial architecture necessary to deliver the additional sum of at least $3 trillion required to support countries to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Last year’s international meetings in Paris and Nairobi – leading to the Paris Pact for People and Planet, and the Nairobi Declaration – have made the case for debt relief, enhanced international taxation and global financial architecture reform. These reforms will be centre-stage at next week’s Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington DC.

Here the world must urgently come together to articulate and deliver a clear plan for how to end hunger and build resilient food systems, backed by real leadership, enhanced coordination, accountability and finance. The task at hand is to connect the global imperative to act on food security, sustainable agriculture and malnutrition with the broader efforts underway to drive a reform agenda and to replenish the World Bank’s concessional lending arm, the International Development Association (IDA).

At UN climate talks in Dubai last year, 159 world leaders committed themselves to action on food security and climate change by signing the COP28 Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action – the first of its kind. The commitments in this declaration now need to be linked with the emerging global plan for increased finance.

Is water provision in drought-hit Zambia climate ‘loss and damage’ or adaptation?

African potential

Africa is ground zero for the climate crisis, but is also the continent where solutions will have the most impact. Of the 9.8 billion people expected to live on the planet by 2050, a quarter will be African. Financial reforms must unlock climate-positive green industrialization and transform food systems across the continent in a way that is compatible with sustainable and inclusive economic growth. But the ultimate test will be whether the funds released reach the communities who need them most, when they need them, producing the desired results of ending poverty, building climate-resilient infrastructure, saving nature and biodiversity from extinction, and delivering prosperous lives for all.

This goal is within our reach – with evidence and farmers’ testimonials showing the success of innovative models such as the Arcos community-led scheme in Rwanda, which has empowered smallholder farmers to preserve and restore forests and agricultural landscapes. To date, 12,000 community members have grown 4.2 million trees, including fruit trees for boosting income and nutrition, nitrogen-fixing species to improve soil health, fodder species for livestock and indigenous species for biodiversity, on more than 20,000 hectares. The farmers have also built terraces across the hilly landscapes to reduce soil erosion and prevent pollution of lakes and rivers.

Nigeria’s path to net zero should be fully lined with trees – and fairness

Across much of the Global South, there are numerous such inspiring examples of where communities and societies have established social safety nets, fostered rural development, and promoted gender and social equity. These approaches have enhanced  communities’ capacity to plan for and respond to more extreme weather, to continue to deliver their crops to market despite climate change and other challenges, and to provide nutritious food for their families.

Smallholder farmers produce a third of the world’s food, yet receive only 1.7 percent of climate finance. Globally, there must be a major shift in financial flows to change that, including efforts by international development partners such as the World Bank and the philanthropic sector. National government leadership is a prerequisite to success, including revising agricultural subsidy programs to ensure they incentivize farming practices and behaviour that will help the world close the hunger gap while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting biodiversity and restoring degraded lands.

Global momentum growing

This year there is a golden opportunity to make progress on financing for food systems. As a result of consistent advocacy – including from Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, Kenyan President William Ruto and World Bank President Ajay Banga – an additional $300–400 billion in low-cost concessional finance and lending has been promised over the next decade by the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to low- and lower-middle income countries.

This recalibration of the international finance institutions’ balance sheets is a welcome development to build on – and demonstrates that climate and development commitments can be honoured. The social, economic and environmental case for making these kinds of investments in food security is unequivocal. Well-designed investments deliver four-fold benefits: they strengthen food security and nutrition; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; support nations and communities to adapt to a changing climate; and protect and restore nature.

The Brazilian government has committed to put zero hunger, sustainable agriculture and food systems centre-stage at the G20 this year, through its Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, and has committed to work closely with Italy and the rest of the G7 on this agenda. President Lula has also rightly placed the ongoing deeper reboot and replenishment of the multilateral development bank system at the heart of his G20 agenda. His leadership – in partnership with African governments and the G7, and harnessing such key moments as the UN Summit for the Future – could drive major progress at this critical time, starting at the Spring Meetings this April.

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International oil companies, led by US firm ExxonMobil, plan to extract 11 billion barrels of oil from Guyana’s ocean floor and sell it abroad to be burned, thereby worsening global warming. The country pumped its first oil in 2020.

Despite this, late last month Guyanese president Irfaan Ali defended his country’s green credentials in a heated interview with the BBC’s Hardtalk programme, which went viral on social media. “Even with our greatest exploration of the oil and gas resources we have now, we will still be net zero,” he said, referring to the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“We have the lowest rate of deforestation in the world… Guyana will still be net zero”

President Irfaan Ali says Guyana won’t take lectures on climate change as it exploits its huge offshore oil and gas reserves

https://t.co/TKxhR6r3ur pic.twitter.com/xIJTgRsfZP

— BBC HARDtalk (@BBCHARDtalk) March 29, 2024

The case of Guyana shows how countries with large forests can use unclear rules on counting national carbon emissions to justify fossil fuel production.

Michael Lazarus, a scientist with the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), told Climate Home it is “absurd” to claim that capturing and storing carbon dioxide (CO2) in forests offsets the emissions impact of oil production, as “they have nothing to do with each other than geographic proximity”.

Official United Nations carbon accounting rules, drawn up nearly 20 years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), allow Guyana to claim net-zero status because they do not specify which types of forest governments can take credit for preserving – and also because the emissions from oil are counted in the country where it is used and burned, not where it is produced.

Experts said governments are taking advantage of having barely-touched forests on their land that suck up CO2, and argued that fossil fuel-rich nations like Guyana should bear part of the moral responsibility for the emissions of their polluting products.

“The problem is that within the country, you are allowing the emissions to continue or even to rise, and then you are trying to balance that out internally by saying that we have this forest,” said Souparna Lahiri from the Global Forest Coalition.

Carbon-negative club

Around 93% of Guyana is covered in forest – more than any other nation but its neighbour Suriname. The population numbers just 800,000, mostly clustered on its coastline, and those people on average emit slightly less than the global average per capita.

Although the country’s non-forestry emissions are growing steadily, CO2 absorption by its vast forests more than compensates for that.

In its emissions inventory sent to the United Nations, the government claimed: “Guyana is a net carbon sink, with its lush managed forest cover removing up to ten times more than the emissions produced in the country up to the year 2022”.

Other small, sparsely-populated forest-covered nations like Suriname, Panama and Bhutan assert they are carbon-negative too.

While not claiming the same accolade, leaders of bigger forest nations like Russia and Brazil have also used their forests to defend their climate record.

In 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a US-hosted summit: “Russia makes a gigantic contribution to absorbing global emissions – both ours and from elsewhere – owing to the great absorption capacity of our ecosystems.”

Despite rising Brazilian deforestation under Jair Bolsonaro, the former president told the same summit that the Amazon’s carbon absorption was evidence that “Brazil is at the very forefront of efforts to tackle global warming”.

Managed vs unmanaged

International carbon accounting rules essentially leave it up to governments to decide how much credit they claim for CO2 absorption by national forests, with many opting to count it all.

In 2006, scientists working with the IPCC came up with a distinction between “managed” land – where greenhouse gas emissions and removals should be attributed to humans and nations – and “unmanaged” land where forests are natural and governments should neither be credited nor blamed for emissions levels.

The IPCC defined “managed” land as “land where human interventions and practices have been applied to perform production, ecological or social functions”. Those could include planting a commercial forest, protecting a forest from fire, or designating it for conservation.

In its national emissions inventory report, Guyana does not differentiate between “managed” and “unmanaged land” – and claims credit for CO2 sequestration by all of its forests.

Guyanese forestry expert Michelle Kalamandeen told Climate Home the government is doing well at protecting the rainforest but should not classify it all as managed by the state. Much of it – particularly in the south – is inaccessible, so “they’re just relying on remoteness for protection of it”, she explained.

The Global Forest Coalition’s Lahiri agreed, saying that most of Guyana’s forest seems to be intact old-growth forest “so it is not a plantation or managed forest in that sense”.

A global issue

From this perspective, Guyana is by no means the only country that appears to be over-counting its emission sinks. A 2018 study in the journal Carbon Balance and Management found that over fourth-fifths of the 101 countries analysed counted all their land as managed.

Even those countries that make a distinction often counted all of their forest – but not all their land – as managed. Australia is one example.

Even the rare few that consider some of their forests “unmanaged” have drawn the line in different places.

Russia counts most of its forests as managed with a few exceptions, the US counts everything outside of Alaska (and much inside it) as managed, and Canada counts everything it tries to protect from fires.

The USA’s “managed” land (blue) and “unmanaged” land (grey) (Photos: Carbon Balance and Management)

Brazil stands out as the exception, counting just under half of its huge forests as managed and foregoing a carbon accounting boost from the other half.

Oil emissions

The other carbon accounting orthodoxy Guyana relies on is attributing emissions from burning fossil fuels like oil to the countries where they are burned, not where they are produced.

The vast majority of Guyana’s oil will be exported to regions like Europe and Asia or to neighbouring Brazil, meaning that emissions from its use will be counted there.

This way of measuring emissions prevents them from being double-counted – but it lets extracting nations off the hook for the carbon pollution caused by the fossil fuels they sell abroad.

Kalamandeen said oil-producing countries have some responsibility for the emissions created by the consumption of their fossil fuels, while the home nations of fossil fuel companies should also step up. In Guyana’s case, that would be the US and China, as the oil extraction consortium is made up of ExxonMobil, Hess Corporation and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation.

SEI’s Lazarus described the current system as an “essential accountability framework for governments and civil society” – but agreed that producers should be held morally accountable too.

Without that, he said, “we’d turn a blind eye to… the lock-in effects of long-lived fossil fuel supply investments that impede the global clean energy transition”.

The post Forest carbon accounting allows Guyana to stay net zero while pumping oil appeared first on Climate Home News.

It must be said: it is impossible to imagine Nigeria’s path to decarbonization without imagining it being fully lined with trees. There is a critical need to address deforestation, transform agricultural practices, and harness nature-based solutions like afforestation and reforestation if Nigeria were serious about reaching net zero by 2060 – a commitment the Nigerian government made at COP26 in Glasgow.

Nigeria is an oil giant in Africa, and unsurprisingly, most of its plans on decarbonization focus on the transition to renewable energy. Previously, Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan had not considered the country’s emissions from the agriculture, forests, and land-use (AFOLU) sector.

However, our new report, which looks at different pathways for Nigeria to reach its net-zero-by-2060 goal, found Nigeria’s AFOLU sector has contributed the largest sectoral emissions at 30%, compared to the oil and gas sector at 29%. So while it is good that Nigeria has set its eyes on transforming the energy sector, it is also true that only in a renewable energy scenario that also transforms the AFOLU sector can Nigeria achieve its commitment of net zero by 2060 which will allow Nigeria’s economy to grow alongside reaching its sustainability goals.

“Two steps forward, two steps back” – Governments off course for forest protection target

One of the main drivers of Nigeria’s AFOLU emissions is land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF). The last decade has seen relentless deforestation in Nigeria, with Global Forest Watch data revealing that from 2010 to 2019, Nigeria lost 86,700 hectares of tropical forest. Alarming as this may be, without immediate action, an additional 25% of our remaining forests could vanish by 2060. The cause of deforestation is a confluence of different factors, including the population’s lack of access to electricity and increasing poverty rates.

The stark reality is that nearly one in three people in the country lack access to electricity. This energy disparity leads many to rely on traditional, polluting methods for energy generation, such as burning wood. Additionally, less than a quarter of Nigerians have access to “clean cooking,” forcing the majority—primarily women—to rely on inefficient and polluting cookstoves, using wood for fuel.

This reliance on wood for energy generation and fuel is a significant driver of deforestation in Nigeria, and is also a major contributing factor to residential emissions. Improving access to clean cooking is not only pivotal in reducing emissions but also a crucial step towards mitigating deforestation.

According to the World Bank, four in ten Nigerians – or about 80 million people – were living in poverty in 2019. A report by Mongabay revealed that with lack of available jobs, Nigerian forests are being lost to farming and logging. Here, the message is clear: we can only save our forests and be truly on our way to net zero if we address poverty and social inequalities.

Reversing deforestation is not an impossible feat, but it demands a commitment to reforestation efforts – a 2.3% annual reforestation rate – and addressing other root causes of the problem including access to electricity, job creation, and a reduction in poverty.  With reforestation efforts, Nigeria can not only halt the degradation but also bolster its carbon sink capacity, a crucial element in achieving the net-zero goal by 2060.

The commitment to net zero is not just an environmental pledge but a blueprint for economic growth and prosperity that aligns with our broader sustainability goals. It is time for Nigeria to seize the opportunity and lead the charge towards a greener, more resilient future.

The post Nigeria’s path to net zero should be fully lined with trees – and fairness appeared first on Climate Home News.

The equivalent of ten football pitches of tropical forests – 3.7 million hectares – were lost every minute in 2023 as the result of human activities and natural disasters, according to analysis carried out by Global Forest Watch.

While forest destruction slowed dramatically in Brazil and Colombia, this was offset by sharp increases in Bolivia, Nicaragua and Laos.

“The world took two steps forward, two steps back when it comes to this past year’s forest loss”, said Mikaela Weisse, Global Forest Watch Director at the World Resources Institute (WRI).

Tropical forests are one of the world’s best defenses against global warming, as they absorb greenhouse gases. But they are also where over 96% of human-made deforestation occurs worldwide, according to WRI.

Missing targets

While total tree loss in the tropics decreased slightly last year, analysts estimated human-caused deforestation driven by agriculture, commodities extraction and urban expansion continued rising. 

That’s despite a 10% reduction being needed every year to meet a pledge to “halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030” signed by 145 countries, including large forest nations like Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Initially introduced as part of a voluntary commitment by governments at Cop26 in Glasgow, the target was mentioned for the first time in a Cop decision at last December’s climate summit in Dubai.

Weisse said the goal “has always been an ambitious one” and “it will certainly be difficult” to ensure enough progress from all countries to meet the target.

“I still find a lot of hope in the fact that Brazil, Colombia, and Indonesia have managed to massively curb their rates of forest loss in recent years”, she added. “Those countries have demonstrated how critical it is to have strong political will to combat deforestation”.

Lula’s deforestation busting

Brazil continued to be the country that lost the most tropical forest in 2023 because of the size of its immense rainforests. But its losses dropped by more than a third last year, reaching the lowest level since 2015.

Progress in Brazil coincided with the return to office of President Luiz Lula da Silva. In his first full year in the post, he strengthened law enforcement against illegal loggers, revoked anti-environmental measures introduced by his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, and extended Indigenous rights.

Brazil is planning to put the protection of forests at the heart of its climate summit in 2025, which is set to take place in Belém, known as the gateway to the Amazon rainforest.

“Holding Cop30 in the heart of the forest is a powerful reminder of our responsibility to keep the planet within our 1.5°C target”, said Marina Silva, Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, last December.

In neighbouring Colombia, the rate of tree loss dropped by half in 2023, primarily as a result of policies introduced by President Gustavo Petro.

Forest protection is among the goals being negotiated by the leftist government with armed groups as part of wider efforts to bring “total peace” and end decades of violence.

Experts have also suggested that criminal groups have taken it upon themselves to rein in illegal logging as a way to strengthen their hand in the discussions.

Progress lost

But positive developments in forest conservation in Brazil and Colombia have been all but cancelled out by tree losses spiralling out of control elsewhere.

In Bolivia, forest losses remained at record-breaking levels for a third year in a row, driven by uncontrolled expansion of soybean and beef production and exacerbated by exceptional wildfires.

The government, which has prioritised development and agricultural exports over forest protection, has not joined the 2030 pledge.

It was at loggerheads with Brazil at the Amazon Summit last year, when it opposed the inclusion of any references to the target in an outcome document signed by the leaders of eight countries.

Dramatic upticks in deforestation were also seen in Nicaragua, in Central America, and Laos, in South-East Asia, last year.

Expectations mount as loss and damage fund staggers to its feet

Nicaragua lost over 4% of its standing forest in 2023 alone, as the authoritarian regime of Daniel Ortega continued to turn a blind eye to illegal logging.

Disregard for the preservation of forests, and the respect of the rights of Indigenous people living there, is also shutting the country’s access to international financial support.

The UN’s Green Climate Fund pulled out of a forest conservation project last month after local community groups complained about a lack of protection in the face of escalating human rights violations in the area.

In Laos, forest loss nearly doubled last year reaching an all-time high. Rapid expansion of farming, primarily driven by Chinese investments, is believed to be the main cause.

Financial incentives

WRI’s Weisse said that, while the cases of Brazil and Colombia demonstrate the importance of political will in reversing deforestation, that alone will not be enough.

“Political winds continuously change”, she added. “In order for progress to endure in any of the above countries will likely take making it more valuable to keep forests standing than to cut them down”.

Carbon credits have long been touted as a primary way to achieve that. But their credibility has come under fire over the last few years as numerous schemes faced allegations of exaggerating climate claims and failing to safeguard local communities. Various efforts to strengthen their rules are underway.

Regulations are also being introduced on the demand side, blocking access to markets for goods produced on deforested land.

In the European Union, firms will soon have to demonstrate that seven commodities, including beef and soy, are not linked to deforestation. Commodities-producing countries, such as Indonesia, have attacked the regulations which they have branded as protectionist.

The post “Two steps forward, two steps back” – Governments off course for forest protection target appeared first on Climate Home News.

Debt-laden growers want an existing government procurement system to be made legally binding and to raise the minimum price for a wider range of crops – which could help them move away from thirsty rice and wheat farming.

But some agricultural analysts argue that bolstering the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for produce would not resolve the wider climate problems farmers face, nor ease demand for scarce water resources.

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Deedar Singh, a 50-year-old farmer from Patiala, joined a march towards Delhi in mid-February and spoke to Climate Home at a camp on the Punjab-Haryana border, 200 km from Delhi. He participated in a similar mobilisation back in 2020 that lasted for just over a year.

With a family of nine to support, he complained that his five-acre landholding and meagre income of 200,000 rupees per year ($2,400) cannot provide a decent quality of life, especially as weather extremes worsen.

“If untimely rain destroys our rice or hot temperatures shrink the wheat grain, our crops are ruined, leaving us unable to even cover the costs of the next cropping season,” said Singh. Most people in his village rely on financial support sent by their children who have migrated abroad, he added.

Farmers gather at the Shambhu border, between Punjab and Haryana, to burn effigies of political leaders and shout slogans in support of the protest, February 27 2024 (Photo: Kanika Gupta)

Globally, India accounts for 10% of agricultural output and is the second-largest producer of rice and wheat. It is also the biggest consumer of groundwater. Its 260 million farmers depend heavily on depleting water reserves to irrigate their crops.

That means they are also struggling with climate change, as about 65% of the country’s cropped area depends on rainwater. Erratic rainfall and shorter winters are harming yields, with heavy downpours causing flooding and a sudden spike in temperatures a year ago causing wheat grain to shrink.

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) reports that for every 1C increase in temperature, wheat production suffers a significant decline of 4-5 million tonnes.

Debt drives suicides

Water resources are running low and farmers’ input costs have soared – yet the government-administered minimum support price (MSP) has not risen accordingly, said Ramandeep Singh Mann, an agriculturist and member of Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, an umbrella body spearheading the current protest.

That has left farmers with no money to pay for contingencies and has forced many to take on high levels of debt, he said.

“At some point your back breaks. When that happens, there is no other solution but to take extreme steps,” he added, referring to suicides among indebted farmers.

To boost falling yields, farmers are using more inputs like water and fertilisers, leaving them with higher production costs and lower profit margins.

Some states have provided free or subsidised electricity, as well as loan forgiveness for debt-strapped farmers, but since 2014, only half of the intended waiver recipients have benefited, according to a study by the State Bank of India.

These woes have fuelled a growing wave of protest, as farmers feel they have no other recourse.

Nonetheless, Sardara Singh Johl, a 97-year-old agricultural economist from Ludhiana and former vice-chancellor at Punjab Agricultural University, said the latest mobilisation was unlikely to result in the dialogue required to address the broader problems facing farmers.

“They already have MSP for wheat and rice, and these are high-paying crops. Even if you reduce the price risk with MSP, what can you do about the other uncertainties?” he asked.

In mid-February, at the last round of talks with the government, ministers proposed to purchase five additional crops – moong dal, urad dal, tur dal, maize and cotton – from farmers at an MSP for five years through central agencies, but farmers rejected the offer.

Jagjit Singh Dallewal, leader of the non-political Samyukta Kisan Morcha group, which is also involved in organising the farmers’ protest, said the proposal would mainly benefit farmers willing to switch from paddy or wheat to other crops and would not ensure a stable income.

Farmer leaders give a press conference at Shambhu border, between Punjab and Haryana, on February 27 2024. Photo: Kanika Gupta)

Water reserves shrink amid over-use

Economist Johl argued that, irrespective of its profitability, rice is no longer a suitable crop for Punjab as its water table recedes to a dangerously low level.

A study by Punjab Agricultural University found that between 1998 and 2018, groundwater levels in the region had dropped drastically, from 10 metres below ground to 30 metres, largely due to a shift from traditional canal irrigation to widespread adoption of tube wells for water extraction.

Farmers are aware of Punjab’s dwindling water resources, said Mann, but they need guaranteed price support for more crops in order to shift away from water-intensive rice cultivation.

“They know that if they are able to earn as much as they do from paddy, they will grow other crops. But without fair support of MSP, it is hard to make that switch,” he said.

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Uday Chandra, a professor of government at the Georgetown University in Qatar, said key food-supplying states like Punjab have struggled to get their problems heard and dealt with by the national government.

“The problem is that what the Punjab farmer wants isn’t sustainable,” he said, referring to the state’s shrinking water supplies. “The best way would be to bring them into discussion and find a solution that is specific to them.”

Trucks lined up at the Shambhu border, 200 km from Delhi, after being stopped by the central government from advancing to the Indian capital, February 27 2024 (Photo: Kanika Gupta)

Thousands of farmers who were initially stopped by heavy police control outside Delhi have now made it to the capital after receiving permission to protest at the Ramlila Maidan ground. They are determined to maintain their mobilisation during the general elections – which will take place over several weeks from late April until the start of June – if their MSP demands go unmet.

In 2021, angry farmers backed down after the government rowed back on laws that had sparked huge protests. But they have now returned to direct action, calling on the government to fulfill its promises, including demands for pensions, debt waivers, penalties for selling counterfeit agricultural inputs, and withdrawal from the World Trade Organization.

Call for high-tech solutions

Mann said climate change is compounding their woes – yet while the government acknowledges the problem, it is doing little to help the sector deal with it.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

However, at the ICAR’s Annual General Meeting last month, Arjun Munda, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, said the Modi government is committed to bolstering the agricultural sector and supporting farmers, including with high-yielding, resilient seed varieties released by ICAR in the past decade.

It also issues Agromet weather-based crop advisories with the India Meteorological Department to about 60 million farmers twice a week and promotes practices for more efficient use of water and nutrients.

But protesting farmers said the government’s measures are failing to help them adapt adequately to a changing climate and water shortages.

Bhupinder Singh, a farmer in Punjab’s Mohali district, discusses his transition to organic farming methods as a means to prevent the burning of stubble remaining after rice cultivation, November 26 2023. (Photo: Kanika Gupta)

Haranjeet Singh, 53, of Ludhiana in Punjab, said the rice variety farmers are now planting gives smaller harvests, after the government suspended use of a more productive but thirstier variety which also took longer to mature and produced more stubble – a major cause of air pollution when burned.

“Unfortunately, these new seeds don’t give us as much yield,” he said. “We are spending the same amount of money and getting less in return.”

Madhura Swaminathan, daughter of the late MS Swaminathan – the architect of India’s Green Revolution which boosted crop yields and tackled the nation’s food scarcity issues in the 1970s – believes greater use of technology could help.

The professor at the Indian Statistical Institute in Bangalore pointed to an example she encountered in Amritsar a few years ago, where groundwater sensors were connected to mobile apps, enabling users to remotely control water pumps and conserve water.

“We must embrace new technologies, farming practices, and techniques to tackle the challenges brought by climate change,” she said.

The post What will it take to protect India’s angry farmers from climate threats? appeared first on Climate Home News.

As global policymakers, nonprofit advocates and industry leaders meet this week in Geneva to turn lofty promises to slash methane emissions into meaningful action, a crucial stakeholder will largely be missing from the table: the private sector.

The aim of the 2024 Global Methane Forum is to build on the Cop26 climate summit, where more than 150 countries pledged to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030, as well as other methane commitments made at last year’s Cop28.

But ratcheting up private sector action remains a looming agenda item. Because for all those promises, we aren’t seeing the companies in the sectors that contribute most to humanity’s methane emissions – agriculture and energy – take the ambitious steps needed to fulfill them.

In fact, new findings show the energy industry’s methane emissions didn’t budge last year from a near all-time high. Nor have we seen enough investors step up to drive this needed action in the companies they hold.

Fossil fuel industry under pressure to cut record-high methane emissions

Food companies’ agricultural activities, especially raising livestock, and fossil fuel operations, largely from oil and gas companies, are responsible for nearly equal parts of 75% of human-caused methane emissions worldwide.

Food and energy corporations must confront the escalating material financial risks they face from climate change. Lowering methane emissions is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to slow the overheating of our planet in the short term.

There are three key actions companies across both sectors can take to mitigate their main sources of methane pollutants – and in doing so, accelerate the transition to more sustainable and resilient systems for feeding and powering our world.

Disclose plans for reducing emissions

Before they can tackle them, companies need to understand what their methane emissions are, where they come from, and how they can reduce them. These details should be disclosed in their transition plans so that external stakeholders, including investors who use the information to evaluate climate risk in their portfolios, can hold companies accountable for voluntary methane commitments.

More major food companies benchmarked by Ceres in our investor-led Food Emissions 50 initiative are reporting the drivers of their supply chain emissions, but only a few, such as Yum! Brands and Starbucks, have disclosed how they address livestock emissions. Since most of the sector’s methane emissions – and around 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions – stem from livestock, it’s critical that companies include this in their plans.

Oil and gas companies, for their part, should join sector-wide efforts like the United Nations Environment Programme’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0, which seeks to improve accuracy and transparency of methane data and track corporate progress. Over 130 businesses globally are participating in this partnership and have committed to report their measurement-based emissions, set a methane reduction target, and submit an implementation plan.

Leverage technology

In both sectors, companies must embrace existing and emerging technologies for the global community to successfully reach its methane reduction goals.

Food companies won’t be able to meet their emissions targets using current agricultural technologies and practices, but livestock emissions could be cut substantially through sustainable changes to farming practices. Companies will have to invest in, and incentivise farmers to adopt, new technologies that are already gaining traction, such as seaweed feed additives for cattle, and other proven and ready-to-deploy methods for curtailing agricultural methane.

To achieve net zero by 2050, methane emissions from fossil fuel operations need to fall by around 75% between 2022 and 2030. That may seem like an enormous task, but oil and gas companies can avoid more than 75% of current emissions using known technology, including replacing methane-emitting equipment with zero-emitting alternatives, with close to 50% of emissions avoidable at no net cost.

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Advocate for new policies

Government policies can create new opportunities and mandates that support sector-wide methane action – and companies need to advocate for them. Ahead of Cop27, 800-plus investors representing nearly $42 trillion assets under management signalled just how essential policies are to reaching a net zero economy when they called on governments to radically increase their climate ambition.

Recently, we have seen new policies open important pathways for funding and advancing lower-emissions agricultural solutions, such as when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration streamlined the process for methane-inhibiting feed additives to gain regulatory approval last month. Before and at Cop28, the European Union adopted more stringent regulations, and Canada proposed robust regulations to significantly reduce oil and gas methane emissions.

With the international climate community’s eyes on methane this week, and 2030 rapidly approaching, it’s time to focus on igniting action where the opportunity – and responsibility – for cutting emissions is the greatest. If food and fossil-fuel companies do not clean up their operations, they will not be able to uphold their climate commitments, nor will we meet our global methane goals.

The post Companies still missing in action on methane-cutting goals appeared first on Climate Home News.

It is the first such decision the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has taken since its creation in 2010.

The GCF said on Thursday it had terminated its agreement with project developers after their failure to comply with its rules on environmental and social safeguards resulted in “legal breaches”.

In 2020, the fund committed $64 million to the programme run by the Nicaraguan government and the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), which aimed to reduce deforestation in the UNESCO-designated Bosawás and Rio San Juan biosphere reserves.

The GCF said it had not paid out any funds before terminating its support for the project and no activities had yet taken place.

Community groups warned that the project was going to be carried out in reserves being deforested by a massive invasion of settlers that use violence against Indigenous people with impunity due to weak law enforcement action. They worried that the programme – which was to be overseen by state authorities – would worsen those conflicts and fail to protect the rights of Indigenous communities.

Amaru Ruiz, director of the Nicaraguan organisation Fundación del Río, which supported the affected communities, welcomed the decision by the GCF.

“This sets a precedent globally for the functioning of the fund,” he said. “It is also a recognition of the struggle and resistance of the Indigenous people and Afro-descendant communities of Nicaragua, and it shows that there is a window of opportunity to insist on the fact that climate projects must not violate human rights.”

Fuelling conflicts

The decision concludes a grievance process that has lasted nearly three years since a coalition of local and international NGOs filed a complaint with the GCF. They accused the project of fuelling a violent conflict between Indigenous communities and settlers who were grabbing land to farm cattle and exploit resources, as well as failing to consult local people.

The Bosawas Reserve in Nicaragua has been hit by illegal mining and logging despite protected status. Photo: Rebecca Ore

Independent legal observers have documented repeated attacks against Indigenous people in the area with dozens murdered, kidnapped or raped over the last few years.

An investigation by the GCF’s independent complaint mechanism deemed their concerns justified. It found a series of failures with the project that could “cause or exacerbate” violent conflict. The probe also highlighted a lack of due diligence on conflict risks and human rights violations and the absence of free and informed consultations with Indigenous communities before the project’s approval.

The GCF said it was unaware that the project was not in compliance with its policies at the time of its approval and that new evidence had subsequently been brought to light.

Late-stage consultation

Following the internal investigation, the GCF board agreed last July to suspend the project until it addressed local concerns and fully respected the fund’s policies and procedures. It effectively gave the project developers one last chance to fix the problems.

In an attempt to remedy the issues, CABEI carried out a consultation and engagement process with local communities between August and September. The project developer said a total of 5,550 people participated in 69 events across the region.

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But NGOs criticised it as a “sham”, saying participants were only provided with a brochure in Spanish – a foreign language for many Indigenous people – and were given limited freedom to debate the proposal.

“There’s been an increase in militarisation in the territory,” said Ruiz. “At least eight Indigenous community forest guards were detained after they had denounced the situation of encroachment on their territory”.

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Since 2007, Nicaragua has been ruled by an authoritarian regime led by President Daniel Ortega. His administration has been responsible for “widespread and systematic human rights violations that amount to crimes against humanity”, according to the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua.

CABEI detailed in a report sent to the GCF in October the steps that had been taken to make the project compliant with its rules. But the fund’s secretariat, its administrative arm, found the issues were not addressed to its satisfaction and decided to terminate its participation in the programme.

It communicated the decision to its board members at a meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, this week.

Lesson for the future

The GCF secretariat says it is now committed to working collaboratively with CABEI and the Nicaraguan government to “develop a clear strategy to conclude the project in an orderly and responsible manner”. That will include informing people on the ground and “managing the expectations” of the potential beneficiaries.

CABEI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Florencia Ortúzar, a lawyer at the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), said she hoped the GCF would learn a lesson from this case.

“It is a reminder of the importance of including local communities from the very beginning of project design,” she told Climate Home. “The GCF policies and safeguards exist to prevent those regrettable situations and must be implemented rigorously and consistently.”

The post UN climate fund axes Nicaragua forest project over human rights concerns appeared first on Climate Home News.

Not long ago Poland embodied Europe’s worst nature-destroying tendencies. 

The post While Europe’s green backlash grows, Poland tells different story appeared first on Climate Home News.

A building has been rented and equipment is being purchased for the center that will have police representatives from the other seven countries of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO).

The Center for International Police Cooperation (CCPI), now scheduled to be up and running in the first quarter of this year, will be financed with 9 million reais ($1.8 million) from the Amazon Fund, a multinational donation effort started by Norway to help finance sustainable development in the Amazon.

The center will fight drug trafficking and the smuggling of timber, fish and exotic animals, as well as deforestation and other environmental crimes, Humberto Freire, head of the Federal Police’s Environment and Amazon department, said in an interview on Friday. Illegal gold mining on protected reservations of Indigenous peoples like the Yanomami, will also be a priority, he said.

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Uniting the Amazon countries against criminal activity in the world’s largest tropical rainforest is key to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s effort to restore Brazil’s environmental credentials after four years of soaring deforestation under his hard-right predecessor, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazil will share with its Amazon neighbors the technology the Federal Police is developing to trace the origins of gold illegally extracted by wildcat miners in the rainforest, Freire said.

This technology, which should establish the “DNA of gold,” uses radioisotopes to determine what prospect the gold comes from by checking particles of the metal, ore or dirt against samples collected from gold mining areas across Brazil, a vast mapping process that is near completion, he said.

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ACTO members will be asked to do the same mapping of samples on their countries, Freire said.

The police developed the technology with the University of Sao Paulo and has 50 million reais from the Amazon Fund to implement a program that will require a radioisotope scan, possibly from Japan, and handheld radioisotope identification devices to be used in ports and airports, he said.

The Brazilian government wants to spend some of the Amazon Fund on paving a road through the rainforest, a move critics say will worsen forest destruction. Two major donors – the US and Germany – have warned the fund’s board against approving this spending.

The post Amazon nations to tackle rainforest crime together in donor-funded new office appeared first on Climate Home News.

A spokesperson for the German government, the fund’s second-biggest donor, told Climate Home that support for such a project “is not possible” according to the rules of the fund, which was specifically set up to reduce forest destruction in the Amazon.

The United States is “confident” the fund will use its resources “consistent with its governing regulations”, a US State Department spokesperson told Climate Home.

Environmentalists fear the project would trigger an explosion in forest destruction by giving illegal loggers easier access to remote areas of the rainforest.

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Investment in large-scale infrastructure projects is not listed among the target actions of the 2008 presidential decree that established how the fund should spend its money.

But officials in the Lula administration want to tap the green funds for the paving of the 900-kilometre long BR-319 highway, cutting through the rainforest and connecting Manaus and Porto Velho.

The lower house of the Brazilian Congress voted last December in favour of a bill that would allow for the use of conservation funds to finance public works aimed at “recovering, paving and increasing the capacity” of the road. The bill needs Senate approval before becoming law.

The German government said it “is observing the developments closely”. A spokesperson added that, if the bill was conclusively approved, the German government would affirm to the Amazon Fund’s managers that its resources cannot be used to pave the road.

‘Tremendous consequences’

Research shows every major highway project in the Amazon has set off a surge in land grabbing and illegal deforestation.

Philip Fearnside, a scientist at the National Institute for Amazonian Research in Manaus, told Climate Home “the consequences would be tremendous”.

He added that trees would not only be cleared on the roadside, but the project would create an interconnected network of major roads giving deforesters access to a much larger area.

Built in the 1970s by a military government, the BR-319 was abandoned a decade later due to a lack of maintenance.

Since disintegrated into a dirt road, much of the route is now impassable during the rainy season. Vehicles that attempt it during dry months crawl along the broken pavement.

A section of BR-319 in the Amazonas state of Brazil. Photo: Agencia CNT de Noticias

The Brazilian government has been sketching out plans to restore the highway on economic and social development grounds.

The transport minister, Renan Filho, announced last August that he was planning to pitch the Amazon Fund’s governing board a project to pave the road.

This would turn the road into the world’s “most sustainable highway” and would allow easier access for police patrols to monitor and prevent deforestation, the ministry argued.

But environmentalists argued that this is not the kind of project that the fund is meant to support. One of the fund’s creators, forest scientist Tasso Azevedo said the project “does not fit into any of the fund’s planned support lines”.

Amazon Fund revived

Created in 2008, the Amazon Fund has over $1.2 billion available for projects that prevent, monitor and combat deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The fund’s largest donors are Norway, Germany, the US, Switzerland and state-owned oil company Petrobras.

They have promised to inject an extra $800 million into the fund since President Lula revived the mechanism on his first day in office in 2023 after three years of inactivity.

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Western donors had stopped money transfers in 2019, under the previous government of Jair Bolsonaro, after the former president unilaterally suspended the board of directors and the technical committee of the fund.

The Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) manages the fund and decides how to allocate its resources.

Last September it told Climate Home that any requests are processed “in accordance with the strategic vision, guidelines and focuses” outlined in the 2023-25 ​​Biennium, a new set of guidelines created by the Amazon Fund’s Guiding Committee. It has not replied to further requests for comment.

Donors sceptical over plans

A spokesperson for Germany’s Ministry for cooperation and development, said the use of Amazon Fund resources “is clearly defined and restricted” by the presidential decree underpinning the fund’s creation. “Based on these rules and regulations, the use of financial resources for paving a road through the rainforest is not possible”, they added.

A US State Department spokesperson said they “are confident” the BNDES will use the fund’s resources “consistent with its governing regulations and Brazil’s public commitment to cease all deforestation in the Legal Amazon by 2030”.

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A spokesperson for the Norwegian embassy in Brazil said it is for the Brazilian government through BNDES to decide on the specific use of the resources in the Amazon Fund. “The Norwegian Government has no say in the selection of projects”, it added.

The Brazilian government controls BNDES and appoints its head. “It is not an independent institution and the government has put pressure on its decisions in the past”, says Fearnside. “It just depends on how high a priority the project is for the government. The indication is that, except for the Ministry of Environment, the rest of the government is in favour of this highway”.

Fast-tracking process

Meanwhile, a group of parliamentarians from the Amazon regions brought a new bill to Congress aiming to fast-track the construction project. The text, approved under a special ‘urgency’ procedure, calls the highway “critical infrastructure, indispensable to national security”. 

The bill would authorize the use of donations received by Brazil to help conservation of the Amazon for the repair works on BR-319.

“We want a road that gives us the right to go back and forth, to transport goods, to buy food. This is the only highway in Brazil that is not paved, we cannot treat people from the North as second-class citizens”, said Alberto Neto, the author of the bill, after its approval in the lower chamber.  

The article was updated on 11/01 to add a comment received after publication

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With vast sunbaked, windswept deserts and 2.5 million people, the southern African nation has plenty of renewable resources to go around. 

Meanwhile rich, densely populated Europe, South Korea and Japan are crying out for clean fuel to decarbonise hard-to-electrify sectors like fertilisers, steel and shipping. Their net zero plans depend on it. 

Keen to secure pole position in the global race for green hydrogen, last year the EU began reaching agreements with prospective producers. One of the most trumpeted deals was signed with Namibia on the sidelines of Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. 

“We want to fight climate change. We want to have clean energy. And as I said, you have all the resources in abundance. So let us team up,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in the direction of her Namibian counterpart, hailing the partnership as a “big win-win situation for all of us”. 

Tapping into solar and wind energy for export is central to President Hage Geingob’s economic strategy. Namibia is seeking $20 billion of investment in green hydrogen – more than its entire GDP of $12 billion in 2022. Government authorities are negotiating funding options with the EU. 

As with any heavy industry, though, the hoped-for boom will come at a cost to local communities and ecosystems. The benefits to ordinary Namibians are less certain. 

Namibia is planning a series of projects to catapult the country into becoming a major green hydrogen exporter. (Credit: Fanis Kollias/Spoovio)

In a months-long investigation, Climate Home News and Oxpeckers visited the site of the flagship project, a $10 billion complex near the southern coastal town of Lüderitz, which is being developed by a Namibia-based company called Hyphen Hydrogen Energy.

The reporter on the ground found a community largely in the dark about the development and nervous about the impact on fishing and tourism. Experts shared frustration at the secretive tender process, scepticism about job prospects for Namibians and concerns for the area’s unique wildlife. 

The green hydrogen complex 

Perched between the Namib desert and the Atlantic Ocean, Lüderitz is named after a German colonist. It was the centre of a diamond rush in 20th century and of a colonial history that repressed indigenous Africans. Germany officially apologised in 2021 for colonial-era atrocities, recognising them as “genocide”. 

Today, its Art Nouveau architecture, fresh seafood and wildlife draws a modest number of tourists, who can visit ghost towns abandoned after the diamond rush. The town is surrounded by the Tsau//Khaeb National Park, home to seals, penguins, flamingoes and ostriches. The park and surrounding lands are off-limits to residents to prevent illegal diamond mining. 

Green hydrogen is set to to transform the character of this small enclave once again. 

Hyphen’s plans show an initial 5GW of wind turbines and solar panels to supply power, according to the project’s factsheet published by the Namibian government. In this arid region, a desalination plant is needed to supply fresh water. An electrolysis plant will split the water into hydrogen and oxygen, before the hydrogen gas is converted into liquid ammonia. A new deepwater port will accommodate tankers to ship the end product around the world. The company aims to produce 300,000 tons of ammonia a year, commissioning the first phase by 2026, Hyphen’s website says. 

To build all this, Hyphen expects to bring in 15,000 workers, roughly doubling Lüderitz’s population. Lüderitz Town Council is planning a new town in the desert to house the influx, immediately south of the historic Kolmanskuppe ghost town. 

An opaque tender process 

“We were a little surprised at the government’s choice of a partner,” said Phil Balhao, an opposition party member of the Lüderitz Town Council.  

Other bidders like South Africa’s Sasol and Australian Fortescue Future Industries had an “established track record” that “seemingly just got ignored”, he said. 

The tender process was overseen by the Namibia Investments Development & Promotions Board (NIDPB), which sits in the president’s office. In September 2020, the board appointed James Mnyupe as green hydrogen commissioner. It launched the first call for proposals in early 2021. 

In a televised speech, Mnyupe said the tender was exempt from public procurement rules. Instead, he cited tourism and conservation laws as the basis to hold a closed selection process. 

Graham Hopwood, director of the Institute of Public Policy Research, a public-interest think-tank based in Windhoek, was not impressed.

“With such a major and strategic project, there needs to be transparency and accountability from the outset. The fact that this project is mired in secrecy is raising red flags,” he said.

The Namibian government published a list of six bidders, who submitted nine bids between them. However, the content of the bids was not made public, nor the reasoning for Hyphen’s selection. 

Hyphen said this was standard practice, given the commercially sensitive data contained in the bids. They added the process was “competitive”. 

“It would be irresponsible and to the detriment to the development of the Hyphen project and Namibia’s broader green hydrogen industry for it to publish commercially sensitive agreements in the public domain that competitor projects/countries could use to compete against Namibia,” Hyphen said in a statement. 

The Namibian government said the tender was “conducted with the utmost transparency and fairness”. 

They said that the three-person bid evaluation committee did a “detailed and comprehensive evaluation” of the proposals, supported by independent experts from the US government’s national renewable energy laboratory and the EU’s technical assistance facility on sustainable energy.

Who is Hyphen? 

Hyphen is a joint venture between two companies – Enertrag and Nicholas Holdings Limited. 

Enertrag, owned by a 59-year-old East German nuclear physicist called Jörg Müller has a long track record of building renewables. It is pursuing green hydrogen projects across the world in Uruguay, Vietnam and South Africa. 

Nicholas Holdings Limited is a company registered in the British Virgin Islands, which owns its stake in Hyphen through a special purpose vehicle based in Mauritius. The ultimate owner of the company is a South African investor called Brian Myerson.

The CEO of Hyphen is South African businessman Marco Raffinetti. 

Myerson is a South African who spent decades as an investor in the UK, where he made headlines for battling the business establishment.

In 2010, Myerson was found by a panel of top UK lawyers to have behaved dishonestly in averting a takeover of Principle Capital, the investment firm he co-founded.

The Takeover Appeal Board found that Myerson and co-conspirators made a “deliberate attempt to circumvent” rules around taking over companies and then attempted to cover up their rule-breaking when the authorities began to investigate. He was banned from getting involved in mergers for three years. 

Dishing out the punishment, the panel said it was only the second time it had done so, which it said, “is some indication of the extreme nature of the sanction”. 

A spokesperson for Hyphen, Enertrag and Nicholas Holdings Limited described this incident as a “historic matter” over “an alleged technical infringement” which “remains contested”. It should not be used to draw conclusions about Myerson’s character, they argued. 

They added that the Takeover Appeal Board had no formal regulatory powers and UK financial regulators took no action in respect of the alleged breach of the rules. 

A spokesperson for the Namibian government said it these were “historical legal matters, that to best of our knowledge have since been resolved”. 

Myerson’s previous ventures on the African continent include a failed bid to scale up bioethanol production in Mozambique. Like today’s green hydrogen push, this was driven by EU demand: in 2007, the bloc set a to blend a percentage of biofuels into petrol. Investors piled into Mozambique, touting it as a “biofuels superpower”.

Myerson set up Principle Energy, based on the Isle of Man. It made bold promises to plant sugarcane over 20,000 hectares of land, build one of the top production facilities in the world and employ 1,600 people. Then the global bioethanol market collapsed and by 2013 the company closed, having planted just 136 hectares, according to a report by GRAIN. 

His involvement in Hyphen is likely to be of concern, said IPPR’s Hopwood, adding Hyphen’s leadership was “questionable”.

Use of tax havens

Myerson’s investment in Hyphen is structured through the British Virgin Islands and Mauritius. Both rank poorly in the Tax Justice Network’s financial secrecy and corporate tax haven indexes. 

Raffinetti said that Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands were “tax neutral jurisdictions with efficient financial markets”. A lot of infrastructure investment in Africa goes through Mauritius, he said, and investors are subject to tax in the countries where they are registered. 

Tax Justice Network analyst Bob Michel said that investment into Africa goes through Mauritius because of its tax rules. “Mauritius is a corporate tax haven,” he said.

“(Mauritius’) domestic tax regime combined with its vast tax treaty network allow third country investors to use it to siphon profits from operations in Africa with the least of taxes paid in the countries where the operations take place,” Michel said by email.

A spokesperson for the Namibian government said it was “aware of the jurisdictions through which certain Hyphen shareholders hold their equity in Hyphen”.  

The spokesperson added: “Should [the Namibian government] come across any conduct that is unbecoming of its laws and global best practice, rest assured [we] will take the necessary swift corrective action.”

Great expectations 

Raffinetti, Hyphen’s CEO, previously developed gas power and rooftop solar bids in South Africa. The Richard Bay gas project he co-led is facing legal challenge by environmental activists due to its climate impact.

Wearing glasses and a black turtleneck, Raffinetti joined a video call with Climate Home in late October. He warned interviewers the internet might cut out due to the power cuts his native South Africa is plagued with.

The interview was granted, through a PR agency, on condition Hyphen could vet the quotes used. Some of the more colloquial soundbites reporters transcribed came back replaced with cautious jargon, and an admonition to put everything in its full context. Hyphen separately responded in writing to detailed concerns raised by sources.

“There’s an enormous amount of expectation in Namibia around this project. So there’s a huge amount of media attention,” Raffinetti said in one approved quote. “As the first large-scale project in Namibia’s green industrialisation strategy, we have an enormous obligation to get it right.”

Biodiversity concerns 

Dr Jean-Paul Roux, a retired marine biologist working in the area for decades, pointed to where the Luderitz peninsula ends at Angra Point. It is the northernmost tip of the Karoo ecosystem, he explained, unique to southern Africa.

In the dry summer season, the desert landscape looks drab and lifeless. Winter rains bring a green explosion of rare plants such as the endemic Lithops optica, a tiny succulent that gets as old as 90 years. 

“Here you can find up to 1,000 different plant species in just one square kilometre, some so small no bulldozer operator will even notice them,” he said. He spots signs of hyenas and porcupines. 

This is the area earmarked for the deepwater port, desalination and ammonia plants. 

Roux said the development would have a massive impact on Shearwater Bay and the adjacent Sturmvogelbucht, a lagoon teeming with flamingos and a heavy-sided dolphin population that he has been studying for years and visits every day. 

“This is the only place along the southern African coast where you can watch them from your car,” he said as this smallest of all dolphin species approached to within a few meters of the beach. He fears that once developers start blasting rock for the port construction, dolphins will leave and never return. 

The Tsau//Khaeb National Park is classified by Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism as a biodiversity hotspot. (Credit: Fanis Kollias/Spoovio/Luderitz Marine Research)

Dr Antje Burke, a veteran botanist, is working as a consultant to Hyphen. She said at a conference of the Namibian Scientific Society in July that Hyphen was trying to avoid the most sensitive areas, but “one big problem” is that a species of parsley “overlaps almost completely with the concession area”. 

She added that “even more concerning” was the future development plans. “The Hyphen project is developing the service infrastructure really keeping the future developments in mind… That means the entire area will be developed.”

Burke indicated some adjustments that could mitigate the environmental impact.

“No green energy project can be implemented without some environmental impact and Hyphen’s objective is to minimise environmental impacts to the largest extent possible,” Hyphen CEO Marco Raffinetti said in an interview with Climate Home. 

The company has hired consultancy SLR to prepare an environmental and social impact report and lead a “comprehensive stakeholder engagement process”, Hyphen added in a written statement.

Consultants are currently gathering meteorological data and reporting a baseline of wildlife and plants in the area, SLR reports say. The formal environmental impact study is expected to start next year, the official documents add.

A group of Flamingoes at a lagoon within the Tsau//Khaeb National Park in Namibia, where green hydrogen developments are meant to ship the gas to the EU. (Photo: John Grobler)

Loss of access 

Aside from the northern end of the bay, the peninsula is the only publicly accessible area of the Lüderitz region. The rest is Sperrgebiet or “forbidden area” – a legacy of the diamond rush. 

Some of Hyphen’s infrastructure will reduce public access to the peninsula. Hyphen’s Raffinetti said this was “unavoidable” as it was “the only location feasible for a deepwater port”. 

The other access to the sea is the four-kilometre Agate Beach to the north of the enclave, downwind from the last few local fishing factories and an overflowing municipal sewage plant. 

Residents fear this would impact lobster fishing and rock angling. Crayfish fisheries, one of the area’s tourism attractions and an informal source of income would also be affected, locals said. 

“The people in the township’s poorest areas [have] got nowhere else to go. They are going to strip this bay [Agate beach] clean of everything,” said Gerd Kessler, a fourth-generation Buchter as locals call themselves, referring to a potential concentration of fisheries in the area.  

As owner of Five Roses Aquaculture and three smaller oyster-breeding operations, Kessler employs 100 people. 

Felsenkirche, a Lutheran church built in 1912 in Lüderitz. (Photo: SkyPixels/Wikimedia Commons)

A massive new seawall and harbour at Angra Point could have unpredictable impacts on currents in the bay, he cautioned. When the existing shallow port was expanded in the late 1960s by filling in the channel between the town and Shark Island, the sea quickly stripped away the town’s little beach inside Robert Harbour. 

Kessler’s biggest concern was how Hyphen planned to dispose of the brine from their desalination plant. “You can’t just dump that anywhere, you have to make sure you use the currents to disperse it,” Kessler said. 

Questionable job prospects 

Hyphen expects to create 15,000 jobs in the construction phase and 3,000 to operate the finished complex. It is aiming for 90% of these jobs to go to Namibians, and 30% to youth. 

There is a huge skills gap, Namibian business groups warned. 

“We do not even have a category for petrochemical or petroleum engineers at the moment,” said Sophia Tekie, chairperson of the Engineering Council of Namibia (ECN). “If we have any, they are registered as [one of 40] chemical engineers.” 

“Although the ECN has 2,015 registered engineers in eight disciplines at present, about 30 to 40% of them were already retired and only did part-time consultancy work,” said her predecessor, Markus von Jeney. 

Local construction capacity did not look much better: according to Bärbel Kircher, director of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), their membership had declined from 480 companies in 2015 to 240 member companies, operating at only 50% capacity, she said.  

“Currently, our local contractors are largely displaced by foreign contractors, excluding them from opportunities. This is often due to conditions set by external financiers,” said Kircher.  

In the past, the country has struggled to complete large projects due to corruption charges.  

Since 2013, the Namibian Ports Authority, the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia and the Ministry of Agriculture have borrowed over N$21 billion (about US$400 million each, mostly from the African Development Bank) for infrastructure projects, including the 3MW Neckartal dam.  

The Namibian High Court declared the dam was commissioned in 2008 under corrupted circumstances. The project was eventually completed at three times the original price in 2017. 

Namibian construction companies were not likely to benefit from the green hydrogen projects, the CiF said. “The current procurement methods and trends do not provide a promising outlook for the future,” said Kirchner. 

Hyphen said the company would implement “targeted training interventions at various levels” including “specialized Masters’ programs, internships and apprenticeships”. 

The Karoo ecosystem is unique to Southern Africa. The Tsau//Khaeb National Park is a biodiversity hotspot hosting a part of this ecosystem. (Photo: John Grobler)

European support 

Under the memorandum of understanding signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, the EU will provide technical expertise, trade incentives and, crucially, help to secure infrastructure finance. 

Moments after von der Leyen and Geingob inked their deal, the European Investment Bank promised loans of up to €500 million ($528m) for renewable hydrogen investments in Namibia. “Let’s bring flesh to the bone,” the bank’s chief Werner Hoyer told the audience. 

Shortly after the event, Hyphen announced that it had “signed a €35 million agreement with the European Investment Bank to finance the early development of our project”. This was somewhat premature. The bank had supplied a letter of intent, not a firm commitment of funding. 

Since the initial announcement, European institutions, Namibian government officials and private actors have been working out the details of the partnership. 

Hyphen is looking for €100 million to start work on the project.

“We have been very grateful to the EIB and the European Commission for making available the initial funding to share the early development risk,” said Raffinetti in late September, suggesting a firm commitment from the European backers. 

The Hyphen CEO went on to outline what the deal with the EIB should look like: a €10 million ($10.5 million) grant – “still to be finalised,” he added – and a €25 million ($26.4 million) “soft loan”, meaning it would come with favourable terms for the company.

An EIB spokesperson said no agreement has been signed yet. “We are in the process of completing our due diligence, after which the project will be presented to the EIB’s governing bodies for approval,” they said.

“Potential financial support at this early stage would be for site studies and feasibility studies. Any support for implementation will be conditional to the project complying with the Bank’s environmental and social (E&S), procurement, compliance and other standards,” they added.

Namibia’s president Hage Geingob, EIB president Werner Hoyer, Belgian prime minister Alexander de Croco and EU president Ursula von der Leyen announcing the EU green hydrogen partnership with Namibia at Cop27. (Photo: EIB)

On top of the cash injection, the EU’s international partnership division could provide a first-loss guarantee. If the project does not go to plan and the borrower cannot pay back its debt, the EU will pick up the tab – or at least part of it. 

Without the “bedrock” of public money it would be impossible to lure in commercial lenders and leave a huge funding gap, Raffinetti said. 

A European Commission spokesperson told Climate Home that “at present, there is not yet any financial assistance under the EU budget mobilised in favour of the Hyphen project”.

The Netherlands is also supporting the project. Dutch companies like the Port of Rotterdam and gas pipeline operator Gasunie see a business opportunity to offload the green ammonia from ships and pipe it to industry inland.

In June, green hydrogen commissioner Mnyupe told a national newspaper that the Dutch government had given Namibia a €40m grant to develop green hydrogen. He said the government would use €23m of this to buy a stake in Hyphen.

The Dutch said the money was not Namibia’s to spend. The €40m grant comes from Invest International, a public fund set up in 2019 to advance Dutch interests abroad and promote economic growth in the developing world. 

Invest International’s lead on hydrogen Bart De Smet told Climate Home that the €40m grant will be distributed by a fund manager independent of the Namibian government and won’t necessarily go to Hyphen. 

Who benefits? 

The big question for Namibians is whether the inevitable disturbance of a unique ecosystem and small-town culture will be worth it. 

The Namibian government is taking a 24% stake in Hyphen through its sovereign wealth fund. It is expected to raise further revenues through taxes, royalties, land rental and environmental levies on the project, Hyphen said. 

“The benefit for the country in terms of economic upliftment is enormous. Because Namibia is only 2.5 million people. So if you’re successful, your impact on each human being’s life can be enormous,” Raffinetti said. 

Patrick Neib, an unemployed resident of the Nautilus township behind Luderitz, could certainly use some upliftment. He moved to the area in 2015 in search of a better job that has yet to materialise. 

Like many residents, he found out about Hyphen from social media. Most of Hyphen’s public meetings took place in Keetmanshoop, the regional capital 350 km away. 

The secrecy and technical jargon used by Hyphen and its consultants made it impossible for the ordinary layman to understand or access any opportunities, Neib said.  

“There is just no public discussion about the benefits for ordinary people like me, or what price we are to pay for green hydrogen development,” he said. “My question is, who or what is really behind all of this?” 

This story was reported in collaboration with Oxpeckers Investigative Journalism Centre and was supported by a grant from Journalismfund Europe.

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Flood water had destroyed all her corn crops, an essential lifeline to feed her family and earn a modest income. The spiralling costs of seeds and fertilisers put replanting beyond her reach.

“The cyclone left me completely with nothing”, she told Climate Home News.

As Sandram searched for help, she said no relief was available aside from the limited support she could obtain from family members.

Elube Sandram was among the beneficiaries of the UK-funded programme in Malawi’s Chikwawa district. Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe

Her problems could have been prevented. In 2018, she registered for a £52 million ($63m) UK aid programme which helped vulnerable Malawians better cope with climate-driven floods and droughts.

But during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the UK government cut back its aid spending, ending support for Sandram and many others in Malawi and around the world.

Let down

The programme that Sandram was involved with was run by UN agencies and NGOs and helped farmers by providing them with tools, training on things like pig farming and financial assistance like weather-related insurance or cash transfers.

The idea was that it’s not quite so disastrous if a flood or a drought destroys a farmers’ crops if they have livestock or an insurance payout to keep putting food on the table.

But following the UK’s cutbacks, several parts of the scheme have been reduced or axed altogether.

The activities run by a group of NGOs were wound down in 2021, two and a half years before their scheduled end. Concern Worldwide and Goal Malawi, the main implementing partners, closed their local offices. Only a series of projects with a more limited scope operated by UN agencies are still running.

Aubrey Kabudula, a farmer from Kwataine Village in Chikwawa, told Climate Home: “We were told that one of the objectives is to help people to be climate-resilient.”

“With its abrupt closure we do not think that has been achieved,” he said.

World Bank to initially host loss and damage fund under draft deal

It is an assessment shared by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), the UK body tasked with scrutinising how foreign aid is spent.

In June, they said that the project had been “highly effective and coherent” but had been “undermined” by cutbacks to aid and the downsizing or removal of components.

A rice field in Malawi’s Karonga region affected by drought in early 2023. Credit: Eldson Chagara

Issues are only likely to get worse. Malawi is increasingly struggling with more frequent and intense cycles of flooding and droughts. The passage of Cyclone Freddy in March killed more than 600 people and displaced at least 650,000 more, while also dismantling infrastructures and livelihoods.

Climate shocks have exacerbated poverty levels, especially for rural farmers. The World Bank estimates that over half of the country’s 19.1 million people live in poverty with women being the most affected. Low agriculture production because of droughts and floods is cited as one of the main causes.

Rishi Sunak’s rollbacks

Countries like Malawi cannot afford to address these problems alone.

Unsustainable levels of existing public debt rule out borrowing at expensive rates as an option. Most of Malawi’s climate plans are funded through grant-based international public finance provided by rich countries like the United Kingdom.

At the United National General Assembly in 2019 the then-prime minister Boris Johnson made a big, and unexpected, announcement.

He promised the UK would double its international climate finance to reach a target of £11.6 billion ($14.2bn) in 2026.

Only a few months later the global Covid-19 pandemic upended daily lives and economic orders, prompting an abrupt rethink of spending priorities.

International aid was one of the casualties. Then finance minister Rishi Sunak cut its foreign aid target from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.

With Sunak now prime minister, this “temporary measure” has yet to be reversed.

Since then, the competition for a shrinking pool of money has intensified as aid funding has been diverted to support Afghan and Ukrainian refugees hosted in the UK.

Australia to accept migrants from climate-hit Tuvalu in security pact

An internal government document reported on by the Guardian suggested the £11.6bn goal could be dropped as general aid cut-backs make it a “huge challenge”.

Not just Malawi

The cuts have hit climate projects around the world. UK-funded climate resilience projects have been cut or delayed in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Kenya and small-island states.

Government figures show that the number of people whose climate resilience was improved by UK aid flatlined for the first time since records began in the last financial year.

In India, a foreign office report found that budget cuts meant that activities to help rural communities cope with climate impacts had been “reduced, slowed down and stopped in some instances”.

In Pakistan, a foreign office report found that a £38 million ($46m) climate resilience plan had been paused for 18 months because of “uncertainty… following significant and unanticipated costs incurred to support the people of Ukraine and Afghanistan in finding refuge in the UK.

A large-scale project aiming to help a series of African countries build resilience to climate change suffered a significant “scale back from its original ambition”, as its annual summary said.

The programme envisaged a £250 million ($306m) budget in its business case, but this has now been reduced to “up to £100 million” ($122m).

Targets have been scaled back too. One original target was to improve the resilience of four million people through an early-warning system. That’s been reduced to three million.

In Chikwawa the climate project has still left a mark in the minds of many people despite the cutbacks.

The beneficiaries now hope that the country, a former British colony, will not be entirely forgotten.

“I am still optimistic that the assistance that we were receiving from the donor [UK government], will not be gone forever,” said Sandram. “And if I were to be asked whether that funding should resume or not, I will say it should resume because climate change is here to stay.”

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Nearly two years on, Climate Home News looks at how these commitments are holding up to the test of time.

• Methane Pledge
• Forest Pledge
• International Fossil Finance Pledge
• Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ)

METHANE PLEDGE

WHAT: Reduce human-made methane emissions by 30% between 2020 and 2030. Cutting the amount of methane present in the atmosphere is important because it is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide despite having a shorter lifespan.

WHO: 104 countries, led by the US and the EU, signed up to the pledge when it was first announced at Cop26 in Glasgow. The number of signatories has since risen to 150. However, they only represent about half of global methane emissions as China, India and Russia – three of the world’s top four emitters – have not joined the coalition.

HOW IT IS GOING: The raw figures paint a fairly grim picture. Since Cop26, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere has kept rising fast and it is now more than two and a half times its pre-industrial level.

Over half of the emissions come from human activities, like fossil fuel extraction, farming and landfills, with the rest caused by natural sources. Under current trajectories, total human-made methane emissions could rise by up to 13% between 2020 and 2030 – the pledge’s timeframe.

This graph shows the globally-averaged, monthly atmospheric methane concentration since 1983. Image credit: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

Targeting the oil and gas sector is seen by many as the easiest and fastest way to bring down emissions in the near term. Experts say existing technologies already provide cheap and effective ways to plug leaky infrastructure like pipelines and gas storage tanks.

However, the technological developments have not yet been converted into real, widespread action. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), methane emissions from oil and gas remained “stubbornly high” in 2022 even as the energy companies’ bumper profits made actions to reduce them cheaper than ever. “There is just no excuse”, the IEA chief Fatih Birol commented.

Raft of initiatives

But judging the pledge’s progress on current numbers only tells half the story, argued Jonathan Banks, global director of the methane programme at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). “Emissions are not going to turn around immediately,” he told Climate Home. “If you look at the work going into the pledge, building the funding and technical resources to bring emissions down, I think it could potentially be on track for success”.

A series of initiatives have been set up to help countries deliver on the pledge. The UN’s Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) is helping over 30 developed and developing countries to establish plans to achieve the 2030 target.

Canada has set out a strategy that it expects to reduce domestic methane emissions by “more than 35%” by 2030, compared to 2020.

Methane leaking from Chelmsford compressor station, UK on 15 October 2021, picked up by a special camera (Photo: Clean Air Task Force/ James Turitto)

The Global Methane Hub (GMH), a philanthropic organisation, is also supporting signatories of the methane pledge with technical assistance and funding. Carolina Urmeneta, a director at the GMH, told Climate Home News that over the last year, the group has focused its work on developing systems to monitor methane emissions rates from oil and gas and landfill installations using satellites.

She said reaching the 2030 target “is possible and cost-effective, but it is not easy. We need to improve data transparency and increase funding for projects with methane targets.”

Regulations drive

Some progress has also been made on the regulatory front. The USA introduced new rules to address methane emissions caused by oil and gas companies through the Inflation Reduction Act. Using a carrot-and-stick approach, it provides $1 billion in public subsidies to take action, while charging a fee for excessive emissions.

In May the European Parliament agreed on tougher measures to tackle methane emissions in the energy sector. The approved text calls for binding emission reduction targets, stronger obligations for fossil fuel operators to detect and repair leaky infrastructure and the application of the same measures to exporting countries outside of the bloc.

While the final rules are still being negotiated with the EU’s national governments, CATF’s Banks believes they could have a “huge global impact” if introduced in their current form. “The methane emissions associated with the gas Europe buys from the rest of the world is quite large, so such measures could really drive some change”.

New announcements are expected at Cop28 in Dubai, after the summit’s president Sultan Al Jaber set the phaseout of methane emissions in oil and gas by 2030 as one of his priorities. “More than 20 oil and gas companies have answered Cop28’s call,” he said this week. “And I see positive momentum as more are joining”. But the UAE has been accused of double standards as it failed to report methane emissions to the UN for a decade, as the Guardian reported.

While it has not signed the pledge, China is expected to announce its long-awaited methane plan at Cop28.

FOREST PLEDGE 

WHAT: End and reverse deforestation by 2030. Country leaders pledged to conserve forests, tackle wildfires, facilitate sustainable agriculture, support indigenous populations and “significantly” increase the provision of finance towards achieving those goals.

WHO: More than 140 countries joined the coalition. Signatories of the pledge – including large forest nations like Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo – cover around 90% of the world’s forests. But major G20 powers such as India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and rainforest nations like Bolivia and Venezuela did not join the group.

HOW IT IS GOING:  Countries remain off track to reach the goal of the Glasgow pledge and end deforestation by 2030, according to an assessment done by a coalition of NGOs.

Across the world, tree loss recorded in 2022 was 21% higher than the level needed to be on course to reach zero in seven years’ time, the report said.

Source: Forest Declaration Assessment

In fact, the situation is getting worse. Global deforestation grew 4% last year, wiping out 6.6 million hectares of forest, according to the study. That’s a tree-covered area nearly as big as Ireland disappearing in one year.

“The world’s forests are in crisis. All these promises have been made to halt deforestation, to fund forest protection. But the opportunity to make progress is passing us by year after year,” said Erin Matson, a lead author of the Forest Declaration Assessment.

Saving the Three Basins means stopping fossil fuel expansion

There are important regional differences, however. While tropical Asia is faring better, with Indonesia and Malaysia on track to hit their targets, Latin America and the Caribbean are farthest off track.

The election of President Lula da Silva in Brazil has led to a reversal in the skyrocketing deforestation rates in the country, which hosts most of the Amazon rainforets.

But efforts to create a regional forest protection coalition have failed. At the Amazon summit in August, eight South American countries failed to agree on a pledge to end deforestation by 2030 following opposition from Bolivia and Venezuela.

An aerial view shows deforestation near a forest on the border between Amazonia and Cerrado in Nova Xavantina, Mato Grosso state, Brazil in 2021 (REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli)

While it included a larger number of countries, the Cop26 commitment was not entirely new: it repeated promises previously made in the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests, which by then had already failed to achieve some of its core targets.

Keen to avoid the same fate, self-declared “high ambition” countries launched a new initiative designed to deliver the pledge.

“High ambition” efforts

Chaired by the USA and Ghana, the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP) has promised to spur global action and provide accountability.

Only a fifth of the original 140 signatories have joined the group so far, with Russia and Indonesia among the most notable absentees.

Christine Dragisic, who leads the forest team at the US State Department, said the goal is to create a “high-level community” that brings together governments, indigenous people, philanthropies, civil society and the private sector to drive action forward and hit the 2030 target.

“Can we do it? Yes. Is it going to be hard? Definitely. Does it require everybody to be at the table? For sure”, Dragisic told Climate Home.

An Indonesian ranger patrols a forest protected through a carbon credit project. Photo: Dita Alangkara/CIFOR

Since its launch last year, the FCLP has worked on a number of initiatives offering technical and financial solutions to forest nations, looking at the role of carbon markets and the forest economy in averting tree loss.

Finance gaps

As with most climate actions, however, it ultimately comes down to the question of money. “The delivery of climate finance is very important to achieve a lot of these targets and that is still very much lacking”, Roselyn Fosuah Adjei, director of climate change at Ghana’s forestry commission and co-chair of the FCLP, told Climate Home.

“The kind of finance we need is not finance for today or tomorrow, it’s finance for yesterday. We are already behind schedule. If it gets delivered fast there’s lots that we can do to close the gap that is now quite wide,” she added.

The Cop26 pledge was accompanied by a commitment from a group of rich nations to provide $12 billion in forest-related climate finance between 2021 and 2025. The money should be channeled to developing countries enacting concrete steps to halt forest loss.

The donor countries reported last year that they had provided $2.6 billion – over a fifth of the target amount – in 2021. They are expected to provide an update at Cop28.

INTERNATIONAL FOSSIL FINANCE PLEDGE

WHAT: End new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022, except in limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent with a 1.5°C warming limit and the goals of the Paris Agreement.

WHO: 34 countries and five development banks – predominantly from wealthy cuontries – signed up to the pledge at Cop26. These included the G7 nations – with the exception of Japan – and most EU member states.

HOW IT IS GOING: Among the signatories that give lots of money to the energy sector, the vast majority have introduced policies in line with the promise made in Glasgow.

The United Kingdom, France, Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, Finland and Sweden have stopped providing loans and guarantees for oil and gas extraction and processing overseas through their export credit agencies.

Their actions have shifted at least $5.7 billion per year in public finance out of fossil fuels and into clean energy, according to analysis by Oil Change International and E3G.

On the other hand, however, the USA, Italy and Germany have continued funding international fossil fuel projects in 2023 in breach of the pledge.

They were supposed to stop funding foreign fossil fuels by December 2022. But since then, they collectively approved over $3 billion in financial support to oil and gas overseas programmes.

Most of the funding comes in the form of state-backed guarantees provided by export credit agencies. These products limit the risk taken by companies selling services and goods in other countries, influencing investment.

Among the projects receiving backing from the US and Italy was the expansion of an oil refining facility in Indonesia’s Borneo.

The US Export-Import Bank justified its backing of the project by claiming it would allow Indonesia to reduce its reliance on imported fossil fuels. The Italian agency did not provide a motivation for the decision.

Germany and the US have also poured hundreds of millions of dollars into projects aiming to boost the production and trade of liquified natural gas (LNG), which has been more sought after since Russia invaded Ukraine and Europe cut back on Russian gas.

Political splits and carve-outs

In the US, efforts to comply with the Glasgow pledge have caused a split among senior officials in the Biden administration and in the federal agencies charged with disbursing the money, as Politico revealed.

The White House has drafted guidance underpinning the investments - without making it public -, but the final decisions are made by agencies like the US Export-Import Bank (Exim).

“It is a struggle to get US Exim to comply, so far they’ve ignored the Cop26 commitment”, says Nina Pusic from Oil Change International. “It will require a lot of political weight from the Biden administration and Congress.”

Indonesia delays coal closure plans after finance row with rich nations

Italy looks likely to keep funding fossil fuels overseas for years to come. Its policy guidance lays out a "gradual dismission of public support to new requests of fossil fuel projects", seeing support for gas extraction and production run into 2026. Oil processing and distribution projects should be excluded from the beginning of next year.

But Italy has also carved out a wide range of exceptions that allow its export credit agency to keep greenlighting support for fossil fuel projects on "national energy security" and "energy efficiency" grounds.

The FSRU Toscana LNG regasfication platform off the coast of Italy (Photo: OLT Offshore LNG Toscana)

Germany's main export credit agency has just introduced this month new policies restricting support for fossil fuel projects. However, it allows for financing the development of new gas fields and related transport facilities until 2025 when justified by "national security and in compliance with the Paris Agreement targets".

Investment in new coal, oil and gas production is regarded as incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) and a large number of climate scientists.

"Germany has a vast amount of fossil fuel transactions pending approval", says Oil Change International's Pusic. "The success of the new policy will be judged on the decisions made on those projects".

GLASGOW FINANCIAL ALLIANCE FOR NET ZERO (GFANZ)

WHAT: Commit to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest by aligning their portfolios and investment practices with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

WHO: Over 650 institutions across the financial sector, including banks, insurers, asset owners, asset managers, financial service providers, and investment consultants. Gfanz members represent 40% of global private financial assets. They are grouped together under eight independent net-zero financial alliances focused on specific branches of finance.

HOW IT IS GOING: It is not easy to gauge the progress of a wide-ranging initiative with loosely defined targets and a constellation of constituent parts.

GFANZ says it has made progress over the last two years by raising the ambition of financial institutions and by providing tools and guidance to turn commitments into action.

"Two years ago, not a single bank had set a science-based 2030 target. Now nearly all global, systemically important banks have voluntarily and independently set 2030 targets for oil and gas", a GFANZ spokesperson said.

Above all, the mere fact that the alliance still exists at all is a first - albeit limited - marker of success, after an especially tumultuous year.

The prospect of ending up in legal hot waters in the US, where Republicans have driven an anti-climate investment backlash, has dampened the enthusiasm of many leading signatories. The result is that parts of the alliance have been hemorrhaging members, while other components have resorted to watering down their requirements to assuage concerns.

Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, launched GFANZ at Cop26. Photo: World Economic Forum/Valeriano Di Domenico

Troubles started brewing in mid-2022 when a group of leading US banks threatened to pull out over fears of being sued because of having decarbonisation policies imposed by external parties. That's after US Republican politicians had accused financial institutions of breaching antitrust rules by grouping together in a climate cartel that limits opportunities for investors.

A month later, in October 2022, Gfanz dropped a key requirement for its members to sign up to the UN Race to Zero initiative - a verification body for corporate and financial sector pledges - which had been seen as a way to prevent greenwashing.

GFANZ told Climate Home that the alliances are still working with Race to Zero and "continue to note" its advice and guidance.

Heading for the door

Those US banks eventually ended up staying in but, despite the less stringent criteria, other influential members began heading for the door in droves soon after.

Vanguard, one of the world's biggest asset managers, quit the Net Zero Asset Managers' initiative - part of Gfanz - saying it wanted to "provide clarity to investors" and "speak independently on matters of importance" to them.

But it's the insurers' coalition, known as NZIA, that has suffered the biggest - nearly fatal - wounds. The group has lost nearly two-thirds of its members since the start of the year, with leading firms like Allianz, Zurich, Munich Re and Lloyd's of London throwing in the towel.

Again a major driver for the mass exit was a letter written in May by 23 Republican attorney generals accusing signatories of advancing "an activists climate agenda" with "serious detrimental effects on the residents" of their states. The spark for this was the alliance's initial obligation to its members to set emission reduction targets by the end of July.

Staring at the real prospect of shutting down, the insurers' alliance again watered down its requirements, becoming effectively toothless.

To triple renewable energy, the Global South needs finance

"NZIA member companies have no obligation to set or publish targets", wrote the UN Environment Programme (Unep) - convener of the initiative -  in a clarification letter. "Each company who chooses to be a member of the NZIA unilaterally and independently decides on the steps on its path towards net zero."

Meanwhile, GFANZ says its members have submitted over 300 interim targets "representing clear progress in implementing commitments" to divert finance in line with net zero goals.

But while plans have been announced, many GFANZ members are also being accused of not putting their money where their mouth is. 161 members of the coalition have collectively invested hundreds of billions of dollars into the expansion of the coal, oil and gas industries since they joined the group, according to research by campaigning group Reclaim Finance.

A GFANZ spokesperson said "it’s clear a lot of work still needs to be done to ensure the world is deploying capital consistent with a 1.5C pathway".

"GFANZ is helping to support financial institutions to each set their own sectoral targets and develop transition plans and release guidance on their plan for a managed phaseout of fossil fuels," they added.

The article was amended on 6/11 to add comments from GFANZ received after publication

The post Forests, methane, finance: Where are the Cop26 pledges now? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Its supporters claim it has been doing exceptionally well. The Cambodian government hailed it as the “most successful” community-based forest conservation scheme on the carbon market and a climate solution.

Satellite images tell a different story. Tumring is experiencing dramatic deforestation, losing over 22% of trees in the project area since the scheme began. The Cambodian government does not account for this loss in official monitoring reports.

Nor is this an isolated case. In a joint investigation, Climate Home and Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s investigative journalism unit, found similar discrepancies in two Brazilian projects, based on data from two different satellite monitoring platforms. Companies like Uber, ArcelorMittal and Marathon are still using credits from these three projects to offset their emissions – and there is nothing to stop them.

It raises serious questions for Verra, the largest standard setter in the voluntary carbon market, which oversees the projects.

Project owners disputed the findings, while Verra said it “is committed to refining and improving its methodologies based on the best available science and data”.

Mind the gap

By protecting trees the Tumring project generates carbon credits – or offsets – which are then used by polluters to compensate for their own emissions elsewhere. Texan oil firm Marathon is a major buyer, while the Cambodian and Korean governments, project partners, are planning to use a portion of the credits as part of their national net zero plans.

But the emissions avoided through the project are likely to be overstated given the deforestation rate appears to be higher than claimed. Project owners recorded just 3,450 hectares (ha) of forest loss in monitoring reports between 2015 and 2019, the most recent data submitted. Our analysis using the online tool Global Forest Watch showed forest loss was four times higher in that period, at 14,000 ha.

Climate Home and Unearthed looked at offsetting projects after a source raised concerns about apparent discrepancies between what project owners were declaring in their monitoring reports, and what could be seen through satellite images.

The team compared project filings with data developed by the University of Maryland and made available on the Global Forest Watch online platform. A second source of satellite data, Forobs, developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, was used to check the findings. This showed a similar trend.

Redd+ weaknesses

Verra is a major proponent of the UN-backed scheme Redd+, which stands for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries”. It is designed to protect areas at risk of being deforested. Companies can buy carbon credits from these projects to discount their own emissions.

Critics have long raised concerns about weak quality control of this kind of project. An investigation published by The Guardian and Die Zeit earlier this year alleged more than 90% of Verra’s Redd+ projects were not driving emission reductions, largely because developers exaggerated the threat forests were facing. Verra disputed the findings.

Climate Home and Unearthed found that, in addition to inflated baselines, underreporting of forest loss throughout a project’s lifetime and light-touch regulation can lead to far too many credits being generated.

“The findings point out deep flaws in the forest carbon offset mechanism”, said Souparna Lahiri, a climate adviser for the Global Forest Coalition. The fact deforestation is increasing, instead of going down, “is deeply concerning” and “strengthens our conviction that the mechanism of offsetting cannot be fixed”, he added.

Self-reported deforestation

Each carbon credit represents a ton of CO2 kept from being released into the atmosphere by protecting trees. If a larger portion of forest is cleared than project developers claim, the volume of emissions they avoid will be overstated. When used by companies or governments to compensate for their emissions elsewhere, these credits would have a negative climate impact.

Verra says its role is to make sure that, when a company does invest in a carbon project, it has integrity and meaning, verified by the best standards and science. Monitoring reports are a crucial part of how progress is measured, since they disclose setbacks such as rising deforestation.

Monitoring reports are audited by third parties, then submitted publicly on a project’s page, alongside a host of other documents. In practice, they can be difficult for the public to understand and evaluate. There’s no standardised way to monitor projects.

The way the Cambodian government and its partners monitor deforestation in the Tumring area is opaque. They use national land cover data produced by Cambodia’s environment ministry that is not available publicly. It has a low tree cover threshold, meaning an area needs as little as 10% of trees to be counted as forested. To put it another way, you could chop down 90% of tree cover in a previously untouched section and still claim the forest was intact.

Cambodia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world, according to Global Forest Watch. Photo: Un Yarat / US Embassy Phnom Penh

The Cambodian government has previously tried to discredit independent analysis showing that deforestation is higher in the country than state records.

Wildlife Works, which worked as a technical consultant for project validation and verification, said it “had no connection to the project” since completing the job and directed questions to the Cambodian government.

The Cambodian government did not respond to a request for comment. The Korean government told Climate Home and Unearthed that only credits from 2021 onwards would be used to offset national emissions.

Industry transparency

The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, an independent governance body for the industry, has called for greater transparency, urging offsetting projects to make all their information accessible to a “non-specialised audience” so a project’s climate impact can be better assessed.

Gilles Dufrasne, from the NGO Carbon Market Watch, said: “Current practice on the market simply isn’t up to standard and this lack of transparency needs to be plugged. More credible, and transparent, use of forest monitoring data is part of this.”

Sylvera, a carbon offsets analytics provider, noted in its 2022 State of Carbon report that the majority of the company’s D-rated projects, of which Tumring is one, “grossly under-reported the deforestation in the project area and have exceeded the baseline emissions”.

Samuel Gill, Sylvera co-founder and president, told Unearthed and Climate Home: “The technology to largely resolve issues like underreporting or overcrediting already exist and are being deployed.” He added: “These improvements take time to filter through the system and in the next few years we should see considerable uplift in project quality as a result.”

In theory, Verra already has various mechanisms to prevent worthless credits linked to deforestation from flooding the market and to punish project developers responsible for any irregularities.

Project owners are required to set aside in a “buffer pool”: a portion of credits that cannot be traded on the market. These act like an insurance policy: if trees meant to be protected end up being felled or burned in a fire, credits in the pool should be cancelled to ensure the integrity of the credits previously sold for offsetting purposes.

Additionally, complaints may trigger a project review and, if a developer is found to have issued too many credits, it can be sanctioned or made to pay a compensation.

But carbon market experts have doubts over the effectiveness of the system, saying the size and use case of buffer pools may be too limited. Only one project has ever had credits from the buffer pool cancelled, according to the Verra register.

Recurring problem

Over 17,000 kilometres away from Tumring, the Rio Preto-Jacundá Redd+ project is meant to achieve the same goal and protect an area of the Brazilian Amazon state of Rondonia.

The project has sold more than one million credits, with big name buyers including German utility Entega, Bank of Santander’s Brazilian arm, and Brazilian financial services giant Banco Bradesco.

From when it began in 2012 to 2020, the latest year available in monitoring reports, the project recorded 5,884 ha of loss, with a sharp increase from 2016. Global Forest Watch data shows it lost 8,200 ha of forest – 33% higher than the numbers declared by the project owner, Biofílica Ambipar.

The scheme’s “without project” scenario, to show what would happen under business as usual, predicted 9,922 ha of loss in the same period.

‘On watch’

Sylvera, an offsetting rating agency that independently checks and verifies projects using a combination of satellite imagery and machine learning, has placed the Rio Preto project “on watch”, after noting significant and increasing deforestation within the project area.

Biofílica Ambipar, which runs the Rio Preto scheme, said it “works continuously to monitor, identify and report any illegal activity to the Brazilian public environmental authorities”.

The company says it relies on the Prodes system to monitor forest loss in the area. Created by the National Institute for Space Research in 1988, Prodes is also used by the Brazilian government for its official annual deforestation reports.

“According to the Prodes system, the deforestation rates in the region are lower than those informed by Global Forest Watch, which is not as accurate in classifying deforestation,” Biofílica Ambipar said.

Prodes is used to detect large-scale changes in primary forest, but it can miss smaller changes. The system uses satellite images that only detect clearcut logging of more than 6.25 hectares – an area equivalent to nearly nine football pitches – missing smaller-scale forest loss. The University of Maryland data, made available through Global Forest Watch, captures losses as small as 0.1 hectares, while also picking up forest degradation.

Still selling credits

Another Biofílica project was abruptly cancelled last year after part of it was legally deforested by the landowner. But carbon credits generated by the scheme are still on the market.

The Maísa project covered over 25,000 hectares of forest in the state of Pará controlled by a family-owned agroindustrial company, which runs eucalyptus, Brazil nuts and açaí plantations.

When the project began in 2012, the firm agreed with Biofílica to protect the trees and invest in better forest management practices in exchange for a share of the profits from the sale of carbon credits.

Since then, polluters including steel giant ArcelorMittal have bought hundreds of thousands of its credits.

But starting from last year the landowner began clearing increasingly larger areas of the forest in what Biofílica says was a breach of their agreement.

The project developer decided to stop the project, but it is still listed on the Verra register and its credits continue to be used for offsetting purposes. Over 38,000 credits have been retired since the project was stopped by Biofilica – more than 4,000 of them purchased by Uber to compensate for the emissions spewed by its fleet of cars in Central and South America.

Uber said that it “only invests in projects certified, traceable, and auditable by Verra, the United Nations, Gold Standard, and Climate Action Reserve [other verifying bodies for offsetting schemes] after a thorough investigation”.

Lure of agribusiness

Biofílica told Unearthed and Climate Home that the company had made it a policy to stop selling credits from the Maísa project as soon as it became aware of the legal logging. It added that “the project is currently in the process of being terminated and audited in line with Verra procedures.”

Asked what would happen to old credits in the project that are still available on the market through third-party sellers, Biofílica’s spokesperson said: “It is important to highlight that the credits that are still being sold by traders and brokers refer to credits verified in previous years, when there was still no legal deforestation scenario in the area; that is, they were audited and verified credits.”

However, when trees are cut down, the carbon stored in them is released back into the atmosphere, no matter if they were originally protected, negating any potential climate benefit. Experts say good projects need to ensure the carbon they sequester or avoid will remain out of the atmosphere for at least 100 years.

When asked what happens to credits in projects that are cancelled, a Verra spokesperson said projects are required to deposit a percentage of their credits into buffer pools which can be drawn on if a portion of the forest is lost.

Maísa’s buffer pool contains 131,600 credits which have currently been placed on hold, meaning Verra still needs to decide their fate. That is only 20% of the total credits put on the market for offsetting purposes, most of which have already been used.

Biofílica spokesperson suggested that what happened with the Maísa project was a sign that Redd+ projects can struggle to compete with the economic opportunities offered by agricultural production in the Amazon.

They said: “Maísa shows the reality of the Amazon region and illustrates the difficulties that all actors interested in conservation face in making carbon projects financially viable.”

The post Exposed: carbon offsets linked to high forest loss still on sale appeared first on Climate Home News.

The plan, announced in late August by the country’s Minister of Transportation, Renan Filho, was met with suspicion by environmentalists who are familiar with the fund’s guidelines.

During a press conference announcing new infrastructure investments, Filho said he plans to pitch the fund’s governing board a project to pave BR319, a road that cuts through the Amazon forest and connects two major cities in the north of Brazil — Manaus and Porto Velho. 

But environmentalists argue that this is not the kind of project that the fund is supposed to support. 

“The Amazon Fund is meant to keep the forest standing, to maintain its biodiversity, and to fight climate change. I don’t see its resources being used for paving. It would be completely incompatible with its guidelines,” says Sila Mesquita, president of the NGO Amazon Working Group and current representative of civil organisations in the Amazon Fund committee. 

One of the fund’s creators, forest scientist Tasso Azevedo also disagrees with the Ministry of Transportation’s plan. 

“I don’t think it makes any sense. This project does not fit into any of the fund’s planned support lines,” says Azevedo, currently coordinator at MapBiomas, an initiative to monitor land use in Brazil developed by a network of universities, NGOs, and technology companies. 

Created in 2008, the Amazon Fund has over $1.2 billion available for projects that prevent, monitor and combat deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The fund gets its money mainly from its largest donors — Norway, Germany and state-owned oil company Petrobras.

Controversial comeback

In 2019, the Amazon Fund was virtually paralysed by former president Jair Bolsonaro, who dissolved the committee that sets guidelines on how the money should be spent. 

Because of this political move, the money was frozen for over three years, since new projects could not be analysed. Donor countries Norway and Germany also suspended new contributions during Bolsonaro’s term. 

Revived by president Lula on his first day in the office, new potential investors have lined up.

Last week, Denmark announced a donation of $22 million, joining the UK, USA, Switzerland, and the EU, all of which advertised new contributions since Lula reinstated the fund. 

The initiative had funded 102 projects amounting to over $360 million until it was paralysed by Bolsonaro. 

But none of the supported projects were related to road infrastructure, according to the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), which manages the fund. 

“So far, the BNDES has not received any requests for financing a road infrastructure project using resources from the Amazon Fund,” BNDES told Climate Home News.

New guidelines

The bank also highlighted that any requests are processed “in accordance with the strategic vision, guidelines and focuses” outlined in the 2023-25 ​​Biennium, a new set of guidelines created by the Amazon Fund’s Guiding Committee. 

The new rules for how the money should be spent in the next two years were set by a committee formed by representatives of NGOs, environmental agencies and governmental institutions such as Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Environment. 

One of the members of this committee, Sila Mesquita, believes that the guidelines do not align with the project presented by the Ministry of Transportation.

The ministry, however, argues that the paving of BR319 would turn the road into the world’s “most sustainable highway” and would allow easier access for police patrols to monitor and prevent deforestation. 

“Our commitment, in addition to guaranteeing economic and social development by granting citizens the right to come and go, is also to ensure that the BR319 is a model in terms of environmental conservation,” the Ministry of Transportation told Climate Home News. 

Road through the rainforest

The BR319 is a federal highway that serves as the only link between two large states in the North of Brazil: Amazonas and Rondônia. 

Built during the 1970s, the road was delivered completely paved, but was closed a decade later due to lack of maintenance. Since then, only branches of the highway are paved and allow for regular traffic.

According to BR-319 Observatory, a collective of organisations that operate in the highway’s area, re-paving the road without conservation measures and proper consultation to indigenous communities can be prejudicial to the Amazon and encourage deforestation. 

The BR319 cuts through several conservation areas, including indigenous territories. Its indirect impact spans an ever larger perimeter

Several studies show that proximity to transportation networks is a major proximate driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Recent research has pointed out that 95% of the deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon happens within 5.5 km of a legal or illegal road. Considering only the official road network, most of the deforestation happens within 50 km of the nearest road. 

The complete paving of BR319, planned by the current Ministry of Transportation, still depends on several approvals from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama).

“For this road to be sustainable, like the government says, it needs to be beneficial for all those conservation parks and indigenous territories that it cuts through. We have to ask the people who live there what is sustainable for them. It’s not about being for or against the paving of a road: it’s about taking into consideration science, technology and the local communities as well,” says Sila Mesquita.

The post Brazilian government eyes money from Amazon Fund for controversial road appeared first on Climate Home News.

After months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, nineteen countries signed up to the India-led coalition. These included the United States and Brazil, the world’s top biofuel producers.

“India wanted to bring international attention to a subject important to them,” a source involved in the alliance’s creation told Climate Home News. “They thought this was a low-hanging fruit that countries had not talked about much and they could turn it into an international topic.”

The alliance pitches biofuels as key to the energy transition away from fossil fuels. But critics argue they could do more harm than good by diverting land away from other priority uses, fuelling deforestation and unleashing significant amounts of emissions across their supply chains.

What are biofuels?

Biofuels are any type of fuel derived from organic matter, whether plants, animal waste or algae. Most are liquid fuels used for transportation, typically blended in varying percentages with conventional fossil-based petrol or diesel.

Over 90% of liquid biofuels – bioethanol and biodiesel – are made from food crops, like corn, sugarcane, soybeans or vegetable oils, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)

In India, biofuel is synonymous with bioethanol derived from sugarcane, of which the country is one of the largest producers in the world.

Unlike Brazil or the United States, India has only recently become an influential player in the sector following the introduction of government policies and subsidies spurred by political calculations.

Appeasing farmers

Six years ago the Modi administration was facing a mounting problem in politically crucial states. Sugar overproduction and declining prices meant the country’s nearly 50 million sugarcane growers were not being paid in time by sugar mills, which collectively owed billions of dollars to farmers.

As tensions simmered to the surface, Modi made a promise: “I know there are cane dues. I will make sure every penny of yours will be paid.”

The government’s plan to ease the pressure on farmers was to divert increasing quantities of the crop from food supply chains to the production of bioethanol. It set a “remunerative” fixed price, facilitated loans and raised the bioethanol blending targets, driving up demand.

The human cost of sugar: A four-part investigation into India’s backbreaking sugarcane industry

As bioethanol is sold to oil companies, payments to sugar mills – and subsequently to farmers – quickened: down to 3 weeks from the minimum 3 months’s wait from the sale of sugar, according to the government.

Lydia Powell, an energy policy analyst at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, says India’s push for a biofuel alliance is mostly a “PR exercise” for the benefit of the agricultural sector which forms a “very strong lobby” in the country.

India’s biofuels pitch

India’s efforts to attract interest around an international coalition began in earnest at the start of 2023, when it took over the G20 presidency from Indonesia.

The prime targets were Brazil and the US, which as top producers were easily enticed, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. “Convincing other countries to join took some time and it was a bit of a challenge,” they added.

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The coalition was originally meant to be announced at the G20 energy ministers’ meeting in Goa, but was delayed while India waited for more joiners. The big day came at the leaders’ summit in Delhi, when Modi flanked by Joe Biden and Lula da Silva unveiled the alliance of 19 countries, shortly after G20 countries had reached a compromise on the summit’s declaration.

According to Francis X Johnson, a biofuels expert at the Stockholm Environment Institute, countries had various motives to join the platform. “Argentina is an agricultural power and could develop its biofuel industry further,” he said. “The UAE has important connections to aviation and shipping where biofuels could play a particular role. Singapore is a trading hub. Poorer countries are keen to have technology transferred.”

Sustainability questions

What the alliance will do is not yet clear, with more work expected in the next few months to define its structure and targets.

Experts told Climate Home News that if it is to succeed the focus needs to be on sustainability.

The US Department of Energy told Climate Home News that “security, affordability, and sustainability will be core tenets of the alliance”.

EU uses pollution tax funds to back Romanian gas pipeline

Biofuels are considered renewable energy sources because the materials used to produce them can be replenished, unlike fossil fuels. But that does not mean they are always clean or sustainable.

Comparison between biofuels demand and supply now and in a net zero by 2050 scenario, according to the International Energy Agency

As the overwhelming majority of biofuels continue to be produced from traditional crops like sugarcane, corn or vegetable oils, the question of how best to use limited land is sensitive. If it’s being used to produce energy crops, then it’s not being used to grow food or restore carbon-rich ecosystems.

Advanced biofuels made from waste or other sources like algae do not bring these land conflicts, but high production costs limit their scale.

Supply-chain emissions

The climate impact of biofuels has also come under sharp focus. To achieve their emission-cutting aims, they need to be less polluting by the fossil fuels they aim to replace. But specially grown crops require fertilizers and energy often produced with fossil fuels themselves, increasing their carbon footprint.

Barbara Smailagic, biofuels expert at Transport and Environment, says sustainability safeguards in the production of biofuels are “very weak”.  “There are several risks in driving up the production of biofuels: further increasing deforestation in crucial ecosystems and biodiversity loss, reinforcing human rights violations in producing countries, increasing our energy dependence on imports of these fuels,” she added.

Climate and environmental impact can vary hugely, depending on the species, location and management plan. For example, sugarcane production in India is very water-intensive, requiring on average 2,860 litres of water to produce one litre of bioethanol. But, when the same crop is grown in Brazil, the impact on water resources is less severe.

Francis X Johnson thinks it is critical to reduce the overall demand for fuels and energy through efficiency and mode-shifting because an increase in demand is “inherently unsustainable”.

“In this way, biofuels use can expand with lower impacts since the reduced demand would mean that fewer biofuels and less land would be needed to achieve the same emissions reductions”, he added. “And even though electrification of transport will grow, there will always be gaps to fill in sectors like aviation or shipping that cannot easily be electrified.”

The article was amended on 23/9 to clarify a comment made by Francis X Johnson.

The post Sugar rush: how farmers spurred India’s G20 biofuels alliance appeared first on Climate Home News.

Ruto has been hailed abroad as one of Africa’s green champions. In Kenya, his plans to lift a ban on logging are causing controversy.

Ruto’s government argues that lifting the ban will boost the economy while only affecting a small minority of the East African nation’s forests.

Some environmentalists support him, saying that lifting the ban on chopping down commercial forests will help protect more natural indigenous forests, which suck in more carbon and shelter more wildlife.

Others say lifting the ban contradicts Ruto’s tree-planting campaign and will make a devastating drought even worse.

A mature exotic tree plantation at Eastern Mau Forest in Nakuru County. (Photo: James Wakibia/SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

Ruto’s reassessment

Kenya has over two million hectares of forests, covering an area bigger than Israel. Of this, about a twentieth is commercial forest, where companies plant and cut down trees for timber.

In 2018, as deforestation reduced river water levels and threatened the supply of drinking water and hydro powered electricity, then-deputy president Ruto imposed a 90-day ban on logging “to allow reassessment and rationalisation of the entire forest sector”. 

This ban kept being extended until July this year when Ruto, now president, lifted it. He told reporters in the timber town of Nakuru that it was “foolish” to have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of income from timber.

“This is why we have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth,” he said.

Job creator

Defending the ban at a press conference in Nairobi, Ruto’s environment minister Soipan Tuya told Climate Home that deforestation in many parts of the country has nothing to do with legal logging.

Data from Global Forest Watch suggests that forestry is a minor cause of deforestation, compared to the much larger role played by shifting agriculture. 

Nevertheless, their analysis suggests that forestry has caused the loss of trees in hundreds of hectares a year over the last decade.

Tuya said the ban had resulted in large economic and job losses in the timber industry and caused Kenya to spend scarce foreign currency importing timber. 

“We have a demand for timber products in this country. We have a market for wood, which is doing extremely poorly. We are doing a lot of importation and that has implications to the economy,” Tuya said.

Cooking the books: cookstove offsets produce millions of fake emission cuts

The industry association for Kenya’s forest industry claims that the industry provides about 4% of the country’s GDP and provides jobs directly to up to 50,000 people. 

A natural resources management expert at the Nature Kenya environmental society, Rudolf Makhanu, told Climate Home he had “no problem” with lifting the ban for plantations.

He said these forests provide wood and cushion natural forests from degradation. In fact, he said that a “prolonged ban [on logging in plantation forests] can create pressure on indigenous forest, which plays a vital role in carbon absorption”.

Legal challenge

Makhanu’s view is not shared by other environmentalists. Kennedy Waweru is a lawyer from the Law Society of Kenya, which is challenging the ban’s lifting in court. LSK argues the government did not adequately consult the public.

At a press conference, Waweru told reporters that lifting the ban on logging is a damaging move which puts the short-term economic gain of a small minority ahead of the long-term well-being of the nation’s environment and future generations.

Geoffrey Wandeto, an ecologist and chair of the Chehe forest association, said that the lifting of the ban “could only worsen” the drought in northern Kenya, which has pushed around five million Kenyans into severe hunger.

Forests are critical to the water cycle, as trees draw up moisture from the soil and release it into the air. When forests are cut down, the soil dries out and rainfall declines, threatening the supply of food, water and hydro-powered electricity.

The Kenyan high court has suspended the lifting of the ban, pending a final verdict.

The post Kenyan president William Ruto courts logging controversy appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) aims to help countries reach the nature protection targets set by the breakthrough Kunming-Montreal biodiversity deal signed last year.

The fund, which will contribute to the goal of protecting 30% of the world’s land and water ecosystems by 2030, has been set up by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), a multilateral financial partnership.

Cooking the books: cookstove offsets produce millions of fake emission cuts

Its 185 member countries officially approved the creation of the financial mechanism at the GEF’s meeting in Vancouver, Canada, on Thursday.

At the opening plenary, Canada and the United Kingdom announced initial contributions of C$200m ($147.3m) and £10m ($12.6m) respectively.

Small initial contributions

Ahmed Hussen, Canada’s international development minister, said his government is making “a significant contribution” to this new fund, which “will play a key role in addressing biodiversity loss”.

To light applause, the UK’s nature minister Trudy Harrison told the GEF assembly that the money is “a downpayment” which will “ensure that the fund is open for business as quickly as possible”.

She said that the UK was “deep in its current fiscal cycle” which “limits its ability for financial manoeuvre” but “we look forward to making further payments in future”.

Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, CEO of the GEF (left) opens the Assembly meeting alongside Canada’s Steven Guilbeault and Ahmed Hussen. Photo: IISD/ENB | Angeles Estrada

The fund needs at least $200m from three donors or more before December to get up and running, according to GEF rules. Japan, the USA and others have indicated they will support the fund, but haven’t committed any money yet.

After this start-up phase, however, the fund will have to attract much more substantial resources if it wants to fulfill the “game-changing” role its creators touted.

Rich countries obligation

As the main mechanism to deliver the Kunming-Montreal deal, it is expected to ramp up financial support for protecting nature.

Governments agreed last December to mobilize at least $200 billion a year from a variety of sources including public and private finance and philanthropies.

Soy, beef and gold gangsters: Why Bolivia and Venezuela won’t protect the Amazon

The biodiversity fund is set up to draw in money from all of those actors, but initially, the bulk of the capital should come from the public purses of wealthy nations.

At the COP15 biodiversity summit, developed countries agreed to provide at least $20 billion a year by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030.

Michael Degnan from the Campaign for Nature advocacy group told Climate Home News that the target has to be achieved if countries are serious about making biodiversity conservation a priority.

“Launching the fund is a really important first step – but it’s only half of the equation,” he added. “The next step is for donor countries to outline their plans.”

Funding compromise

The make-up of the new biodiversity fund was one of the major sticking points during negotiations last year. Many Latin American and African countries had pushed to create a new financial mechanism separate from the GEF.

The issue came to a head on the final day of the talks when the negotiator from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) appeared to block the final deal, telling the plenary that they could not support the agreement in its current form because it did not create a new fund for biodiversity. But minutes later the meeting’s chair brought down the gavel, effectively overruling the objection.

EU puts Maroš Šefčovič in charge of climate policy

The final text put the GEF in charge of creating the new fund in 2023 and running it until at least 2030.

Juliette Landry from think-tank IDDRI thinks this was a “rational compromise”. “It would have been hard to create out of nothing a new fund that has a relatively short implementation period”, she added, “but there is still room to improve procedures within the GEF”.

Some developing countries have called for a “simplified process” to access the money during Thursday’s opening session. The representative from the DRC said the fund “must be accessible to all”.

Indigenous communities role

The GEF’s historical top recipients – China, Brazil and Indonesia – are expected to receive the lion’s share of the money, experts told Climate Home News.

But the GEF says a third of the resources will go to least developed countries and small island states, while as much as 20% of the fund should support Indigenous-led initiatives.

“Indigenous communities with their generations of land stewardship and fire management expertise hold the key to preventing catastrophic wildfire and other environmental contingencies,” said Dario Jose Mejia Montalvo, chair of the UN permanent forum on Indigenous Issues. “Yet, despite their unparalleled understanding, they continue to be overfunded and overlooked”.

This is an opportunity to rectify that, he added.

The Indigenous Peoples press conference following the launch of the new biodiversity fund. Photo: IISD/ENB | Angeles Estrada

Midori Paxton, head of biodiversity at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), hopes the new fund will change the attitude of politicians and business leaders towards financing nature protection.

“It sends a signal that biodiversity loss and deterioration of nature is a critical global issue”, she told Climate Home. “We often hear ‘we are busy with climate, nature can wait’, as if they are totally separate things”.

But the biodiversity and climate crisis are very much interlinked, Paxton added.

The post Nature fund launched but financing questions remain appeared first on Climate Home News.

That target was pushed by Brazil but met the opposition of the Bolivian government, according to Brazilian officials quoted in the Financial Times and the Guardian.

“We tried [to include some deforestation targets], but Bolivia explicitly asked for it to be deleted,” said one official, “Venezuela was perhaps [also] reluctant, but since Bolivia was so strongly [opposed], they did not need to speak against it”.

Bolivia and Venezuela were also the only two Amazon nations not to sign a pledge to protect forests at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in 2021.

Between them, they hold roughly a seventh of the Amazon. But their governments are permissive when it comes to extractive activities in those areas—and in both countries deforestation is on the rise.

Agribusiness ambitions

Bolivia’s reported position at the Amazon summit is in line with its policies at home, which prioritise development and the export of agricultural commodities, among others.

Bolivia’s soy and beef exports are small compared to those of Brazil and Argentina, the regional agriculture giants. But they are growing, and the Bolivian government has set ambitious targets for the sector.

To meet them it has built infrastructure, kept taxes on agriculture low and subsidised fuel. It has also handed out forested public lands to internal migrants while authorising more forest clearing and decriminalising illegal deforestation.

Rapidly accelerating deforestation

According to Fundación Tierra, a Bolivian NGO, deforestation averaged roughly 300,000 hectares a year, an area the size of Hong Kong, between 2016 and 2021.

For three years running, Global Forest Watch has ranked Bolivia third in the world for loss of primary forest, ahead of Indonesia and behind only much bigger forest nations Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Yet there’s no sign of the government reducing its support for agribusiness. Declining gas exports have made agricultural exports all the more important to maintain the country’s international reserves.

EU puts Maroš Šefčovič in charge of climate policy

“It’s a sector that, even if it doesn’t generate much in the way of taxes, is very important for foreign exchange,” said Enrique Ormachea, an investigator at CEDLA, a Bolivian NGO.

Bolivia’s lack of foreign exchange has damaged its international credit rating, pushing up the price it pays to borrow money.

Recent policies aim to produce palm oil, boost beef exports to China and build biodiesel refineries that would use Bolivian produce—all of which would further expand the agricultural frontier.

Venezuela’s gold rush

On the other side of the Amazon, Luis Betancourt is the head of Venezuelan NGO Grupo de Investigaciones sobre la Amazonía.

He told Climate Home: “In the Venezuelan Amazon we don’t really have deforestation for ranching or large-scale agriculture, what we have is illegal mining.”

According to the IMF, between 2013 and 2021 Venezuela’s economy shrank by more than four-fifths. Millions left the country in search of work. Many others went into small-scale gold mining.

An illegal gold mine in the south of Venezuela, pictured in 2012 (Reuters/Jorge Silva)

The government looked to mining to replace the revenues lost with the collapse of the oil industry. In 2016, President Nicolás Maduro decreed the creation of the Orinoco Mining Arc, taking an area that holds roughly a tenth of the nation’s landmass and five national parks and opening it up for mining concessions.

RAISG, a network of NGOs, has detected almost 2,000 mining sites in the Venezuelan Amazon, where it is estimated some 189,000 people work.

Mines are controlled by armed groups, including guerrilla groups and mining gangs known as sindicatos. Investigations by Insight Crime indicate many are linked to organised crime and backed by elements of the Venezuelan state, who take a cut of the profits.

Lack of interest

One study put the loss of forest in the Venezuelan Amazon at 140,000 hectares between 2016 and 2020, accounting for 1.6% of the total loss across the Amazon in that period.

Asked why Venezuela might have resisted a pledge to eradicate deforestation by 2030, Professor María Eugenia Grillet, an ecologist at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, said it was perhaps because that would imply committing itself to something it cannot achieve in the short or even medium-term.

“Because ultimately the government doesn’t seem interested in the conservation of our Amazonian forests,” she said. “This illegal gold mining seems to be promoted by a certain part of the state, by corruption, by unregulated illicit activities—and by the political, economic and social crisis of the country.”

The post Soy, beef and gold gangsters: Why Bolivia and Venezuela won’t protect the Amazon appeared first on Climate Home News.

Since 2013, China has been trying to make cities like Beijing more flood-proof by replacing roads, pavements and rooftops with natural materials like soil that soak up water and by giving more space to water bodies like lakes to absorb stormwater.

But despite these measures, massive amounts of rainfall in recent weeks caused floods which killed at least 33 people, destroyed tens of thousands of homes and shut down the Chinese capital’s second busiest airport.

Experts told Climate Home the flooding shows the limited progress China has made on its plan to invest $1 trillion into sponge cities by 2030 – with the city still largely concrete.

Sponge airport overwhelmed

Even new infrastructure, build with the sponge city concept in mind, could not cope with the rains.

Daxing airport opened a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic. Its builders described it as a “sponge airport” as it was equipped with plants on its roof, a huge wetland and an artificial lake the size of over 1,000 Olympic swimming pools.

Despite these measures, the runways flooded on July 30 and it had to cancel over 50 flights.

Floods engulf Beijing Daxing Airport, halting flightshttps://www.yenisafak.com/en/video-gallery/news/floods-engulf-beijing-daxing-airport-halting-flights-3668129 pic.twitter.com/YabfuQbC9Y

— Yeni Şafak English (@yenisafakEN) August 2, 2023

Waters diverted

The government tried to collect the rain in 155 reservoirs in the Hai River Basin, but the measure proved ineffective in controlling the deluge.

About 50 years ago, the basin –a natural sponge–was locked with embankments and reservoirs to manage the water flow.

In recent years though, these structures have made flooding worse as climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall. These structures lead to overflow, collapse and the authorities have blown them up to ease flooding.

Indonesia delays $20bn green plan

Reuters reported that flood waters locked in reservoirs were diverted to low-lying populated land in Zhuozhuo, a small city around 80km from Beijing, to flush out the stormwater from the country’s national capital.

Residents of Zhuozhou were angry at the government’s response, Reuters reported. The government reacted by shutting down criticism on social media.

More work needed

Experts argued that these problems show that, rather than abandoning the sponge city project, China and Beijing need to double down and make them better.

Kongjian Yu is the founder of Turenscape, a company involved in the project. He said that just “maybe 1% or 10%” of the city has been converted to a sponge city.

The government’s target is 20% by 2030. “We have a long way to go,” he said.

Yu added that sponge cities are worth doing not just because they control floods but for managing droughts and refilling groundwater supplies too.

US sparks controversy by backing oil company’s carbon-sucking plans

Tony Wong, professor of sustainable development at Monash University, said that progress was always going to be slow as “it takes a long time and a lot of money” to convert a city like Beijing, with lots of people and concrete buildings crammed into a small area, into a sponge city.

More work is needed, says Wong, because Beijing and many other cities lack effective urban planning, and there is no provision for a safe channeling of extreme floodwater.

“What the city needs is the inclusion of green corridors, just like Singapore – another high-density city- has done to transport excess stormwater into low-lying areas to prevent loss of lives and property.”

If China pulls this off it could become an example for many developing countries with high-density cities struggling to control urban flooding, added Wong.

The post Devastating Beijing floods test China’s ‘sponge cities’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

It is easy to see why. For the first time in 14 years, leaders from eight Amazonian nations came together in the Brazilian city of Bèlem to sketch out a plan to tackle deforestation.

The biggest success is that the meeting happened at all. It would have been an unfathomable proposition less than a year ago under the then-presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, who was overseeing a skyrocketing increase in tree-chopping in the Amazon rainforest.

When it comes to the summit’s outcome things get less rosy. The countries agreed to a long list of policies and areas of possible cooperation. But, as environmental groups put it, the Bèlem Declaration looks like “a compilation of good intentions with little in the way of measurable goals and timeframes”.

There are two notable absentees in the final document: a pledge to end deforestation by 2030 and any mention of halting fossil fuel expansion in the Amazon.

The former met the insurmountable opposition of the Bolivian government, according to Brazilian officials quoted in the FT and the Guardian. The latter, pushed by Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, always looked doomed given Brazil is still looking into plans to develop a huge offshore oil field near the mouth of the Amazon River.

The Amazon nations did, however, manage to unite around a thinly-veiled attack on new EU deforestation rules affecting imported commodities

European leaders see this as a key lever in the fight to save rainforests. But the eight countries – and many other forest nations worldwide – slam the environmental rules as “protectionist” trade barriers.

This fight will continue at the negotiations over the EU-Mercosur free trade deal.

This week’s news:

• Indonesia falls short on peatland restoration, risking destructive fire season
• Amazon nations decry EU deforestation rules in thinly-veiled joint condemnation
• Amazon nations fail to agree on deforestation goal at summit
• Metals bosses enjoy front row seat at UN deep-sea mining negotiations
• Mainstream economists accused of playing down climate threat
• Amazon nations split on oil and deforestation, ahead of summit

Climate-unfriendly economics

Mainstream economists have a dangerous habit of playing down climate change.

At least that’s according to two recent reports that reached the same conclusion: economic models ignore tipping points, floods, droughts and indoor work. Glaring omissions that end up hugely underplaying the economic damage of global warming.

This is not just an academic exercise. The models are relied upon by investors, politicians, central bank governors and influential bodies like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

If economists get it wrong, decisions made on the basis of their work will prove costly.

The post Dis-united States of the Amazon – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

A law adopted by European governments in June requires companies to prove a series of products, including cattle, soya and palm oil, were not grown on land affected by tree loss.

The EU says the rules are a key building block in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. But some of the world’s biggest commodity producers have been voicing increasing discontent calling the measures “protectionist” and “discriminatory”.

The latest sign of opposition comes in the Belém Declaration signed on Tuesday by eight South American countries following a major rainforest summit in Brazil. The final document includes a rejection to trade measures such as the EU’s rules.

In the Brazilian city of Belém, Presidents and top officials from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru attended the Amazon Summit, while Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela sent other top officials.

Amazon nations fail to agree on deforestation goal at summit

Environmental ‘trade barriers’

The countries failed to agree on a common goal for ending deforestation but issued unified policies and measures to bolster regional cooperation.

The final document does not single out the European law specifically, but it condemns “the proliferation of unilateral trade measures based on environmental requirements and norms which constitute trade barriers”.

The signatories go on to claim that such measures “primarily affect smallholder farmers in developing countries, the pursuit of sustainable development, the promotion of Amazon products and the efforts to eradicate poverty and fight hunger”.

Mainstream economists accused of playing down climate threat

Marcio Astrini from the Observatório do Clima called the inclusion of the paragraph in the joint declaration “a disgrace”. He told Climate Home News that if countries like Brazil and Colombia are serious about ending deforestation, they should have vetoed this statement.

“What’s wrong with a commercial partner saying they don’t want to buy products linked to deforestation?”, Astrini added. “Environmental and climate issues are already part of business and market standards around the world, this is a new reality, and it is better to adapt to it.”

Brazilian backlash

The attack on trade measures in the declaration follows a week of heated rhetoric by top government officials in the region.

Brazil’s agriculture minister Carlos Favaro slammed the European deforestation law, calling it “an affront” to global trade regulations. He added Brazil would boost trade relations with other partners if the EU continues not to recognize Brazil’s efforts to protect the environment.

Indonesia falls short on peatland restoration, risking destructive fire season

Deforestation accelerated sharply under the far-right then-president Jair Bolsonaro, but rates have been coming down since the new administration led by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took power at the start of the year.

Brazil is the single biggest exporter of agricultural products to the EU, shipping almost $12 billion worth of soya, corn and beef to the bloc in 2022. The commodities have been a historical driver of tree loss across the Amazon region, including in Brazil. The government says only 2% of Brazilian farmers commit environmental crimes.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva waits for the official family photo with leaders of countries attending the Amazon Summit at the Hangar Convention Centre in Belem, Para State, Brazil. (Photo: Reuters)

Astrini claims for the overwhelming majority of producers the new rules will not be a problem, making the criticism of the European regulations “meaningless” in Brazil.

Other major commodities-producing nations like Indonesia and Malaysia have previously criticised the regulations.

‘Critical step’

Companies have until December 2024 to adjust to the new legislation, which requires them to trace the products they are selling back to the plot of land where they were produced.

André Vasconcelos from the supply-chain transparency group Trase says the EU law is a “critical step” in making sure consumer markets play a role in driving down deforestation. But he added that for the new regulations to be “effective and equitable”, the EU needs to cooperate with producer countries.

Metals bosses enjoy front row seat at UN deep-sea mining negotiations

“Such collaboration needs to include the provision of financial support to boost enforcement of environmental regulations as well as the provision of incentives for farmers, particularly smallholder farmers, not to deforest”, he told Climate Home News.

The EU says it is stepping up its engagement with producing countries to ensure an inclusive transition to deforestation-free and legal supply chains.

Mercosur stumbling block

The issue is likely to come back to the fore at upcoming talks over a long-awaited free trade agreement between the EU and South America’s Mercosur bloc.

Paraguay’s President-elect Santiago Pena told Reuters this week that the EU’s current environmental demands in trade talks are “unacceptable”. He said that the European bloc’s proposals would hinder major soy exporter Paraguay’s economic development.

Brazil is also pushing the EU for better trading terms in return for offering environmental guarantees over the protection of the Amazon rainforest. Mercosur officials are working on a counter-proposal before meeting with EU negotiators. The two sides hope to reach an agreement before the end of the year.

The post Amazon nations decry EU deforestation rules in thinly-veiled joint condemnation appeared first on Climate Home News.

Eight years after, the Indonesian government claims to have made huge progress, with as much as 3.66 million hectares of peatland declared “restored” in areas managed by plantation companies. But these claims are not supported by data the government has made public, an analysis by The Gecko Project has found. 

The government’s statements appear to hinge on a narrow definition of “restoration” that deems peatlands restored when groundwater levels have been raised to 40 centimetres below the surface.  

The analysis of government data indicates that even by this measure, the areas “restored” have never reached the figures cited in official documentation and may in fact be far lower. Many of these peats sit on land licensed to timber companies. 

​​The data also shows that the area of peatland that meets this 40cm threshold also fluctuates wildly as water levels rise and fall, sometimes dropping as low as half a million hectares – a fraction of the area claimed as “restored” by the government.

​​The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, known as KLHK, did not respond to written questions, or to extensive attempts to seek comment on our findings.​ 

Environmental researchers who spoke to The Gecko Project viewed the implementation of a system to monitor peatland restoration as a positive step. But some also expressed scepticism about the government’s claims of success and how it was arriving at its figures. 

In the meantime, with Indonesia heading into what meteorologists predict could be an extreme dry season this year, the findings suggest that large areas of peatland could be far more vulnerable to burning than the government has acknowledged.  

The coming months, said David Taylor, a professor and peatland expert at the National University of Singapore, would serve as “a good test” of the government’s claims. 

An excavator operates in peatland covered by haze from fires in a concession belonging to PT Kaswari Unggul (KU) in Sumatra, Indonesia. (Photo: Greenpeace)

The repair job starts 

Despite covering only around three percent of the planet’s land surface, peatlands store around a third of all the world’s soil carbon.  

In Indonesia, where they cover more than 20 million hectares, peatlands have long been prone to fire during the dry season, especially during El Niño events. But the risks have ​been worsened by the draining of peatlands ​to allow cultivation of oil palm and timber plantations. 

The government set out to undo some of that damage by issuing a series of decrees and regulations, beginning in 2016, which aimed to rewet drained peatlands and replant vegetation.  

Gas lock-in: Debt-laden Ghana gambles on LNG imports

According to these guidelines, success would be assessed through multiple metrics, including plant growth and keeping the groundwater level at no lower than 40cm below the surface. Some research has suggested that higher water levels offer better protection against fires. 

A specially-established government body, now named the Peatland and Mangrove Restoration Agency, or BRGM, was given authority for overseeing peat restoration in land controlled by communities or the government. 

However, several million hectares of peatland fall within land already licensed to plantation companies. ​KLHK​ ordered companies to restore peatlands within their concessions and report back their progress.  

Mission accomplished? 

According to KLHK reports, companies have made progress in restoring peatlands. The KLHK website, for example, states that 3.4 million hectares of peatland within concession areas were “restored” between 2015 and 2019. 

A more recent KLHK report from 2022 states that “as of December 2021 (peatland restoration) had reached 3.66 million hectares.” 

But the KLHK’s methods for assessing which peatlands are restored can be narrow, experts say, as they appear to focus only on rewetting lands and not on other metrics. 

While companies are required to raise peat groundwater levels to at least 40cm belowground, other phases of restoration work, such as replanting native vegetation, appear to have been sidelined, leaving “rewetting” to be used as a proxy for restoration.  

In a 2022 report, the ministry registered fewer than 6,000 hectares as having “vegetation rehabilitation”. 

“Green” finance bankrolls forest destruction in Indonesia

A data analysis by The Gecko Project also shows that, even under the more generous approach of counting only rewetted peatlands as restored, the numbers still fall short of what the government says has been restored. 

Still, KLHK has claimed that by 2019, rewetting work alone had already reduced carbon dioxide emissions by more than 190 million tons – equivalent to the annual national emissions of the United Arab Emirates. KLHK did not respond to questions about the data supporting these calculations. 

Restoration falls short? 

KLHK has not made public a list of areas deemed to be restored and did not respond to requests for this information. However, it has published the areas that have been rewetted to various levels. 

Using this data, The Gecko Project identified peatlands within concession areas and compared their water levels to the 3.66 million hectares that KLHK claims have been restored.  

At a more detailed glance, the data shows big fluctuations in the “rewetted” area, suggesting that water levels are not being maintained on a stable basis.  

For example, at the beginning of 2019, during a wet season that saw torrential floods in many parts of the country, KLHK registered that around 3.5 million hectares of peatland inside concession areas had groundwater levels at 40cm belowground or higher.  

But in the middle of the 2022 dry season, the area rewetted was down to around just half a million hectares. 

Fire risk 

The data analysis also identified multiple “dry” concession areas in which water levels fell consistently below 40cm in the past year, highlighting a possibly heightened fire risk as this year’s El Niño event progresses.  

As an example, PT Rimba Hutani Mas, a pulpwood plantation company and supplier of the major paper and pulp firm Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), manages nearly 70,000 hectares in South Sumatra province, the majority of which is on peatlands according to government maps.  

Large sections of PT Rimba Hutani Mas’s peatland had water levels below the 40cm threshold​ over the last year​, KLHK data shows. According to ​the ​ministry, concession holders that have groundwater at this level “should carry out field checks immediately and improve or repair water management infrastructure in the field.” 

In 2015, army officers and firefighters try to extinguish fires in peatland areas outside the city of Palangka Raya in Borneo’s Central Kalimantan province. Photo: (Aulia Erlangga/CIFOR)

But the company was subject to legal action by Singapore’s National Environment Agency after evidence emerged that fires in its concession had contributed substantially to the haze of 2015. APP argued at the time that almost all the fires in its concession areas had been started outside those areas. 

APP did not respond to specific questions about water levels in this supplier’s concession area. The company said it has been submitting “all the required data” to KLHK and pointed to its 2022 Sustainability Report. 

Job not done 

Peat researchers agree that fluctuations in water level are to be expected in peatlands, whether or not land is being managed. This complicates the use of groundwater level as a standalone measure of restoration success.  

Water levels are highly dependent on external climate conditions, noted Muh Taufik, a tropical peatland researcher at IPB University. In the wet season, the water table could be at ground level or even above ground, while in the dry season it can fall to a metre or more below the surface, he said. 

The topography of the land itself can influence the water table, too – valleys are more likely than slopes to remain wet. “It’s very difficult to maintain the water table around 40cm,” Taufik said. 

Such variability reinforces some researchers’ concerns about judging restoration success on the basis of water level data alone. 

As Guyana shows, carbon offsets will not save the Amazon rainforest

While getting water back into dried-out peatlands is important, “it’s definitely not ‘job done’” once the water table reaches 40cm, said Dominick Spracklen, a professor of biosphere-atmosphere interactions at the University of Leeds. Rather, he said, “it is a good proxy for things moving in the right direction.” 

David Taylor, from the University of Singapore, suggested that rewetting should be seen as a first step.  

While having a monitoring system for peat rewetting is a positive step, he said, it’s important to take a more holistic approach to peat restoration that acknowledges the time and multiple steps involved – particularly reintroducing plants and allowing natural vegetation to grow in the absence of peat-damaging plantation activities. 

Uncertain figures 

Gusti, the professor at Tanjungpura University said it’s “very complicated” to determine whether the ministry’s peatland restoration claims have been achieved or not.  

Separate KLHK documents appear to acknowledge much lower success rates than claimed by officials. A 2020 report, for example, noted that, out of 280 concession areas, just 60 were found to have “actually improved their performance of peatland ecosystems management.” 

Fieldwork published in 2021 by the nonprofit Pantau Gambut concluded that “most companies” had failed to implement plans to restore peat. 

The implications of these failings, and the fluctuations in water levels, may become apparent in the coming months, as dry weather continues to intensify in Indonesia in the first El Niño year since 2019.1 By mid-June, KLHK reported that fires in 2023 had already affected more than 28,000 hectares of forest and other land. 

“Big El Niños over the last thirty years or so have been associated with drought here in southeast Asia [and with] peatland fires,” said Taylor.  

Fires can burn even on pristine peatlands, he said, but if Indonesia’s restoration work has been successful, it should help limit some of the damage. “I think it’s going to be a test of claims that have been made that these peatlands have been restored.” 

This story was published in partnership with The Gecko Project.

The post Indonesia falls short on peatland restoration, risking destructive fire season appeared first on Climate Home News.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has staked his international reputation on improving Brazil’s environmental standing, had been pushing for the region to unite behind a common policy of ending deforestation by 2030 – one he has already adopted.

Instead, the joint declaration issued on Tuesday in the Brazilian city of Belem created an alliance for combating forest destruction, with countries left to pursue their own individual deforestation goals.

The document also leaves out any mentions to halting fossil fuel contracts in the Amazon rainforest, a proposal that was championed by the Colombian President Gustavo Petro but ultimately failed to make it into the final text.

The Brazilian coalition of climate NGOs, Climate Observatory, said the declaration fell short of expectations, adding the agreement “fails the rainforest and the planet”.

Pressure grows on governments and banks to stop supporting Amazon oil and gas

Slow action

The failure of the eight Amazon countries to agree on a pact to protect their own forests points to the larger, global difficulties at forging an agreement to combat climate change. Many scientists say policymakers are acting too slowly to head off catastrophic global warming.

Lula and other national leaders left Tuesday’s meeting without commenting on the declaration. Presidents from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru attended the summit, while Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname and Venezuela sent other top officials.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said in a press briefing that the issue of deforestation “in no way whatsoever will divide the region” and cited “an understanding about deforestation” in the declaration, without elaborating.

As Guyana shows, carbon offsets will not save the Amazon rainforest

This week’s summit brought together the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) for the first time in 14 years, with plans to reach a broad agreement on issues from fighting deforestation to financing sustainable development.

Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Brazilian NGO coalition Climate Observatory, said the summit’s declaration is a “first step” but added it still lacks “concrete responses to the situation we’re dealing with”.

“The planet is melting, we are breaking temperature records every day. It is not possible that, in a scenario like this, eight Amazonian countries cannot put in a statement, in bold letters, that deforestation needs to be zero and that exploring for oil in the middle of the forest is not a good idea,” said Astrini.

Oil in the Amazon?

Tensions emerged in the lead up to the summit around diverging positions on deforestation and oil development.

Fellow Amazon countries also rebuffed Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro’s ongoing campaign to end new oil development in the Amazon. In his speech on Tuesday, Petro likened the left’s desire to keep drilling for oil to the right-wing denial of climate science.

He said the idea of making a gradual “energy transition” away from fossil fuels was a way to delay the work needed to stop climate change.

G20 climate talks fail to deliver emission cuts despite leadership pleas

Civil society organisations accused the Brazilian government of opposing a mention to fossil fuels in the final text, adding the country wanted to “bury” any mentions of a fossil fuel phase out in the region.

Brazil is weighing whether to develop a potentially huge offshore oil find near the mouth of the Amazon River and the country’s northern coast, which is dominated by rainforest.

“What we are discussing in Brazil today is of an extensive and large area – in my vision perhaps the last frontier of oil and gas before … the energy transition,” Brazil’s Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira told reporters after Petro’s speech.

Silveira said they should conduct research into what oil is there in order to make a decision on the issue.

Illegal mining

Beyond deforestation, the summit also did not fix a deadline on ending illegal gold mining, although leaders agreed to cooperate on the issue and to better combat cross-border environmental crime.

The final joint statement, called the Belem Declaration, strongly asserted indigenous rights and protections, while also agreeing to cooperate on water management, health, common negotiating positions at climate summits, and sustainable development.

As Reuters previously reported, the declaration additionally established a science body to meet annually and produce authoritative reports on science related to the Amazon rainforest, akin to the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change.

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The stalemate is dragging on as attempts to formally discuss a precautionary suspension of mining activities have been thwarted by nations in favour of exploiting the ocean’s mineral resources.

Over a dozen countries spearheaded by Chile, Costa Rica and France want to officially debate for the first time in history the possibility to halt deep-sea mining until its full impact on the ocean’s biodiversity is understood.

Hervè Berville, the French Minister for Marine Affairs, told the Assembly on Wednesday that the world “must not and cannot embark on a new industrial activity without measuring the consequences and taking the risk of irreversible damage”.

For the past decade, the mining industry has proposed to extract minerals from the deep seabed that can later be used to make batteries for electric vehicles.

However, the potential impacts of mining the ocean floor are largely unknown, putting biodiversity at risk. More than 750 marine scientists signed an open letter calling for a ban on the practice until robust scientific evidence can back it up.

High Seas Treaty exempts deep-sea mining from stricter environmental rules

Mining industry pushback

China and the island-state of Nauru have so far blocked the motion for a moratorium discussion, preventing agreement over the agenda. Both countries sponsor companies pushing for the exploitation of seabed minerals. Mexico also initially opposed but then retracted.

Gina Guillén, head of the Costa Rican delegation and one of the leaders of the coalition calling for a pause on mining, said one sole country was fiercely blocking the agenda item, even after offering a lighter discussion than expected.

“Just one country is opposing (the agenda item on the discussion). We hope it does happen. One country can’t hijack the most important body of the (ISA) just for being a big economy. That goes against all principles of multilateralism,” Guillén said.

‘We are not ready’: Divisions deepen over rush to finalise deep sea mining rules

Calls for a so-called moratorium have been gathering pace during the annual meeting of the ISA, the little-known UN body tasked with regulating the vast ocean floor in international waters.

This year’s week-long summit, set to end on Friday, comes at a pivotal time. Any member state could theoretically apply for a full-blown mining contract on behalf of a company, after a deadline triggered by Nauru lapsed earlier in July.

So far the ISA has only handed out ‘exploration’ permits which do not allow commercial exploitation of the minerals.

Mining code delayed

But several operators have already been exploring an area of the Pacific Ocean floor known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone. The region is rich in polymetallic nodules containing nickel, cobalt, copper and manganese, which are critical for manufacturing electric vehicles.

Among the most active is Canada-based start-up The Metals Company, whose license is sponsored by Nauru. After the island nation triggered an obscure provision two years ago, the ISA accelerated the pace of its negotiations to establish mining rules before a July 9th, 2023.

The Metals Company, and its partner Nauru, hoped to begin industrial-scale mining as early as 2024, following the expected approval of a mining code.

But their ambitions were cut back last week after the ISA delayed timeline for the regulations. The 36 members of the body’s council gave until 2025 to adopt the mining code.

It is now a question of when — rather than if — commercial scale nodule collection will begin. https://t.co/oWI8AOZPBR

— gerard barron (@gtbgtb) July 24, 2023

Blow to industry

Nauru’s president Russ Joseph Kun expressed disappointment on Wednesday that the ISA did not complete the process within the two-year deadline.

Member states in fact could still apply for a mining licence despite the rules not being in place. This would push the body into uncharted territory without clear guidelines on how such a request would be examined.

The Metals Company said it reserves the right to submit an application in the absence of a mining code. “It is now a question of when — rather than if — commercial-scale nodule collection will begin”, its CEO Gerard Barron said in a statement.

But the listed company’s stock tumbled by over 20% this week, hinting at investors’ diminishing confidence in its mining prospects.

Guillén from Costa Rica said approving the new 2025 deadline was “critical”. “They wanted a 2024 deadline, but we said no way,” she said.

Moratorium discussion

Campaigners opposed to deep-sea mining viewed the new 2025 deadline for the mining code with optimism but repeated their pleas for a moratorium, which would block any attempt to start commercial operations.

“This unprecedented agenda fight comes as a coalition of nations from Latin America, the Pacific and Europe try and wrangle the debate away from serving narrow corporate interests towards the public good”, said Louisa Casson from Greenpeace, who is attending the talks in Jamaica.

If the agenda is approved, it would mark the first time countries hold a formal discussion on suspending deep sea mining, although this discussion would not necessarily lead to a moratorium.

Still, Gillén said this is an important precedent, and said “we cannot destroy the seabed by taking a rushed decision”.

Last year, countries agreed to a treaty for the high seas, which creates international marine protected areas. However, this milestone could be undermined if deep sea talks end up with a bad deal, the Costa Rican negotiator added.

“Even after having agreed to the (high seas) treaty, if we don’t have strong safeguards for the seabed in those same areas, then we won’t have achieved anything,” Guillén said.

The post UN deep-sea mining talks deadlocked over agenda clash appeared first on Climate Home News.

Leaders will be meeting next month at the Amazon Summit in Belém, a city also due to host the Cop30 climate talks in 2025, to discuss the 45-year-old Amazon Cooperation Treaty for the first time in several years.

The final guest list is not yet clear, but nations across Latin America are expected to be represented as well as some from Europe.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has rebooted the summit in the hope of using it to build support for his commitment to end illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, but curbing fossil fuel extraction does not appear to be on the agenda.

G20 divisions over key climate goals pile pressure on Cop28 hosts

However, a grassroots campaign led by Indigenous groups and civil society argues such a move is essential to combat climate change, and to protect biodiversity and the Indigenous people that live there.

The campaign builds on an existing effort to get a global pact for the permanent protection of four-fifths of Amazonia by 2025. Focusing specifically on oil and gas, it calls for an Amazon exclusion zone where no fossil fuels can be exploited, in line with the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) warning that there can be no new fossil fuel projects if the world is to stay under a 1.5°C warming threshold.

Domestic exploitation

A number of South American countries in which the Amazon rainforest lies have been trying to boost domestic oil and gas exploration and extraction in recent years. 

Peru is proposing to place 31 oil blocks over 435 indigenous communities, while Bolivia recently finalised an ‘Upstream Reactivation Plan’.

Meanwhile, the result of a forthcoming Ecuadorian referendum about oil exploitation in the Yasuní rainforest will be hugely significant for that part of the Amazon but will also send a wider message about the region’s priorities.

In Brazil, a far-right Congress is proposing to gut the powers of both the ministries of the environment and Indigenous peoples, throwing Lula’s deforestation pledge into doubt. 

The Brazilian president’s own ambitions of positioning himself as climate leader have also been called into question over his stance on an oil drilling project at the mouth of the Amazon river. He recently said he found it “difficult” to believe that oil exploration in the Amazon basin would damage the region’s rainforest.

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Ahead of the Amazon Summit, Indigenous groups will be meeting in Brazil to share fossil fuel resistance strategies, with the support of campaign group 350.org. 

“From this we hope will come a very powerful document that will inform the discussions of the presidents in Belém,” said Ilan Zugman, 350.org’s Latin America managing director. “Hopefully it will have some very strong messages saying no new fossil fuel projects in the Amazon.”

Petro’s lead

Zugman said Colombian president Gustavo Petro had been a “very loud voice” in support of this idea. In January, Petro announced a halt in all new oil and gas exploration contracts, keeping 380 currently active contracts. 

In a recent opinion piece for the Miami Herald, Petro called on Amazon countries and their partners in the Global North to follow him on ending all new oil and gas exploration in the Amazon.

He said that, while ending deforestation was “fundamental”, it had to be accompanied by “an ambitious transnational policy to phase out fossil fuels”. Oil, gas and coal accounts for about half of all Colombian exports.

Dozens of oil & industry lobbyists attended secretive shipping emissions talks

Petro said some countries, like Colombia, could allocate a “substantial amount of resources” to protect the Amazon. 

But he stressed that curbing oil and gas exploitation would have a big economic impact on poorer South American nations and called on countries like the US to help with financial mechanisms such as debt-for-climate swaps, a multilateral fund that funds environmental protection services by inhabitants of these territories, or the kind of financial reforms being progressed by the Bridgetown initiative. 

At a recent meeting, the Colombian and Brazilian presidents pledged to cooperate to protect the Amazon but the latter did not appear to make any concessions on oil and gas.

“We need to convince other presidents like Lula.. to step up as well and really play this leadership role,” said Zugman, “to not allow fossil fuel exploration in one of the most important places of the world.” 

Banking spotlight

Campaigners are also stepping up pressure on financial institutions to stop financing oil and gas projects in the region.

A report, published today by NGO Stand.earth and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), shows that US$20 billion has been provided to explore and exploit reserves in Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador over the past 15 years.

More than half of this (US$11 billion) came from just eight banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Itaú Unibanco, HSBC, Santander, Bank of America, Banco Bradesco and Goldman Sachs.

Six of these banks are either headquartered in the US or act through their US subsidiary and operate in deals across the region, while the two Brazilian companies – Itaú Unibanco and Banco Bradesco – are highly connected to specific oil and gas projects in that country. 

The report is accompanied by a database of all the banks involved in Amazon oil and gas through directly traceable and indirect financing, for example by providing loans or underwriting bond deals for upstream and midstream development and transport of oil and gas in Amazonia. 

The EU-Mercosur trade deal will harm Brazil’s indigenous communities

JPMorgan Chase tops the list, having directly provided US$1.9 billion in direct financing to oil and gas in the region over the past decade and a half.

Together with HSBC, it was a major backer of Petroperú’s Talara refinery expansion project, which is driving the exploitation of oil on Indigenous land in the Peruvian Amazon.

JPMorgan Chase has ruled out support for the highly controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline project, but made no such commitment on oil and gas activity in the Amazon or wider fossil fuel expansion. 

The Stand.earth report says an Amazon exclusion for financial institutions is an “essential strategy” to protect the region from oil, gas, and other extractive industries.

Although no banks have completely ruled out funding fossil fuels in Amazonia – the geographic region around the Amazon basin – the report does praise some companies for starting to recognise the risks involved. 

Exclusion policies

 In May 2022, BNP Paribas pledged to no longer finance or invest in companies producing from oil and gas reserves in the Amazon or developing related infrastructure, becoming the first major bank to adopt a geographical exclusion of oil and gas in this area.

And in December 2022, HSBC amended its policies to exclude all new finance and advisory services for any client for oil and gas project exploration, appraisal, development, and production in the Amazon Biome.

The EU-Mercosur trade deal will harm Brazil’s indigenous communities

Stand.earth says these two companies, along with some others, are “sending important signals” that banks should be willing to review their relationship to Amazon destruction and take steps to manage that risk.

These also go some way towards the Exit Amazon Oil and Gas principles devised by international advocacy groups including Stand.earth and Amazon Indigenous leaders.

Clear boundaries

Angeline Robertson, lead researcher of Stand Research Group, said efforts to restrict fossil fuels should cover the wider Amazonia area “to avoid confusion or allow banks to define the exclusion zone themselves.

This was an issue with Arctic exclusions, where banks used different boundaries in their policies.”  Standard Chartered’s and BNP Paribas’ exclusions, for example, cover the ‘Amazon’ or ‘Amazon Basin’, while Société Générale and Intesa Sanpaolo’s policies include only the Amazon regions of Ecuador and Peru.

Zugman said both governments and financial institutions had a big role to play in protecting the region. “Governments need to step up first. And banks… should be there by their side to support these bold decisions and to help accelerate the just energy transition.”

He added that banks could play an important role in the Amazon by supporting a just energy transition. “Energy access is still a big deal in the Amazon and banks could, in consultation with communities, be helping them have clean access to energy instead of investing in businesses that are going to destroy their lands.”

Zugman said the Belém summit was vital because it would inform about protection of the Amazon at Cop28 in December as well as the next G20 meeting which Brazil is due to host. “We’re really pushing together for this moment.” 

The post Pressure grows on governments and banks to stop supporting Amazon oil and gas  appeared first on Climate Home News.

It is the first time that Ecuadorians will vote on an ecological issue of this magnitude. Experts consulted by Climate Home News said the referendum will define the economic model for the country’s future.

The environmental referendum is a first of its kind for Ecuador and, if approved by a simple majority of Ecuadorians, would ban all new oil wells in the Yasuní park, as well as phasing out existing concessions.

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Pedro Bermeo, spokesperson for Yasunidos, a coalition of NGOs that led the call for the vote, said the public debate around climate change is already a victory. He added the referendum is a “milestone in the history of Ecuador”.

“Beyond the result, we must see this as an opportunity to value what this referendum has already provoked: a national debate that has never existed before,” Bermeo said.

The vote is scheduled to take place on August 20. At the time of publication, there have been no public opinion polls.

Vote for the rainforest

The Yasuní National Park, Ecuador’s largest, hosts one of the largest biodiversity hotspots on Earth, and is the home of the Tagaeri and Taromenane people in voluntary isolation. 

For decades, Yasuní has been threatened by extractive industries, such as mining and oil. For over six years, Ecuador’s State oil company, Petroecuador, has been operating in this territory. 

According to reports from the Andean Amazon Monitoring Project, at least 689 hectares have been deforested in the Yasuní, most of it, by the oil industry.

This is the size of 1,200 American Football fields and exceeds the 300-hectare limit established after a previous referendum in 2018.

Ecuador, Amazon Rainforest, Rio Napo, Near Coca, in the Yasuni National Park, on November, 14 2022. (Photo: Reuters / Stevens Tomas / ABACA)

Data provided by the Ministry of Environment, shows there have been more than 1,500 oil spills in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the last decade, which means at least 12 occur every month. 

Experts warn that both deforestation and oil spills threaten the unique biodiversity of the Amazon.

Activists have called for a vote on whether to keep drilling for oil in this region but, in 2013, the country declared Yasuní as an area of national interest and began extracting crude soon after. 

Bermeo’s Yasunidos proposed a referendum to nullify the declaration, but the process was blocked by an electoral court.

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Climate debate

The current government says approving the referendum can have “catastrophic” effects on the economy. Still, they’ve claimed they won’t campaign against it.

Fernando Santos, Energy Minister, has said in several interviews that the country “won’t gain anything by not producing [the Yasuní] ITT oil”. He has also argued that removing existing infrastructure will actually have negative costs for the country.

But experts claim the benefits from oil in Ecuador’s Amazon could be short-lived. 

During a hearing at the Constitutional Court, Petroecuador’s technicians explained the oil from Yasuní is low-quality “extra-heavy crude”, which requires high investments to process and sell.

When drilling began in Yasuní, Petroecuador expected to reach a daily production of 200,000 oil barrels by 2022. However, official data shows it has remained at 55,000 — about a quarter of what was expected. Pedro Bermeo says that the “figures they [the government] are giving are false”. 

As a result, a 2019 study by the Geological and Energetic Research Institute, a public research institution in Ecuador, estimated that by 2029, “oil could no longer be the main source of income” in the country. The study called for a change in the economic model.

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An important precedent

Luis Suárez, Executive Director at Conservation International Ecuador, said the referendum is an opportunity to rethink the country’s future, and suggested a move to tourism and bioeconomy. “What is the country going to bet on?”, he asked.

Domingo Peas, Territory Coordinator for the Cuencas Sagradas Initiative and a longtime leader of the Achuar nationality, says the vote will be “historic for Ecuador and the world” because “it will frame strategies for the next generation”. 

For the indigenous nationalities living in the Amazon, including the Tagaeri and Taromenane, the referendum is a way of respecting their human rights, he added.

“We, indigenous people, have said that we only want a dignified life”, and the approval of the referendum will grant that, Peas said.

Still, all experts consulted said the referendum will not stop oil production overnight. “We know these changes take time”, said Peas, “but it is imperative that they occur eventually”.

The post ‘Historic milestone’: Ecuador nears vote to keep Amazon oil in the ground appeared first on Climate Home News.

Animal agriculture contributes up to a fifth of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including a third of the world’s methane emissions. Because methane has over 80 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 20-year timeframe, swift and absolute reductions from the livestock sector are vital to keeping the Paris Agreement climate targets within reach.

According to leading researchers, even if fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted, livestock emissions could make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult to limit it to “well below” 2°C.

MDBs livestock investments

Despite this, since 2010, the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have invested over $4.6 billion of public money to help expand large-scale livestock production, exacerbating the climate crisis while also driving deforestation, biodiversity loss, and air and water pollution.

Tomorrow world leaders will meet in Paris for the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact, organized by French President Emmanuel Macron and Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

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The summit will address key issues, including reform of multilateral development banks, with the goal of “addressing climate change and the global crisis.” Central to such reform should be a commitment by MDBs to end their support for GHG-intensive and highly environmentally destructive industrial livestock operations.

On his first day as World Bank President, Ajay Banga made climate change a clear priority by directing his staff to “double down” on their climate efforts. But words aren’t enough. The World Bank and other MDBs must take concrete steps to preserve the best possibility of limiting global warming to “well below” 2°C. In agriculture, this translates into shrinking, not expanding, the global industrial livestock sector.

Fatal flaws

MDBs are fueling the global expansion of factory farming while failing to account for the sector’s impacts on climate.

In a new report we co-authored on behalf of the Stop Financing Factory Farming Campaign (S3F), we argue that flaws in MDBs’ frameworks for aligning their investments with the Paris Agreement are resulting in the misclassification of industrial livestock investments as compatible with the Agreement’s mitigation and adaptation goals.

A key flaw is that the frameworks are based on countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)–the climate plans they submit to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But the UN’s climate body itself actually finds that NDCs are “not on track to meet climate goals.”

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Equally important, only 40% of countries incorporate livestock into their NDCs, and none have set methane reduction targets from the sector. MDBs’ Paris Alignment frameworks also fail to account for the extreme vulnerability of intensive, highly centralized livestock operations to climate-related heat stress, disease spread, and water shortages.

None of the world’s leading MDBs currently require that industrial livestock sector borrowers provide comprehensive (Scope 1-3) emissions reporting or commit to absolute, time-bound GHG reduction targets.

IFC’s poor record

Even more concerning, a comprehensive analysis by Bank Climate Advisors reveals that the World Bank’s private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), has systematically failed to apply its own GHG-related environmental standards which are already insufficient to the task of reducing absolute emissions from industrial livestock production.

Only last month, IFC approved a $32 million loan to Brazilian dairy giant Alvoar Lacteos and a $47 million loan to GXYX, a massive pig farm operation in China, despite civil society concerns and opposition to each. Neither company has committed to comprehensive GHG reporting or reductions or time-bound zero-deforestation targets, and neither has addressed other negative l impacts of value-chain activities, including biodiversity loss from feed production and grazing.

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Often, MDBs use arguments about food security and the need to keep food prices low to justify investments in resource-intensive factory farming operations.

In reality, however, a shift away from industrial livestock production toward agroecological systems could more efficiently and equitably feed the planet. These systems prioritize smaller-scale farmers and communities, help facilitate a shift toward sustainable, plant-forward diets, conserve natural resources, and yield significant climate and biodiversity-related benefits.

To honor their commitments to Paris Alignment, MDBs should shift their agricultural investments toward climate-friendly agroecological farming systems that support food sovereignty and food security, and end their investments in intensive, polluting and high-emitting industrial livestock operations. Shifting investments in this way would deliver economic, public health, food security, and climate dividends now and for future generations.

Kelly McNamara is a senior research and policy analyst and Kari Hamerschlag is deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth U.S.

The post Multilateral banks’ investments in industrial livestock undermine their Paris climate commitments appeared first on Climate Home News.

Medco had initially planted a vast timber plantation to produce wood chips for exports. Then, in 2017, Indonesia injected Medco with $4.5 million to build a biomass plant in the area and committed the state-owned electricity company to buy the energy it generated. In 2021, the government gave the plant an extra $9 million. 

The company said it needs to almost double the size of its plantation to meet the demands of the power plant, and that it would continue to use wood harvested from the forest as it is cleared. 

Ultimately, the most affected were local villagers depending on the forest. The project has made it harder for Marind people, hunter-gatherers indigenous people to the lowlands of Papua, to find food to eat. 

This story is the result of a new Climate Home News investigation in collaboration with The Gecko Project and Project Multatuli, both publications based in Indonesia. 

This week’s news:

• “Green” finance bankrolls forest destruction in Indonesia
• FSC’s rehab scheme for forest destroyers under fire after fresh allegations
• Amazon gateway city Belém will host Cop30 climate talks
• Comment: Climate movement must switch on to UAE threat

Our reporter Joe Lo is in Paris covering key UN plastics treaty negotiations. Check out our coverage:

• Row over veto powers holds up Paris plastic treaty talks
• Comment: How a local victory against petrochemicals can spur global action on plastics

Forest protection has been on our radar recently, as allegations surged that forest logging companies were using a sustainability certification scheme called the FSC to brand themselves as sustainable while continuing to clear forests. 

At its assembly last year, the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) agreed to give their stamp of approval to companies that have cut down trees between 1994 and 2020 if they restore part of the forests and compensate communities.  

These companies include two Indonesian pulp and paper giants, Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (April) and Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), which had cleared vast areas of the tropical rainforest for decades. 

But environmental groups accused both companies of sourcing wood from suppliers which continue to cut down intact forests. One of the suppliers, they found, cut down an area equivalent to 20,000 football pitches. 

FSC told Climate Home News it “will not engage with any organisation that continues to be part of destructive activities”. “The FSC should prepare itself not to be fooled,” one campaigner responded. 

The post “Green” funds destroy Indonesia’s forests – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

At its assembly last year, the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) agreed to give their stamp of approval to companies that have cut down trees between 1994 and 2020 if they restore part of the forests and compensate communities. The move was backed by logging companies and green campaigners.

The programme will officially start in July, but preparatory work has already begun with companies interested in regaining the valuable certification, which opens loggers up to more customers. These companies include two Indonesian pulp and paper giants which had cleared vast areas of the tropical rainforest for decades.

Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (April) and Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) now say they have turned a new leaf and have now eliminated deforestation in their supply chains.

But environmental groups doubt their commitment and accuse both companies of sourcing wood from suppliers which continue to cut down intact forests. April and APP refute the accusations.

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Any evidence of deforestation since 2020 should immediately disqualify the companies from obtaining certification.

Grant Rosoman, a campaigner at Greenpeace and former FSC board member, says the certification body needs to first look at evidence on the ground before allowing companies to proceed with the scheme.

“If the FSC finds any companies associated with them have continued deforestation over the last two or three years that should be an immediate stop to the process”, he added. “The big danger is that this could become a marketing operation”.

FSC told Climate Home News it “will not engage with any organisation that continues to be part of destructive activities”.

Coveted green symbol

From books to toilet paper, millions of goods across the world boast the FSC’s tick-tree symbol. For the consumer its presence should guarantee the product originates from sustainable and ethical sources.

For companies seeking the certification body’s recognition the symbol is a business opportunity. It opens up wider access to markets as many governments and major retailers, especially in Western countries, require the use of FSC-certified products.

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As the rule-setter and enforcer, the FSC plays the crucial role of upholding the integrity of the system. At its general assembly last year its members voted overwhelmingly in favour of a historical change: it moved from 1994 to 2020 the cut-off date by which companies need to have stopped clearing forests in order to get a certification.

Crucially, however, this would only apply if companies restored the same amount of forests that had been cut in their concessions during the period, and provided remedy for the social harm done in the process.

Problem companies engaged

The FSC said this change would “provide a route by which millions of hectares of forests can be restored and then become FSC certified and managed in a responsible manner”.

In March the FSC announced that that it was “engaged in a dialogue” with April and APP to plan their involvement in the remedy process.

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Part of large South-east Asian conglomerates selling products in hundreds of countries, both APP and April used to hold FSC certifications. But they lost them, respectively in 2007 and 2013, when the FSC concluded they had been destroying pristine rainforests.

Since then, both companies have vowed to reform themselves. April committed in 2015 to eliminating deforestation from its supply chain and to protecting forests and peatlands. APP similarly pledged to halt all natural forest clearance.

Deforestation allegations

But separate investigations from campaigners and media have repeatedly accused the two companies of breaking their promises.

In the latest instance, last week a coalition of environmental groups accused April of receiving “significant volumes of wood” from two suppliers with evidence of deforestation. In particular, the report points the finger at Adindo Hutani Lestari, an April supplier located in north-eastern Borneo.

The investigation detected over 10,500 hectares of natural forest loss in its concession area since 2016. That’s roughly the equivalent of 20,000 football pitches. In the last month alone, over a hundred hectares of trees have been cut down in the area, according to Nusantara Atlas, which tracks deforestation using satellite images.

Grant Rosoman says this evidence “throws into question” April’s ability to be part of the FSC remedy scheme. “It’s very easy to make a commitment but delivering it on the ground is another story,” he says. “The FSC should not waste its time and do a preliminary screening to see if there is even a basis for moving forward”.

‘Baseless claims’

In a statement published on its website, April said: “claims made in the report related to April were baseless”. The company added that, based on its own analysis, no deforestation occurred in areas controlled by its supplier Adindo Hutani Lestari.

APP has faced similar accusations of backsliding on its commitments. Last year a report by a group of campaigners claimed two timber suppliers controlled by APP destroyed natural habitats in a protected reserve to grow acacia trees for pulpwood.

Over 220 hectares of forest have been cleared over the last 12 months in the concession areas of those two companies, according to Nusantara Atlas.

APP did not reply to our request for comment. But, in a statement published last year in response to the report, it said deforestation does not take place on any of its supplier concessions. It also said no natural forests were turned into pulpwood cultivations in the areas controlled by the two suppliers.

Loophole risks

FSC told Climate Home News evidence of the progress in implementing remedy work “must be present and verified” before companies can apply for a new certification.

It also said it would “not engage with any organisation that continues to be part of destructive activities, considered as serious violations, within its corporate group”.

Environmentalists worry the narrow focus only on operations directly controlled by companies seeking association could be exploited as a loophole.

That’s because – they claim – companies like April and APP hide their direct links to third-party suppliers through complicated corporate structures stretching into secretive offshore countries.

Timer Manurung from the Indonesian environmental group Auriga says the FSC must take into consideration any deforestation in the groups’ supply chains or this could be an escape route.  “The FSC should prepare itself not to be fooled”, she added.

A previous version of the story included maps from deforested areas, but these were removed due to deforestation happening before the images were taken.

The post FSC’s rehab scheme for forest destroyers under fire after fresh allegations appeared first on Climate Home News.

The International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) board was initially due to vote at its 30 April meeting on a BRL160 million ($32 million) loan to Alvoar Lacteos intended to help the company expand its operations in Brazil and support wider food security.

Alvoar Lacteos owns and manages industrial facilities in the Midwest and Northeast regions of Brazil, making products such as UHT milk, powdered milk, yogurt, cheese and sweets. The money would be used to install new equipment, renovate existing industrial units and build a new unit for cheese production, as well as for improving the company’s environmental and social standards.

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A group of 16 Brazilian and international organisations, including Friends of the Earth, the Global Forest Coalition, the International Accountability Project and the Brazilian Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, wrote to the IFC in April urging it to reject the loan, arguing it had not properly accounted for the project’s environmental and social impacts.

The decision has since been rescheduled to the end of May. Emails sent by IFC and seen by Climate Home News imply is so the IFC board can consider evidence presented by the group, although an IFC spokesperson told Climate Home “the timing of when projects are taken to the board is dependent on numerous factors”.

Neither the IFC nor Alvoar Lacteos responded to questions about the concerns raised or the delay.

Suppliers emissions ignored

Civil society groups raised numerous concerns about the loan, including a claim that it is incompatible with the IFC’s commitment to align investments with a 1.5C global warming threshold.

The only current climate-related requirement in the project’s environmental and social action plan is for Alvoar Lacteos to prepare its first greenhouse gas inventory and estimate the emissions under its direct control (scope 1 and 2) “following an internationally recognized methodology, and local regulations”.  It has until April 2024 to do this.

There is no requirement for the company to monitor scope 3 emissions from its suppliers, like the chopping down of forests to graze cattle, which comprise the vast majority of a dairy company’s climate impact. The civil society organisations argue these emissions should be “the focus of reduction and mitigation measures”.

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Kelly Anne McNamara is a senior research and policy analyst in the international climate and agriculture finance programme of Friends of the Earth, one of the organisations that has challenged the loan. 

She told Climate Home the IFC had clarified that it was working with Alvoar on addressing its scope 3 emissions by avoiding deforestation on dairy farms and farms associated with sourcing feed. But she pointed out that no actual mitigation or reduction is required under the terms of the loan.

Paris alignment

Two years ago, the World Bank pledged to align all its financing with the goals of the Paris Agreement and it says it is on track to do this for all its new operations from July 2023. The IFC has a weaker target of aligning 85% of new operations by that date and 100% from July 2025.

However, a new climate framework for multilateral development banks is under development which the IFC will be using to assess its investments. It says that”non-ruminant livestock” are consistent with the Paris agreement’s goal but it does not mention ruminant livestock like cows and sheep.

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Campaigners said the framework suggests that such projects will require evaluations against specific greenhouse gas reduction criteria but have seen no evidence that the IFC has assessed the Alvoar project in this way.

“Had IFC done so, it might understand that there is a need for a major reduction in production in the cattle sector in the [Latin America and the Caribbean] region, along with a heightened focus on measures to significantly cut the [greenhouse gas] footprint of existing operations through better management practices,” they wrote in their letter.

This, they said, could include a shift away from intensive feed and milk production, toward silvopasture and agroforestry practices that increase sequestration and do not rely on fossil fuel-based fertilisers and pesticides.

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International development banks, including the IFC, have spent billions supporting the meat and dairy industries over the past decade. Although the IFC stopped supporting new coal projects in April, it has made no explicit restrictions on other activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions.

The civil society groups also pointed out that Alvoar has not set itself a net zero target, and said this should be a requirement for the project.

And they criticised the IFC for not doing enough to understand other potential environmental and social issues linked to dairy supply chains, such as child and forced labour, land rights and deforestation.

Alvoar does not own any cattle farms so its milk is sourced from 5,500 farmers, including dairy cooperatives and individual farmers, as well as middlemen. Campaigners say it has no supply chain management system in place to address these.

No hard requirement

Although the IFC expects Alvoar to develop such a system if the loan is approved, campaigners note that there is no hard requirement to achieve full supply chain traceability or zero deforestation by a specific date.

Campaigners argue the IFC was wrong to conclude that any risks from the project would be short-term and localised and said it should have required a more comprehensive environmental and social assessment and mitigation plan.

Although the loan is in part intended to help Alvoar boost its environmental and social standards, critics said the onus was on the IFC to understand those risks in advance.

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Campaigners also question whether the loan will actually help increase food access for the neediest Brazilians.

IFC loans are normally approved without controversy. But last year a decision on whether to approve another agricultural project – soy and corn feed sourcing by the Brazilian arm of a major European meat producer – was also delayed after campaigners expressed doubts about its impact on deforestation.

McNamara said that, although the earlier loan was eventually approved, some IFC board directors abstained and several encouraged campaigners to keep raising concerns. In the case of the Alvoar project, however, she thinks food security arguments are likely to over-ride other considerations.

The IFC board is made up of 25 representatives of different governments.

This article was updated on 26 May 2023 to include IFC’s statement

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