Cropped 28 August 2024: Sicily sizzles; Exploratory seabed mining; Net-zero ag emissions

Carbon Brief Staff

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s Cropped.
We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

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§ Key developments

Devastating droughts

El NIÑO EFFECTS: The ongoing drought in southern Africa has impacted around 68 million people and led to a “drop in crop and livestock production, causing food shortages in several countries”, Al Jazeera reported. Elias Magosi, the executive secretary of the Southern African Development Community, said: “The 2024 rainy season has been a challenging one with most parts of the region experiencing negative effects of the El Niño phenomenon characterised by the late onset of rains.” The drought has “far-reaching consequences” for food security, health, water resources, education and livelihoods, the UN resident coordinator in Zimbabwe, Edward Kallon, said, according to the Inter Press Service. A Carbon Brief guest post explained how forecasts of El Niño can be harnessed for forecasting crop yields.

SICILY SIZZLES: Meanwhile, drought and high temperatures have left crops “parched and withered” in Sicily, the Guardian reported. The newspaper spoke to farmers on the Italian island, which is in the midst of “one of the most serious water crises in its history”. One farmer told the outlet: “Wheat seedlings that normally reached 80cm stopped at 5cm. Then they dried up.” Another farmer said that, if the situation does not improve, he will have to cull his herd of cows and goats, adding: “Without water, my cows no longer produce milk…The land is slowly becoming desertified.” The island is “caught between water scarcity and a soaring influx of visitors”, the newspaper noted – a similar challenge facing other parts of southern Europe. 

EU LAWS TAKE FORCE: The EU’s new deforestation regulation and its “associated red tape could trip up” smallholder farmers, said a longread in the Straits Times. Namibia’s agriculture minister “urged farmers” to find alternative markets for the country’s charcoal and beef products, adding that “Namibia is at the mercy of the EU”, according to Voice of America. Separately, the EU’s “controversial” nature restoration law entered into force on 18 August, Helsinki Times reported. The Swiss government, meanwhile, recommended citizens vote against a key “biodiversity initiative” on 22 September, saying that it could “restrict agriculture and the expansion of renewable energies”, according to Swissinfo.

Race to ‘cultivated’ meat

DEEP MEAT POCKETS: In a commentary for the Guardian, columnist George Monbiot argued that consuming animal products is a “fantastically profligate and inefficient way of using land”. He pointed to alternatives such as lab-grown meat and other new protein technologies that could replace several animal-based products. However, Monbiot said meat corporations have undertaken a “concerted programme” to counteract “the essential transition away from farming”, influencing governments of Florida, Alabama and Italy to ban lab-grown meat. Separately, the Financial Times reported on how big agriculture lobbying in the US and EU is “securing subsidies and exemptions from environmental measures”. The outlet pointed out that the agricultural lobby has “vast financial resources, deep political connections and a sophisticated network of legal and public relations experts”. 

LAB MEAT LOOKING EAST: Two researchers from Singapore’s Yusof Ishak Institute (ISEAS) wrote in Fulcrum about the challenges people living in south-east Asia face in making dietary changes. According to the two researchers who wrote the column, “cultivated” meat would slash 92% of emissions as compared to traditional meat, if produced with renewable energy. Furthermore, its production would not be as affected by climate impacts as meat, they said. More than $3.1bn has been invested in cultivated meat in 170 companies worldwide, but the industry “must overcome closed minds, high prices and perishability before its product can become a meaningful option in the region”, the authors added. And the UK is due to launch a £38m “virtual” centre to study whether alternative protein sources, such as lab-grown meat and insects, could become part of the UK diet, the Press Association reported.

CELLULAR PET FOOD: In an interview with the Guardian, Owen Ensor, chief executive of Meatly, said that cultivated meat is “safer, kinder, more sustainable – and coming to a pet shop near you”. Meatly, which is based in London, has received permission from the UK government to sell lab-grown chicken for pet food. Ensor told the outlet that he started producing lab-grown meat after taking a single sample containing about 5m cells from a hen’s egg in September 2022, “and no other animals have been involved since”. However, the company is still years away from selling its first pet food, Ensor said. 

§ Spotlight

Countdown to COP16

With less than two months to go to the UN biodiversity summit COP16 in Colombia, Carbon Brief takes stock of progress so far and what is still to come.

The countdown to COP16 in Cali has begun. Nations have less than two months to prepare to meet in Colombia on 21 October for the first UN biodiversity summit since the historic agreement in 2022 to reverse biodiversity loss within this decade.

COP16 will serve as a crucial litmus test of how that consensus is progressing and whether countries are taking biodiversity loss seriously. It will also involve finalising contentious fine print around divisive issues, such as data derived from genetic resources and tracking progress made on biodiversity finance.

So far, only a handful of countries have fulfilled the request to submit updated national biodiversity plans ahead of COP16. And, of these submissions, only China and Canada mention halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030 in their plans, according to Carbon Brief analysis. 

With 54 days to go to COP16, 182 countries are yet to submit new nature pledges. Without these new commitments, it is difficult to decipher where countries stand on contentious issues ranging from finance and subsidies to Indigenous rights through to how they are responding to targets.  

Dr V Rajagopalan, chair of India’s working group tasked with reviewing the country’s national biodiversity plan, told Carbon Brief that the global nature deal’s goals must be adapted to local contexts: 

“Our situation is different from the west: what can be done there, cannot be done here. [F]or example, [the issue of] subsidies is a challenge for us – similarly, pesticides – because of our agricultural status and food security requirements. But, still, we have kept our targets very ambitious.”

Unresolved issues

While the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) might see a flurry of pledges coming in closer to the deadline, there are still unresolved pieces of text that need to be agreed in Cali. 

Key among these issues is digital sequence information (DSI) from genetic resources. Earlier this month, negotiators met in Montreal for “five days of intense negotiations” to narrow down options for a one-of-a-kind DSI mechanism and a global fund and how funds would flow through them. 

At the start of the meeting, 65 civil society organisations wrote an open letter to raise concerns about public DSI databases that could exclude developing countries from potential benefits and compromise their sovereign rights.

According to Nithin Ramakrishnan from Third World Network, who spoke to Carbon Brief, the meeting in Montreal “was more constructive [than previous meetings], with people trying to listen to each other more than ever before”. Ideas around access and benefit-sharing from DSI that were once “up in the air” have now been distilled into a wishlist of elements that “countries want to see in a final decision”, he said. 

However, differences remain in how countries view the DSI mechanism, how databases and users of this data – including the pharmaceutical and beauty industries – can be held accountable, who should pay how much to whom and how legally sound the mechanism is. 

Financial flows

Another indicator that will be closely watched is biodiversity finance and progress made by developed countries towards raising $20bn by 2025 for conservation in developing countries. 

To date, seven developed countries have contributed $244m towards a special Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, according to the latest information shared by the Global Environmental Facility with Carbon Brief. Of this, $110m has already been allocated to 22 projects in 24 countries so far. 

In a press briefing last week, covered by the Guardian, Colombia’s environment minister and COP16 president Susana Muhamad “urged” governments from the global north to “make a gesture to increase trust in the conference and actually put their money in the global biodiversity fund that we approved”.

But, while contributions to the fund are a fraction of the $2bn target, the fund is not the only channel that richer nations could use to contribute to conservation in biodiverse, developing countries.

Will countries step up with more money, commitments or solutions to break deadlocks equitably in Cali? In 54 days, the world will find out.

§ News and views

PNG PERSISTS: Exploratory seabed mining in the Bismarck Sea, north-east of the island of New Guinea, is raising questions about the “Papua New Guinean government’s commitment to a moratorium on deep sea mining”, Australia’s ABC News reported. These exploratory permits were granted in 2011 and the work is apparently being “lawfully carried out”, according to the managing director of Papua New Guinea’s Mineral Resources Authority. But Dr Helen Rosenbaum, who works with the Deep Sea Mining Campaign, told the outlet: “This latest incursion by the company actually indicates the government is not holding the moratorium position seriously.” Separately, Leticia Carvalho – newly elected secretary general of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) – told Politico that she “not only supports an investigation into [her predecessor Michael] Lodge’s handling” of the ISA, but that she plans to work with member countries “to spearhead it”. 

YASUNI A YEAR ON: One year after Ecuador voted in a referendum to halt oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, Mongabay reported that the “government has not yet made much progress on the closure” of the oil block, which is located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Although the block was meant to be shut down within a year of the referendum passing, the government has so far only created a commission to oversee the implementation process. It added that Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, is considering a moratorium on the referendum to allow the country to keep extracting oil in the region as a way to cope with the country’s current economic and security crisis.

NET-ZERO DEMS: The official platform of the Democratic Party in the upcoming US elections calls for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector by 2050. If fulfilled, the US “would be the first in the world to achieve” this milestone, Successful Farming wrote. The platform pointed to “climate-smart agriculture initiatives” at the US Department of Agriculture, “which sequester carbon from the atmosphere, improve soil health and biodiversity and restore water cycles”, according to US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack.

TIGER VS TRIBES: India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority directed 19 states to “relocate” an estimated 400,000 people living in “core tiger habitats”, the Wire reported. If carried out, it “could be among the largest displacements ever in the world for wildlife conservation”, the story added, impacting nearly 250,000 people from central Indian states with the largest Indigenous populations. Separately, Indian Express reported that wildlife authorities in the north-eastern state of Assam cited “national interest” to recommend Cairn Oil and Gas be allowed to drill for oil in an area that is home to the endangered Hoolock Gibbon.

DAM SHAME: Bangladesh’s devastating floods could pose “a significant threat to crops if the floodwaters linger for an extended period”, the country’s new agriculture ministry told Reuters. Attributing factors behind the floods has been fraught. A column in the Bangladesh newspaper the Daily Star by Dr S Nazrul Islam – founder of the Bangladesh Environmental Network – pointed to climate change as a “global driver”, excessive rainfall as the “main cause” and “decisions made by the operators of the dams and barrages that India has built on almost all rivers it shares with Bangladesh” as a key regional driver. While India’s external affairs ministry “categorically denied” that floods were caused by the opening of a key barrage, dam officials told Scroll.in that “information about the water release from Dumbur dam was not shared with Bangladesh”. 

FOOD-BORNE DISEASES: A recent study, covered by Mongabay, found that climate change is affecting the distribution and spread of food-borne pathogens, primarily in Africa and Asia. Such pathogens enter humans through the consumption of contaminated food or water and are associated with 600m food-borne illnesses and 420,000 deaths annually, according to the study. The outlet noted that diarrheal diseases are the most common ones, representing 70% of the reported illnesses. It stated that an “increase in the number and severity of heatwaves, droughts and heavy precipitation events are all expected to lead to a rise in food-borne pathogens”. 

§ Watch, read, listen

AI FOOD?: This BBC video put together a group of people to taste meals dreamed up by artificial intelligence and chef Ixta Belfrage.

WILDERNESS VS WANDERLAND: A New York Times longread tracked the Mennonite colonies that are carving out colonies in the Peruvian Amazon.

PHOTOGRAPHING FARMVILLE: A new photo essay in the Guardian by Selene Magnolia Gatti took a gritty look at factory farming in Europe.

AI FOR CONSERVATION: A Science podcast addressed how conservationists in the western US are finding fences that harm wildlife by using AI and aerial photos.

§ New science

Expanding European protected areas through rewilding
Current Biology

A new study found that about a quarter of the European continent – approximately 117m hectares of land – is suitable for rewilding. Researchers developed a set of rewilding criteria, such as having a minimal “human footprint” and the presence of key fauna. Looking at areas that were at least 10,000 hectares, the team found that 70% of the rewilding opportunities in Europe are in colder climates. The results showed that Scandinavia, Scotland and the Iberian peninsula have the most expansive potential for managing existing wilderness, while Corsica, Spain and southern France are best suited to the reintroduction of herbivore or carnivore species. 

Stock assessment models overstate sustainability of the world’s fisheries
Science

New research found that the current models that are used to assess the status of a fishery – and therefore dictate catch limits – “generally overstat[e]” the health of those fisheries. Researchers used historical estimates of fish stock from 230 of the world’s largest and most important fisheries and compared them to updated “hindcast” models. They found that nearly one-third of the fisheries that are currently classified as “maximally sustainably fished” are actually overfished, and the number of fish stocks that have collapsed is much higher than previously estimated. They conclude: “The high uncertainty and bias in modelled stock estimates warrants much greater precaution by managers.”

The role of funding in the performance of Latin America’s protected areas
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Increasing funding for individual protected areas “can significantly improve their effectiveness in reducing deforestation”, a new study said. Researchers analysed the impact of funding on the effectiveness of 17 protected areas across Latin America using historical financial data and deforestation rates over 2000-10. They found that in Ecuador, “large deficits in funding considerably reduced the effectiveness” of the protected areas. The study also found that the better the country’s socioeconomic conditions, the greater the effectiveness of national protected areas, due to improved governance and institutions that regulate them.

§ In the diary

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

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