The Gulf of Maine’s beloved wildlife, from North Atlantic right whales and seabirds to iconic fish stocks and lobsters, is threatened by ocean warming. The area is warming at a rate faster than nearly any other ocean surface on the planet.

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The Gulf of Maine, often referred to as a sea within a sea, extends along the eastern seaboard from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to New Brunswick, Canada. Teeming with a bounty of fish and lobsters, the watershed serves as a recipe for abundance. Nutrients from the warm Gulf Stream, the cool Labrador Current, and counterclockwise coastal currents gush into the bay, stratifying into varying temperate zones. But things have changed. 

The Gulf of Maine is warming at a rate faster than nearly any other ocean surface on the planet, leading to shifts in the distribution of marine species and contributing to sea level rise. Think of it like a bathtub with hot and cold taps. As the Labrador Current weakens, accelerated warming has increasingly been impacting marine life and economic activities on Maine’s working waterfront. 

According to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s (GMRI) latest report, the watershed experienced its twelfth-warmest year in 2024. Climbing temperatures, though incremental, are poised to have drastic impacts on fisheries and New England communities. 

In Hot Water

Maine is combating the effects of global warming in real time and, in doing so, helping researchers better understand the global ocean. 

The Gulf of Maine is home to beloved wildlife, from North Atlantic right whales and seabirds to iconic fish stocks and lobsters, all of which are threatened. Warming waters have already affected cold-water species, like herring, which are declining, and warm-water species, like butterfish. 

Shifts in the food web have a ripple effect. Puffins are in limbo, forced to change what they feed to their chicks. And invasive species like green crabs have settled in, killing essential eelgrass beds that juvenile crustaceans rely on for protective habitat. 

The impact rising tides have on coastal infrastructure are not less noteworthy. In 2020, Maine published its climate action plan, dedicating an entire section to better understand how a warming, rising Gulf will impact marine resources and communities. There’s great emotional value in both sectors, not to mention $528 million in yearly revenue from the state’s lobster industry and $9 billion in tourist revenue. 

GMRI Senior Scientist Katherine Mills, whose work focuses on how physical changes affect ecological patterns, and Hannah Baranes, whose research supports the translation of flood hazard science into coastal management, shed light on how the warming Gulf is affecting ecosystems and coastal communities – and how science can inform a response. 

Lobsters at Risk

Warming waters impact a slate of species. Take, for instance, the endangered North Atlantic right whales, which feed primarily on tiny creatures called copepods. As temperatures rise, zooplankton have become leaner, imperiling the whales that depend on them for food.

And lobsters? They, too, rely on Calanus copepods for nutrition, and the warming waters have shifted the species’ migration period, putting it out of sync with the release of larval shellfish. 

So far, temperatures in the Gulf of Maine have remained suitable for lobster reproduction, but scientists have identified some troubling changes. Even though female lobsters are producing the same number of eggs as before, fewer are surviving into adulthood. 

Warmer waters in the early 1980s led to an increase in lobster populations, but predicted conditions for 2050 could threaten the species’ survival. Sustained high temperatures weaken their respiratory and immune systems, and will make it increasingly difficult to find nutritional prey. 

Marine Species Distribution 

The warming Gulf has also been associated with various ecosystem changes, notably shifts in species distribution, though regional fisheries are already adapting. 

Leading the Integrated Systems Ecology Lab, Mills seeks to understand the connections between climate, ocean conditions, and fisheries and, in doing so, improve adaptation measures for coastal communities. She has already seen micro-pivots – fishermen targeting different species at different locations, depending on the time of the year and, more recently, delving into side hustles, like kelp aquaculture. 

When it comes to physical changes, her team relies on several sources to monitor temperature and salinity in the Gulf of Maine. They use statistical models to test relationships between environmental changes and fisheries, assess population health, and identify potential factors that hinder their success. 

As the labs’ work continues, it becomes more refined. Time series that span decades, though expensive, are better at detecting ecosystem changes. That is the goal. 

Documenting Change in Real Time

According to Mills, the main takeaway from GMRI’s 2024 warming update is that although sea surface temperatures cooled in 2023 and 2024, the Gulf of Maine, on average, is still warming. 

“The most significant change I remember was the 2012 marine heatwave,” said Mills. “We saw squid coming to nearshore waters, staying the whole summer, the loss of species like Northern shrimp, and not to mention the lobsters. There were so many.” 

During that time, Mills recalled a notable change in seasonality: summer species arrived earlier and stayed later, and the uptick in lobster landings led to a severe supply chain backlog; the product couldn’t be processed as quickly as it was coming in, resulting in a market glut. 

Since 2012, Mills feels there has been “remarkable adaptation” within the industry, making it better equipped for future heatwaves. 

She highlighted the interconnectedness of species within the Gulf of Maine food web. Her team has observed direct responses to warming in species such as cod. At the southern extent of their geographic range in Maine, they are declining as temperatures exceed their suitable thermal range. 

“We’re seeing some new species like black sea bass, menhaden, and blue crabs,” said Mills. “Historically, these have been more prevalent in the Mid-Atlantic. Warm temperatures are also luring in invasive species, like green grabs, which prey on softshell clams and destroy eelgrass beds.” 

Hope Prevails

Although many species have been lost over the centuries, Mills still finds magic in the Gulf of Maine and hopes that, armed with knowledge of the past and science of today, what remains will not just prevail but eventually rebound. 

“When we imagine marine fisheries, we have to think about people,” she said. “Harvesters are very sensitive to ecosystem changes. They function within larger social networks and market systems. When the waters change, their whole lives do. It’s equally as important to achieve stock sustainability goals while allowing those who work on the waterfront to adapt to changing conditions.” 

‘It’s Happening’

Unlike Mills, Baranes’s work focuses more on community projects. Studying water levels and intertidal environments, her team develops tools that support decision-making.

She seeks to answer questions like: “How does sea level rise, tide variability, and freshwater floods affect the coastline and Gulf of Maine estuaries?” and “How will flood risk evolve in the future?” 

On the applied side of her research, Baranes has worked on near-term flood forecasting and collaborated with state agencies to develop technical guidance for lawmakers. “Maine has been planning for climate change for a long time,” she said, noting the coastal floods in December 2022, and the back-to-back extratropical cyclones in January 2024. “Lately, we’ve gone from ‘will this happen’ to ‘it’s happening’ and now, ‘what do we do about it?’”.

Maine led the way as the first state to assemble a bipartisan group of experts to set specific targets for sea level rise. Today, its climate action plan is committed to managing sea levels at 1.5 feet by 2050 and 4 feet by the century’s end. 

“These numbers are still uncertain and may evolve,” said Baranes. “But to see a state empower its citizens to take action and start planning, I think, is fantastic.” 

She noted the role local knowledge plays in developing tools like Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMS), and informing projects like Maine DOT’s soon-to-be statewide coastal flood risk model, which will provide communities with the localized, future-planning information they need. 

While species distribution is a concern, with the lobster industry in flux, she also acknowledged additional costs due to global warming. 

Storms during the winter of 2024 alone caused an estimated $90 million in damage to public infrastructure, not to mention damage to private homes or insurance claims. “Insurance often doesn’t fully cover flood damage,” said Baranes. “And if you live by the coast, repeat repairs are expensive. That’s why we need to consider ways to relocate or live with water – transformational projects, like raising bridges and road segments or installing tide gates.”

Currently, Maine is at an advantage. The most extreme storm surges tend to be three to five feet, whereas tidal range varies between nine and twenty feet. This means that when there are floods at high tide, the water will eventually recede as the tide drops. 

This may not always be the case, though. “Raising a billion dollars for a project may seem unachievable,” said Baranes. “But if we start planning early and use strategies that work, we can make a real difference.”

Coastal Resilience At Its Finest

Baranes touted Portland as a “climate-ready city”. Combining public investment and municipal action to strengthen its working waterfront, electrify transportation, and build resilient infrastructure, it has steadily adapted to warming waters and rising seas while supporting jobs and long-term vitality. 

She pointed to a few local projects that keep her hopeful that change is not just possible – it is already happening. 

ReCode Portland is a more recent effort to update the city’s land-use code to include flood zones. As is the Maine Climate Council, a legislative body that has played a key role in planning for future sea-level rise, resulting in the passage of bills like LD 1572, which directs agencies to incorporate considerations of 1.5-foot sea-level rise by 2050 and 4-foot rise by 2100 into regulations and development. 

“The ReCode project addresses other important issues residents have,” Baranes continued. “Like walkability, more green spaces, and multi-family housing units. It’s a great example of how planning for climate change can also improve community living.” 

Provided that sea levels will continue to rise – minor high-tide flooding is projected to increase over the next decade – a 2024 report suggests that Maine extend its planning horizons beyond 2100, shifting targets two decades later as impacts may outpace adaptation efforts toward the end of the century. 

“While the Jan. 10 and 13 (2024) storms felt extreme, such events will become routine,” said Baranes, who co-authored the report. “These storms raised water to half of what we expect from sea level rise in 2050.” 

The bottom line: a slow, steady rise in sea level, as scientists predict, will still result in significant flooding along the way. 

“I often use this metaphor: imagine heights distributed in a classic bell curve. Most people are average height, some are outliers. Short or tall, but only the tall people bump their heads on doors as they enter. Now, say everyone has to walk on six-inch stilts. Even average-sized people would start bumping their heads,” said Baranes.

You add additional storm surge to an already rising sea level, and voila.

Our Biggest Hope Is Agency 

When it comes to hope, Baranes clings to the notion of agency. In her opinion, no action is too small. We do not need to come up with a giant policy solution or a coastal relocation plan to be part of a movement that’s kinder to the planet. 

“Every action counts,” she said. “From calling your local Rep. to support a bill that leads to emission reductions, or having a conversation with your neighbor about gardening, to encouraging a young person to pursue a career in climate policy. Seemingly small steps like these transform fear into action and, eventually, hope.”

What is happening in Maine will eventually happen everywhere. In the meantime, may this easternmost state’s approach to climate change act as a guide. Perhaps the best response is rooted in science-backed policy change and spirited grassroots campaigns.

Featured image: Courtesy of Elijah Miller/The Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

The world is grappling with a host of pressing environmental challenges that demand immediate attention and action. From climate change-induced disasters, biodiversity loss and plastic pollution to the rise of artificial intelligence, the 16 biggest environmental problems of 2026 paint a stark picture of the urgent need for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

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1. Global Warming From Fossil Fuels

Another year marked by record-breaking heatwaves and catastrophic extreme weather events has just concluded, with 2025 set to be among the three warmest on record. This wraps up more than a decade of unprecedented heat globally fuelled by human activities, with each of the past 11 years (2015-2025) being one of the ten warmest years on record. Currently, 2024 tops the ranking, followed by 2023.

Undoubtedly among the biggest environmental problems of our lifetime is the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, which trap heat the sun's heat in the atmosphere, raising Earth’s surface temperature and leading to longer and hotter heatwaves. Atmospheric concentrations of all three major planet-warming gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide – have never been so high. Because of these gases’ extremely long durability in the atmosphere, the world is now committed to "more long-term temperature increase," Ko Barret, Deputy Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, said last month.

“The heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is turbo-charging our climate and leading to more extreme weather. Reducing emissions is therefore essential not just for our climate but also for our economic security and community well-being,” Barrett added.

Increased emissions of greenhouse gases have led to a rapid and steady increase in global temperatures, which in turn is causing catastrophic events all over the world – from Australia and the US experiencing some of the most devastating bushfire seasons ever recorded and locusts swarming decimating crops across parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia to a heatwave in Antarctica that saw temperatures rise above 20C for the first time.

Scientists are constantly warning that the planet has crossed a series of tipping points that could have catastrophic consequences, such as advancing permafrost melt in Arctic regions, the Greenland ice sheet melting at an unprecedented rate, accelerating sixth mass extinction and increasing deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

The climate crisis is causing tropical storms and other weather events such as tropical cyclones (better known as hurricanes and typhoons), heatwaves and flooding to be more intense and frequent than seen before.

Even if all greenhouse gas emissions were halted immediately, global temperatures would continue to rise in the coming years. That is why it is absolutely imperative that we start now to drastically reduce emissions, invest in renewable energy sources, and phase our fossil fuels as fast as possible.

You might also like: The Tipping Points of Climate Change: How Will Our World Change?

2. Politicization of the Climate Crisis

The undeniable reality of the climate crisis failed to prevent its politicization. Particularly in more recent years, what was once just a scientific issue has been turned into a partisan battleground where views often align with political ideology, fueled by misinformation campaigns, economic interests tied to fossil fuels, and differing views on government intervention, making consensus difficult and hindering action.

This has been particularly true in countries like the US, which under President Donald Trump has backpedaled tremendously on climate action. Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has implemented significant rollbacks of environmental policies and regulations, abandoned international organizations and climate treaties, dismantled climate research and sought to bring back destructive practices, from deep ocean mining and logging to fossil fuel production.

Dozens of companies, from social media platforms and energy companies to investment firms, airlines, big banks and even philanthropic organizations, have also backtracked on their environmental pledges to fall in line with the Trump administration’s anti-climate agenda.

The US's example reflects a broader change in the priority that governments around the world assign to climate change. The European Union is another good example of this, having recently backtracked on its climate agenda, which was once regarded as the world's most ambitious plan to tackle the climate crisis.

Globally, recent climate conferences have been criticized for failing to achieve anything meaningful as fossil fuel influence grows larger and more powerful. Last November's COP30 ended without a mention of fossil fuels, despite pressure from more than 80 countries to include a phase out plan in the final agreement. One in 25 attendees (some 1,600 people) represented the fossil fuel industry. 

More on the topic: How the US Overturned Years of Climate Progress

3. Biodiversity Loss

The past 50 years have seen a rapid growth of human consumption, population, global trade and urbanisation, resulting in humanity using more of the Earth’s resources than it can replenish naturally. 

A 2020 WWF report found that the population sizes of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians have experienced a decline of an average of 68% between 1970 and 2016. The report attributes this biodiversity loss to a variety of factors but mainly land-use change, particularly the conversion of habitats, like forests, grasslands and mangroves, into agricultural systems. Animals such as pangolins, sharks and seahorses are significantly affected by the illegal wildlife trade, and pangolins are critically endangered because of it. 

More broadly, a 2021 analysis has found that the sixth mass extinction of wildlife on Earth is accelerating. More than 500 species of land animals are on the brink of extinction and are likely to be lost within 20 years; the same number were lost over the whole of the last century. The scientists say that without the human destruction of nature, this rate of loss would have taken thousands of years. 

In Antarctica, climate change-triggered melting of sea ice is taking a heavy toll on emperor penguins and could wipe out entire populations by as early as 2100, according to 2023 research.

Under the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, countries have pledged to protect and conserve at least 30% of the world’s land and water by 2030 (also known as the “30 by 30” target). Global protection currently falls short of this goal, with only 9.6% of the ocean effectively protected. 

And yet it is not all doom and gloom. Around the world, governments, civil society organizations and communities made meaningful strides to protect the natural world, preserving precious ecosystems, strengthening legislation and taking destructive industries to court. 

Last year, Morocco became the 60th country to ratify the High Seas Treaty, meeting the ratification threshold for its entry into force. The treaty establishes a legal framework to create networks of marine protected (MPAs) areas in international waters – a critical step, given that protecting national waters alone will not be sufficient to meet the 30 by 30 goal. And last year, many countries including Australia and Argentina, Portugal, Colombia and São Tomé and Príncipe, French Polynesia, Spain and Pakistan took a step in the right direction.

On terra firma, governments also stepped up to expand protections. While 17.6% of land is protected globally, announcements made in 2025 suggest that momentum is building towards the 30 by 30 target. Colombia, for example, designated a first-of-its-kind territory to protect an uncontacted Indigenous group. Spanning over 1 million hectares, the new area prohibits all economic development and forced human contact, protecting both the Yuri-Passé people and the rich biodiversity who call it their home. 

More on the topic: Beyond the Headlines: Defining Policy Wins for Nature in 2025

4. Plastic Pollution

In 1950, the world produced more than 2 million tons of plastic per year. By 2015, this annual production swelled to 419 million tons and exacerbating plastic waste in the environment. 

Currently, roughly 14 million tons of plastic make their way into the oceans every year, harming wildlife habitats and the animals that live in them. Research found that if no action is taken, the plastic crisis will grow to 29 million metric tons per year by 2040. If we include microplastics into this, the cumulative amount of plastic in the ocean could reach 600 million tons by 2040.

Some 91% of all plastic that has ever been made is not recycled, making it only one of the biggest environmental problems of our lifetime. Considering that plastic takes 400 years to decompose, it will be many generations until it ceases to exist. There is no telling what the irreversible effects of plastic pollution will have on the environment in the long run. 

To address the issue, the UN in 2022 initiated a process to create a legally binding international treaty aimed at curbing plastic pollution. It was supposed to culminate in a meeting in Busan, South Korea in November 2024, though negotiators walked away without a deal. A subsequent meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 2025, also failed to produce a much needed treaty. It remains unclear when and how the negotiations will continue.

5. Deforestation

Every hour, forests the size of 300 football fields are cut down. By the year 2030, the planet might have only 10% of its forests; if deforestation is not stopped, they could all be gone in less than a century. 

The three countries experiencing the highest levels of deforestation are Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia. The Amazon, the world's largest rainforest – spanning 6.9 million square kilometres (2.72 million square miles) and covering around 40% of the South American continent – is also one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems and is home to about three million species of plants and animals.

Despite efforts to protect forest land, legal deforestation is still rampant, and about one-third of global tropical deforestation occurs in Brazil’s Amazon forest, amounting to 1.5 million hectares each year. 

Agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, another one of the biggest environmental problems appearing on this list. Land is cleared to raise livestock or to plant other crops that are sold, such as sugar cane and palm oil. Besides for carbon sequestration, forests help to prevent soil erosion, because the tree roots bind the soil and prevent it from washing away, which also prevents landslides. 

COP30, which took place in the heart of the Amazon, delivered little on forest protection. Although Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva pushed for strong language, the final agreement failed to mention deforestation.

You might also like: 10 Deforestation Facts You Should Know About

6. Air Pollution 

Among the biggest environmental problems today is also air pollution. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 4.2 to 7 million people die from air pollution worldwide every year and nine out of ten people breathe air that contains high levels of pollutants. In Africa, 258,000 people died as a result of outdoor air pollution in 2017, up from 164,000 in 1990, according to UNICEF.

Causes of air pollution mostly comes from industrial sources and motor vehicles, as well as emissions from burning biomass and poor air quality due to dust storms. 

According to a 2023 study, air pollution in South Asia – one of the most polluted areas in the world – cuts life expectancy by about five years. The study blames a series of factors, including a lack of adequate infrastructure and funding for the high levels of pollution in some countries. Most countries in Asia and Africa, which together contribute about 92.7% of life years lost globally due to air pollution, lack key air quality standards needed to develop adequate policies. Moreover, just 6.8% and 3.7% of governments in the two continents, respectively, provide their citizens with fully open-air quality data.

Recent research linked nearly 280,000 deaths across the European Union in 2023 to exposure to air pollution concentrations exceeding levels deemed safe. Some 95% of Europeans are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution, according to the European Environment Agency, which conducted the study. Meanwhile in the US, researchers found that air pollution from the oil and gas industries are attributable to 91,000 premature deaths, 10,350 preterm births and 216,000 childhood-onset asthma and 1,610 cancer cases every year in the country. 

7. Food Waste

A third of the food intended for human consumption – around 1.3 billion tons – is wasted or lost. This is enough to feed 3 billion people. Food waste and loss account for approximately one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions annually; if it was a country, food waste would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the US. 

Food waste and loss occur at different stages in developing and developed countries; in developing countries, 40% of food waste occurs at the post-harvest and processing levels, while in developed countries, 40% of food waste occurs at the retail and consumer levels. 

At the retail level, a shocking amount of food is wasted because of aesthetic reasons; in fact, in the US, more than 50% of all produce thrown away in the US is done so because it is deemed to be “too ugly” to be sold to consumers- this amounts to about 60 million tons of fruits and vegetables.

You might also like: How Does Food Waste Affect the Environment?

8. Melting Ice Caps and Sea Level Rise

The climate crisis is warming the Arctic more than twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet. Today, sea levels are rising more than twice as quickly as they did for most of the 20th century as a result of increasing temperatures on Earth.

Seas are now rising an average of 3.2 mm per year globally and they will continue to grow up to about 0.7 metres by the end of this century. In the Arctic, the Greenland Ice Sheet poses the greatest risk for sea levels because melting land ice is the main cause of rising sea levels.

Representing one the biggest of the environmental problems our planet faces today, this is made all the more concerning considering that temperatures during the 2020 summer triggered the loss of 60 billion tons of ice from Greenland, enough to raise global sea levels by 2.2 mm in just two months.

According to satellite data, the Greenland ice sheet lost a record amount of ice in 2019: an average of a million tons per minute throughout the year. If the entire Greenland ice sheet melts, sea level would rise by six metres.

Meanwhile, the Antarctic continent contributes about 1 millimeter per year to sea level rise, which is one-third of the annual global increase. According to 2023 data, the continent has lost approximately 7.5 trillion tons of ice since 1997. Additionally, the last fully intact ice shelf in Canada in the Arctic recently collapsed, having lost about 80 square kilometres – or 40% – of its area over a two-day period in late July, according to the Canadian Ice Service. 

Sea level rise will have a devastating impact on those living in coastal regions: according to research and advocacy group Climate Central, sea level rise this century could flood coastal areas that are now home to 340 million to 480 million people, forcing them to migrate to safer areas and contributing to overpopulation and strain of resources in the areas they migrate to. Bangkok (Thailand), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Manila (Philippines), and Dubai (United Arab Emirates) are among the cities most at risk of sea level rise and flooding.

You might also like: Two-Thirds of World’s Glaciers Set to Disappear by 2100 Under Current Global Warming Scenario

9. Ocean Acidification

Global temperature rise has not only affected the surface but it is also the main cause of ocean acidification. Our oceans absorb about 30% of carbon dioxide that is released into the Earth’s atmosphere. As higher concentrations of carbon emissions are released thanks to human activities such as burning fossil fuels as well as effects of global climate change such as increased rates of wildfires, so do the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed back into the sea. 

The smallest change in the acidity scale can have a significant impact on the acidity of the ocean. Ocean acidification has devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and species, its food webs, and provoke irreversible changes in habitat quality. Once acidity (pH) levels reach too low, marine organisms such as oysters, their shells and skeleton could even start to dissolve. 

However, one of the biggest environmental problems from ocean acidification is coral bleaching and subsequent coral reef loss. This phenomenon occurs when rising ocean temperatures disrupt the symbiotic relationship between the reefs and algae that lives within it, driving away the algae and causing coral reefs to lose their natural vibrant colours. Some scientists have estimated coral reefs are at risk of being completely wiped by 2050. Higher acidity in the ocean would obstruct coral reef systems’ ability to rebuild their exoskeletons and recover from these coral bleaching events. 

You might also like: Scientists Confirm Largest Coral Bleaching Event on Record Affecting Nearly 84% of World’s Reefs

10. Traditional Agriculture 

Studies have shown that the global food system is responsible for up to one-third of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, of which 30% comes from livestock and fisheries. Crop production releases greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide through the use of fertilizers. 

60% of the world’s agricultural area is dedicated to cattle ranching, although it only makes up 24% of global meat consumption. 

Agriculture not only covers a vast amount of land but it also consumes a vast amount of freshwater, another one of the biggest environmental problems on this list. Arable lands and grazing pastures cover one-third of Earth’s land surfaces and together, they consume three-quarters of the world’s limited freshwater resources.

Scientists and environmentalists have continuously warned that we need to rethink our current food system; switching to more sustainable farming methods and a more plant-based-oriented diet would dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of the conventional agriculture industry. 

You might also like: Can We Feed the World Without Destroying It?

11. Soil Degradation

Organic matter is a crucial component of soil as it allows it to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Plants absorb CO2 from the air naturally and effectively through photosynthesis and part of this carbon is stored in the soil as soil organic carbon (SOC). Healthy soil has a minimum of 3-6% organic matter. However, almost everywhere in the world, the content is much lower than that.

According to the United Nations, about 40% of the planet’s soil is degraded. Soil degradation refers to the loss of organic matter, changes in its structural condition and/or decline in soil fertility and it is often the result of human activities, such as traditional farming practices including the use of toxic chemicals and pollutants. If business as usual continued through 2050, experts project additional degradation of an area almost the size of South America. But there is more to it. If we do not change our reckless practices and step up to preserve soil health, food security for billions of people around the world will be irreversibly compromised, with an estimated 40% less food expected to be produced in 20 years’ time despite the world’s population projected to reach 9.3 billion people.

12. Food and Water Insecurity

Rising temperatures and unsustainable farming practices have resulted in increasing water and food insecurity.

Globally, more than 68 billion tonnes of top-soil is eroded every year at a rate 100 times faster than it can naturally be replenished. Laden with biocides and fertiliser, the soil ends up in waterways where it contaminates drinking water and protected areas downstream. 

Furthermore, exposed and lifeless soil is more vulnerable to wind and water erosion due to lack of root and mycelium systems that hold it together. A key contributor to soil erosion is over-tilling: although it increases productivity in the short-term by mixing in surface nutrients (e.g. fertiliser), tilling is physically destructive to the soil’s structure and in the long-term leads to soil compaction, loss of fertility and surface crust formation that worsens topsoil erosion.

With the global population expected to reach 9 billion people by mid-century, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) projects that global food demand may increase by 70% by 2050. Around the world, more than 820 million people do not get enough to eat. 

As UN Secretary-General António Guterres remarked at a high-level virtual meeting in 2020, “Unless immediate action is taken, it is increasingly clear that there is an impending global food security emergency that could have long term impacts on hundreds of millions of adults and children.” Guterres urged for countries to rethink their food systems and encouraged more sustainable farming practices. 

In terms of water security, only 3% of the world’s water is freshwater, and two-thirds of that is tucked away in frozen glaciers or otherwise unavailable for our use. As a result, some 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages. 

You might also like: Why We Should Care About Global Food Security

13. Fast Fashion and Textile Waste

The fashion industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions, which makes it one of the biggest environmental problems of our time. Fashion alone produces more greenhouse gas emissions than both the aviation and shipping sectors combined, and nearly 20% of global wastewater, or around 93 billion cubic metres from textile dyeing, according to the UN Environment Programme.

What’s more, the world generates an estimated 92 million tonnes of textiles waste every year, a number that is expected to soar up to 134 million tonnes a year by 2030. Discarded clothing and textile waste, most of which is non-biodegradable, ends up in landfills, while microplastics from clothing materials such as polyester, nylon, polyamide, acrylic and other synthetic materials is leeched into soil and nearby water sources.

Monumental amounts of clothing textile are also dumped in developing countries, as seen in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Millions of tons of clothes arrive annually from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. In 2023, 46 million tons of discarded clothes were dumped and left to rotten there, according to Chilean customs statistics.

This rapidly growing issue is only exacerbated by the ever-expanding fast fashion business model, in which companies relies on cheap and speedy production of low quality clothing to meet the latest and newest trends. While the United Nations Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action sees signatory fashion and textile companies commit to achieving net zero emission by 2050, a majority of businesses around the world have yet to address their roles in climate change.

You might also like: Fast Fashion and Its Environmental Impact

14. Artificial Intelligence

In the World Economic Forum's 2025 Global Risks report, climate change and risks related to artificial intelligence (AI) topped the chart for the top 10 global risks in the coming decade. The report also points to the interconnections of economic, geopolitical, societal risks with environmental and technological risks. 

2025 has seen a tremendous growth of AI technologies around the world, which are benefiting climate fields from weather forecasting and conservation to disaster risk reduction. But the technology comes with serious environmental and ethical implications, fueling concerns about its largely unregulated growth.

The environmental impacts of AI stem from energy consumption in training the AI models, inference from daily use of AI tools, water usage to cool the data centres that power it, and hardware carbon footprint. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently revealed that just saying “please” and “thank you” to ChatGPT adds tens of millions in computing costs due to higher energy use. 

Open AI reportedly consumed some 1,287 MWh of electricity to train its GPT-3 model – the equivalent to the energy needed to power over 120 US homes for a year. Due to the sheer volume of queries processed daily, inference accounts for over 60% of AI’s total carbon footprint. 

A study on the water footprint of AI highlighted that depending on when and where AI is deployed, GPT-3 consumes a 500ml bottle of water for roughly 10-50 medium-length response. The same study also found that the water withdrawal from global usage of AI is projected to reach 4.2-6.6 billion cubic meters in 2027, exceeding the total annual water withdrawal from Denmark by 4-6 times.  

Despite these impacts, there is still no standardized method to measure AI-related emissions due to the lack of transparency from providers, variability in the carbon intensity of local power grids, and the diversity of AI tools in use. So, while the allure of AI’s potential is undeniable, we must confront its negative impact head-on. 

15. Overfishing

Over three billion people around the world rely on fish as their primary source of protein. About 12% of the world relies upon fisheries in some form or another, with 90% of these being small-scale fishermen – think a small crew in a boat, not a ship, using small nets or even rods and reels and lures not too different from the kind you probably use. Of the 18.9 million fishermen in the world, 90% of them fall under the latter category.

Most people consume approximately twice as much food as they did 50 years ago and there are four times as many people on Earth as there were at the close of the 1960s. This is one driver of the 30% of commercially fished waters being classified as being "overfished." This means that the stock of available fishing waters is being depleted faster than it can be replaced.

Overfishing comes with detrimental effects on the environment, including increased algae in the water, destruction of fishing communities, ocean littering as well as extremely high rates of biodiversity loss.

As part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal number 14 (SDG 14), the UN and FAO are working towards maintaining the proportion of fish stocks within biologically sustainable levels. This, however, requires much stricter regulations of the world’s oceans than the ones already in place.

In July 2022, the World Trade Organization banned fishing subsidies to reduce global overfishing in a historic deal. Indeed, subsidies for fuel, fishing gear, and building new vessels, only incentivise overfishing and represent thus a huge problem. 

You might also like: 7 Solutions to Overfishing We Need Right Now

16. Cobalt Mining

Cobalt is quickly becoming the defining example of the mineral conundrum at the heart of the renewable energy transition. As a key component of battery materials that power electric vehicles (EVs), cobalt is facing a sustained surge in demand as decarbonisation efforts progress. The world’s largest cobalt supplier is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where it is estimated that up to a fifth of the production is produced through artisanal miners.

Cobalt mining, however, is associated with dangerous workers’ exploitation and other serious environmental and social issues. Southern regions of the DRC are not only home to cobalt and copper but also large amounts of uranium. In mining regions, scientists have made note of high radioactivity levels. In addition, mineral mining, similar to other industrial mining efforts, often produces pollution that leaches into neighbouring rivers and water sources. Dust from pulverised rock is known to cause breathing problems for local communities as well.

Featured image: Moniruzzaman Sazal / Climate Visuals Countdown, via Wikimedia Commons.

This article was originally published on September 14, 2020 and updated on January 9, 2026.

As the new year begins, we hope you take a moment to look through the report and see what we have built thanks to the commitment of our writers and support of our readers. We are incredibly grateful to have you in our corner as we forge ahead into 2026.

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Dear Earth.Org readers,

We are proud to present Earth.Org’s first annual report – a reflection on a year defined by significant growth and shared achievements.

While engineers develop clean energy and policymakers negotiate treaties, we must remember that information is the most powerful engine for change. With nearly 4,000 stories published since our inception and new voices joining our global network every week, authentic storytelling remains the heartbeat of our mission.

To preserve this authenticity and combat the rise of climate disinformation, we recently revamped our Editorial Guidelines. By establishing clear policies on the use of artificial intelligence and maintaining a zero-tolerance stance on plagiarism, we ensure that Earth.Org remains a trusted destination for independent, original coverage – powered by real people who are deeply committed to our planet.

Our progress is only possible because of you. We are profoundly grateful to the nearly 130 readers who donated this year and to our dedicated monthly supporters. Your contributions allowed us to revamp our website, improving navigation and launching a new section for those ready to turn awareness into direct climate action.

As this year comes to a close, we invite you to continue this journey with us. Your support sustains the factual, independent journalism necessary to build a sustainable future.

Thank you.

Oceans have hosted life in its primal forms, but a vast majority of the secrets locked within marine biodiversity remain unknown. Among these depths, Drew Harvell finds enchantment in the seemingly simple yet formidable world of invertebrates. Few other books describe sponges, octopuses, corals or clams so charmingly, or easily transform biology into magic tricks, as The Ocean’s Menagerie effortlessly does, gracefully reminding us of all the right reasons for preserving Earth’s oceans. 

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“Grant nature eternity on this planet, and we as a species will gain eternity ourselves,” says biologist E.O.Wilson in a quote standing out at the beginning of the book. It encompasses one of its core messages: there is no saving our own species without saving nature first. Researcher and writer Drew Harvell believes the best path forward is to stop underestimating nature as our most precious teacher, continuously challenging us to the edge of possibility to engender further discovery and innovation.

Harvell has spent most of her life as an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, traveling the world in search of the spineless creatures that have ruled the oceans for far longer than humans existed. Reading her words, you not only grasp her talent and scientific brilliance; you feel the depth of the passion for her work, shown through the most utter admiration for the world of invertebrates, one she communicates openly and vividly, clearly driven by wonder and curiosity. 

Each of the book’s eight chapters explores the biology of organisms such as sponges, corals, sea slugs, octopus and sea stars, whose ancestors trace back almost to the dawn of life. Harvell leads readers in her underwater adventures, from a submarine lab in the Caribbean to Fiji’s Great Sea Reef, guiding them through overlooked marvels and biological adaptations that, through her storytelling, become actual superpowers. We descend alongside her in the deep, staring at the menagerie of orange, blue, pink and brown of the corals hosting a quarter of all marine animal species. We share her emotions at meeting the quiet and composed Callistoctopus ornatus in Hawaii, a creature with whom she formed an unexpected bond. 

The book translates the science behind Harvell’s research into a heartfelt exploration of the motivations behind these organisms’ extraordinary behaviors and traits, supported by detailed and elegant sketches throughout. Nature, in its apparent complexity, is here praised for its simpler elements. Harvell reveals how bacteria like Streptomyces act as natural chemists inside sponges, forming mutualistic partnerships, and providing them with defensive chemicals useful for their survival, in exchange for food and shelter. She highlights how the brown algae supporting corals – the zooxanthellae – act as formidable solar reactors, and describes the iridocytes cells in clams that bend and reflect light, as well as the cnidophage cells in nudibranchs, which allow them to steal the stinging powers of their anemone prey. 

Harvell’s tone is both joyful and mournful. She marvels at nature’s creativity, but is pained at what we are losing to pollution, warming seas and human pressure. Her own bout of dysentery in Borran Lompo, Indonesia – contracted from sewage-polluted water while she was teaching a workshop on coral health – served as a visceral reminder of how closely the health of our ecosystems is intertwined with our own.

Nature-based solutions, Harvell argues, are among the sea’s greatest riches. Sponges’ chemical compounds may help us fight cancer. Coral’s ability to build hardened architectures can inspire new techniques for bone implants. Nudibranch’s molecular “thefts” could shed some insights into organ transplantation, while the resistance of sea stars may help develop new smart materials.

Harvell’s approach puts nature first, while never forgetting how it can help us progress without harming a vital ally. From bioluminescent pigments to the engineering of water channels, invertebrates offer insight that could shape sustainable innovation. The unique partnerships they form underwater mirror the kinds of collaboration needed among communities and stakeholders, to protect our oceans and, consequently, our planet. 

By showing how nature adapts and evolves to overcome disadvantages or dangers, Harvell invites us to learn from lifeforms that beat us at mastering their own survival. Sponges overcome their immobility through the partnerships with their host bacteria; corals depend entirely on their algae partners to build reefs, and grow; ctenophores, gelatinous and transparent marine invertebrates, have more chance at survival by generating bioluminescent light through oxygen, pigments and enzymes to repel predators or attract mates. 

Each of these evolutionary advantages have allowed invertebrates to thrive, and even defy biological constraints. After reading Harvell’s book, one question lingers: why can’t humans learn from these neglected creatures to help themselves to grow and prosper as they have artfully done for millions of years? Harvell suggests that it is within our grasp, if we pause to observe, learn and collaborate toward a shared purpose. Without forgetting to marvel at nature’s genius.

The Ocean’s Menagerie: How Earth’s Strangest Creatures Reshape the Rules of Life
Drew Harvell
2025, Vintage, 270pp

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Check out more Earth.Org book reviews here.

When the high-speed rail line between Barcelona and Madrid opened in 2008, hundreds of thousands of people ditched the plane in favor of the train, helping significantly lower carbon dioxide emissions in the country. Progress elsewhere in Europe has been slow. But with the European Commission’s new plan to accelerate the development of high-speed rail in Europe, the continent’s travel emissions could plummet.

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It is a well-known fact that short-haul and domestic flights are the most polluting forms of travel. Despite this, European governments have long subsidised and invested in air travel over rail travel, resulting in today’s norms of continental travel being very plane-centric. 

In 2016, the European Union announced the Fourth Railway Package, a set of legislation aimed at “revitalising the rail sector and making it more competitive vis-à-vis other modes of transport.” While this package did not directly fund any infrastructure or route developments, nor subsidies for the rail industry, it removed a lot of the red tape that had historically held back rail development, creating a legislative environment more conducive to a competitive rail industry and paving the way for more concrete initiatives and investment.

Last month, the European Commission announced a comprehensive plan to accelerate the development of high-speed rail in Europe through greater coordination and streamlining of ticketing, timetabling, funding, operations and legislation. The plan aims to deliver a continent-wide high-speed rail network by 2040. This will be achieved through a series of actions, including improving funding sources and private investment coordination as well as cross-border rail ticketing and booking systems; simplifying train driver certification, and removing redundant national rules.

The project is also expected to significantly reduce the EU’s transport-related emissions, supporting its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Spain’s high-speed rail impacts on CO2 emissions are a good example to illustrate the potentially huge impact that an Europe-wide initiative could have.

Case Study: Spain

In 2008, a new high-speed rail line opened between Barcelona and Madrid, cutting the journey time between the two cities by train from around nine to two-and-a-half hours. Almost instantly, air passenger numbers declined. 

Data from Eurostat shows a reduction of roughly one million passengers per quarter –  or 40% – immediately after the high-speed line was opened in February 2008, rising to around 60% by 2024. The Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) – Spain’s independent competition regulator – has been only collecting data on passenger numbers since 2016.

A 2005 study at Oxford University calculated that around 153 grams of CO2 is emitted per passenger kilometer on short-haul flights. This means that every passenger that flies the 481-kilometer stretch between Barcelona and Madrid airports emits roughly 74,000 grams of CO2.

As for high-speed rail, the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the French public train company SNCF estimate four and three-and-a-half grams of CO2 per passenger kilometer, respectively. The high-speed line between Barcelona and Madrid is 681 kilometers long, meaning every passenger emits around 2,550 grams of CO2.

The Results

Using the passenger figures from Eurostat and CNMC, we can draw a graph that shows the number of passengers by mode of transport over time. As we can see, the total number of passengers between Barcelona and Madrid wasn’t hugely affected, as the new train route took on the passengers that were no longer choosing to fly. This shows that peoples’ ability to travel between these cities was not affected – only they now had an alternative, which quickly became the preferred mode of transport.

But what is really striking about these figures can be seen when we apply our estimates for the amount of CO2 emissions per passenger. These estimates allow us to compare the CO2 emissions over time of air travel and train travel between Barcelona and Madrid.

Here we can plainly see just how much greener high-speed rail is than air travel. Even though the number of train passengers was higher than plane passengers from around 2012 onwards, rail emissions pale in comparison to the emissions from air travel. Had the high-speed line never been built, CO2  emissions from this route would be three times as great in 2024.

As more people opt to take the train instead of a flight, as has been the case since the pandemic, CO2 savings grow. In the second quarter of 2024, the actual total emissions were 275 million kilograms lower than if all passengers had flown, which is roughly equivalent to the emissions of over 183,000 British households over the same time period.

Learnings for Europe

The European Commission’s newly announced plan targets a number of routes. Some of the biggest improvements include reducing the Copenhagen–Berlin route from seven to four hours; Berlin–Vienna from over eight hours to four and a half; and Sofia–Athens from nearly 14 hours to just six. Additionally, the plan would create new routes, between Paris, Madrid and Lisbon, and between the Baltic states and Warsaw.

No doubt, the improvement, or opening, of high-speed rail routes across Europe will present an alternative to flying as a means to travel between two cities, and as a result will take passengers off planes and put them onto trains instead, lowering the overall emissions. As the Barcelona–Madrid route shows, this can have a stunning impact – across 2024, around one million fewer tonnes of CO2 were emitted than if the high-speed line had never been built, which is more than the total annual CO2 emissions produced by the Faroe Islands, Gambia or French Polynesia.

It is difficult to estimate exactly how large the impact could be on any given route. The corridor examined here was very successful, and a 60% reduction in air passengers is not to be taken for granted. Nevertheless, it is clear that investment in railways as an alternative to air travel has the potential to have a hugely positive environmental impact, and the EC’s plan must prioritize maximizing passengers in order to make this impact as big as possible. The key to this will be  through affordable tickets, fast and reliable journeys and reduced red-tape, and it’s vital that the EC recognises this. It’s high time that countries begin to offer the same, if not greater, legislative benefits that the aviation industry has enjoyed for decades.

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.

As we bid farewell to 2025, Earth.Org takes a look back at the most significant climate news and events that shaped the past year.

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1. 2025 on Track to Be Joint-Second Warmest Year on Record

2025 is on track to be the joint-second hottest year on record, marking a continuation of the exceptionally high warming trend the world has witnessed in the past decade, according to the European Union’s Earth observation program.

In its December bulletin, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said this year is “virtually certain” to finish as either the second- or third-warmest year since records began around 1850. “The global average temperature anomaly for January to November 2025 stands at 0.60C above the 1991–2020 average, or 1.48C above the 1850–1900 pre-industrial reference. These anomalies are identical to those recorded for the full year 2023, currently the second warmest year,” the bulletin read.

The increase in extreme heat is a direct result of our warming planet, which is driven by greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere. This raises Earth’s surface temperature, leading to longer and hotter heatwaves.

The relentless growth of greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere has coincided with a steady rise in global temperatures, with the last 10 years making up the top 10 hottest years on record.

2024 now tops the ranking, beating 2023. It was also the first year above 1.5C, the critical global warming temperature threshold set in the Paris Agreement.

Read the full article.

2. No Mention of Planet-Warming Fossil Fuels in COP30 Agreement

The demand from around 80 developed and developing countries for an end to the use of fossil fuels –the biggest cause of climate change – was left out of the final COP30 agreement, after two intense weeks of discussions and twists and turns.  It comes despite an unprecedented number of countries (more than 80 and led by Colombia) and more than 100 organizations, explicitly asked the presidency to develop a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.

Under pressure from major petrostates, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago ultimately announced a compromise: a voluntary “roadmap” for transitioning away from fossil fuels. This roadmap will proceed outside the formal UN process and be merged with the plan of the Colombia-led “coalition of the willing.” Separately, Colombia announced it will host the world’s first International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in April.

With 56,118 delegates registered, the 30th edition of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) was the second-largest COP in history, behind only COP28 in Dubai, which was attended by more than 80,000 people. Among them were some 2,500 Indigenous people and about 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists.

Read the full article.

3. ‘Abject Failure’: Global Plastic Treaty Negotiations End Without Deal For Second Time

A meeting that was supposed to culminate in a global treaty to curb plastic pollution long in the making ended without a deal for the second time.

Representatives from 184 countries met in Geneva, Switzerland, in August to resolve outstanding disagreements on capping plastic production, managing plastic products and hazardous chemicals, and financing to support the implementation of the treaty in developing countries. It was supposed to be the second and final session of the fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), after a treaty failed to materialize at last year’s talks in Busan, South Korea.

The INC was set up in response to a UN Environment Assembly resolution in March 2022 requesting the adopt a legally binding global plastics treaty by the end of 2024. According to the resolution, the instrument could include “both binding and voluntary approaches, based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full life cycle of plastic.”

It remains unclear when and how the negotiations will continue.

Read the full article.

4. World’s Top Court Lays Out Historic Protections For Climate-Impacted Nations in Landmark Ruling

In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, delivered its long-anticipated advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change on Wednesday. It ruled that government actions driving climate change are illegal and states are legally bound to cut their emissions and compensate vulnerable nations for the harm they have caused.

Climate change poses an “existential problem of planetary proportions,” and those responsible for it can be held accountable for their action and inaction, the world’s top court said.

Presenting the opinion at the Peace Palace in The Hague, the court’s President Yuji Iwasawa said greenhouse gas emissions are “unequivocally” caused by human activities. “The consequences of climate change are severe and far-reaching. They affect both natural ecosystems and human populations. These consequences underscore the urgent and existential threat posed by climate change,” he said.

Grounded in binding international law, the opinion is set to spark a chain reaction that accelerates climate litigation on a global scale.

Read the full article.

5. Scientists Confirm Largest Coral Bleaching Event on Record Affecting Nearly 84% of World’s Reefs

The world’s coral reefs are undergoing a mass coral bleaching event that began in 2023 and became the largest event ever recorded. It is the fourth mass coral bleaching event ever recorded and the second to occur in the last 10 years.

Some 83.7% of the world’s coral reef area across at least 83 countries and territories have been impacted by bleaching-level heat stress since January 2023, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last week.

Among the areas affected were Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – the world’s largest coral reef system, Florida, the Caribbean, Brazil, the eastern Tropical Pacific, large areas of the South Pacific, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf; and the Gulf of Aden. Widespread bleaching has also been confirmed across other parts of the Indian Ocean basin, NOAA said.

Coral bleaching occurs as a heat stress response from rising ocean temperatures, which drives algae away from coral reefs, causing reefs to lose their vibrant colors. Each of the past eight years has set a new record for ocean heat content, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The rate of ocean warming over the past two decades (2005-2024) is more than twice that in the period 1960-2005.

Read the full article.

6. Climate Change ‘Supercharged’ Deadly Asian Storms That Killed More Than 1,800, Study Finds

The heavy monsoon rains and storms that triggered deadly floods across several South and Southeast Asian nations in late November were “supercharged” by climate change, a new attribution study has concluded.

More than 1,800 people have died and some 1.2 million were left stranded after two overlapping tropical cyclones – Ditwah and Senyar – hit Indonesia’s Sumatra region and Peninsular Malaysia simultaneously, triggering deadly floods and landslides. It is one of the deadliest weather-related disasters in recent history, hitting one of the most climate vulnerable regions on Earth that is used to dealing with strong monsoon rains.

New research by the World Weather Attribution group confirmed that climate change is making cyclones like Ditwah and Senyar more frequent and the associated rainfall more intense.

The storm developed over North Indian Ocean waters that were 0.2C warmer than the historical 1991-2020 average and that would have been 1C cooler without human-caused climate change. As ocean surfaces warm, so does the air above it, causing water to be carried up to high altitudes to form clouds, while leaving a low pressure zone beneath causing more air to rush in. The warmer the air, the more water it can hold: for every extra degree Celsius of warming, air can hold 7% more moisture

Read the full article.

7. Trump Signs Executive Orders to Revive ‘Beautiful Clean Coal’ in Blow to US Emissions Reduction Efforts

In April, US President Donald Trump signed four executive orders aimed at reviving coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, and eliminate Biden-era laws meant to curb greenhouse gases both within states and nationwide. The White House said the orders will invigorate the coal industry.

Standing in front of a group of coal miners at the White House, Trump said that his administration “will rapidly expedite leases for coal mining on federal lands” and “streamline permitting.”

The order paving the way for all this describes coal as “beautiful,” “clean,” “abundant and cost effective,” and capable of meeting the nation’s rising electricity demand. It directs federal agencies to identify and eliminate policies that discourage investment in coal production and coal-fired electricity generation.

But the order fails to mention that coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the single-largest source of fossil fuel carbon emissions (40%), responsible for over 0.3C of the 1.2C increase in global average temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, and a major contributor to air pollution. 

In fact, nations worldwide are turning away from coal. Nearly 60 countries have drastically scaled back their plans for building coal-fired power plants since the Paris Agreement was passed in 2015, including some of the world’s biggest coal users like Turkey, Vietnam, and Japan. Nations including Germany, South Korea, and the UK phased out coal altogether.

Read the full article.

8. ‘Historic’ UN-Led High Seas Treaty to Take Effect in 2026 as Ratification Threshold Cleared

The UN High Seas Treaty, the world’s first treaty to protect and conserve marine biodiversity in international waters adopted in 2022, will enter into force next year after clearing the ratification threshold in September.

Formally known as the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, or BBNJ Agreement, the treaty is centered around the creation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) on the high seas to preserve marine biodiversity. The text, two decades in the making, aims to protect 30% of the high seas. Currently, only 1% of the high seas are protected, leaving marine life vulnerable. 

While 142 countries and the European Union signed the treaty since it opened for signature in September 2023, a minimum of 60 ratifications were required for the agreement to come into force. The threshold was cleared last week, when Sri Lanka, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sierra Leone and Morocco ratified it.

Along with the creation of marine protected areas in international waters, the treaty also requires economic activity on the high seas, such as planned deep sea mining for transition materials, to present environmental impact assessments. It will also promote equity for developing countries through greater knowledge sharing and technology access, strengthening capacity, and ensuring the equitable access and sharing of the benefits of marine genetic resources.

Read the full article.

9. Green Sea Turtles No Longer Endangered Species in Major Conservation Win

Green sea turtles are bouncing back thanks to decades of sustained conservation action, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced in October.

The species’ latest assessment was carried out in December 2024 and showed that the global population has increased since the 1970s, leading to its reclassification on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species from “endangered” to “least concern”.

Established in 1964, the list is one of the world’s most comprehensive source of information on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species. It counts 172,620 species, of which 48,646 are threatened with extinction.

“Conservation efforts have focused on protecting nesting females and their eggs on beaches, expanding community-based initiatives to reduce unsustainable harvest of turtles and their eggs for human consumption, curtailing trade, and using Turtle Excluder Devices and other measures to reduce the accidental capture of turtles in fishing gear,” the IUCN said in a press release.

Read the full article.

10. Fossil Fuel Companies Intensified Hundreds of Heatwaves Worldwide This Century

The world’s largest fossil fuel and cement producers have intensified hundreds of heatwaves worldwide this century, according to a first-of-its-kind study.

Researchers looked at 213 heatwaves that occurred between 2000 and 2023 across 63 countries. Using a well-established extreme event-based attribution framework, they first looked at how more intense and more likely these events were made by climate change. Then, they identified individual contributions from 180 major fossil fuel and cement companies—which they refer to as carbon majors— using these companies’ emissions data.

For the first time, individual companies were linked to specific, sometimes deadly heatwaves, such as the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome and the 2023 European heatwaves.

14 companies alone polluted enough to individually cause over 50 heatwaves, which scientists say would have been virtually impossible without climate change. These include Saudi Aramco, Gazprom, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that human-caused climate change, which is primarily driven by greenhouse gases, has increased the frequency and intensity of heatwaves since the 1950s. Every heatwave in the world is now made stronger and more likely to happen because of human-caused climate change. 

Read the full article.

From new and expanded protected areas to landmark court rulings, here are some of the policy wins for nature you might have missed in 2025. 

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December is in full swing and, with it, comes the time for reflection. Among countless disasters and endless suffering for those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, stories of progress have also emerged this year. Around the world, governments, civil society organizations and communities made meaningful strides to protect the natural world, preserving precious ecosystems, strengthening legislation and taking destructive industries to court. 

Read on to learn about key achievements in nature conservation in 2025.

Expanding Marine Protection

One of the most tangible areas of progress was the expansion and strengthening of marine protected areas (MPAs). This designation grants parts of our seas and oceans with a formal conservation status, allowing ecosystems to recover and thrive. However, not all MPAs are created equal. Some allow certain extractive or destructive activities, while others guarantee full protection of the area, prohibiting any activities that could harm ecosystems. 

Under the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, countries have pledged to protect and conserve at least 30% of the world’s land and water by 2030 (also known as the “30 by 30” target). Global protection currently falls short of this goal, with only 9.6% of the ocean effectively protected. 

However, an important policy breakthrough should change this. In September, Morocco became the 60th country to ratify the High Seas Treaty, meeting the ratification threshold for its entry into force. The treaty establishes a legal framework to create networks of MPAs in international waters – a critical step, given that protecting national waters alone will not be sufficient to meet the 30 by 30 goal. 

Against this backdrop, a July study offers compelling evidence that these protections actually work. By using AI and satellite-based Earth observations, researchers found that little to no industrial fishing occurs in fully and highly protected MPAs. The study dispels longstanding beliefs that these areas simply act as “paper parks” – looking good on paper, but in practice doing little to halt ecosystem degradation. 

These findings are encouraging given the ongoing momentum to expand and create new MPAs. Plans for a whopping 11 new marine sanctuaries were approved in Australia at the start of the year, followed by Argentina’s creation of a new protected area nearly the size of the US Yosemite National Park. At the UN Ocean Conference in June, Portugal, Colombia and São Tomé and Príncipe, announced 10 new MPAs, while French Polynesia designated the world’s largest protected area. Spain gave the go-ahead for six new MPAs in October and Pakistan designated its third in November. 

Some chose to go beyond new designations, strengthening protections in existing MPAs. In the Philippines, a huge coral hotspot off the coast of Panaon Island, home to some of the healthiest and most climate-resilient reefs in the world, received new safeguards. Greece became the first European country to ban bottom trawling in all its protected areas and the UK government unveiled a plan to do the same in 41 MPAs. 

Bottom trawling, which involves dragging heavy nets along seabeds, is one of the most destructive fishing practices and can cause irreversible damage to marine habitats.

Safeguarding Terrestrial Ecosystems

On terra firma, governments also stepped up to expand protections. While 17.6% of land is protected globally, announcements made this year suggest that momentum is building towards the 30 by 30 target. 

In March, Colombia designated a first-of-its-kind territory to protect an uncontacted Indigenous group. Spanning over 1 million hectares, the new area prohibits all economic development and forced human contact, protecting both the Yuri-Passé people and the rich biodiversity who call it their home. Species found in this region include the oncilla – a small spotted cat currently threatened by deforestation, the giant armadillo, and the giant anteater. 

In another groundbreaking win, Colombia became the first country in the Amazon basin to declare the entirety of its Amazonian biome as a reserve for natural resources. All new oil or large-scale mining projects will be banned in the reserve, which covers 43% of the country. In a statement at COP30, Irene Vélez Torres, the Acting Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, said: “We are doing this not only as an act of environmental sovereignty, but also as a fraternal call to the other countries that share the Amazon biome, because the Amazon knows no borders and its preservation requires us to work together.”

In May, the Kyrgyz Republic announced a new ecological corridor linking existing protected areas to form a connected landscape spanning a total of 1.2 million hectares. Growing data shows that maintaining ecological connectivity through these types of corridors is critical for land conservation to be effective. Not only does this ensure that animals can roam freely, but it also helps maintain genetic diversity and nutritional variety. 

In Australia, plans were unveiled for the Great Koala National Park – the world’s first protected area dedicated to the endangered marsupial. The proposal will add 176,000 hectares of publicly owned forests to existing protected areas to form a large reserve of prime koala habitat. 

Perhaps the most ambitious 30 by 30 commitment of all came from Suriname, which vowed to protect 90% of its tropical forests. With the highest share of forest cover in the world, Suriname is one of three countries that acts as a carbon sink, alongside Bhutan and Panama. 

Advancing Environmental Policy

Not all policy progress came in the form of new protected areas. While some countries scaled back or pulled out of their commitments to conserve biodiversity this year, others introduced innovative policies rooted in environmental justice and the recognition of Indigenous rights. 

In New Zealand, a significant legal decision granted a mountain area legal personhood, i.e. the same rights, duties and protections as individuals. The mountain and its surrounding peaks are the third natural landmark in the country to receive this status, following the Te Urewera rainforest in 2014 and the Whanganui river in 2017. Previously known as “Mount Egmont”, the legislation also reverts the mountain’s name back to its original Māori denomination: Taranaki Maunga. 

More on the topic: Should Nature Have Rights? A Critical Analysis of Ecocentrism and the Future of Water Protection

A similar move is being considered by other countries. In the UK, for example, campaigners have launched a bill to grant legal rights to nature as a whole. If enacted, the legislation would establish a legal duty of care towards nature, and implement a governance structure to monitor and enforce sustainable and regenerative practices. France’s capital Paris, meanwhile, has called on the national parliament to grant legal personhood to the Seine to better protect it from pollution. 

In California, the largest-ever “land back” deal in the state’s history returned over 19,000 hectares of land to the Yurok tribe. The area will now form the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and Yurok Tribal Community Forest, protecting one of the most important Chinook salmon runs on the US’ West Coast. The deal is part of the largest dam removal project in the world. Dams built on the Klamath River in the 20th century resulted in the collapse of its thriving ecosystem, with devastating consequences for the Karuk, Yurok, Shasta, Klamath and Modoc tribes. As part of the project, four dams were removed last year, allowing the river to flow freely for the first time in over a century.

Finally, while many felt disappointed by the outcomes of COP30, it did deliver some notable commitments. Governments pledged to recognize, by 2030, the land tenure rights of Indigenous people over 160 million hectares of land – an area the size of Iran. This came alongside a renewed pledge of $1.8 billion to help recognize, manage and protect Indigenous land over the next five years. The Tropical Forest Forever Facility – a financial mechanism designed to permanently fund tropical forest conservation by paying countries for keeping their forests standing – was also launched at COP30.

Upholding Environmental Justice

In many countries, policy changes were achieved thanks to the tireless advocacy and hard work of local communities and civil society. But when political will falls short, environmental advocates are increasingly turning to courts. While legal cases are often drawn out, some notable successes led to transformative rulings for nature and people alike this year. 

One case in particular stood out for its global significance. In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion, stating that governments can be held accountable for their greenhouse gas emissions under international law. The case was brought to the world’s top court by a group of law students and activists from low-lying Pacific islands. In a unanimous ruling, the 15 judges concluded that if nations fail to curb emissions, approve new fossil fuel projects, and roll out public money for oil and gas, they could be in breach of international law. Although the ruling is ultimately non-binding, it clears the path for countries to sue each other over climate change. In a huge win for Small Island States, the court also ruled that rising sea levels do not erase borders or maritime jurisdiction.

At a national level, Nepal’s Supreme Court struck down a 2024 law allowing construction in protected areas, deeming it unconstitutional. In a separate ruling, the court also ordered the government to uphold decades-old restrictions on industrial development in the Lumbini area, considered to be the Buddha’s birthplace. 

In Indonesia, local communities who spent years petitioning against the development of a controversial zinc-and-lead mine can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The mine’s environmental permit was revoked by the Supreme Court, which found that on-site waste storage was almost certain to fail due to seismic activity, putting nearby villages at risk of over a million tons of mud and toxic waste being unleashed onto them. “This case sets an important legal precedent in terms of environmental protection and the community’s right to a healthy environment,” Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, the Ministry of Environment’s Secretary-General, told reporters. 

Onto the Next One

All these quiet victories matter. They remind us that progress comes through sustained action and that even during challenging years, we can forge ahead. Now onto the next one.

Featured image: Serge Melesan.

Could capitalism’s impact on the planet be a result of “an accounting error” – the failure of our collective ability to recognize the value of nature’s services to our economy and way of life? In her new book, political economist Alyssa Battistoni examines this question through the lens of Marxist theory and with a deep dive into political and economic treatments of the topic.

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From the start of the book, Battistoni is precise in her choice of wording, clarifying what it means for nature to provide “free” gifts, not just gifts. This opening, laying the theoretical groundwork, prefigures the next several chapters, which discuss weighty questions such as the nature of choice, the impact of class rule, and the labor of nature versus that of man. 

The first half of the book is a dense read. While there are many fascinating examples provided (should oil be considered the product of plankton’s labor?), the bulk of the text is hard core theory of political economy, and will be of greatest interest to those with deep involvement in the field. These chapters offer a comprehensive review of how thinkers have examined capitalist rule, the nature of labor (are fishers laborers producing fish, or are they businesspeople?), and the social impact of pollution – the surplus matter of “byproduction”. 

Battistoni reminds the reader “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” because the costs always appear elsewhere in the system. “Pollution has often been described by its defenders as the ‘price of progress’, with the implication that it is worth paying,” she states. “Those who have actually paid the costs have often disagreed.” 

These insights and examples are the best aspects of the book, which presents a range of concepts that can take time to absorb. The author is a fan of inventing new terminology, including her core idea of “suprasumption”: “Where subsumption describes the ways that capital remakes both physical and social processes of labor in service of valorization, suprasumption describes the fact that both physical and social processes always exist in excess of that remaking.” She also coined, among others: “the naturalization thesis”, “market abjection”, “the worldview approach”, “the practico-actant”, “the abdication of production processes”, and “paracapitalist agents”.

A central chapter takes on the topic from a feminist perspective, and is a poignant reminder of how the “maintenance” work taken up by (Mother) Nature is as underappreciated as reproductive labor. “Why?” the author asks. “What, exactly, unifies ecological activity and reproductive labor as ‘background conditions’ or ‘maintenance work’? Why do these particular activities go unvalued, unaccounted, unpaid?”

From the midpoint onwards, the book becomes more practical and engaging. The author tackles the fundamental question of how to represent nature, including attacks against it, in economic terms – and what externalities reveal about markets. The concept of externalities, surprisingly, is older than one might think, with the kernels of its future definitions appearing in the early 20th century, while ecosystem services as a concept already appears in the late 19th century. “In classical political economy, natural agents appear as contributors to production, conventionally understood… but each of these is dependent on countless others that go unmentioned.”

According to the author, attempts to price nature have met with exasperating difficulty. The International Monetary Fund, for example, has valued a whale at $2 million each, an exercise that seems absurd until the alternative (capitalist’s default value of natural resources $0) is considered. “At every point in the development of methods for calculating nature’s economic value, beginning with the very earliest cost-benefit assessments, critics have emphasized their limits,” she points out. One study estimated the value of the Earth’s biosphere at $33 trillion – only to revise it, after criticism, to $125 trillion. 

Meanwhile, companies have been established on “natural capital”, proclaiming nature as an asset class. The future of these efforts is uncertain, but what is most striking today, the author points out, “is not the extent to which ecosystemic natures have been commodified, but the fact that they largely have not been.” 

The book concludes with a chapter examining the nature of freedom. Are we energy slaves? Would an ecologically sustainable society be an austere one? 

This book is not an instruction manual for someone wishing to set up a nature-based solutions company. Instead, it is a book for deep thinkers, who wish to delve into the ideas that have formed our society and are now remaking the physical planet we live on. By the end of the book, readers will be asking themselves, as the author does: “What else might freedom mean?”

Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature
Alyssa Battistoni, Ph.D
2025, Princeton University Press, 328pp

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Check out more Earth.Org book reviews here.

Last month’s COP30 featured the largest Indigenous participation ever at a UN climate summit. Yet their lack of access to the negotiating table was a stark reminder of the cultural disrespect and systemic exclusion Indigenous peoples continue to face in critical diplomatic spaces.

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By Evke Bakker

When 150-odd Indigenous activists forced their way into the COP30 venue last month to protest the lack of progress in climate negotiations and demand stronger recognition of their rights, Jairo Arapiun was among them. The dramatic images of the scenes that followed went around the world. Jairo features in many of them, clashing with security. A powerful image that headlined countless news stories shows him being clasped by security while a fellow activist tries to break the guard’s grip. 

But what most photographs fail to show is the moment when a UN security guard violently tears off his traditional headdress, known as cocar, and hurls it backwards – a painfully symbolic gesture that sums up the cultural disrespect and racism Indigenous people face in diplomatic decision-making spaces like COP. 

“There is a great lack of respect toward Indigenous leadership. Our cocares are symbols of leadership, spirituality, protection of our life… When someone who isn’t authorized to touch it does so, we are very saddened, even angry,” Jairo explained days later in an interview with Earth.Org. “My headdress was torn off violently; it was violated along with me.” 

He did not interpret the moment as an individual or personal attack, but rather a structured, institutional attack: “Someone told them: ‘Don’t let Indigenous peoples in, don’t let Black people in, don’t let people from the peripheries in here, because this COP is not for them.’”

Jairo is the cacique geral, the Indigenous leader of four villages of the Terra Preta territory in the Lower Tapajós region. He is also an activist with Conselho Indigena Tapajós e Arapiuns (CITA), an organization that has been fighting for the well-being of the 13 peoples of the Lower Tapajós region since its inception in the year 2000. Jairo and about 150 other Indigenous activists from the Lower Tapajós made their way across the entire state of Pará to Belém for the summit. They travelled by bus and ferry to protest the pollution and exploitation of their lands and their exclusion from the UN summit – the year’s biggest and most-awaited international climate conference. 

For the 41-year-old Indigenous activist, forcing entry into the COP was a last resort: “Our lives are being decided here, and we don’t have space,” said Jairo. Although COP30 advertises to be “open to all”, and even was branded as “the Indigenous COP”, not many Indigenous Brazilians received accreditation. 

Of the 2,500-odd Indigenous representatives in attendance, only 14% (360 individuals) secured accreditation for the Blue Zone, the restricted area for official negotiations. Among them, only one person came from Jairo’s region.

Reflecting on the pivotal events of November 11, Jairo said that they “just unfolded. There was no plan.” 

“Unfortunately, there was that moment of violence, not very deep, but it happened, on both sides,” he recalled. During the struggle inside COP, both UN security guards and activists were injured.

After the protesters dispersed, an Italian activist with the grassroots movement Debt for Climate picked up the cocar. Having witnessed and filmed the moment in which the headdress was torn from Jairo’s head, he did not entrust UN security with returning it to its rightful owner. Through local networks, he managed to return it to its owner days later.

Calls to Step Up Security

Following the protest, security around the Blue Zone tightened dramatically. A leaked document shows that one day after the incident, the UN called on Brazil to increase the presence of authorities around the area. This, however, did not prevent Indigenous people from staging other protests.

Three days after the storming of the venue, Jairo and dozens of other CITA representatives marched down the blocked roads once more, their arms linked, chanting, shaking the traditional rattles in their raised fists. They returned to the venue to insist on a meeting with the COP30 President, to advocate for the protection of their territories and rivers, and to demand a seat at the negotiating table. Earlier that day, another Indigenous movement, the Munuruku Ipereg Ayu, had managed to secure a hearing by blocking the entrance of the Blue Zone. 

Protesters were met by locked gates, and behind those wait rows of soldiers in full riot gear with machine guns at the ready. The symbolism of heavily armed authorities deployed in front of the COP30 entrance and the UN flag, with Indigenous protesters chanting on the other side of the fence, is almost too on the nose. They did, however, end up securing a meeting with André Corrêa do Lago, the COP30 President, Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva, and Minister for Indigenous Peoples Sonia Guajajara.

A Call for Action

“You are making deals without talking to us,” a representative from the Tapajós region said during the meeting. “If we don’t create pressure, we won’t get heard… Enough of nice words, nice speeches. We are not against the government, but you know our pain.”

Speaker after speaker, Indigenous people detailed the destruction of their territories in the Brazilian Amazon. Like the Madeira and the Tocantins rivers, the Tapajós River is in the process of being privatized. This will allow big corporations to legally exploit its natural resources at the expense of the Indigenous population.

The entire region has been severely affected by mercury pollution from gold mining, which often occurs illegally: “It’s going to kill everything in the river. This is where we get our food from”, explained a member of the Tupinambá, one of several Tupi ethnic groups that inhabit present-day Brazil. “We are already contaminated”, added another speaker. 

Especially for children within the communities, the consequences of mercury poisoning are severe: “It’s very painful to see. Children are having lung, skin and breathing problems and many other issues and diseases from the poison that is thrown in the air – and it spreads,” said someone. Mercury is used by miners to separate gold from the soil – the toxic heavy metal is often mixed with sand or mud. Once it reaches waterways, it does not degrade on its own and instead accumulates in plants, animals, and everyone above them in the food chain.

Indigenous land defenders had another demand: to be included in the decision-making process, so that solutions can be found together: “We don’t want a COP that is only paper and theory. We want a COP that hears the forest and answers the forest. We don’t want our Amazon to be swallowed by greed,” said one of them. 

What they got, however, was familiar bureaucracy: reassurances, praise for dialogue, vague commitments. 

“You people from the Tapajós are our highest priority,” said Joênia Wapixana, President of FUNAI, the Ministry for Indigenous Peoples. She went on to explain that FUNAI is severely underfunded and understaffed, with some protective land processes facing  decade-long delays. 

When Corrêa do Lago took the microphone, he downplayed the link between global climate negotiations and Indigenous territorial rights: “Be assured that there is no threat”, he said, disregarding the fact that the number of fossil fuel lobbyists at the UN event outnumbered every country’s delegation except Brazil’s, and that the Amazon region is especially vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. Later, he admitted that perhaps the government “should have consulted more” with the Indigenous community.

The meeting concluded after two hours without real commitments being made. “It was cheap talk, superficial. I didn’t feel included,” Jairo told Earth.Org. 

The following day, the Brazilian government announced that it will advance in the demarcation of 10 Indigenous lands and territories. Within these territories, the environment as well as Indigenous cultures will fall under the protection of Brazilian law. While it might seem like a win for Indigenous communities, the actual protection lies in the enforcement of these demarcations. Whether the demarcation of these territories will actually bring relief to the affected communities remains to be seen.

Safety Concerns

Threats and violence against Indigenous defenders are not uncommon in South America. By defending their territories and rights, Indigenous people often get in the way of powerful players within criminal networks, agrobusiness, economy, and politics.

Only Colombia surpasses Brazil as the deadliest country for land defenders, especially for those of Indigenous background. A recent event is yet another testament of this shameful legacy: on November 16, Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva, a Guarani Kaiowá Leader in the South of Brazil, was murdered in a brutal attack by private security personnel on his community. 

Three days after our interview, Jairo and the other frontline defenders from the Lower Tapajós experienced this threat first-hand. Due to severe concerns for their safety in Belém, which Earth.Org was asked not to disclose, they were forced to leave the city as negotiations entered a second week. 

Although they were forced to leave prematurely, Jairo and other Indigenous activists managed to take a clearer stance at COP30 than any minister or head of state. By physically entering this enclosed space where their livelihoods were being negotiated without them, they caught the world’s attention. 

Negotiators have failed to provide concrete roadmaps for a fossil fuel phase out and the protection of tropical forests. Paradoxically, the summit can still be considered a breakthrough: unlike any other COP before, it brought together the voices of Indigenous groups, civil society organisations, and activist movements from all over the world. For the entire two weeks of negotiations, the streets of Belém erupted with mass mobilizations, civil society conferences like the People’s Summit and several actions inside and outside the Blue Zone. Each of these events resisted false solutions, empty promises, and political inaction. Even though this year’s COP has failed us like the ones before, it has made one thing clear: people power is rising, and it is becoming impossible to ignore.  

Featured image: Anderson Coelho.

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About the author: Evke Bakker is a freelance journalist, copywriter and activist. In her work she focuses on the climate crisis, environmental protection as well as humanitarian issues. Evke has experience in local as well as international journalism, and has worked for an NGO focusing on the conservation of tropical forests for more than two years. She holds a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature from the University of St Andrews. 

The 30th UN Conference of the Parties (COP30) – hosted in Belém, Brazil, and attended by over 55,000 people – concluded on Sunday, bringing the year’s most pivotal climate summit to a close. Despite high expectations for the “COP of Truth” to deliver on climate finance, deforestation, and Indigenous rights, the final agreement reflected a complex mix of progress and contention.

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Key takeaways from COP30 Week 1 and Week 2

With 56,118 delegates registered, the 30th edition of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) was the second-largest COP in history, behind only COP28 in Dubai, which was attended by more than 80,000 people. Among them were some 2,500 Indigenous people and about 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists.

Brazil and China sent the biggest delegations – 3,805 and 789 delegates, respectively. For the first time in 30 years, the US sent none, a move that some said “cast a shadow” over the debates and intensified the deadlock on core issues such as climate finance and loss and damage.

COP30 was sharp in focus on ramping up climate finance for hard-hit developing nations and tackling deforestation.

Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said at the opening ceremony that COP30 would be the “COP of Truth…the moment for world leaders to prove the seriousness of their commitment to the planet.” For many, that promise did not materialize.

“The truth at COP30, dubbed the ‘COP of Truth,’ is that countries are failing their legal duties,” Erika Lennon, Senior Attorney at the Center for Environmental Law, said on Sunday. We are gathering reactions here.

Read on as Earth.Org recaps the main achievements and failures of COP30.

Achievements and Failures

Fossil Fuels

The biggest failure of COP30, many agree, is that the final agreement omits any mention of planet-warming fossil fuels. It comes despite an unprecedented number of countries (more than 80 and led by Colombia) and more than 100 organizations, explicitly asked the presidency to develop a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. In a letter seen by the Guardian, a group of 29 countries – including Austria, Colombia, Germany, Iceland, Panamá, Mexico and Vanuatu – had even threatened to block any agreement that would not mention a commitment to phase out fossil fuels.

Under pressure from major petrostates, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago ultimately announced a compromise: a voluntary “roadmap” for transitioning away from fossil fuels. This roadmap will proceed outside the formal UN process and be merged with the plan of the Colombia-led “coalition of the willing.” Separately, Colombia announced it will host the world’s first International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in April.

According to the Guardian, developing the roadmap would involve science-led high-level dialogues among governments, industry and civil society over the next year, with results to be reported back to COP.

“It took decades for the need to transition away from fossil fuels to be named at COP28. It’s a grave injustice that two years later, historical polluters are still blocking progress in ending the era of fossil fuels by withholding commitment to pay up their climate debt to the Global South on all fronts,” said Avril De Torres, Deputy Executive Director at the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development.

The closest commitment to a fossil fuel phase-out included in the final agreement was a concession that nations should implement carbon-cutting plans “taking into account the decisions” made over years of UN climate talks, including the unprecedented commitment made at COP28 to “transition away from fossil fuels.”

Climate finance

The final agreement on adaptation “calls” for the tripling of funding for climate adaptation, to be provided by rich countries to protect vulnerable nations from the escalating impacts of climate change. It builds on a previous pledge made at COP26 in 2021 to double adaptation funds to $40 billion by 2025, although details of how that will be implemented, or what the exact amount will be, were left out.

The initial suggested date for disbursing what’s estimated to be $120 billion a year was also pushed back from 2030 to 2035.

The need for adaptation financing in developing countries is significant. In October, the UN Environment Programme estimated this amount to be between $310 billion and $365 billion per year until 2035 – 12 to 14 times more than current financing flows.

Nations also reached long-awaited consensus on a set of indicators to measure progress on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) established in the Paris Agreement, narrowing it down from 10,000 to just 100. The GGA seeks to increase countries’ adaptive capacity, strengthen their resilience, and reduce their vulnerability to climate change through an adequate response to the damage that is already occurring.

Aside from the indicators, the agreement includes a call to launch of the Belém–Addis vision on adaptation – a two-year process to further operationalize the indicators. Addis Abeba, Ethiopia will host COP32 in 2027.

Just Transition

A major outcome was an agreement to establish a just transition “mechanism”, ensuring a fair green transition that takes account the rights of all people, from workers and women to Indigenous people and frontline communities. Parties requested the 64th Sessions of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies, scheduled for June 2026, to recommend a draft decision in order to operationalize the mechanism at next year’s COP31.

“We came here to get the Belém Action Mechanism – for families, for workers, for communities. The adoption of a Just Transition mechanism was a win shaped by years of pressure from civil society,” said Tasneem Essop, Executive Director at Climate Action Network International. “This outcome didn’t fall from the sky; it was carved out through struggle, persistence, and the moral clarity of those living on the frontlines of climate breakdown. Governments must now honour this Just Transition mechanism with real action. Anything less is a betrayal of people – and of the Paris promise.”

Deforestation

Despite being deliberately sited in the heart of the Amazon, COP30 delivered little on forest protection. Although Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva pushed for strong language, the final agreement failed to mention deforestation.

Instead, President Corrêa do Lago announced a separate, voluntary roadmap for forest preservation, mirroring the parallel initiative established for fossil fuels.

“For a COP hosted in the Amazon, it’s shattering that deforestation took a back seat,” said Kelly Dent, Director of External Engagement for World Animal Protection. “The wildlife, indigenous people and traditional communities who call the forest their home deserved better than this.”

President Lula’s flagship initiative to pay for rainforest protection also failed to reach the success initially predicted. 53 countries endorsed the fund, with total pledges standing at $6.6 billion – far off the initial investment target of $25 billion.

18 board members, equally representing rainforest nations and donor countries, are set to oversee the initiative, which will support up to 70 eligible developing nations. A minimum of 20% must be allocated towards Indigenous groups and traditional communities.

Indigenous Participation

Hosting the conference in Belém, at the heart of the Amazon Basin, was a deliberate choice. Lula called it “a political and symbolic decision,” aimed at showing that the Amazon is an essential part of the climate solution, not merely a topic for debate.

The Brazilian government also committed to unprecedented Indigenous participation, with some 2,500 Indigenous people attending the summit. It marked the first time Indigenous leadership, rights, and knowledge were placed so centrally in global climate negotiations. 

“Indigenous Peoples want to take part, not just show up,” said Brazil’s Minister for Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara. “We want to lead and be part of the solution.” But achieving political influence requires more than participation, and COP30 failed on this front, allowing only 14% (360 individuals) accreditation for the Blue Zone, the restricted area for official negotiations.

Despite this exclusion, Indigenous-led protests proved impactful: Colombia declared the Amazon an exclusion zone for extractivism, while Brazil announced the demarcation of 10 Indigenous lands– a key demand – during a high-level meeting of the conference. Ministers from several countries and philanthropic leaders participated and signed land protection commitments, recognizing Indigenous people and traditional communities as essential guardians of the forests and central actors in the climate agenda.

During the ceremony, Guajajara also signed a commitment to allocate an additional 59 million hectares of public land to Indigenous peoples to implement Brazil’s National Policy for Territorial and Environmental Management of Indigenous Lands and to consolidate land tenure after the removal of non-Indigenous occupants.

According to Indigenous leaders present at the event, the package of ordinances meets a historical demand for territories to finally be recognized as part of the climate solution, given the proven role of Indigenous lands in containing deforestation and preserving the Amazon.

“The recognition of Indigenous Peoples rights – especially those in voluntary isolation and initial contact – including their right to self-determination, is an important victory of this COP, held for the first time in the Amazon, home to most of the world’s isolated peoples,” said Gisela Hurtado, Senior Amazonia Campaigner at a grassroots environmental organization Stand.earth.

“But let’s be clear: COP30 fell short of delivering the historic decision the world urgently needed. A just transition won’t be possible with the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, nor can it ignore the social, environmental, and human rights risks of the mining boom that is already impacting Indigenous territories.”

Controversies at COP30

For some years now, the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists at COPs has been a given – and COP30 was no different.

An analysis by the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition revealed that one in 25 participants (some 1,600 people) represented the fossil fuel industry. They outnumber all countries’ delegations except Brazil, which has 3,805 delegates in attendance. The group also calculated that lobbyists have received two thirds more passes to COP30 than all the delegates from the 10 most climate vulnerable nations combined.

Climate activists have long called COP meetings a “farce” due to the presence of thousands of fossil fuel representatives, with Global Witness’ investigation reigniting debates over the role of fossil fuels in the summit.

Three petrostates – Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt – hosted the last three summits. At each summit, the presence of fossil fuel lobbyists was significant: at least 1,773 at last year’s COP29, at least 2,456 oil and gas lobbyists at COP28 (a record), and more than 630 people at COP27.

What’s Next?

Next year’s COP31 climate summit will be held in Turkey after Australia dropped its bid to host the annual talks after months of negotiations. Instead, Australia agreed to support the Turkish bid in return for their minister chairing the talks – a highly unusual arrangement has taken observers by surprise. The COP Presidency is typically held by the host country⁠. Turkey has proposed holding the 2026 summit in Antalya, a resort city of 2.7 million people.⁠

Featured image: UN Climate Change/Kiara Worth via Flickr.