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Today’s delayed report shows the United States added even fewer jobs in 2025 than previously reported. Total job creation in 2025 was revised down from 584,000 to 181,000, or just 15,000 jobs per month. This downward revision is a worrying sign for the economy, despite the modest bump in employment last month. The unemployment rate remains elevated at 4.3%, near its highest level in four years. President Trump promised a jobs boom, but today’s data shows the economy is shedding jobs outside a small number of sectors, and more Americans are struggling to find stable work. Rising underemployment, long-term unemployment, and slow wage growth all point to a labor market buckling under the weight of Trump’s economic mismanagement.

Groundwork Collaborative’s Chief of Policy and Advocacy Alex Jacquez released the following statement:

“Today’s numbers show that the economy spent 2025 treading water while costs surged and families fell further behind. Job growth was dramatically weaker than advertised and concentrated nearly entirely in health care, leaving the rest of the labor market to stall. Opportunities are drying up outside a handful of sectors, and more and more workers are settling for part-time hours or have stopped looking for work entirely. 2025 was a lost year for American workers.”

Ontario shut down coal.
Now let’s finish the job with solar. ☀️

The post The sun is shining on Nanticoke appeared first on Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

Silver extended its run of elevated volatility on Wednesday amid forecasts of stronger investment buying and weak industrial demand in the year ahead.

Spot prices rose as much as 6.6% to over $86 an ounce, near its highest in a week, before erasing some of the gains. The white-colored metal has now recovered a third of its losses suffered during the historic crash in late January.

Rising investment to keep global silver demand steady in 2026, Silver Institute says

Earlier, a report published by the Silver Institute predicts that the market will enter a sixth straight year of deficit, as surging investment in the metal are likely to outweigh a weakening industrial demand.

According to the Institute, demand from sectors led by solar is expected to decline “moderately” in 2026, as manufacturers are now seeking alternatives to silver due to high prices.

Over the past year, silver has rallied to multiple records amid surging safe-haven demand and interest from retail investors. At its peak, the metal’s value increased by nearly four times within a year to over $121 an ounce.

Despite a historic selloff last month, where prices cratered by as much as 36%, silver remains up by more than 160% for the past year.

‘Untradeable’ metal

Given the metal’s volatility, some traders have dubbed the metal “untradeable”– as physical, sellable inventory of the metal is severely limited or unavailable. This is the case in China, where producers and traders are struggling to fill a backlog of orders due to the high speculative demand in recent months, leading to a sharp rise in front-month contract premiums.

“This exceptionally high volatility [in precious metals] is likely to have affected investor confidence,” analysts from Germany’s Commerzbank said recently. However, Aakash Doshi, global head of gold strategy at State Street, reckons that “now the markets have stabilized, you’re seeing dip buying.”

While a wave of investors is expected to lead to a shift in existing silver inventories, it’s wrong to see the market as being in “deficit,” BMO Capital Markets said in a note Wednesday. “A better metric is how the supply of silver compares to the actual consumption of the metal for ornamental or industrial purchases, demand that removes bullion from the market.”

As a result, BMO analysts see silver becoming cheaper relative to gold in the coming years, as physical availability of the metal improves.

Gold, meanwhile, rose by about 1% to above $5,100 an ounce before paring some gains.

(With files from Bloomberg)

Broad coalition of groups condemns illegal inaction, puts EPA on legal notice.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — February 11, 2026

The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to meet a Feb. 7 deadline to designate areas in violation of the strengthened 2024 national air quality standard for soot, as required under the Clean Air Act. These designations are the first step toward bringing dangerous soot pollution levels down into compliance with that health-based standard, which the EPA projects will save thousands of lives annually.

Yesterday, nearly 20 health, community, and environmental groups around the country officially put the EPA on notice of their intent to pursue legal action unless the EPA issues the overdue designations.

“The EPA’s inaction isn’t just illegal; it’s a reckless forsaking of human health,” said Seth Johnson, senior attorney at Earthjustice. “The 2024 soot standard is the law, supported by EPA’s own scientific evidence, so this is an indefensible move. It is absolutely EPA’s legal responsibility to designate the areas that are not in compliance so that they can start taking the commonsense steps the Clean Air Act requires to ensure all Americans breathe clean air. Implementing the 2024 standard is not about assigning blame, it’s about saving lives.”

Last year, EPA reversed course and asked a federal court to strike down the updated National Ambient Air Quality Standard limit for PM2.5, also known as soot, which EPA strengthened in 2024. The rule requires reductions in the amount of deadly pollution in the air people breathe to protect people’s health.  The EPA did not dispute the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the more protective standard and projects the 2024 standard will save 4,500 lives in 2032 alone.

“As physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists who treat patients with lung disease, we know air pollution kills,” said Dr. Alison Lee, MS, ATSF, chair of the American Thoracic Society Environmental Health Policy Committee.  “Exposure to particulate matter pollution triggers asthma attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations, heart attacks, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and premature death.  The EPA has a duty to protect the American public from the dangers of air pollution by ensuring all communities meet the existing pollution standards.”

Health, environmental, and community groups, along with a coalition of states led by California, have asked the federal court to uphold the 2024 standard. The case is pending, and the 2024 soot standard remains in effect.

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to designate areas that are in violation of the standard as “nonattainment” and put them on a path to clean air, but the agency has failed to do so by the legally required deadline. The most recent official data shows over 75 million people live in counties that have air quality that violates the 2024 soot standard. Read more about Earthjustice’s analysis of EPA’s failed implementation.

Soot pollution stems largely from burning fossil fuels for electricity, manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture. It causes premature death and is further linked to cancer, asthma attacks, and hospitalizations and emergency room visits for severe heart and lung diseases.

See national data on soot and smog pollution.

The groups sending the letter announcing possible legal action are Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, American Thoracic Society, Center for Biological Diversity, Northeast Ohio Community Resilience Centre (Cleveland, OH), Rio Grande International Study Center (Laredo, TX), RiSE4EJ (Kansas City, KS & MO), and Sierra Club, all represented by Earthjustice; NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council); Environmental Defense Fund; Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, Clean Air Council, Conservation Law Foundation, and Michigan Environmental Council, all represented by Clean Air Task Force; and CleanAIRE NC,  Savannah Riverkeeper, and Georgia Interfaith Power & Light, all represented by Southern Environmental Law Center.

“By failing to make timely designations, EPA has once again failed to take mandatory action to safeguard public health under the Clean Air Act and instead subverts its obligation to regulate air pollution and hold polluters accountable,” said Hayden Hashimoto, attorney at Clean Air Task Force. “EPA’s own findings show that reducing soot pollution would save thousands of lives, yet the Trump administration’s EPA has ignored the science in its efforts to dismantle Clean Air Act regulations. EPA’s inaction blatantly disregards the law it claims to be following – and our communities will suffer.”

“The 2024 PM2.5 standard represents a step towards stronger public health protections, especially for communities who are disproportionately harmed by continuous exposure to particulate matter. Delaying designations puts Midwest communities that need it the most at continued risk and represents a step backwards for ensuring that no community, and no child, is left to breathe unhealthy air regardless of their zip code,” said Beto Lugo Martinez, of RiSE4EJ, a Kansas City-based group.

“Nurses witness firsthand the toll that air pollution, especially particle pollution, has on people’s health,” said Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN, executive director of the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments. “Nurses advocated for a strong and health protective PM2.5 standard because the science is clear – soot pollution harms health.  It is critical that EPA fulfill its legal obligation to protect communities across the country from hazardous air pollution.”

“Particle pollution kills thousands of people in the United States each year,” said Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association. “The Lung Association and other health organizations championed these limits on soot because the science is clear: they will save lives and prevent asthma attacks. But that promise is only fulfilled if EPA does its job and ensures that places with unhealthy levels of soot put in place measures to clean it up. EPA’s failure to take this step on time means people will suffer health harms that should have been prevented.”

“Particulate matter pollution can cause asthma attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbations, heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and premature death. It can harm even the healthiest, but millions of individuals across the U.S. are at greater risk if they have respiratory disease or are one of the nearly 25 million Americans with asthma. PM exposure also disproportionately impacts the health of low-income and minority communities, who often live near polluting sources,” said Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.  “EPA must act now to designate areas that are not meeting the 2024 standards and hold them accountable to protect the public’s health.”

“Every day of the Trump EPA’s illegal delay is another day that over 75 million people across the country are exposed to soot pollution that kills, causes cancer, and chokes lungs,” said Ryan Maher, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Instead of shielding children, the elderly and pregnant people, who are all especially vulnerable to soot pollution, the EPA is protecting only the profits of the industries creating the filthy air.”

“Trump’s EPA is trying to weaken a life-saving health standard and keep the public in the dark about where the air is unsafe — so polluters can dodge the cleanup the law requires,” said John Walke, senior attorney and director of federal clean air at NRDC. “That’s like disabling the smoke detector and telling families to sleep through the danger.”

“EPA’s attempt to delay or dodge its obligation to give states the tools they need to reduce deadly soot pollution puts Southern communities at even greater risk, especially communities of color and those living below the poverty line often surrounded by industry,” said Caroline Cress, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Cities including Atlanta, Augusta, and Charlotte can’t afford for EPA to continue to push off designating these areas where people are already suffering from the serious health risks of breathing unhealthy air.”

“The Clean Air Act is not a suggestion; it is a mandate to protect the very air we breathe,” said Jeffrey Robbins, executive director of CleanAIRE NC. “By missing this deadline, the EPA is effectively choosing to leave millions of Americans in the dark about the safety of their air while delaying the urgent work of reducing deadly soot pollution.”

“Augusta communities have some of the highest asthma rates in the nation, and our health suffers because of poor air quality,” said Tonya Bonitatibus of Savannah Riverkeeper. “Instead of protecting human health, EPA is catering to industry and ignoring the very real risks communities are facing. Our children’s health and ability to breathe should take priority over industry saving money on air quality control controls.”

“EPA’s delay is unlawful and deadly,” said Rachel Briggs, staff attorney at Conservation Law Foundation. “Soot pollution kills, and every day the agency fails to act is another day communities are left unprotected. The law is clear, the science is clear, and EPA must do its job.”

“When people inhale soot, the particles are so small that they can pass through the lungs directly into a person’s bloodstream,” said Lawrence Hafetz, legal director of Clean Air Council. “The EPA ignoring its duty to identify areas with illegally high soot levels means more unnecessary funerals, heart attacks, and cardiovascular disease, as well as more children sickened with asthma.”

“Delaying action on deadly soot pollution is a moral and regulatory failure that puts communities of color and vulnerable families at greater risk,” said Codi Norred, executive director of Georgia Interfaith Power & Light. “Caring for our shared Sacred Earth means ensuring that no one is forced to sacrifice their health just to breathe. Everyone deserves the right to clean air.”

“Soot is one of the deadliest types of pollution, and it puts people across the country at increased risk of serious illnesses and early deaths,” said Richard Yates, clean power attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. “EPA’s designation of areas is essential to efforts to limit this pollution in the air we breathe. But EPA has now entirely failed to make any designations – leaving numerous counties with unhealthy levels of soot. EPA must take the actions required by law to protect communities nationwide from this dangerous pollution.”

Members of Congress blasted the Trump administration for censoring American history on Tuesday while demanding answers about how Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is using the National Park Service to facilitate corruption through the president’s “Freedom 250” group.

The hearing in the House Natural Resources Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee was dominated by questions about the National Park Service’s removal of signs about slavery and Indigenous Americans, as well as questions following a New York Times report that Freedom 250 is offering donors access to President Donald Trump for $1 million and up.

Freedom 250 is part of the congressionally-chartered National Park Foundation. During the hearing, foundation president and CEO Jeff Reinbold said the foundation created Freedom 250 at the request of the Park Service, and that it will grant anonymity to donors who request it. Reinbold also said he would not provide Congress with any contracts signed by Freedom 250 donors.

Rep. Maxine Dexter of Oregon, the ranking member on the subcommittee, said Freedom 250’s secrecy was a problem. “Hiding the flow of money means we never get to know whether he is selling more than access to his donors,” she said.

Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, testified that park rangers are struggling with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s order to sanitize history in the parks.

“We are citizens of a nation with a fascinating, diverse and complex history,” Spears said. “We need the leadership of the National Park Service, unimpaired, to help us enhance our understanding of our shared experiences when it comes to American history. We want the full story.”

Quick hits Trump administration removes Pride flag from Stonewall National Monument; NYC to fly its own

Associated Press | New York Times | CNN | CBS News | Gothamist | Guardian | Washington Post | USA Today

Sweeping new rules restrict all aspects of national park communications

SFGate

Interior dept. orders all non-English content removed from websites

Federal News Network

Congress highlights history purge, corruption at Freedom 250 hearing

Associated Press | National Parks Traveler | E&E News

Major corporations spend millions to back Freedom 250 propaganda

Popular Information

Trump to repeal endangerment finding on Thursday

E&E News

How the fracking boom put an oil field in the Guadalupe River floodplain

Texas Tribune

Opinion: Land seizure advocates are using wishful thinking

Lewiston Tribune

Quote of the day

Yes, we need to celebrate how far America has come, but how the hell do we know how far we’ve come if we erase the history? How is that patriotic?”

—Rep. Val Hoyle of Oregon, House Natural Resources Committee

 

Picture This

@thestonewallinn

Taking down a flag does not erase our history. But it does remind us why we cannot rely solely on governments to tell it.

Featured image: Rep. Jared Huffman during the House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on America250, Freedom 250, and censorship of American history. Screen capture: House Natural Resources Committee.

The post Corruption, censorship take center stage at Freedom 250 hearing appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The Trump administration has a clear communication objective: Flood the zone with bad news to overwhelm us, keep us off-balance, and make us feel like we can’t stop their regressive and oppressive policies.

But even amidst this constant barrage, other patterns emerge.

They aren’t always easy to see — especially when the authoritarian objective is to convince you to close your eyes and ears. But when you do finally recognize these patterns, a hidden truth can begin to make itself clear.

For example, a few weeks ago I started to see a particular phrase in news headlines. And because I read hundreds of headlines and articles every day — the curse of working in the news business — I saw a pattern: The phrase “despite Trump.”

It appeared in The New York Times, which reported “Renewable Energy Is Booming Despite Trump’s Efforts to Slow It.”

It also showed up the Los Angeles Times, which carried the news that “Green Energy Stocks Surge Despite Trump’s Policies.”

Reuters, meanwhile, reported that “Europe Commits to Wind Energy Expansion Despite Trump Criticism.”

And that was just the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg. Other headlines crossed my desk in rapid succession:

• • EV Charging Keeps Expanding Despite Trump (Canary Media)
  • Despite Trump, Renewable Energy Keeps Surging (Yale Climate Connections)
  • “Why Companies Are Phasing Out These Super-Pollutants Despite Trump”(The Washington Post)
  • States Will Keep Pushing AI Laws Despite Trump’s Efforts to Stop Them (Stateline)
  • Clean Energy Is Still Booming in the U.S. Despite Trump’s Best Efforts(Fast Company)
  • Chart: Clean Energy Remains Dominant in the U.S. — Despite Trump(Canary Media)
  • Despite Trump, 2025 Saw Deeper Engagement With Climate Crisis (The Indian Express)
  • Solar Power and Battery Storage Are Booming Despite Trump Policy Whiplash Amid Data Center Demand(Fortune)
  • Despite Trump Admin’s Efforts, Coal Mining in Utah and the West Falls Flat(The Salt Lake Tribune)
  • Climate Action in 2026: Progress Despite Trump Rollbacks (Capital News Service)
  • Towns Built on Coal Pivot to New Businesses Despite Trump’s Coal Agenda (Associated Press)
  • Global Investment in Renewable Energy Up 10% on 2024 Despite Trump Rollback (The Guardian)
  • S. Cities Drive Energy Transition Despite Trump Resistance (Context)

Most of those had to do with renewable energy, which … despite Trump … continues to grow because it just makes business, economic, and ethical sense.

A few of the headlines, although not enough, pointed out progress in other areas:

• • Despite Trump Funding Freeze, Milwaukee Church Planted Oasis of Trees(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
  • Despite Trump Chaos, NSF Avoided Feared Dip in Research Financing(Science)
  • Seven Environmental Wins Across the U.S. in 2025 Despite Trump-Era Reversals (The Guardian)

That feels a little less dramatic than the pattern of good news about renewables, but the core message remains: People and businesses continue to stand up against the Trump administration and succeed in many other ways, often by working together and demanding change — because change is inevitable.

Once you see the “despite Trump” pattern, you see it even when news sites don’t use the phrase: The protests in Minneapolis and other cities; the rapid growth of mutual aid networks; the handful of Republican legislators stepping across the aisle to vote their consciences; the journalists standing up for the first amendment; the election officials refusing to back down as the Trump administration tries to throw monkey wrenches into the midterm elections; the governments teaming up to rebalance international power dynamics; the millions of tiny actions taking place every day, around the country, around the world, to protect people, systems, the environment, human rights, and so much more.

That’s not enough, of course. It can never be in enough in an era where masked enforcers shoot people down in the streets, where the system systematically covers up the crimes of rich abusers, where anti-regulation extremism has crippled the federal government’s climate programs, and where the president constantly seeks revenge on his perceived enemies, fantasizes about nonexistent voter fraud, and threatens to take over elections.

Still, it shows that we’re making progress despite all of that (and more). And maybe the fact that the president can’t destroy renewable energy — no matter how hard he tries — tells us there are other things he can’t destroy and other progress we can keep making.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, I understand the impulse to wrap yourself in a warm blanket and shield your eyes and ears and soul from the constant painful input.

But I encourage you: Let some of that information in. Process it. Look for patterns. Look for growth. Look for opportunities. Look for the signal hiding in the noise that can help you move forward — and maybe help us all move forward in the process.

And do all of that despite Trump.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

12 Environmental Commentaries That Defined Our Year in 2025

The post The Two Words Giving Me Hope — Even As the Trump Administration Dismantles More Climate Regulations appeared first on The Revelator.

Warming is accelerating, threatening a cascade of tipping points that destabilize the climate. In a new paper, scientists say the risk of "hothouse Earth" is greater than once believed.

Read more on E360 →

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter. Subscribe for free here. This is the last edition of Cropped for 2025. The newsletter will return on 14 January 2026.

Key developments Economic risks from nature loss

RISKY BUSINESS: The “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling its decline and putting the global economy at risk, according to a new report covered by Carbon Brief. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) “business and biodiversity” report “urg[ed] companies to act now or potentially face extinction themselves”, Reuters wrote. 

BUSINESS ACTION: The report was agreed at an IPBES meeting in Manchester last week. Speaking to Carbon Brief at the meeting, IPBES chair, Dr David Obura, said the findings showed that “all sectors” of business “need to respond to biodiversity loss and minimise their impacts”. Bloomberg quoted Prof Stephen Polasky, co-chair of the report, as saying: “Too often, at present, what’s good for business is bad for nature and vice-versa.” 

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JAPAN’S TAKEOFF: Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, announced on 2 February that the country became the first in the world to extract rare earths from the deep seabed after successful retrievals near Minamitori Island, in the central Pacific Ocean, according to Asia Financial. The country hailed the move as a “first step toward industrialisation of domestically produced rare earth” metals, Takaichi said. 

URGENT CALL: On 5 February, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) secretary general, Leticia Reis de Carvalho, called on EU officials to “quickly agree on an international rule book on the extraction of critical minerals in international waters”, due to be finalised later this year, Euractiv reported. The bloc has supported a proposed moratorium on deep-sea mining. However, the US has “taken the opposite approach”, fast-tracking a single permit for exploration and exploitation of seabed resources, and “might be pushing the EU – and others” to follow suit, the outlet added.

CAUTIONARY COMMENT: In the Inter Press Service, the former president of the Seychelles and a Swiss philanthropist highlighted the important role of African leadership in global ocean governance. It called for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining due to the potential harmful effects of this extractive activity on biodiversity, food security and the economy. They wrote: “The accelerating push for deep-sea mining activities also raises concerns about repeating historic patterns seen in other extractive sectors across Africa.”

News and views

• ARGENTINE AUSTERITY: The Argentinian government’s response to the worst wildfires to hit Patagonia “in decades” has been hindered by president Javier Milei’s “gutting” of the country’s fire-management agency, the Associated Press reported. Carbon Brief covered a new rapid-attribution analysis of the fires, which found that climate change made the hot, dry conditions that preceded the fires more than twice as likely.
• CRISIS IN SOMALIA: The Somali government has begun “emergency talks” to address the drought that is gripping much of the country, according to Shabelle Media. The outlet wrote that the “crisis has reached a critical stage” amid “worsening shortages of water, food and pasture threatening both human life and livestock”.
• FOOD PRICES FALL: The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s “food price index” – a measure of the costs of key food commodities around the world – fell in January for the fifth month in a row. The fall was driven by decreases in the price of dairy, meat and sugar, which “more than offset” increasing prices of cereals and vegetable oil, according to the FAO.
• HIGH STANDARDS: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol launched a new standard for companies to measure emissions and carbon removals from land use and emerging technologies. BusinessGreen said that the standard is “expected to provide a boost to the expanding carbon removals and carbon credit sectors by providing an agreed measurement protocol”.
• RUNNING OUT OF TIME: Negotiators from the seven US states that share the Colorado River basin met in Washington DC ahead of a 14 February deadline for agreeing a joint plan for managing the basin’s reservoirs. The Colorado Sun wrote: “The next agreement will impact growing cities, massive agricultural industries, hydroelectric power supplies and endangered species for years to come.” 
• CORAL COVER: Malaysia has lost around 20% of its coral reefs since 2022, “with reef conditions continuing to deteriorate nationwide”, the Star – a Malaysian online news outlet – reported. The ongoing decline has many drivers, it added, including a global bleaching event in 2024, pollution and unsustainable tourism and development.

Spotlight Aftershocks of US exiting major nature-science body

This week, Carbon Brief reports on the impacts of the US withdrawal from the global nature-science panel, IPBES.

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the US from the world’s main expert panel that advises policymakers on biodiversity and ecosystem science “harms everybody, including themselves”.

That’s according to Dr David Obura, chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES.  

IPBES is among the dozens of international organisations dealing with the fallout from the US government’s announcement last month. 

The panel’s chief executive, Dr Luthando Dziba, told Carbon Brief that the exit impacts both the panel’s finances and the involvement of important scientists. He said: 

“The US was one of the founding members of IPBES…A lot of US experts contribute to our assessments and they’ve led our assessments in various capacities. They’ve also served in various official bodies of the platform.”

Obura told Carbon Brief that “it’s very important to try and keep pushing through with the knowledge and keep doing the work that we’re doing”. He said he hopes the US will rejoin in future. 

Carbon Brief attended the first IPBES meeting since Trump’s announcement, held last week in Manchester. At the meeting, countries finalised a new “business and biodiversity” report. 

For the first time in the 14-year history of IPBES, there was no US government delegation present at the meeting, although some US scientists attended in other roles. 

Cashflow impacts

Dziba is still waiting for official confirmation of the US withdrawal, but impacts were being felt even before last month’s announcement. 

Budget information [pdf] from last October shows that the US contributed the most money to IPBES of any country in 2024 – around $1.2m. In 2025, when Trump took office, it sent $0, as of October. 

Despite this, IPBES actually received around $1.2m extra funding from countries in 2025, compared to 2024, as other nations filled the gap. 

The UK, for example, increased its contribution from around $367,000 in 2024 to more than $1.7m in 2025. The EU, which did not contribute in 2024 but tends to make multi-year payments, paid around $2.7m last year. These two payments made up the bulk of the increase in overall funding. 

Wider effects of US exit 

Dziba said IPBES is looking at other ways of boosting funds in future, but noted that lost income is not the only concern: 

“For us, the withdrawal of the US is actually much larger than just the budgetary implications, because you can find somebody who can come in and increase the contribution and close that gap. 

“The US has got thousands of leading experts in the fields where we undertake assessments. We know that some of them work for [the] government and maybe [for] those it will be more challenging for them to continue…But there are many other experts that we hope, in some way, will still be able to contribute to the work of the platform.” 

One person trying to keep US scientists involved is Prof Pam McElwee, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University. She told Carbon Brief that “there are still a tonne of American scientists and other civil society organisations that want to stand up”. 

McElwee and others have looked at ways for US scientists to access funding to continue working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which the US has also withdrawn from. She said they will try and do the same at IPBES, adding: 

“It’s basically a bottom-up initiative…to make the message clear that scientists in the US still support these institutions and we still are part of them.

“Climate science is what it is and we can’t deny or withdraw from it. So we’ll just keep trying to represent it as best we can.” 

Watch, read, listen

UNDER THE SEA: An article in bioGraphic explored whether the skeletons of dead corals “help or hinder recovery” on bleached reefs. 

MOSSY MOORS: BBC News covered how “extinct moss” is being reintroduced in some English moors in an effort to “create diverse habitats for wildlife”. 

RIBBIT: Scientists are “racing” to map out Ecuador’s “unique biological heritage of more than 700 frog species”, reported Dialogue Earth. 

MEAT COMEBACK: Grist examined the rise and fall of vegan fine dining.  

New science

• Areas suitable for grazing animals could shrink by 36-50% by 2100 due to continued climate change, with areas of extreme poverty and political fragility experiencing the highest losses | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• The body condition of Svalbard polar bears increased after 2000, in a period of rapid loss of ice cover | Scientific Reports
• Studies projecting the possibility of reversing biodiversity loss are scarce and most do not account for additional drivers of loss, such as climate change, according to a meta-analysis of more than 55 papers | Science Advances

In the diary

• 9-12 February: Climate and cryosphere open science conference | Wellington, New Zealand
• 18 February: International conservation technology conference | Lima, Peru
• 22-27 February: American Geophysical Union’s ocean sciences meeting | Glasgow, UK

Cropped is researched and written by Dr Giuliana Viglione, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Yanine Quiroz.  Please send tips and feedback to cropped@carbonbrief.org

Cropped 28 January 2026: Ocean biodiversity boost; Nature and national security; Mangrove defence

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28.01.26

Cropped 14 January 2026: Wildfires scorch three continents; EU trade; Food and nature in 2026

Cropped

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14.01.26

Cropped 17 December 2025: ‘Deadly’ Asia floods; Boosting London’s water birds; UN headwinds

Cropped

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17.12.25

Cropped 3 December 2025: Extreme weather in Africa; COP30 roundup; Saudi minister interview

Cropped

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03.12.25

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The post Cropped 11 February 2026: Aftershocks of US withdrawals | Biodiversity and business risks | Deep-sea mining tensions appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Australia’s St Barbara (ASX: SBM) has unveiled an aggressive exploration strategy in Nova Scotia as it advances plans to redevelop its 15-Mile open pit gold mine and processing hub project and reshapes its global portfolio.

The company has assembled a 697 sq. km land package in the Canadian province over the past two years, consolidating ground around its proposed 15-Mile hub despite licence reviews that trimmed its overall tenure and ongoing permitting challenges as the Touquoy mine winds down.

Since acquiring Atlantic Gold in 2019, St Barbara has built a dominant position across prospective ground, identifying 56 targets within a 75 km radius of the planned hub. The targets focus on the Moose River Formation and 12 regional prospects within the Goldenville Group metasediments.

Its landholding spans 164 km of prospective anticlines, including 75 km where the favourable Moose River Formation is exposed at surface or lies beneath shallow cover, in some areas less than 30 metres deep.

St Barbara describes the targeted gold systems as classic mesothermal deposits, comparable to those in Victoria’s goldfields, New Zealand’s South Island and California’s Mother Lode belt.

(Courtesy of St Barbara.)

Fieldwork is set to begin in May, combining surface sampling and reverse circulation drilling, with targets refined through a comprehensive structural review supported by newly acquired geophysical data. The company has also secured ground at Rocky Lake to test for northeast extensions of the Mooseland Anticline.

The exploration push supports redevelopment plans at 15-Mile. A prefeasibility study released earlier this year projected annual production of 103,000 oz at all-in sustaining costs of $1,188/oz over an initial 11-year mine life. At a gold price of $3,000/oz, the project carries a post-tax net present value of A$1.4 billion and an 80% internal rate of return. St Barbara estimates the C$283 million cost to relocate the Touquoy plant and rebuild infrastructure could be repaid in about 12 months.

Spot gold remains above $5,000 per ounce. Before 15-Mile enters production, St Barbara expects to process Touquoy stockpiles containing 38,000 ounces of the precious metal.

Renewed Canadian focus

The Nova Scotia push follows last year’s aborted attempt to spin off or sell the former Atlantic Gold assets. After failing to attract sufficient interest, St Barbara opted to advance development instead, citing what it sees as a more workable permitting environment.

At the same time, the company is moving to exit its Simberi gold project in Papua New Guinea. It agreed to sell a combined 50% stake to China’s Lingbao Gold Group and PNG’s Kumul Mineral Holdings for up to A$470 million in staged cash payments and loans. The deal, expected to close by the end of March, aligns with a final investment decision on Simberi’s next phase.

St Barbara said the transaction would fully fund its share of the $325–345 million sulphide expansion, which aims to lift production to 200,000 ounces a year. Simberi’s remaining oxide operations are considered marginal due to high costs.

Shares in St Barbara rose 10.5% to 79 Australian cents in Sydney on Wednesday, valuing the company at A$950 million ($677 million). The stock has gained 34% year to date and traded traded between 19 and 82 Australian cents over the past year.

Much of the gold sector’s growth in Atlantic Canada — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island — has occurred only in the last decade, as investors are slowly discovering the region’s potential.

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Energy prices in the U.S. can swing wildly during extreme weather like we’ve had this Winter across much of the nation due to supply–demand imbalances, and peak-hour stress on the system. Those spikes hit households, businesses and public budgets—often prompting calls for new spending or major infrastructure. During extreme heat or cold, the grid turns to the costliest peaker plants, and congestion fees pile up, amplifying volatility.

Efficiency and demand-side flexibility offer market-compatible ways to trim consumption during the most expensive hours—helping stabilize prices for everyone without new subsidies or mandates. Shaving even a few percentage points off the top of the load curve can avoid high-cost generation, dampen wholesale clearing prices that flow through to bills and defer capacity and transmission upgrades.

Tools range from smart thermostats and managed water heating to building automation and EV charging controls, all triggered by price or grid signals with comfort guardrails and easy opt-outs. Most solutions are software-first, verifiable with smart meter data and can compensate customers via based on their energy savings.

Price Stability Through Efficiency

As price volatility and grid stress persist, efficient, price-responsive buildings offer fast, scalable relief. By lowering peak demand, they help moderate wholesale prices, ease system strain, and reduce overall costs—turning existing buildings into responsive grid assets.

Work with ASE: contribute a case study, request templates/talking points, or join the Innovation Policy Committee to support education efforts with Congress on the benefits of energy efficiency.

Why Peaks Move Prices

In wholesale markets, prices are set by the last (highest-cost) increment of supply needed to meet demand. During typical hours, lower-cost resources may set the price. When demand surges, additional peaking generation is dispatched—raising clearing prices.

• A small share of hours can drive a large share of annual system costs.
• Weather events and seasonal patterns (e.g., cold snaps or post-solar evening ramps) intensify the effect.
   

Efficiency: A Low-Cost Way to Flatten the Curve

Cutting demand during peak periods keeps higher-cost resources offline and dampens market prices. Analyses from national labs indicate targeted demand-side measures can materially reduce wholesale prices during critical hours—while deferring or right-sizing future upgrades.

• Benefits include improved price predictability for customers and budget certainty for public agencies.
• Think traffic: removing a small number of cars from a jam can restore flow for everyone.

Program leads: if you have a 2–3 sentence example we can feature in ASE materials, send it to jrobinson@ase.org.

 

Smarter Efficiency with Real-Time Controls

Traditional efficiency lowers baseline use; modern controls add timing and automation:

• Adjust HVAC setpoints based on price or grid signals
• Pre-cool/pre-heat buildings ahead of peak windows

A Midwestern university used its building automation system to shift load away from peak hours—cutting summer energy costs and contributing to regional stability. This approach scales to schools, offices, and public buildings.
 

Why This Matters for Energy Efficiency—and ASE’s Work

Treating efficiency and flexible demand as measurable, dispatchable resources is central to ASE’s mission: lowering costs, improving reliability, and expanding accessibility to solutions that help customers participate. Through the Innovation Policy Committee and Active Efficiency initiative, ASE convenes utilities, technology providers, ESCOs, and policymakers to advance controls, interoperability, and demand-flexibility practices in real buildings.

Interested in shaping this work? Email jrobinson@ase.org with “Interested in IPC” to get the next meeting invite.

 

A Market-Compatible Path for Public-Sector Leadership

Public buildings—courthouses, hospitals, campuses, and offices—are ideal proving grounds for price-responsive efficiency. ASE recommends paired pilots that combine dynamic pricing with automation and practical measurement:

1. Test time-of-use and real-time pricing structures in willing facilities
2. Offer limited grants/credits for controls and automation to enable participation
3. Share results through DOE’s Better Buildings and Connected Communities programs

These efforts can demonstrate how efficiency enhances affordability, reliability, and accessibility—without new subsidies.

 

Resources & Further Reading

• EIA: Wholesale Electricity Dashboard
• LBNL: Demand Flexibility (report)
• ISO/RTO Council: Market Monitoring
• ACEEE: Utility Program Cost-Effectiveness
• DOE: Better Buildings
• DOE: Connected Communities

The UK government has secured a record 7.4 gigawatts (GW) of solar, onshore wind and tidal power in its latest auction for new renewable capacity.

It is the second and final part of the seventh auction round for “contracts for difference” (CfDs), known as AR7a.

In the first part, held in January 2026, the government agreed contracts for a record 8.4GW of new offshore wind capacity.

This makes AR7 the UK’s single-largest auction round overall, with its 14.7GW of new renewable capacity being 50% larger than the previous record set by AR6 in 2024.

In AR7a, 157 solar projects secured contracts to supply electricity for £65 per megawatt hour (MWh) and 28 onshore wind projects were contracted at £72/MWh. 

This means they will help cut consumer bills, according to multiple analysts.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband welcomed the outcome of the auction, saying in a statement that the new projects would be “50% cheaper” than new gas:

“These results show once again that clean British power is the right choice for our country, agreeing a price for new onshore wind and solar that is over 50% cheaper than the cost of building and operating new gas”.

In addition to cutting costs, the new projects will help reduce gas imports.

In total, AR7 will cut UK gas demand by around 95 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, enough to cut liquified natural gas (LNG) imports by three-quarters, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

Below, Carbon Brief looks at the seventh auction results for onshore wind, solar and tidal, what they mean energy for bills and the impact of the UK’s target of “clean power by 2030”. 

• What happened in the latest UK renewable auction?
• What does the solar and onshore wind auction mean for bills?
• What does it mean for energy security, jobs and investment?
• What does the auction mean for clean power by 2030?

What happened in the latest UK renewable auction?

The latest UK government auction for new renewable capacity is the second and final part of the seventh auction round, known as AR7a.

It secured a record 4.9GW of new solar capacity across 157 projects, as shown in the figure below, as well as 1.3GW of onshore wind across 28 projects. 

In addition, four tidal energy projects totalling 21 megawatts (MW) secured contracts, included within “other” in the figure below.

Capacity of solar, onshore wind and other technologies (including tidal) secured at each CfD auction in megawatts. Source: Department of Energy Security and Net Zero.

Most of the solar that secured a contract has a capacity of less than 50MW. This is the cut-off point for projects to be approved by the local council. Larger schemes must instead go through the “nationally significant infrastructure project” (NSIP) process, subject to approval by the secretary of state for energy.

For the first time, one 480MW solar project – approved via this NSIP process – won a CfD in AR7a. The West Burton Solar NSIP is being developed in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire by Island Green Power. It is named after the grid connection it will use, freed up by the shuttering of the coal-powered West Burton plant. 

However, Nick Civetta, project leader at Aurora Energy Research notes on LinkedIn that this site was only one of four eligible solar NSIPs to secure a contract. 

Civetta adds that “wrangling these large projects into fruition is proving more painful than expected”.

Solar projects secured a “strike price” of £65/MWh in 2024 prices, some 7% cheaper than the £70/MWh agreed in the previous auction round.

In previous auction rounds CfD contracts were expressed in 2012 prices. For comparison, AR6 and AR7a solar contracts stand at £50/MWh and £47/MWh in 2012 prices, respectively.)

Alongside solar, 28 onshore wind projects secured contracts in the latest CfD auction, with a total capacity of 1.3GW.

This includes the Imerys windfarm in Cornwall, which at nearly 20MW is the largest onshore wind farm in England to secure a contract in a decade.

(Shortly after taking office in 2024, the current Labour government lifted a decade-long de facto ban on onshore wind in England.)

Overall, Scotland still dominated the auction for onshore wind, with 1,093MW of projects in the country in comparison to 38MW in England and 185MW in Wales.

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This includes the Sanquhar II windfarm in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, which will become the fourth-largest onshore wind farm in the UK at 269MW.

In total, Wales secured contracts for 20 renewables projects in AR7a, with a capacity of more than 530MW. This is the largest ever number of Welsh projects to get backing in a CfD auction, according to a statement from the Welsh government.

Onshore wind secured a strike price of £72/MWh, up slightly from £71/MWh in the previous auction in 2024. 

The prices for solar and onshore wind were 13% and 21% below the price cap set by Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) for the auction, respectively.

In its press release announcing the results, the government noted that the results for solar and onshore wind were less than half of the £147/MWh cost of building and operating new gas power stations.

Finally, four tidal energy projects secured contracts with a total capacity of 21MW at a strike price of £265/MWh, up from £240/MWh in 2024. 

In total, taken together with the 8.4GW of offshore wind secured in the first part of the auction, AR7 secured a total of 14.7GW of new clean power, as shown in the chart below.

This is enough to power the equivalent of 16 million homes, according to the government. It also makes AR7 the single-largest auction round by far, at more than 50% larger than the previous record set by AR6 in 2024.

This means that the two auction rounds held since the Labour government took office in July 2024 – AR6 and AR7 – have secured a total of 24GW of new renewable capacity. This is more than the 22GW from all previous auction rounds put together.

New onshore wind, offshore wind, solar PV and other technologies’ capacity secured in each CfD auction, in megawatts. Source: DESNZ.

However, several analysts noted that the AR7a results did not include any old onshore windfarms looking to replace their ageing turbines with new equipment – so-called “repowering projects” – despite the auction being open to them for the first time.

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What does the solar and onshore wind auction mean for bills?

Onshore wind and solar are widely recognised as the cheapest sources of new electricity generation in almost every part of the world.

The latest auction shows that the UK is no exception, despite its northerly location.

The prices for onshore wind and solar in the latest auction, at £72/MWh and £65/MWh respectively, are comfortably below recent wholesale power prices, which averaged £81/MWh in 2025 and £92/MWh in January 2026.

This means that the new projects will cut costs for UK electricity consumers, according to multiple analysts commenting on the auction outcome.

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The government lauded the results of AR7a for securing “homegrown energy at good value for billpayers – once again proving that clean power is the right choice for energy security and to meet rising electricity demand”.

In a statement, Miliband added:  

“By backing solar and onshore wind at scale, we’re driving bills down for good and protecting families, businesses, and our country from the fossil fuel rollercoaster controlled by petrostates and dictators. This is how we take back control of our energy and deliver a new era of energy abundance and independence.”

As noted in Carbon Brief’s coverage of the offshore wind results under AR7 in January, electricity demand is starting to rise as the economy electrifies and many of the UK’s existing power plants are nearing the end of their lives.

Therefore, new sources of electricity generation will be needed, whether from renewables, gas-fired power stations or from other sources.

In his statement, quoted above, Miliband said that the prices for onshore wind and solar were less than half the £147/MWh cost of electricity from new gas-fired power stations.

(This is based on recently published government estimates and assumes that gas plants would only be operating during 30% of hours each year, in line with the current UK fleet.)

Trade association RenewableUK also pointed to the cost of new gas, as well as the £124/MWh cost of the Hinkley C new nuclear plant, in its response to the auction results. 

In a statement, Dr Doug Parr, policy director for Greenpeace UK, said: 

“These new onshore wind and solar projects will supply energy at less than half the cost of new gas plants. Together with the new offshore wind contracts agreed last month, these cheaper renewables will lower energy bills as they come online.”

Strike prices for solar dropped by 6% compared to last year and while onshore wind prices rose, this was by less than 2% despite a “difficult environment for wind generation”, according to Bertalan Gyenes, consultant at LCP Delta.

In a post on LinkedIn, he noted that “extending the contract length [for onshore wind projects] by five years seems to have helped keep this increase low”.

The January offshore wind round secured 8.4 GW at £91/MWh, as such, the onshore and solar projects are 25% cheaper per unit of generation.

(The offshore wind projects secured in January are nevertheless expected to cut consumer bills relative to the alternative, or at worst to be cost neutral.)

Parr added that while the AR7a auction results “show we’re getting up to speed” ahead of the clean power 2030 target (see below), “an even faster way for the government to make a really big dent in bills would be to change the system that allows gas to set the overall energy price in this country”. He adds: 

“That would allow us to unshackle our bills from unreliable petrostates and get off the rollercoaster of volatile gas markets once and for all.”

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What does it mean for energy security, jobs and investment?

The onshore wind and solar projects secured in the latest auction round will generate an estimated 9 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

This is equivalent to roughly 3% of current UK electricity demand.

Combined with the estimated 37TWh from offshore wind secured during the first part of the auction, AR7 projects will be able to generate 46TWh of electricity, 14% of current demand.

If this electricity were to be generated by gas-fired power plants, then it would require around 95TWh of fuel, because much of the energy in the gas is lost during combustion.

This is several times more than the 25TWh of extra gas that could be produced in 2030 if new drilling licenses are issued, according to thinktank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). As such, AR7 will significantly cut UK gas imports, ECIU says, reducing exposure to volatile international gas markets.

Furthermore, ECIU says that the impact of renewables in driving down gas demand – and subsequently electricity prices – is already being seen in the UK. 

Five years ago, gas was setting the wholesale price of power in the UK 98% of the time due to the way the electricity market operates. 

This price-setting dominance is being eroded by renewables, with recent analysis from the UK Energy Research Centre showing that gas set power prices 90% of the time in 2025.

A further effect of new renewables is that they push the most expensive gas-fired power plants out of the system, reducing prices. This is known as the “merit-order effect”.

Recent analysis from ECIU found that large windfarms cut wholesale electricity prices by a third in 2025.

Lucy Dolton, renewable generation lead at Cornwall Insight, said in a statement that the AR7a results will provide a “surge in momentum as [the UK] pushes toward secure, homegrown energy”, adding:

“These investments ultimately strengthen the UK’s position against volatile gas markets. If the past few years have shown us anything, it’s that remaining tied to international energy markets comes with consequences.”

The projects that secured CfDs will help the UK avoid burning significant quantities of gas, “the bulk of which would have been imported at a cost which the UK cannot control”, said RenewableUK in its statement.

Together with previous CfD auction rounds, the latest new renewable projects are expected to generate some 153TWh of electricity once they are all operating, according to Carbon Brief analysis. This is around half of current UK demand.

Generating the same electricity from gas would require some 311TWh of fuel, which is similar to the 339TWh of gas produced by the UK’s North Sea operations in the most recent 12-month period for which data is available. This figure can also be compared with the 130TWh of gas that was imported by ship as liquified natural gas (LNG) in the same period.

The government added that the AR7a projects will support up to 10,000 jobs and bring £5bn in private investment to the UK.

(In total, the new projects secured via AR7 are expected to bring investments worth around £20-23bn to the UK, according to Aurora.) 

Additionally, the onshore wind projects are expected to generate over £6.5m in “community benefit” funds for people living near them, according to RenewableUK. 

The AR7a results were released alongside the publication of the Local Power Plan by the government and Great British Energy. 

This is designed to provide £1bn in funding for communities to own and control their own clean energy projects across the UK. 

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What does the auction mean for clean power by 2030?

The AR7a results put the UK “on track for its 2030 clean power target”, according to the government. 

Over AR6 and AR7, several changes have been made to the CfD process to help facilitate more projects to secure contracts.

A total of 24GW has been secured over the last two auction rounds – which have taken place under the current Labour government – compared to 22GW across the five auction rounds previously.

As part of its goal for clean power to meet 100% of electricity demand by 2030 and to account for at least 95% of electricity generation, the UK government is aiming for 27-29GW of onshore wind and 45-47GW of solar by the end of the decade. 

As of September 2025, the UK had 16.3GW of installed onshore wind capacity and more than 21GW of solar capacity. Taken together, the onshore technologies therefore need to double in operational capacity over the next four years to reach the 2030 targets.

Analysis by RenewableUK suggests that the government will need to procure between 3.85GW to 4.85GW of onshore wind in the next two auctions for the 2030 goal to remain possible.

Writing on LinkedIn, Aurora’s Civetta said that the onshore clean power 2030 targets “remain a long way off”. 

He continued that the gap for solar to reach its 45-47GW target is still a “whopping 18GW”, but added that there may be other ways for new capacity to be secured, beyond the CfD auctions.

He said these included a growing market for corporate “power purchase agreements” (PPAs), economic incentives for homes and businesses to install solar and the government’s recently released “warm homes plan”, all of which “should drive further procurement”.

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Dolton from Cornwall Insight adds that “the challenge now is delivery”, continuing:

“2.5GW of the winners have a delivery year of 2027/28, and over half – 3.7GW – have a delivery year of 2028/29, which brings them very close to the government’s 2030 clean power target. 

“Historically, renewable projects in the UK have faced delays, often due to grid connection backlogs and planning holdups. With AR7 and some of AR8 representing the only realistic pipeline for pre-2030 capacity, keeping to schedule will be essential.”

When built, the projects announced today will help to bring the total capacity of CfD-supported wind and solar to 50.6GW, according to Ember.

While solar and onshore wind are expected to play an important role in decarbonising the electricity system, offshore wind is set to be the “backbone”. 

The government is targeting 43-50GW of offshore wind by 2030, up from around 17GW of installed capacity today.

This leaves a gap of 27-34GW to the government’s target range. 

Prior to the AR7 auction, a further 10GW had already secured CfD contracts, excluding the cancelled Hornsea 4 project. 

The 8.4GW secured in January brings the gap to reach the minimum of 43GW over the four years to just 7GW.

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The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the US from the intergovernmental science panel for nature “harms everybody, including them”, according to its chair.

Dr David Obura is a leading coral reef ecologist from Kenya and chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), the world’s authority on the science of nature decline.

In January, Donald Trump announced intentions to withdraw the US from IPBES, along with 65 other international organisations, including the UN climate science panel and its climate treaty.

In an interview with Carbon Brief, Obura says the warming that humans have already caused means “coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point” and that it is now inevitable that Earth “will lose what we have called coral reefs”.

A global goal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 will not be possible to achieve for every ecosystem, he continues, noting that a lack of action from countries means “we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point”.

Despite this, it is still possible to reverse the “enabling drivers” of biodiversity decline within the next four years, he adds, warning that leaders must act as “our economies and societies fully depend on nature”.

The interview was conducted at the sidelines of an IPBES meeting in Manchester, UK, where governments agreed to a new report detailing how the “undervaluing” of nature by businesses is fuelling biodiversity decline and putting the global economy at risk.

• On US leaving IPBES: “Any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves.”
• On reversing nature loss by 2030: “We won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point.”
• On the value of biodiversity: “Nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature.”
• On coral reefs: “We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point.”
• On nature justice: “The places that are most vulnerable don’t have the income, or the assets, to conserve biodiversity.”
• On IPBES’s latest report: “One of the key findings is all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature.”
• On the next UN nature summit: “We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else.”

Carbon Brief: Last month Trump announced plans for the US to exit IPBES and dozens of other global organisations. You described this at the time as “deeply disappointing”. What are your thoughts on the decision now and what will be the main impacts of the US leaving IPBES?

David Obura: Well, part of the reason that I’ve come to IPBES is because, of course, I believe in the multilateral process, because we bring 150 countries together, we’re part of the UN and the multilateral system and we’re based on knowledge [that provides] inputs to policymaking. We have a conceptual framework that looks from the bottom up on how people depend on nature. I’m also doing a lot of science on Earth systems at the planetary level, how our footprint is exceeding the scale of the planet. We have to make decisions together. We need the multilateral system to work to help facilitate that. It has never been perfect. Of course, I come from a region [Africa] that hasn’t been, you know, powerful in the multilateral process.

But we need countries to come together, so any major country not being part of it harms everybody, including themselves. It’s very important to try and keep pushing through with the knowledge and keep doing the work that we’re doing, so that, over time, hopefully [the US will] rejoin. Because, in the end, we will really need that to happen.

CB: This is the first IPBES meeting since Trump made the announcement. Has it had an impact so far on these proceedings and is there any kind of US presence here?

DO: This plenary is like every plenary that we have had. The current members are here. Some members are not. And, of course, we have some states here as observers working out if they’re going to join or not. And then we have a lot of private sector observers and universities and so on. The impact of a country leaving – the US in this case – has no impact on the plenary itself, because they’re not here making decisions on the things that we do. 

We, of course, don’t have US government members attending in technical areas, but we do have institutions and universities and academics here attending as they have in the past. So, in that sense, the plenary goes on as it goes on – the science and the knowledge is the same. The decision-making processes we have here are the same. And, as I said earlier, what has an impact is the actual action that takes place afterwards, because a lot of the recommendations that we make are based on enabling conditions that governments put in place, to bring in place sustainability actions and so on. When governments are not doing that, especially major economic drivers, then the whole system suffers.

CB: When you were appointed as chair of IPBES more than two years ago, you said that your aim was to strengthen cohesion and impact and also get the findings of IPBES in front of more people. So how would you rate your progress on this now that it’s been about a couple of years?

DO: Well, like any intergovernmental process, we have a certain amount of inertia in what we do and it takes a few years to consult on topics for assessments and then to do them and to improve them and get them out. 

One of the main things we’re discussing right now is we have had a rolling work programme from when IPBES started until 2030 and we need to decide on the last few deliverables and how we work in that period. We are asking for a mandate to spend the next year really considering the multiple options that we have in proposing a way forward for the last few years of this work programme. I feel that the countries are very aligned. We have done a lot of work, produced a lot of outputs. It is challenging for governments and other stakeholders to read our assessments and reach into them to find what’s useful to them. They make constant calls for more support, in uptake, in capacity building and in policy support.

The second global assessment in 2028 will be our 17th assessment [overall]. We would like to focus on really bringing all this knowledge together across assessments in ways that are relevant to different governments, different stakeholder groups, different networks to help them reach into the knowledge that’s in the assessments. And I think the governments, of course, want that as well, because many of them are calling for it. Many of the governments that support us financially, of course, want to see a return of investment on the money that they have put in.

CB: Nations agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. Back in 2023 we had a conversation for Carbon Brief and you said that you were “highly doubtful” this goal could be achieved for every ecosystem by that date. Where do you stand on this now?

DO: I work on coral reefs and part of the reason I’ve come to IPBES platform is because the amount of climate change we’re committed to with current fossil fuel emissions and the focus on economic growth means that corals will continue to decline 20, 30, 40 years into the future. I think of that there’s no real doubt. The question is how soon we put in place the right actions to halt climate change. That will then have a lag on how long it takes for corals to cope with that amount of climate change.

We can’t halt and reverse the decline of every ecosystem. But we can try and bend the curve to halt and reverse the drivers of decline. So, that’s some of the economic drivers that we talk about in the nexus and transformative change assessment, the indirect drivers and the value shifts we need to have. What the Global Biodiversity Framework [GBF, a global nature agreement made in 2022] aspires to do in terms of halting and reversing biodiversity decline – we absolutely need to do that. We can do it and we can put in place the enabling conditions for that by 2030 for sure. But we won’t be able to do it fast enough at this point to halt [the loss of] all ecosystems. 

We’re now in 2026, so this is three years plus after the GBF was adopted. We still need greater action from all countries and all stakeholders and businesses and so on. That’s what we’re really pushing for in our assessments.

CB: Biodiversity loss has historically been underappreciated by world leaders. As the world continues to be gripped by geopolitical uncertainty, conflict and financial pressures, what are your thoughts on the chances of leaders addressing the issue of biodiversity loss in a meaningful way?

DO: What are the chances of addressing biodiversity loss? I mean, we have to do it. It’s really our life support system and if we only focus on immediate crises and threats and don’t pay attention to the long-term threats and crises, that only creates more short-term crises down the line, we make it harder and harder to do that. I hope that what I’m hoping we get to understand better through IPBES science, as well as others, is that we’re not just reporting on the state of biodiversity because it’s nice to have it, but it’s [because] diversity of nature is really the life support system for people. Our economies and societies fully depend on nature. If we want them to prosper and be secure into the long-term future, we have to learn how to bring the impact and dependencies of business, which is a focus of this assessment, in line with nature. And until we do that, we will just continue to magnify the potential for future crises and their impacts.

CB: You mentioned already that your expertise is in coral reefs. A report last year warned that the world has reached its first climate tipping point, that of widespread dying of warm water coral reefs. Do you agree with that statement and can you discuss the wider state of coral reefs across the world at this present moment?

DO: The report that came out last year in 2025 was a global tipping point report and it’s actually in 2023 the first one of those [was published]. I was involved in that one and we basically took what the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] has produced, which [is] compiled from the [scientific] literature [which said] that 1.5-2C was the critical range for coral reefs, where you go from losing 70-90% to 90-99% of coral reefs around the world. [It is] a bit hard to say exactly what that means. What we did was we actually reduced that range from 1.5C-2C to 1-1.5C, based on observations we’ve already made about loss of corals. In 2024, the world was 1.5C above historical conditions for one year. The IPCC number requires a 20-year average [for 1.5C to be crossed]. So, we’re not quite at the IPCC limit, but we’re very close. Also, with not putting in place fast enough emission reductions, warming will continue.

Coral reefs are very likely at a tipping point. And, so, I do agree with the statement. It means that we lose the fully connected regional, global system that coral reefs have been in the past. There will still be some coral reefs in places that have some natural protection mechanisms, whether it’s oceanographic or some levels of sedimentation in green water from rivers can help. And there’s resilience of corals as well. Some corals will be able to adapt somewhat, but not all – and not all the other species too. We will lose what we have called coral reefs up until this point. We’ll still continue to have simpler coral ecosystems into the future, but they won’t be quite the same. 

It is a crisis point and my hope is that, in coming out from the coral reef world, I can communicate that this is, this has been a crisis for coral reefs. It’s a very important ecosystem, but we don’t want it to happen to more and more and more ecosystems that support more [than] hundreds of millions and billions of people as well. Because, if we let things go that far, then, of course, we have much bigger crises on our hands.

CB: Something else you’ve spoken about before is around equity being one of the big challenges when it comes to responding to biodiversity loss. Can you explain why you think that biodiversity loss should be seen as a justice issue?

DO: Well, biodiversity loss is a justice issue because we are a part of biodiversity and – just like the loss of ecosystems and habitats and species – people live locally as well. People experience biodiversity loss in their surroundings.

The places that are most vulnerable and don’t have the income, or the assets, to either conserve biodiversity, or need to rely on it too much so they degrade it – they feel the impacts of that loss much more directly than those who do have more assets. Also, the more assets you have, the more you can import biodiversity products and benefits from somewhere else. 

So, it’s very much a justice issue, both from local levels experiencing it directly, but then also at global levels. We are part of it [biodiversity], we don’t own it. It’s a global good, or a common public good, so we need to be preserving it for all people on the planet. In that sense, there are many, many justice issues that are involved in both loss of biodiversity and how you deal with that as well.

CB: How would you say IPBES is working towards achieving greater equity in biodiversity science?

DO: One of the headline findings of our values assessment in 2022, which looked at multiple values different cultures have and different worldviews around the planet, [was that] by accommodating or considering different worldviews and different perspectives, you achieve greater equity because you’re already considering other worldviews in making decisions. 

So, that’s an important first step – just making it much more apparent and upfront that we can’t just make decisions, especially global ones, from a single worldview and the dominant one is the market economic worldview that we have. That’s very important. 

But, then, also in how we do our assessments and the knowledge systems that are incorporated in them. We integrate different knowledge systems together and try and juxtapose – or if they can be integrated, we do that, sometimes you can’t – but you just need to illustrate different worldviews and perspectives on the common issue of biodiversity loss or livelihoods or something like that. 

We hope that our conceptual framework and our values framework really help bring in this awareness of multiple cultures and multiple perspectives in the multilateral system.

CB: When this interview is published, IPBES will have released its report on business and biodiversity. What are some of the key takeaways from this?

DO: Our assessments integrate so much information that the key messages are actually, in retrospect, quite obvious in a way. One of the key findings it will say is that all businesses have impacts and dependencies on nature. 

Of course, when you think about it, of course they do. We often think, “oh, well ecotourism is dependent on nature”, but even a supermarket is dependent on nature because a lot of the produce comes from a natural system somewhere, maybe in a greenhouse or enhanced by fertiliser, but it still comes from natural systems. Any other business will have either impacts on the nature around it, or it needs tree shade outside so people can walk in and things like that. 

So, that’s one of the main findings. It’s not just certain sectors that need to respond to biodiversity loss and minimise their impacts. All sectors need to. Another finding, of course, is that it’s very differentiated depending on the type of business and type of sector. 

It’s also very differentiated in different parts of the world in terms of responsibilities and also capabilities. So small businesses, of course, have much less leeway, perhaps, to change what they’re doing, whereas big businesses do and they have more assets, so they can deal with shifts and changes much better. 

It’s a methodological assessment, rather than assessing the state of businesses, or the state of nature in relation to businesses [and] they pull together a huge list of methodologies and tools and things that businesses can access and do to understand their impacts and dependencies and act on them. Then [there is] also guidance and advice for governments on how to enable businesses to do that with the right incentives and regulations and so on. In that sense, it helps bring knowledge together into a single place. 

It has been fantastic to see the parallel programme that the UK government has organised [at the IPBES meeting in Manchester]. It has brought together a huge range of British businesses and consultancies and so on that help businesses understand their impacts on nature. There’s a huge thirst. 

To some extent, I would have thought, with so much capacity already in some of these organisations, what would they learn from our assessments? But they’re really hungry to see the integration. They really want to see that this really does make a big difference, that others will do the same, that the government will really support moving in these directions. There’s a huge amount of effort in the findings coming out and I’m sure that that will be felt all around the world and in different countries in different ways.

CB: As we’re speaking now, you’re still in the midst of figuring out exactly what the report will say and going through line-by-line to figure this out. Something we’ve seen at other negotiations…has been these entrenched views from countries on certain key issues. And one thing I did notice in the Earth Negotiations Bulletin discussion of yesterday’s [4 February] negotiations was that it said that some delegations wanted to remove mentions of climate change from the report. Has this been a key sticking point here or have there been any difficulties from countries during these negotiations?

DO: The nature of these multilateral negotiations is that the science is, in a way, a central body of work that is built through consensus of bringing all this knowledge together. It’s almost like a centralising process. And, yes, different countries have different perspectives on what their priorities are and the messages they want to see or not. 

We still, of course, deal with different positions from countries. What we hope to do is to be able to convene it so that we see that we serve the countries best by having the most unbiased reporting of what the science is saying in language that is accessible to and useful to policymakers, rather than not having language or not having mention of things in in the agreed text.

How it’ll work out, I don’t know. Each time is different from the others. I think one of the key things that’s really important for us is that you do have different governance tracks on different aspects of the world we deal in. So, the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals, as well [as negotiations] on climate change – the UNFCCC, the climate convention, is the governing body for that. There’s two goals on nature – the Convention on Biological Diversity and other multilateral agreements are the institutions that govern that part. 

We have come from a nature-based perspective, with nature’s contributions to a good quality of life for people…We start in the nature goals, but we actually have content that relates to all the other goals. We need to consider climate impacts on nature, or climate impacts on people that affect how they use nature. The nexus assessment was, in a way, a mini SDG report. It looked at six different Sustainable Development Goals. 

We try and make sure that while on the institutional mechanisms, certain countries may try and want us to report within our mandate on nature, we do have findings that relate to climate change that relate to income and poverty and food production and health systems [and] that we need to report [outwardly] so that people are aware of those and they can use those in decision-making contexts. 

That’s a difficult discussion and every time it comes out a little bit differently. But we hope we move the agenda further towards 2030 in the SDGs. We have an indivisible system that we need to report on.

CB: The next UN biodiversity summit COP17 is taking place later this year. What are the main outcomes you’re hoping to see at that summit?

DO: The main outcomes I would hope to see from the biodiversity summit is greater alignment across the countries. We really need to move forward on delivering on the GBF as part of the sustainable development agenda as well. So there will be a review of progress. We need acceleration of activities and impact and effectiveness, more than anything else. 

That means, of course, addressing all of the targets in the GBF. Not equally, necessarily, but they all need progress to support one another in the whole.  We work to provide the science inputs that can help deliver that through the CBD [Convention on Biological Diversity] mechanisms as well. We hope they use our assessments to the fullest and that we see good progress coming out.

CB: Great, thank you very much for your time. 

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We, the over 80 delegates from Kenya, Uganda and Malawi, including educators, school administrators, entrepreneurs, researchers, civil society organisations, development partners, and policy actors, convened in Lilongwe, Malawi, on 22nd January 2026, to deliberate on ‘Agroecology-based School and College Food Procurement Systems in East and Southern Africa’ WE THANK the Government and People of Malawi for […]

The post The Lilongwe Declaration on agroecology-based School and College meals first appeared on AFSA.

Programs around the world have tried to harness the power of money to save habitat, by paying people to protect or restore their land.

When ecologist Giacomo Delgado wanted to test whether one of the oldest and most established programs was translating into biodiversity gains, he chose to listen for it.

Using more than 100 weatherproofed microphones and powerful computer programs, the Ph.D. student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich) collected nearly a million minutes of audio recordings from land scattered across Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula.

The results revealed that the din of life in forests regrowing under a program that paid landowners to leave pastureland untouched had a lot in common with intact forests in the area, Delgado and colleagues reported recently in Global Change Biology.

“These findings represent perhaps some of our best evidence to date that ecosystem restoration can benefit biodiversity at large spatial scales,” Delgado wrote in a blog post.

 

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The subject of his study was an experiment begun in Costa Rica in 1996, the first nationwide program in the world that paid people to preserve land and the underlying environmental benefits. The program is funded chiefly through a tax on fossil fuels, and has been credited with helping the country become a place growing more forest than it loses.

But until Delgado picked up his microphones, it wasn’t clear that this forest renewal had translated into a revival of forest inhabitants.  While he might have opted to try the painstaking approach of counting individual animals in a small number of places, the scientist opted to tap into the burgeoning field of bioacoustics, in which mountains of digital recordings are crunched by computers to understand the natural world.

He and collaborators placed microphones on 142 sites in the peninsula, a mix of native forest, pasture, and sites that had been allowed to recover on their own or been replanted with a single tree species as part of the national program. They emerged with 999,470 minutes of audio data recorded between May and July 2022.

Using computers, they developed a kind of fingerprint of the soundscapes for each kind of land. Natural forests were raucous – loud and marked by lots of variation in sounds, particularly around dawn and dusk. Birds and insects were particularly noisy during twilight. Pastures, by contrast, had far more human sounds, no big burst at sunrise and sunset, and more noise at night.

The former pasture turned young forest, where people were paid to let it regrow, bore many of the hallmarks of the intact forest, particularly during the dusk burst of activity. Overall, it was 1.4 times more similar to the natural forests than to the pastures. The sounds of the replanted forests lagged behind a bit, at 1.24 times more similar the natural forests.

The regrowing forests still had a way to go before they were indistinguishable from old growth. In particular, the dawn chorus was more muted. That might be because biodiversity in those altered landscapes still lags, or because nearby human activity quieted the creatures, the scientists suggested.

For Delgado, the results offer hope for ecological restoration and for simultaneously bringing economic benefits to the people, many of them poor, who live on and protect the land.   “Empowering local people and sharing nature’s bounty among all, instead of locking it away for the privileged few, is a radically effective ecological solution,” he wrote.

Delgado, et. al. “Large-Scale Forest Restoration Accompanied by Biodiversity Recovery in Costa Rica’s Redistributive Payment for Ecosystem Service Program.” Global Change Research. Feb. 4, 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

 

Nickel prices rose for a fourth straight day Wednesday after Indonesia ordered the world’s largest nickel mine to sharply cut output in a move aimed at tightening global supply and lifting prices.

LME nickel climbed 2% to $17,835 a tonne as of 6:45 a.m. London time, after earlier touching $17,910, extending a rally of more than 20% since mid-December amid speculative buying and heightened geopolitical tensions.

Indonesia plans to issue production quotas of 260 million to 270 million tonnes of nickel ore this year, according to Bloomberg, slightly above an earlier estimate of 250 million to 260 million tonnes but far below the 379 million tonnes targeted for 2025. Authorities manage output through annual mining permits, known as RKABs, and can revise volumes mid-year.

PT Weda Bay Nickel will receive a 12 million tonne ore quota this year, down from 42 million tonnes in 2025. The mine, located on Halmahera in North Maluku, is owned by Tsingshan Holding Group Co, France’s Eramet SA and PT Aneka Tambang. Eramet confirmed the reduced quota and said it plans to seek a revision, while the county’s Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry said quotas remain under evaluation.

Price control

Indonesia is trying to rein in a persistent global surplus after its production surged to about 65% of world supply, triggering a two-year price slump that forced higher-cost rivals in Australia and New Caledonia to shut down.

The quota cut will weigh heavily on Weda Bay, which had planned to expand output to more than 60 million tonnes of ore to support a nearby industrial park. Instead, it has imported large volumes of ore from the Philippines to offset local shortages.

Nickel, used in stainless steel and electric-vehicle batteries, has seen weaker-than-expected demand from the battery sector as some manufacturers shift to non-nickel chemistries.

In January, Macquarie Group raised its 2026 nickel price forecast by 18% to $17,750 a tonne on the LME, citing a sharp drop in the expected surplus due to tighter Indonesian quotas.

Curbing coal

Indonesia is also curbing thermal coal output, with mining quotas in the world’s largest exporter set to fall by nearly 25% from a year earlier. The Indonesian Coal Mining Association said the cuts could force some operations to close and leave overseas buyers scrambling for alternative supplies.

(With files from Bloomberg)

The hot, dry and windy weather preceding the wildfires that tore through Chile and Argentina last month was made around three times more likely due to human-caused climate change. 

This is according to a rapid attribution study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) service.

Devastating wildfires hit multiple parts of South America throughout January. 

The fires claimed the lives of 23 people in Chile and displaced thousands of people and destroyed vast areas of native forests and grasslands in both Chile and Argentina.

The authors find that the hot, dry and windy conditions that drove the “high fire danger” are expected to occur once every five years, but that these conditions would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change.

In today’s climate, rainfall intensity during the “fire season” is around 20-25% lower in the areas covered by the study than it would be in a world without human-caused emissions, the study adds.

Study author Prof Friederike Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London, told a press briefing:

“We’re confident in saying that the main driver of this increased fire risk is human-caused warming. These trends are projected to continue in the future as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels.”

‘Significant’ damage

The recent wildfires in Chile and Argentina have been “one of the most significant and damaging events in the region”, the report says. 

In the lead-up to the fires, both countries were gripped by intense heatwaves and droughts.

The authors analysed two regions – one in central Chile and the other in Argentine Patagonia, along the border between Argentina and Chile.

For example, in Argentina’s northern Patagonian Andes, the last recorded rainfall was in mid-November of 2025, according to the report. It adds that in early January, the region recorded 11 consecutive days of “extreme maximum temperatures”, marking the “second-longest warm spell in the past 65 years”.

Dr Juan Antonio Rivera, a researcher at the Argentine Institute of Snow Science, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences, told a WWA press briefing that these weather conditions dried out vegetation and decreased soil moisture, which meant that the fires “found abundant fuel to continue over time”.

In the northern Patagonian Andes of Argentina, wildfires started on 6 January in Puerto Patriada and spread over two national parks of Los Alerces and Lago Puelo and nearby regions. These fires remained active into the first week of February.

The fires engulfed more than 45,000 hectares of native and planted forest, shrublands and grasslands, including 75% of native forests in the village of Epuyén, notes the study.

At least 47 homes were burned, according to El País. La Nación reported that many families evacuated themselves to prevent any damage.

In south-central Chile, wildfires occurred from 17 to 19 January, affecting the Biobío, Ñuble and Araucanía regions. 

They started near Concepción city, the capital of the Biobío region, where maximum temperatures reached 26C. In the nearby city of Chillán, temperatures reached 37C. 

From there, the fires spread southwards to the coastal towns of Penco-Lirquen and Punta Parra, in the Biobío region.

The event left 23 people dead, 52,000 people displaced and more than 1,000 homes destroyed in the country, according to the study.

Inhabitants of Lirquen, in Chile, walk through the homes consumed by the flames in January 2026. Credit: UNAR Photo / Alamy Stock Photo.

These wildfires burnt more than 40,000 hectares of forests, “tripling the amount of land burned in 2025” across the country, reported La Tercera.

The study adds that more than 20,000 hectares of non-native forest plantations, including Monterey pine and Eucalyptus trees, were consumed by the blaze and critical infrastructure was affected.

A WWA press release points out that the expansion of non-native pines and invasive species “has created highly flammable landscapes in Chile”.

Hot, dry and windy

Wildfires are complex events that are influenced by a wide range of factors, such as atmospheric moisture, wind speed and fuel availability.

To assess the impact of climate change on wildfires, the authors chose a “fire weather” metric called the “hot dry windy index” (HDWI). This combines maximum temperature, relative humidity and wind speed. 

While this metric does not include every component that could contribute to intense wildfires, such as land-use change and fuel load data, study author Dr Claire Barnes from Imperial College London told a press briefing that HDWI is “a very good predictor of short-term, extreme, dry, fire-prone conditions”. 

The authors chose to analyse two separate regions. The first lies along the coast and the foothills of the Andes around the Ñuble, Biobío and La Araucanía regions in central Chile. The second sits across the Chilean and Argentine border in Patagonia. 

These regions are shown on the map below, where red circles indicate the wildfires recorded in January 2026 and pink boxes represent the study areas.

Location of forest fires in Chile and Argentina in January 2026 (red circles) and the study areas (pink boxes). Source: WWA (2026).

The authors also selected different time periods for the two study regions, to reflect the “different lengths of peak wildfire activity associated with the fires in each region”.

For the central Chilean study area, the authors focus their analysis on the two most severe days of HDWI, 17-18 January. For the Patagonian region, they focus on the most severe five-day period, which took place over 2-6 January.

To put the wildfire into its historical context, the authors analyse data on temperature, wind and rainfall to assess how HDWI over the two regions has changed since the year 1980.

They find that in both study regions, the high HWDI recorded in January is not “particularly extreme” in today’s climate and would typically be expected roughly once every five years. However, they add that the event would have been “rarer” in a world without climate change, in which average global temperatures are 1.3C cooler. 

The authors also use a combination of observations and climate models to carry out an “attribution” analysis, comparing the world as it is today to a “counterfactual” world without human-caused climate change.

They find that climate change made the high HDWI three-times more likely in the central Chilean region and 2.5-times more likely in the Patagonian region.

The authors also conduct analysis focused solely on November-January rainfall.

Both study regions experienced “very low rainfall” in the months leading up to the fires, the authors say. They find that fire-season rainfall intensity is around 25% lower in the central Chilean region and 20% lower in the Patagonia region in today’s climate than it would have been in a world without climate change.

Finally, the authors considered the influence of climatic cycles such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon that affects global temperatures and regional weather patterns. 

They find that a combination of La Niña – the “cool” phase of ENSO – combined with another natural cycle called the Southern Annular Mode, led to atmospheric circulation patterns that “favoured the hot and dry conditions that enhanced fire persistence and severity in parts of the region”.

However, they add that this has a comparably small effect on the overall intensity of the wildfires, with climate change standing out as the main driver.

(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)

Vulnerable communities

The wildfires affected native forests, national parks and small rural and tourist communities in both countries.

A 2025 study conducted in Chile, cited in the WWA analysis, found that 74% of survey respondents did not have appropriate education and awareness on wildfires. 

This suggests that insufficient preparedness on early warning signs, response measures and prevention can “exacerbate the severity and frequency of these events”, the WWA authors say.

Aynur Kadihasanoglu, senior urban specialist at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, said in the WWA press release that many settlements in Chile are close to flammable pine plantations, which “puts lives and livelihoods at risk”.

Additionally, the head of Chile’s National Forest Corporation pointed to “structural shortcomings” in fire prevention, such as lack of regulation in lands without management plans, reported BioBioChile.

In Argentina, the response to the fires has been hampered by large budget cuts and reductions in forest rangers, according to the WWA press release. Experts have criticised Argentina’s self-styled “liberal-libertarian” president Javier Milei for the cuts and the delay to declaring a state of emergency in Patagonia. 

According to the Associated Press, “Milei slashed spending on the National Fire Management Service by 80% in 2024 compared to the previous year”. The service “faces another 71% reduction in funds” in its 2026 budget, the newswire adds.

Argentinian native forests and grasslands are experiencing “intense pressure” from wildfires, according to the study. Many vulnerable native animal species, such as the huemul and the pudú, are losing critical habitat, while birds, such as the Patagonian black woodpecker, are losing nesting sites.

Huemul deer in Argentine Patagonia, one of the vulnerable animal species to wildfires in the region. Credit: Bernardo Galmarini / Alamy Stock Photo.

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Instacart, the D.C. Department of Health (DC Health), and Martha’s Table recently launched the DC Grocery Access Pilot program to expand access to fresh, healthy foods for D.C. residents.

The program provides free Instacart+ memberships and monthly stipends to help cover grocery delivery and service fees to up to 1,000 D.C. residents eligible for SNAP. Participants can shop from any store available on the Instacart platform, which includes over 80 retailers in the city, reaching 100 percent of SNAP households, DC Health tells Food Tank.

“Access to healthy food is critical to reduce the risk of many chronic diseases and improve health outcomes across the life span,” DC Health tells Food Tank. In 2023, nearly 9 percent of households in D.C. struggled to afford enough food, according to D.C. Hunger Solutions. The organization’s Grocery Store Report states that a severe lack of full-service grocery stores is one of the contributing factors for food insecurity in Wards 7 and 8, two of the city’s low-income areas. These Wards contain only seven of the city’s 80 full-service grocery stores, according to a 2025 report from D.C. Hunger Solutions.

In addition to improving food access, the program promotes healthy dietary behaviors by embedding health and wellness education into its eligibility criteria. To participate in the GAP program, residents must enroll in a health education class through Martha’s Table or another DC Health partner, which help build social support networks, teach parenting skills, and promote wellness practices for participants.

At these classes, educators offer an overview of the GAP program and identify those interested in participating. Residents then receive Instacart codes, which they can begin using right away.

This pilot builds upon the success of a similar program Instacart launched in 2023 in partnership with the City of Columbia, South Carolina, and its Mayor Daniel Rickenmann. The program provided Instacart+ memberships and monthly Instacart Health Fresh Funds stipends to residents living in Columbia’s food deserts. Results from the first year found that an overwhelming majority of participants were very satisfied with Instacart and were very likely to continue participating in the program, according to Instacart. Following this positive feedback, the city of Columbia announced a one-year extension of the pilot program.

“That pilot showed us what’s possible when you combine thoughtful public policy with technology that can meet people where they are,” Casey Aden-Wansbury, Instacart’s Vice President, Head of Global Public Policy, tells Food Tank.

She explains that after hearing about the success of the program in Columbia, DC Councilmember Christina Henderson introduced legislation to bring the GAP model to Washington, D.C. “Her leadership on this critical issue was instrumental in making this partnership with DC Health possible,” Aden-Wansbury says.

“Public–private partnerships have a powerful role to play in expanding food access because they bring together the strengths of each sector in a way that no one organization can achieve alone,” Aden-Wansbury tells Food Tank.

Governments understand the needs of their communities and policy levers available, while community organizations bring trusted relationships and on-the-ground insight, Aden-Wansbury says. Companies like Instacart can then provide the technology and infrastructure needed to implement programs at scale. “Collaborations like these allow us to move faster, tailor support to local needs, and ultimately help more people access the nutritious foods that help them thrive.”

DC Health is now leading an evaluation of the pilot to inform its longer-term strategies. “We know that bringing a full-service grocery store to a neighborhood requires long-term planning across agencies,” the agency says.

Looking ahead, Instacart plans to scale similar programs in other communities. Aden-Wansbury explains that the company is working with the Mayors Alliance to End Childhood Hunger to offer the Grocery Access Template Program, an opportunity for smaller cities and towns to partner with Instacart and offer access to online grocery and delivery for residents in underserved areas. “The success of our existing programs gives us a clear path to scale this work, and we’re excited to keep partnering with communities that are looking to expand food access,” she tells Food Tank

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Photo courtesy of Mintolab, Unsplash

The post New Pilot Uses Instacart Platform to Improve Grocery Access appeared first on Food Tank.

Two shutdowns against ICE organized by Minnesota labour unions and student groups shook the United States in January. Spring sat down with two organizers involved in the strikes, Aminah Sheikh and Dan Troccoli, to talk about ICE, the political climate in Minnesota, and the potential for a general strike.

The post “We can no longer forgo the option to strike”: An interview with Minnesota General Strike organizers first appeared on Spring.