Climate Change

• Recent data from the University of Maryland show the tropics lost 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) of primary rainforest in 2024 — nearly double the loss of 2023 and the highest on record.
• Six Latin American countries were in the top 10 nations for primary tropical forest loss.
• In the Amazon, forest loss more than doubled from 2023 to 2024, with more than half the result of wildfires. Other key drivers include agricultural expansion and criminal networks that increasingly threaten the region through gold mining, drug trafficking and other illicit activities.
• Fire was the leading driver of forest loss (49.5%), destroying 2.84 million hectares (7 million acres) of forest cover in Brazil, Bolivia and Mexico alone.

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• A Brazilian state was set to close a massive $180 million carbon credit deal, but now faces an escalating legal battle, accused of violating national laws and Indigenous rights, potentially ruining the project.
• Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office is seeking to nullify the 2024 contract, which sells 12 million carbon credits from Pará to companies like Amazon, Bayer, H&M Group and Walmart.
• Indigenous and Quilombola leaders voice concerns that the program could restrict their access to their land and interaction with nature, undermining inherent rights and deep spiritual connection to the rainforest.
• Widespread accusations over the failure of free, prior, and informed consent for the project highlight ongoing criticism of carbon credit initiatives in Brazil and globally, after scandals involving unapproved use of traditional territories and a loss of confidence in REDD+ projects.

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/67063993

Highlights

Global & regional analysis of all GHG drivers (1820–2050)

Economic growth (+81Gt) overwhelmed efficiency gains (−31Gt)

Carbon intensity must immediately fall 3 × faster (−2.25 %/yr) to 2050.

Regional drivers: population vs affluence patterns vary sharply.

Reveals unprecedented gap between trends and climate needs.

Abstract

Identifying the socio-economic drivers behind greenhouse gas emissions is crucial to design mitigation policies. Existing studies predominantly analyze short-term CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, neglecting long-term trends and other GHGs. We examine the drivers of all greenhouse gas emissions between 1820–2050 globally and regionally. The Industrial Revolution triggered sustained emission growth worldwide—initially through fossil fuel use in industrialized economies but also as a result of agricultural expansion and deforestation. Globally, technological innovation and energy mix changes prevented 31 (17–42) Gt CO2e emissions over two centuries. Yet these gains were dwarfed by 81 (64–97) Gt CO2e resulting from economic expansion, with regional drivers diverging sharply: population growth dominated in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, while rising affluence was the main driver of emissions elsewhere. Meeting climate targets now requires the carbon intensity of GDP to decline 3 times faster than the global best 30-year historical rate (–2.25 % per year), which has not improved over the past five decades. Failing such an unprecedented technological change or a substantial contraction of the global economy, by 2050 global mean surface temperatures will rise more than 3 °C above pre-industrial levels.

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• As climate treaty delegates gather in Bonn this week ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, later this year, the world needs to confront a truth usually omitted from such negotiations: the climate crisis is not just a political failure, but the result of unchecked corporate power.
• In this commentary, Ecuadorian lawyer, activist and Goldman Environmental Prize winner Pablo Fajardo — who led one of the world’s largest legal battles against Chevron for its toxic legacy in the Amazon — argues that the climate crisis cannot be solved without confronting the corporate power structures driving it.
• Despite a $9.5 billion ruling against Chevron, the company has used international arbitration as a weapon to evade responsibility, highlighting how international commercial courts and legal loopholes protect companies like them: “At COP30 and beyond, if we are serious about climate justice, we must confront the machinery of impunity and fight united for system change and a future where justice is not the privilege of the powerful, but the right of all.”
• This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

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Archived copies of the article:

• archive.today - should eventually load, but hasn't as of posting time
• web.archive.org - has text but key diagrams don't load

The key thing here is that the less overshoot the better, and the amount of overshoot we can afford is small.

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• National Observer article
• research cited

“All models are wrong” could just mean that all models include some idealizations or abstractions. And just as Box says, models that employ such idealizations and abstractions can still be advantageous. Indeed, a highly idealized model that leaves out tons of real-world processes will be much easier to understand than a model that tries to capture, say, every gust of wind and every drop of rain.

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• CNN article
• PNAS article cited

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• An expedition by more than 50 researchers from seven countries has documented the gradual degradation of Antarctica: microplastics in the water, melting ice, and declining salinity in the Southern Ocean.
• The team found microplastics in both glacial ice and seawater.
• They also noted that atmospheric “rivers” are sending ash-laden air from Amazon forest fires to Antarctica, hastening the melting of snow and ice there.
• The accelerated melting means more freshwater is rushing into the Southern Ocean, reducing the salinity level and affecting the phytoplankton that form the basis of the marine food chain.

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See also: https://www.axios.com/local/kansas-city/2025/05/28/fire-weather-more-frequent-kansas-missouri

Archived copies of the article:

• archive.today - in queue when posted
• web.archive.org

As another punishing summer edges into Karachi, a Stanford researcher and a former climate minister confront the same crisis—extreme heat—from opposite ends of Pakistan’s most populous city.

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• Sri Lanka’s isolation during past glacial cycles resulted in the evolution of unique species, but ongoing human-induced climate change now poses a major threat to their survival.
• Using species distribution models, researchers have discovered that montane amphibians and reptiles that are particularly restricted to narrow ecological niches with limited mobility are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures.
• Species with direct development, like many Pseudophilautus frogs, which bypass the tadpole stage, are especially sensitive to microclimate changes.
• Of the 34 amphibian species confirmed extinct worldwide, 21 were endemic to Sri Lanka, underscoring the island’s fragility and the urgent need for targeted conservation efforts.

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