Brazil’s $125bn forest fund – framed as the “biggest thing to come out of COP30” – goes live tomorrow. Critics point out that TFFF “puts private investors first”, forest payouts last + sets a 🌳 bar too low to be “scientifically credible”. @yaninequiroz.bsky.social and I 🕵🏽‍♀️, for @carbonbrief.org.

NEW – UN report: Five charts showing how global deforestation is declining | @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org Read here: buff.ly/EnDIN4D

Q&A: What the ‘controversial’ GWP* #methane metric means for farming emissions By @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org #climatecrisis www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-the-...

Missed this, as I was travelling, but an excellent explainer all about GWP* (read GWP-star) from @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org @carbonbrief.org #methane #metrics #climateaction

NEW – Q&A: What the ‘controversial’ GWP* methane metric means for farming emissions | @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org Read here: buff.ly/vmZWYtQ

I’ve spent months looking into GWP* - a way of measuring methane that has been labelled an 'accounting trick' by some and a fairer way to assess methane by others This Q&A gets into all the science and spats about GWP* and the current situation in places like NZ and Ireland 🐮 buff.ly/vmZWYtQ

It has been a decade since the Paris Agreement. And with COP30 in Brazil on the horizon, there have been calls for major reform at the UN climate talks. We asked 16 experts - including former negotiators and COP veterans - what they think should change at these events. ➡️ buff.ly/JWL8AQN

NEW ANALYSIS: Wildfires have already scorched a UK-record land area in 2025, double the previous high – and 4x above average By Orla Dwyer, Ho Woo Nam + Tom Prater www.carbonbrief.org/...

NEW – Revealed: ‘Cali Fund’ for nature still empty as emails show industry hesitation | @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org w/ comment from @sivathambisetty.bsky.social Read here: buff.ly/YaUavl0

The Cali Fund agreed at COP16 talks last year is still empty 5 months after its launch - despite expectations of first pledges in spring FOI docs also show that AstraZeneca did not take up an offer to be a "frontrunner" in committing to donate to the fund www.carbonbrief.org/revealed-cal...

UK potatoes, South Korean cabbage and west African cocoa are among the foods that became more expensive after weather extremes fuelled by climate change in recent years www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-16-ti...

Amid ongoing Bonn talks and London climate week, Brazil and the UN today began a “global ethical stocktake” to hear from civil society before COP30 Mary Robinson, co-organiser for the Europe discussions, says they talked about climate justice, accountability and the “need to rebuild community”

NEW – Glossary: Carbon Brief’s guide to 24 ‘climate-friendly’ farming methods | @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org @yaninequiroz.bsky.social 🎨 Kerry Ann Cleaver and Tom Pearson Read here: buff.ly/R9vJYz4

Today at 3pm (GMT), Carbon Brief is hosting a free webinar on the key outcomes of the resumed COP16 biodiversity talks 🎙️ Featuring our specialist team of food, land and nature journalists who are on the ground in Rome 🇮🇹 or following remotely Register here ➡️ buff.ly/3D9PH98

What happened at round 2 of COP16 nature talks? 🇮🇹 In the early hours of this morn countries signed off on: Strategy to raise more money to help conserve biodiversity Plans to set up a “permanent arrangement” for nature finance www.carbonbrief.org/cop16-key-ou...

Not a new nature fund just yet, but developing countries get something much bigger, 3 decades in the making: a permanent mechanism for biodiversity finance. Esp significant in today's geopolitical climate that has cast a cloud over cooperation and hopes for more funding for nature and climate.

We're in what should be the final hours of COP16. And there's new informal text out on 🌱 finance, key to its success. With inputs from bloc reps, it seems way more coherent than the last draft. L: 26 Feb draft. www.cbd.int/doc/c/b198/d... R: Tonight's non-paper. www.cbd.int/doc/c/214f/6...

Talks winding to a close tonight at #COP16 round 2 Next round of draft texts are due in an hour, followed by a plenary at 9pm Rome-time that’s supposedly ending at 11pm 🤷‍♀️ Lots still left to discuss

NEW resource mobilisation draft has arrived at #COP16 More details added to paragraphs 19-25 where the main contentions lie Countries will go through this revised draft in a plenary meeting starting shortly 🍿 www.cbd.int/doc/c/b198/d...

New resource mobilisation draft is due later today at COP16.2 in Rome A 🧊 metaphor from Susana Muhamad to start out day 2... Country positions are the "tip of the iceberg", she says, and the reason behind positions is the mass under the surface Informal chats revealed these reasons last night

🧬 The Cali fund - where companies who use genetic data from nature in their products can send cash - has been officially launched (This fund was one of the main outcomes of the COP16 talks in Cali)

COP16.2 officially opens 🇮🇹 Susana Muhamad: “We have an important responsibility here in Rome. In 2025, we can send a light globally and be able to say even with our differences, even with our tensions…we are able to collaboratively work together for something that transcends our own interests.”

Extreme weather is destroying crops around the world, from hurricanes hitting bananas and yams in Jamaica, to drought ruining maize crops in Myanmar last year. We mapped a global snapshot of the impacts from media reports for @carbonbrief.org interactive.carbonbrief.org/crops-extrem... #dataviz

There is “no alternative to succeeding” at the resumed COP16 talks in Rome, convention on biological diversity chief Astrid Schomaker says COP16 pres Susana Muhamad also confirms she still has full capacity as Colombia’s environment minister and will preside over the talks

New doc from COP16 pres Susana Muhamad feat. suggestions to ease finance sticking points ahead of the biodiversity talks picking up again next week in Rome Left shows one part of most recent draft text around a new nature fund proposal, right is Muhamad's suggestion www.cbd.int/doc/c/7d83/4...

🆕 The fight for a new nature fund brought #COP16 talks to a halt in Colombia last year. A week before talks resume in Rome, a "reflection note" from Susana Muhamad – whose COP16 presidency has been under a cloud after her resignation – suggests a way out. www.cbd.int/doc/c/b0ca/7...

In the past two years, floods ruined soybeans growing in Brazil, a hurricane destroyed millions of $$ worth of crops in Jamaica and drought hit Sri Lankan rice This new interactive map gives a snapshot of how extreme weather is damaging crops, feat. 100 news stories from 2023-24 buff.ly/42Rqf2D

NEW: Just 10/195 countries signed up to the Paris Agreement met the UN’s 10 Feb deadline to submit their 2035 climate pledges UN climate chief Simon Stiell said latecomers must submit by September

A forest twice the size of Greater London would need to be planted in the UK to cancel out the extra emissions from the expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton airports. That's more than 300,000 hectares... Chart for @carbonbrief.org www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-... #dataviz

Defra recently paid £57.5m from the farming recovery fund to English farmers hit by intense rain last winter - which is 75 times more than the amount given the last time the fund opened in 2020, figures released to Carbon Brief show

UPDATED – Ireland election 2024: What the manifestos say on climate change and energy | @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org Read here: https://buff.ly/4i5yGN3

Take a look at the main climate-related pledges from Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Fine Gael ahead of Ireland's election this Friday ⬇️ More parties will be added by tomorrow

To understand global south anger at the COP29 climate finance goal it's crucial to understand two key numbers. 1️⃣ "At least" $300bn/year - developed nations agreed to "take the lead" in mobilising this for developing countries 2️⃣ $1.3tn/year - a wider, vaguer goal They sound pretty big! But...

Ireland's 3 biggest parties - Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin - "failed" this manifesto assessment on climate policies by @foeireland.bsky.social ahead of the general election this Friday Labour ranked in first, followed by the Social Democrats and the Green Party

NEW – COP29: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Baku #COP29 ➡️ https://buff.ly/3V5jndk

Biodiversity COP16 has ended, with agreements on a benefit-sharing mechanism for genetic resources & permanent body for Indigenous peoples to advise negotiations. But only 22% of countries presented a biodiversity plan and the main financing remains unresolved. More from @carbonbrief.org here:

Great to interview UN biodiversity chief Astrid Schomaker ahead of "nature's moment" at COP16 in Colombia later this month Chatted about just 10% of countries submitting updated biodiversity plans, nature finance and Azerbaijan and Armenia's bids to host COP17 www.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-b...

NEW - I've got hold of the figures showing how much money the UK government has used to fund nature protection in developing countries. The UK target is £3bn for nature and forests by 2026, and it will have to provide 1.7bn of this over the next two years www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

"Methane levels show no “hint of a decline”, and the continued rise is “incompatible” with climate goals, the lead study author tells Carbon Brief." Great in-depth reporting on all things methane by @orladwyer.carbonbrief.org and Yanine Quiroz www.carbonbrief.org/qa-why-metha...

Biodiverse nations from across three continents met at the Three Basins Summit last week to pool resources and encourage $$$ mobilisation But the outcome was "underwhelming" with "no major breakthroughs", one observer says, just weeks before COP28 in Dubai

Lough Neagh - the biggest lake in Ireland and the UK - was hit by a wave of blue-green algal blooms this summer Excess nutrient runoff and climate change are the main roots of the problem which has had environmental, political and social impacts in Northern Ireland