I’m a past winner of the Orwell Prize & won partly because I exposed Vote Leave’s unlawful activities. Michael Gove was its co-convener & refused to answer a single q. He’s now a judge of the prize & our world is truly one that Orwell would recognise bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...

Quite the quote on #COP30, by Professor Michael Jacobs of the think tank ODI Global and the University of Sheffield. Source: ‚Backchannel‘

Huge applause and long standing ovation for Marina Silva, what a life, from rubber tapper in the Amazon to environment minister, and quiet star of COP30. Even though the roadmap to halt deforestation is voluntary, if led by Silva, it will be positive.

COP30 cover text passed with silence. No applause. Just silence. Presidency then announced 2 roadmaps, under the Presidency, one on transitioning away from fossil fuels and another on deforestation. To huge applause. Basically a coalition of the willing.

A climate deal without explicit language calling for a fossil fuel phaseout is like a ceasefire without explicit language calling for a suspension of hostilities. #COP30

Final document for #COP30 just dropped and here are some hot takes 1/ No decisive language about FF phaseouts. This is a HUGE loss. The consolation prize is a political process toward phaseouts outside the official decisionmaking of the #ParisAgreement

Cover decision text, not passed yet, unfccc.int/sites/defaul... No mention of roadmaps for transitioning away from fossil fuels or curbing deforestation. Bitterly disappointing.

COP30 final plenary starting very soon, but still no new cover text release

You ever just sit down and realize that the rise of 21st century fascism is capital's answer to climate change?

What’s going on at COP30. The new draft cover text is poor, nothing of fossil fuels or forests, but something, not much, on finance. Here in my take: this is deliberately low-balled, to flush out what’s really important to blocks of countries.

COP30 President calls plenary. Gives pep talk. Mic drop. Leaves. Now in the centre of this media scrum.

Waiting for the COP30 plenary, and it’s full, no suprise, because there seems to be no overflow room to show it. Very poor planning from the hosts.

Jokes aside the fire at COP30 is bad news for the hosts. And that means bad news for multilateralism. The clock is ticking.

Fire at COP30, we are all evacuated. Hope everyone is ok.

This does feel like a major crossing of the Rubicon – the world's best-funded and in many ways most powerful public health agency is now actively pushing disinformation. I know there's a *lot* going on to care about at the moment, but this one really is significant, and matters well beyond the US.

I do wonder if do Lago the COP30 President is telling each country to come to agreement early, to give Trump the middle finger, without any one country needing to take the blame. Would be amazing to wrap the contentious issues early when the US is not there. I can but dream!

"Despite being the second-largest rainforest on Earth – and one of the most vital carbon sinks – the Congo basin remains the rainforest the world forgot, often overlooked when it comes to global climate policy and funding."

Belem call to action for congo basin forests announced $2.5 billion in funding to protect central Africa’s tropical forests between now and 2030. Brokered by the the Congo Basin Forest Partnership. Funding from World Bank, Germany, Norway, Global Environment Facility, African Dev. Bank and others.

📣Out now! A 🆕 report building on long-term #CongoPeat research is published. 🔗Developing options to protect the central Congo peatlands and livelihoods of peatland-dependent communities congopeat.net/new-report/ #PeatlandsMatter #CongoBasin

📄Important article in the @theguardian.com about the #CongoBasin and its importance for global carbon sinks including scientific voices from @simonlewis.bsky.social and scientists from @congobasinscience.bsky.social 👉 Read the full article here: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Today is Congo Basin Forest day at COP30, and the Guardian has a nice piece on the region. Funds for Congo Basin forests to be announced at 5pm Forest Pavilion. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Absolutely terrible news of another Indigenous land defender killed in Brazil as #COP30 takes place - Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva, a 36-year-old Guarani Kaiowá leader, was shot dead on Sunday morning www.theguardian.com/environment/...

COP president André Corrêa do Lago floats the possibility of "two packages" at #COP30: - one for finance, trade measures, transparency and 1.5C in consultations: "four themes that are very important to COP" - package for the "main COP themes", including adaptation, fair or just transition.

Bringing your pet on a demo Amazon-style. #COP30

My fear is scientists will just sit by & be complicit. Saying you are for 1.5C or net zero is not ambition. If rich country GHG or CO2 emissions are not dropping at >5% per year, they are not remotely consistent with 1.5C, nor net zero in a reasonable time frame. Scientists need to point this out.

I’m at COP30 in Belem Brazil, on the huge climate demonstration. Big indigenous presence, so heartening to see.

If I'm doing the math correctly, Musk's big pay packet yesterday could have made each of these now-dead people millionaires instead. He is among the sickest men the world has ever produced.

This is deeply disappointing from Starmer. The UK *helped design* this 'TFFF' fund, designed to stop deforestation, and supposedly 'continues to back the fund' (in theory). But now isn't putting any money into it 🤯 How embarrassing for the UK. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is such poor politics. The contribution is a loan at slightly below market rates, with a very modest risk attached (into a Facility managed by the World Bank). So it’s really modest. And could be a game-changer for forest protection. V. odd that the UK is burning its political capital on this.

PhD applications are now open @treesdla.bsky.social for 2026 intake. Have a look at a project on effects of forest diversity on floral reward production for pollinators that we advertise with @philstevenson.bsky.social. Do apply/get in touch if you are interested! www.trees-dla.ac.uk/projects/eff...

Please pass along, I’m recruiting PhD students to join our Macroecology Lab @uofa-eeb.bsky.social We study phys ecology, macroecology, biodiversity - spanning scaling, trait-based ecology, theory, comparative biology & ecoinformatics. Several avenues for funding. Please reach out if interested🧪🌐🌾

Wild, airlines are basically unregulated banks that fly planes…

In Beni, DRC where war has ravaged the country, #XRGraben joined the #DrawTheLine campaign with more than 50 young Climate Defenders taking to the streets to say no to the exploitation of 52 oil blocks, to protect the Congo Basin and the indigenous communities bordering Virunga National Park. 🧵1/2

🧵🚨 The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news. Today our report is published! www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n... 1/11

Wish I could say I was shocked, but here's the Labour government constraining the right to peaceful protest again... 'You can protest but only according to our rules. The rules are: you're not allowed to use any of the tactics that make protest effective.'

NEW: Extraordinary scenes in Amsterdam this afternoon (Sunday, Oct 5). An estimated 250,000 bring the city to a standstill; people all wearing red to show solidarity with Palestine 🇵🇸 (🎥 Ahmed Zantac)

Protest only works because it is cumulative. It takes time and energy to engage people and change the conversation. If this went ahead, protest would not work. This Labour government under Starmer is terrifyingly authoritarian.

‘Planetary health diet’ could save 40,000 deaths a day, landmark report finds - Diet allows modest meat consumption and would also slash food-related climate emissions by half, says report by 70 leading experts from 35 countries Story by me www.theguardian.com/environment/...

NEW: Something remarkable happened recently and hardly anyone noticed – GB electricity demand was 100% covered by clean power We took a look at the data and this has happened for a record 87 hours in 2025 to date, twice as often as ever before 🧵 www.carbonbrief.org/... 1/7

When Reform's Nathan Gill is sentenced for bribery, he will be the third of Nigel Farage's former MEPs to be jailed for being corrupt, after Tom Wise (expenses fraud) and Ashley Mote (falsely claiming benefits). What is it about Farage that attracts crooks?

“Our investigation uncovered that an elected MEP was taking payments to peddle narratives beneficial to Russian interests... This case goes to the heart of our democratic values.” — head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, Commander Dominic Murphy

No.3. How is Starmer and his team so idiotic at every turn. In reality, the UK is so broken due to the never-ending housing crisis. Fix that and most people have more disposable income and other problems become manageable.

Ok. They’ve pissed me off. I’m back to tell you 3 things about ID cards: 1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they don’t work, you do not want that system for you.

Please pass along - postdoc position! with our working group on #FunctionalTraits and rarity. This is part of the FREE (Functional Rarity in Ecology and Evolution) working group led by Cyrille Violle in Montpellier France 🧪🌐🌾 emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

The media has a great sway over people’s minds.

The Congo Basin Science Initiative (CBSI) is advertising for a Director of Science. Based in Kinshasa, 4 yrs position. Work with me, amazing students and great scientists to transform our understanding of the world’s second largest area of tropical forests. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Don't be complacent, we saw the numbers at yesterday's event and we know the consequences if we let the Far Right gain more and more power and control of our lives. Watch and share this video and do what you can to support Wednesday's protest against Trump and everything he has become a symbol for

BREAKING🚨: People across the UK are showing up to demand the UK Government #StopRosebank. Rosebank is the UK’s biggest undeveloped oil field, & it’s a bad deal for all of us. Scenes from London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Aberdeen Take digital action now👉 www.stopcambo.org.uk/doa-digital