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

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Key developments

COP16 comes to a close

ABRUPT END: COP16 nature talks in Cali “ended in disarray on Saturday” after nearly 12 hours of overtime, “with some breakthroughs”, but without consensus on key issues such as nature funding and how this decade’s targets would be monitored, the Guardian reported. Many developing country delegations “were forced to leave the talks early”, it added, due to the 14-hour over run. Those delegations “expressed fury” at how the talks were organised, leaving “crucial issues undecided at the final hour”. Those issues – and COP16 itself – will have to be picked up “next year at an interim meeting in Bangkok”. For a full breakdown of events, read Carbon Brief’s detailed summary of COP16’s key outcomes and watch back the wrap-up webinar where Cropped journalists explained what happened in Cali and answered audience questions. 

‘CALI FUND’: One of the “breakthroughs” that countries managed to agree on was a “global levy on products made using genetic data from nature”, the Guardian said. Pharmaceutical, cosmetics and agricultural technology companies that “presently enjoy free and extensive access to this data” now “should contribute” 1% of their profits or 0.1% revenue to the new “Cali Fund”, the Financial Times explained. While this “would essentially be voluntary contributions by companies, rather than [a] mandatory levy”, the decision “could create significant moral and reputational pressure on companies to comply”, it added. Global pharmaceutical industry bodies quoted in the outlet “hit out at the decision” that could have raised a “$67m payment last year from Switzerland’s Roche…alone”.​​ At least half of the money is “meant to support Indigenous people and local communities, especially in low-income parts of the world”, Vox reported. 

NO NEW FUND: A key issue on which “no common ground was found” was “how to close the gap in biodiversity finance”, Climate Home News reported. While “unlocking” new and additional finance was a key challenge for COP16, “very little fresh cash was forthcoming” in the two-week summit, the outlet wrote, observers calling $163m in new pledges a “drop in the ocean”. It added that African countries, Brazil and Bolivia “demanded a new fund”, while “Canada, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand and the EU opposed it, instead offering an assessment of the current set-up by COP18”. Wealthy nations “appeared to hit a limit with how much they are willing to pay” to protect nature at COP16, Reuters wrote, “instead shifting their focus” towards “private money filling the funding gap”.

Indigenous recognition at COP16

A PERMANENT HOME: In one of the historic wins at COP16, negotiators agreed to “establish a subsidiary body that will include Indigenous peoples in future decisions on nature conservation”, the Associated Press said. The outlet explained that the subsidiary body “recognises and protects” Indigenous knowledge and practices for the “benefit of global and national biodiversity management”. According to the text adopted by the COP, the subsidiary body will have two co-chairs: one nominated by Indigenous representatives and one nominated by parties within a rotating UN regional grouping. The Jakarta Post noted that Indonesia “eventually supported” the creation of the subsidiary body “following an initial rejection”.

‘WATERSHED MOMENT’: Agence-France Presse reported that Indigenous representatives at the summit, “many in traditional dress and headgear, broke out in cheers and chants” upon the adoption of the decision. The newswire quoted Camila Romero, an Indigenous representative from Chile, who said: “This is an unprecedented moment in the history of multilateral agreements on the environment.” Earth.org called the decision a “watershed moment” and added it “builds on a growing movement to recognise the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting land and helping combat climate change”.

EXPLICIT RECOGNITION: In a separate decision, the COP “finally explicitly recognised the role played by the Afro-descendant population in the care and preservation of biodiversity”, Colombia’s El Espectador reported. The Spanish-language daily said that the issue “had cost [delegates] several hours of negotiations”, as Colombia’s proposal – backed by Brazil – was strongly opposed by the African Group. The newspaper noted: “In practice, this recognition also means that they will be able, in the future, to access funds related to the protection of biodiversity.” On Twitter, Colombian vice-president Francia Márquez wrote: “This is a historic event, an act of ethnic-racial justice.”

Farms hit by ‘deadly’ Valencia floods

VALENCIA DOWNPOUR: Floods that killed more than 200 people in Valencia, Spain, hit farms and left fields waterlogged, Reuters reported. One fruit farmer told the news agency that he was about to harvest oranges and persimmons before the intense rain: “Now the fruit is going to rot. Even the trees can die because they have been under water for 36 hours.” The floods affected “thousands of hectares of farmland”, agricultural groups and farmers told Reuters. Climate change made the extreme rain heavier and more likely to occur, according to a rapid analysis covered by the Associated Press. 

SMALL FARMS LOSE OUT: Meanwhile, several companies owned by billionaires received “generous” farm subsidies from the EU over 2018-21, the Guardian reported. Based on analysis of “official, but opaque, data”, the newspaper found that billionaires were the “ultimate beneficiaries” tied to £2.76bn of EU farm payments during this time. This included companies owned by the former Czech Republic prime minister Andrej Babiš and “British vacuum cleaner tycoon” James Dyson. Another Guardian piece found that the “income gap” between Europe’s biggest and smallest farms doubled in the past 15 years. Over this time, “the number of small farms has collapsed”, the newspaper’s analysis of agricultural income data found. 

CLINCHER: Smallholder farmers around the world “remain mixed” on the EU’s proposal to delay its anti-deforestation law ahead of a key vote, Mongabay reported. A European parliament vote in mid-November will decide whether the law aiming to stop the sale of goods produced on deforested land will be postponed. An oil palm and cacao farmer in Nigeria told Mongabay that the delay would give “breathing room” for compliance, but added: “It also means that I might lose the momentum I have built up in terms of making these critical changes.” Meanwhile, the European Commission is set to approve Christophe Hansen as the new agriculture commissioner, Euronews reported. Hansen was a key figure in forming the anti-deforestation regulation. 

News and views

‘HUNGER HOTSPOTS’: A new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme found that “severe food crises” are putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk in 22 “hunger hotspots”, including Palestine, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali, the Associated Press reported. The newswire noted that “conflicts, economic instability and climate shocks” are all fuelling the “alarming levels” of food insecurity. Meanwhile, a joint UN-Nigeria report found that the country is facing “one of its worst hunger crises” as the country is “grappling” with the cost of living, Reuters said. It added: “Flooding and insecurity in northern states [has] continued to hit agriculture, further driving up food prices beyond the reach of many families.”

ILLEGAL ACTIVITY: JBS – the world’s largest producer of beef – purchased cattle from a farm that had previously been sanctioned and fined for illegal deforestation in Brazil, apparently “in direct contravention of its promises to keep its supply chain clean”, an Unearthed investigation revealed. JBS told Unearthed that “acquisitions followed JBS purchasing policy according to the available information at the time”. Meanwhile, Brazilian authorities told Reuters that they “are preparing to remove illegal gold miners from an Indigenous reservation in the Amazon rainforest”. The reservation in question “has the second-most illegal mining in Brazil”. Illegal mining causes deforestation, contaminates rivers with mercury and has “triggered public health crises on Indigenous reservations”, the newswire added.

CUTTING CORNERS: Verra, the world’s largest certifier of carbon credits, has announced that it will review projects more quickly despite workforce reductions, Climate Home News reported. Verra has introduced a new “risk-based approach” that uses algorithms and staff judgement to categorise offset projects by how risky they are. Projects deemed high-risk will be checked more thoroughly than low-risk ones. Experts told Climate Home News that the new approach risks further undermining Verra’s credibility following allegations of malpractice (which Verra disputes). In response, a spokesperson for Verra told the publication that the approach had been in development for “some time” and would “help mitigate the impact of the reduction in [staff] forces, but that is not the purpose of it”.

VIRAL MIXING: The US Department of Agriculture announced that a pig on a farm in Oregon was infected with H5N1, the highly contagious avian influenza virus that has been circulating since 2020. NPR wrote that “finding bird flu in a pig raises worries that the virus may be hitting a stepping stone to becoming a bigger threat to people”, adding that swine are an intermediary that “can play a role in making bird viruses better adapted to humans”. In the Conversation, Prof Ed Hutchinson from University of Glasgow explained: “Pig cells can be infected by both bird flu and human flu, making pigs a potential ‘mixing vessel’ in which influenza viruses with pandemic potential could be brewed.”

Watch, read, listen

PARADISE LOST: A Hakai Magazine story reflected on how it took “millions of years” for the Mediterranean to heal from a “massive environmental calamity”.

‘COSMO BIOCENTRIC’: The Economics for Rebels podcast talked to Dr Jocelyne Sze about Indigenous stewardship of global ecosystems.

SEEDS OF DOUBT: Yale Environment 360 interviewed a microbial biologist about “how reforestation efforts can go awry if done poorly, reducing biodiversity and harming local populations”. 

POST-COP ANALYSIS: The BBC World Service Newshour programme covered COP16’s key outcomes, speaking to a member of the Sámi Indigenous peoples and Carbon Brief’s Orla Dwyer. 

New science

• A global area the size of Mexico has the potential for natural forest restoration, a Nature study said. The authors calculated that restoring this area of forest could absorb 23.4bn tonnes of carbon over 30 years.
• A slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could “exert a systemic impact on the Amazon” by causing northern forests to dry out, according to a Nature Geosciences study. The research used ancient pollen and micro-charcoal data to reconstruct how a past slowdown of the large-scale ocean current system caused hotter and drier conditions in the northern Amazon, suggesting this could happen this century because of climate change.
• Intense marine heatwaves reduce catches of lobster, sea urchin and sea cucumber for small-scale Mexican fishing communities by as much as 58%, a Communications Earth and Environment study found. The scientists noted impacts were larger “for operations in areas of high historical environmental variation and low historical variation in fisheries production”.

In the diary

• 7 November: Launch of UNEP Adaptation Gap report | Online
• 11-22 November: COP29 UNFCCC climate conference | Baku, Azerbaijan
• 18-19 November: G20 Summit | Rio de Janeiro 

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