Cropped 6 December 2023: COP28 greenwashing; Nature finance; Food pledge

§ Key developments

Nature finance

‘FORESTS FOREVER’: Brazil unveiled a new “tropical forests forever” fund proposal at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai on Friday, Reuters reported. Launched by environment minister Marina Silva and finance minister Fernando Haddad, the proposal aims to provide 80 tropical countries with finance to help maintain trees, with annual payments based on hectares conserved or restored, according to the newswire. It added that Brazil hopes to raise $250bn from sovereign wealth funds and other investors, including the oil industry. Elsewhere, Bloomberg reported that the UK pledged an additional $38m to Brazil’s Amazon Fund at the talks. According to Dubai’s Khaleej Times, French president Emmanuel Macron used his appearance at the summit to confirm funding for three forest finance packages, including $100m for Papua New Guinea, $60m for the Democratic Republic of Congo and $50m for the Republic of Congo. It added that some of this finance would be through carbon-offset credits (see Carbon Brief’s explainer on the risks of such credits).

DEBT SWAPS FOR NATURE: African leaders called for debt relief for climate action and are receiving guidance from the UN Economic Commission for Africa on how to negotiate agreements at COP28, the Economist reported. However, debt swaps for nature are questioned for their “minimal fiscal impact”, the Mail and Guardian reported. The South African outlet noted that in 35 years this mechanism has only generated $318m of the $280bn needed for the continent to adapt to climate change. Elsewhere, the Climate Finance Group for Latin America and the Caribbean and other 28 civil-society organisations called on international finance institutions and developed countries at COP28 to agree on debt treatment and restructuring. Their call to action included cancelling debt for nations with low financial capacities, enabling debt-for-climate action swaps for emerging countries and creating mechanisms to ensure that those countries can allocate the resources in climate mitigation and adaptation while conserving biodiversity. A group of eight multilateral development banks issued a joint declaration aiming to create a task force on sustainability-linked sovereign financing for nature and climate. This seeks to mobilise credit enhancement – mechanisms to lower risk by investors on sovereign debt – for sustainability-linked sovereign financing for nature and climate. 

POOR APPETITE: While much of the attention at COP28 is on fossil fuel phase-out, the latest text of the global stocktake does not mention harmful agricultural subsidies. Carbon Brief examined the text and found no explicit mention of agriculture in the draft, except in an oblique reference to food production and in “noting” the importance of switching to patterns of sustainable consumption and production, encouraging the former and silent on the latter. Oceans and other ecosystems have a slightly more pronounced presence: halting and reversing deforestation by 2030 is listed as a mitigation option to meet Paris Agreement goals in the next five years, while the need for more research on climate “tipping points” is mentioned twice, a key ask by countries of the Amazon and small island states. 

CARBON MARKET CONCERNS: Meanwhile, Indigenous activists associated with the Indigenous Environmental Network expressed “very serious concerns” about Article 6 negotiations on carbon markets in a press conference at the start of COP28. Eriel Deranger, the executive director of Indigenous Climate Action, pointed out that “carbon-trading mechanisms and fossil fuel systems depend on continued growing emissions” and that phasing out fossil fuels is a matter of “life and death for our communities”. While key decisions on market and non-market approaches will be taken this coming week, World Bank president Ajay Banga told reporters that controversial voluntary carbon offsets were the “best way to move money from the developed world to the developing world”.

COP greenwashing

MEATY: Key players in the meat industry planned a “large presence” at COP28, aiming to “tell its story and tell it well”, according to documents seen by DeSmog and the Guardian. Members of the industry-funded Global Meat Alliance, which produced the documents, were “asked to stick to key comms messages, which include the idea that meat is beneficial to the environment”, the Guardian said. They also featured a messaging summary with talking points framing meat as “sustainable nutrition” – despite meat’s high climate impact. A GMA spokesperson told the outlets that the group works to “simplify and distil public information” around global events “which are often dominated by an anti-meat narrative”. 

PARAGUAY PLANS: In Paraguay, agribusiness groups allegedly “modified” the guidance document for the country’s stance on talks at COP28, El Surtidor reported. The news outlet looked at a previous draft of this document and found that mentions of “reaffirming” commitment to the Paris Agreement and increasing heatwaves were removed from the final text, following comments from agribusiness representatives. El Surtidor said the final document also “call[s] into question” official figures on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. 

MAMMOTH TASK: In a woolier story from Dubai, a Russian billionaire who “made a fortune in coal and fertiliser” outlined a plan to “bring a slice of Russia’s ecology back 14,000 years”, Bloomberg reported. Andrey Melnichenko proposed an “eccentric” way to control methane emissions from the thawing Siberian permafrost by “recreating a time when woolly mammoths roamed the tundra”, the outlet said. (For the latest science on methane emissions and permafrost thaw, read Carbon Brief’s recent coverage of a report on how climate change is affecting the cryosphere.) 

§ Spotlight

Food systems declaration garners 134 signatures

In this spotlight, Carbon Brief explains the Emirates Declaration on food systems – released at COP28 in Dubai last week – and the reaction on the ground from food-systems experts and civil society groups.

During the world climate action summit on the first day of COP28, UAE climate and environment minister Mariam Almheiri announced the Emirates Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action, a three-page document endorsed by 134 governments. Among the notable signatories are Brazil, China, EU, Indonesia, UK and US. 

Almheiri pointed out that the countries who had signed the declaration were home to more than 5.7 billion people and responsible for more than three-quarters of the world’s total food systems emissions. (Research shows that food systems overall account for nearly one-third of total global greenhouse gas emissions.)

The declaration begins with a recognition of the “unprecedented” impacts that climate change is having on food systems and the importance of food and agriculture to lives and livelihoods around the world. It also recognises the “need to ensure access to safe, sufficient, affordable and nutritious food for all”.

The document then lays out five objectives: to enhance food-systems resilience; to promote food security and nutrition; to support agricultural workers; to strengthen freshwater management; and to maximise the climate and environmental benefits of agriculture. Alongside these are areas where countries have promised to strengthen their efforts: integrating food systems into national plans and strategies, scaling up finance and science and strengthening trade.

Among these, several observers pointed to the integration of food systems into plans such as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans as a promising step. As with all such declarations at COPs, the food declaration is not legally binding. But that is not to say it carries no weight, Ed Davey, partnerships director at the Food and Land Use Coalition, told Carbon Brief. He added that while declarations are “not as important as the negotiated outcome and they never will be…they are a way of signalling that something is important”.

Representatives of several civil society groups told Carbon Brief that the declaration was a mixed bag. “There are some good elements there – it’s about transformation,” said Million Belay, the general coordinator of Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa and a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. “But there’s heavy reliance on ‘technology will solve the problem’ kind of thinking…What kind of technology? Who owns the technology?”

A non-state actors call to action, released on the same day, was signed by more than 150 farmers’ groups, businesses, philanthropies, research institutions and other groups. That document calls for parties to “act with appropriate urgency, effort and scale” to create food systems that “deliver significant, measurable progress for people, nature and climate”.

§ News and views

EU BUMPER: There have been three notable EU policy updates related to agriculture. First, lawmakers rejected a plan to significantly cut pesticide use, the Associated Press reported, which one green politician described as a “black day” for the environment and farmers. The proposed nature restoration law, on the other hand, is one step closer to the finish line after it was approved by the European parliament’s environment committee, according to Carbon Pulse. And, finally, plans to sign off on the EU-Mercosur trade deal (covered previously in Cropped) look unlikely in the coming weeks, partly due to political hesitancy in Argentina, CNN Brasil reported. 

COLOMBIA LEADS: Colombian president Gustavo Petro announced at COP28 that his country will officially join an alliance of countries seeking a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. The group is calling for a global transition away from fossil fuels and now counts 10 countries as its members, the Guardian reported. Petro said that, although his country relies on fossil fuels, “being here, we are trying to halt a suicide, the death of everything that is alive”. According to Spanish newswire EFE Verde, the Latin American country is also pushing debt-for-nature swaps at the climate negotiations in Dubai, after setting up that agenda at a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean environment ministers held in Panama earlier this year.

INDIGENOUS VOICES: A Brazilian minister became the first Indigenous head of a UN climate negotiations delegation, Carbon Brief’s Daisy Dunne reported. Sônia Guajajara took on the position after environment minister Marina Silva departed the climate summit. She will hold the role until 7 December, according to a press release. Guajajara said in a statement: “Indigenous peoples are often the first to bear the harmful effects of climate change…They are also ideally positioned to bring forward solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation, so it is essential that their voice is heard.” Elsewhere, Grist reported on the Indigenous advocates at COP28 hoping to “ensur[e] that their communities aren’t overlooked by global leaders”. 

DEEP-SEA DEVELOPMENTS: The Norwegian government has given a “green light” to deep-sea mining in an area of the Arctic Ocean south-west of the Svalbard archipelago, in a decision that Norway Greenpeace head Frode Pleym said was “a disaster for the sea”, according to the Associated Press. The deal was struck between four political parties, including the ruling Labor and Center party coalition government and two conservative parties, the newswire said. Norway’s parliament will reportedly “approve the first development projects, in the same way as it has done for certain extraction projects in the petroleum sector”. The country’s petroleum and energy minister said the country “will do this carefully” and gather knowledge before assessing whether extraction is feasible.

UPS AND DOWNS: Blue whales have returned to the Seychelles archipelago, within the Indian Ocean, after being wiped out in that area by whaling ships in the 1960s, BBC News reported. Researchers and filmmakers recorded the largest animal on Earth both on film and using a “sound trap”, which captured whale calls during breeding season. Scientists described the whales’ return as a “conservation win”. However, on western Australia’s Pilbara coast, whales are reportedly threatened by a new gas extraction project by Woodside, the country’s top oil and gas producer, Australia’s ABC News wrote. The company won approval for seismic testing, which is used to identify fossil gas reserves under the seafloor. In response, traditional owner and Indigenous woman Raelene Cooper told the outlet that she would consider legal actions against the project. Woodside told ABC News that the seismic testing would not occur near known whale migration routes.

OLIVE HARVEST: Palestinian olive farmers are experiencing “growing violence” and “economic devastations” from the impact of the Israel-Hamas conflict on their harvest, Mongabay reported. Ghassan Najjar, a farmer in the West Bank, told the outlet: “Many farmers rely completely on their olive harvest…It’s our livelihood, our source of life.” More than 3,000 olive trees have been “destroyed by the illegal settlers” in recent weeks. Mongabay said. According to Human Rights Watch, satellite imagery “shows that orchards, greenhouses and farmland in northern Gaza have been razed since the beginning of Israel’s ground invasion” in October. 

§ Watch, read, listen

DARK HEDGES: The Economist explained how an avenue of ancient beech trees in Northern Ireland is being lost due to tourism after Game of Thrones made them famous.

MEAT PHASEDOWN: BBC Future Planet looked at Denmark’s new dietary roadmap for discouraging the consumption of meat and dairy and boosting plant-based foods.

‘PLASTIC RICE’: A three-part series in the Wire outlined concerns from farmers and health experts about a rice fortification scheme in India.

CALL OF THE WILD: Perk your ears up to an album of Australia’s most threatened mammals – featuring “a chorus of shrieks, screams and bellowing”. 

§ New science

Community forest governance and synergies among carbon, biodiversity and livelihoods
Nature Climate Change

Empowering local forest governance may support multiple objectives of forest restoration, a new paper found. The researchers used a dataset of more than 300 “forest commons” in human-dominated landscapes in 15 tropical countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. They looked at the links between carbon storage, tree species richness and livelihoods of local communities. The analysis showed that formal recognition of the community’s role in forest management, including local participation in rule-making, was a predictor of positive outcomes. The study said that considering governance and interconnections among those benefits may contribute to “effective interventions” for tropical forests. 

Tillage agriculture and afforestation threaten tropical savanna plant communities across a broad rainfall gradient in India
Journal of Ecology

Agricultural conversion of and tree-planting in old-growth savannahs in India imperil plant communities that are hard to later recover, according to a new paper. The researchers analysed the impacts of tillage agriculture, agricultural fallows and tree plantations on herbaceous plant communities of old-growth savannahs in western Maharashtra, India. They found that the three types of land conversion decreased native species richness and cover of native plants, and increased cover of invasive species. The study suggested that conservation in India should account for the savannah biome and limit the conversion of old-growth savannahs.

Risk to rely on soil carbon sequestration to offset global ruminant emissions
Nature Communications

A new study noted that relying solely on grasslands to sequester global ruminant emissions – those from cattle, sheep, goats and buffalo – “is not feasible”, since it would require nearly twice the global carbon stock currently in grasslands. Researchers found that about 135bn tonnes of carbon sequestration is required to offset ongoing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from this sector. The authors argued that previous studies used a methodology that does not account for the climate impacts of short- and long-term emissions, and that their new research overcomes those shortcomings while accounting for historical warming. The study concluded that reducing sources of emissions and increasing soil organic carbon stocks is needed.

§ In the diary

• 30 November-12 December: UNFCCC COP28 | Dubai
• 7 December: FAO webinar: Scaling up agroforestry | Online
• 6-8 December: EU Agri-food days | Brussels
• 9 December: COP28 thematic day on nature | Dubai
• 10 December: COP28 thematic day on food | Dubai
• 11 December: International Mountain Day

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz. Please send tips and feedback to [email protected]