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

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Key developments

Trump chaos

TRUMP TARIFFS: US president Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with the rest of the world sent ripples through global food markets this month. Trump introduced a 10% tariff on goods imported from China, but delayed his planned 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico after reaching a deal for the two countries to increase border controls, the Associated Press reported. Reuters said that retaliatory tariffs from countries targeted by Trump could significantly harm the US agricultural sector. China, Canada and Mexico are the “top three markets” for US farm products and imported $94bn in agricultural goods from the nation in 2023, according to the newswire. CNN presented three charts illustrating how the tariff war could increase the prices of US groceries, from “fresh avocados to dairy products”.

AID CUTS: The Trump administration also unveiled dramatic reductions to the work of USAid, the country’s main international development arm, the New York Times reported, with leaked plans suggesting staff would be cut from 14,000 to just 294. The move has put around $500m of food aid at risk of spoilage after staff cuts and funding freezes have left the agency in “chaos”, the Guardian reported. Reuters said the dismantling of USAid “is crippling the intricate global system that aims to prevent and respond to famine”. Civil Eats reported that USAid typically purchases $2bn in rice, wheat, lentils and peas from US farmers each year, “prompting questions about how the agency’s shuttering might also impact rural America”. Bloomberg said the Department of Agriculture confirmed that the US will keep buying agricultural commodities to supply food aid in the world’s poorest countries.

NATURE AT RISK: The dismantling of USAid could also have large ramifications for global efforts to tackle nature loss, the Revelator reported, noting that the agency funds efforts to “reduce wildlife poaching and trafficking, tackle deforestation, assist environmental refugees, study animal populations in the wild and protect people in critical habitats”. The New York Times reported that the 150 scientists behind the first US national nature assessment, which was shut down by a Trump executive order, are hoping to find a way to release their findings without government backing. It comes after the assessment’s lead author, Dr Phil Leven, sent an email to his fellow authors saying “this work is too important to die”, according to the publication.

Natural heritage at risk

ECOSYSTEMS THREATENED: Three-quarters of the world’s “natural heritage sites” will face at least one “climate pressure” by the end of the century, under an “intermediate” scenario of climate change, according to new research covered by Carbon Brief. Natural heritage sites are those that are “recognised internationally as the most important ecosystems on Earth”, including sites such as the Galápagos Islands, Serengeti national park and the Great Barrier Reef, according to the article. The research also found that, under the highest emissions scenarios, nearly all such sites will experience extreme heat exposure, with many also facing the compounding impacts of drought or extreme rainfall, by 2100.

BIODIVERSITY LOSS: As part of their study, the authors assessed biodiversity loss inside natural heritage sites to date. They identified 14 natural heritage sites with “vulnerable” levels of biodiversity. These were mainly located in South America, mainland Africa, and on various coasts and islands, including Brazil’s Pantanal conservation complex, Mount Kenya’s national park and Australia’s Ningaloo Coast, according to the research. The researchers added that these vulnerable sites are likely to face the greatest climate risks as the planet warms. Elsewhere, the Guardian reported on efforts to save polar heritage sites on a Canadian Arctic island sinking into the Beaufort Sea.

Spotlight

How global trade harms forest species

This week, Carbon Brief explores a new Nature study which examined how consumption in 24 countries leads to “outsourced” deforestation and biodiversity loss. 

Deforestation linked to consumption in major economies, such as the US and China, is harming forest-dwelling animals, according to a new study.

The research found that consumption in many nations led to “outsourced losses of biodiversity” as a result of forest clearance abroad. 

The impacts are “substantial, widely distributed and strongly structured by geography and trade linkages”, the study noted. The lead study author, Alex Wiebe, a graduate student at Princeton University, was “surprised” by the magnitude of the findings. He told Carbon Brief:  

“The cumulative [biodiversity loss] impacts of the countries we examined were 15 times greater to species outside of their borders than within them. This suggests that the vast majority of a developed country’s impacts on global biodiversity happens outside of its borders.”

The researchers quantified the loss of area in which more than 7,500 forest-dwelling birds, mammals and reptiles lived around the world between 2001 and 2015. 

They analysed a dataset attributing land deforested during the study period to the production of goods imported and consumed in 24 countries – including the US, China and UK. 

Many of these countries are “effectively moving biodiversity losses overseas”, the study concluded, by “driving land-use change in other countries through their consumption of imported agricultural and forestry products”.

‘Disproportionate harm’ on far-flung species

The findings showed that the US contributed by far the most to international forest species’ range loss, followed by Japan and China. 

Dr Janice Lee, an environmental scientist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the study “advances our understanding and quantification of how international trade affects global biodiversity.”

The “important work” adds to ongoing discussions around the impact of global trade on deforestation and biodiversity, Lee, who was not involved in the research, told Carbon Brief.

Many of the impacts occurred between neighbouring countries, but in some cases nations “inflicted disproportionate harm” on species thousands of miles away, the study said.  

Almost half of all of the species range losses recorded far away from the examined countries were in Madagascar, possibly driven by deforestation for vanilla production, the researchers wrote. 

Dr Erasmus zu Ermgassen, a scientist at Belgian university UCLouvain, said the study is “interesting”, but “perhaps a bit one-dimensional”.

Zu Ermgassen, who was not involved in the study, noted that biodiversity loss can be driven by “domestic economies and politics within the tropics” as well, rather than solely from consumption abroad. He added that species range impacts do not consider “other wildlife, habitats, nor the humans living in those landscapes”. 

The study noted the “limited spatially explicit data on attributable deforestation” and the complications that would occur with broadening the research scope.

The impact countries have on biodiversity in other parts of the world is a topic that deserves more attention, Wiebe told Carbon Brief, noting: 

“In the future, understanding how countries impact non-forest species, how the impacts of countries are changing over time, and which products are most closely tied with threats to wildlife in different parts of the world will all be important to investigate.”

News and views

SUSANA QUITS: Colombian politician Susana Muhamad resigned as environment minister, leaving her position as president of the COP16 nature talks in question, El Espectador reported. COP16 will resume in Rome on 25 February after countries failed to find consensus on all negotiating issues in Colombia in 2024. In a public resignation letter, Muhamad appealed to her president, Gustavo Petro, for permission to stay on as head of the talks. In an interview with Colombian TV network Noticias Caracol, Muhamad confirmed it will be down to Petro to decide if she can remain in post. 

FOOD CHAIN RISKS: An Arctic geoengineering project will end its operations after identifying environmental concerns and “potential risks” to the region’s food chain, Climate Home News reported. Climate and Indigenous campaigners “welcomed” the shutdown of the experimental project, which aimed to release small silica particles over the ocean to “in theory reflect sunlight from the surface and cool down melting ice”, the outlet said. Panganga Pungowiyi from the Indigenous Environmental Network, told Climate Home News: “Our concerns about the reckless use of harmful materials were dismissed, yet we knew that the health of our ecosystems and the wisdom of our people must not be overlooked.”

CLEARING WAY: Indonesia’s government is eyeing up 2.3m hectares of protected forest – “an area 30 times the size of New York City” – that could be converted to produce food and biofuel crops, according to Mongabay. This formed part of wider plans to convert 20m hectares of forest into “food and energy estates”, which the outlet said could lead to the “largest deforestation project in the country’s history”. The consideration to convert protected land “raised alarms among environmental groups and lawmakers”, the outlet said. The country’s forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, said that the plan does not target pristine rainforests, arguing that it could rehabilitate degraded protected forest areas, Mongabay added. 

SHARK ATTACKS: The Times reported that a spate of deadly shark attacks in Australia have coincided with a warning from scientists that warming seas could be drawing the predators closer to popular swimming locations. Prof Culum Brown, a shark expert at Sydney’s Macquarie University, told the publication that the city “needed to prepare for more sharks in popular swimming areas as climate change raises sea temperatures and makes conditions more hospitable for the predators, especially bull sharks”. Australia’s NewsWire reported that a “long-term increase” in shark attacks occurring could be linked to both “an increasing number of people swimming in the ocean and climate change”.

MINING FOR GOLD: Permits for at least 79 “semi-industrial gold mining and exploration projects” were issued in the Sangha region of the Republic of Congo over the past four years – “despite the area being officially designated for a REDD+ project”, a Mongabay investigation found. REDD+ projects are “designed to reduce deforestation”, but “since mining contributes to deforestation, these two activities are fundamentally incompatible”, environmentalist Justin Landry Chekoua told the outlet. Mongabay further detailed the impact of mining in the Sangha region, in which forests have been uprooted and “streams that were once drinkable are now vast, muddy stretches of uninviting water”. 

CATTLE CONSPIRACY: Scientists described misinformation about a methane-cutting cattle feed additive as a “wake-up call” to improve communication with farmers and the public, the Guardian reported. Last November, major food company Arla announced plans to pilot using Bovaer, a cattle feed additive, to “reduce the carbon footprint of its products”, the Guardian said. This “quickly became a social media storm about the health effects of the additive, with people videoing themselves throwing away products by the brand and pouring milk down their sinks in protest”, the newspaper said. The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) said that “there are no safety concerns when Bovaer is used at the approved dose”. The FSA’s chief scientific adviser, Prof Robin May, told a press briefing this week: “The more communication and transparency the better.”

Watch, read, listen

GROWING PAINS: An article in Grist explored how climate change is altering the types of crops grown across the world. 

DARK DOLPHIN MAGIC: A short documentary by Mongabay investigated the illegal exploitation of endangered pink river dolphins in the Amazon, driven by a myth about their magical properties.

REVEALING REVOLUTION: Through photographs, Undark magazine showed the “downstream effects of India’s green revolution”. 

SPOKEN WORD: The Third Pole Podcast from Dialogue Earth explored the impact of climate change on Indigenous languages in Pakistan’s remote mountain communities. 

New science

• Climate change could have a variable impact on cocoa yields in west and central Africa, a region responsible for much of the world’s production, according to new research in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. The study found that wetter conditions could drive yield increases in Nigeria and Cameroon, but decreases in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.
• The widespread deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) to remove CO2 from the atmosphere would violate multiple “planetary boundaries”, according to a new study in Communications Earth and Environment. It noted that widespread BECCS use would have the largest impact on the boundary for land ecosystems.
• A new rice variety showed methane emission reductions of up to 70% in paddy field trials over a three-year period, according to a Molecular Plant study. The findings “offer great possibilities” to mitigate the climate impact of rice, the researchers claim. 

In the diary

• 23 February: Germany general election 
• 24-28 February: 62nd session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change | Hangzhou, China
• 25-27 February: Resumed session of the UN biodiversity summit COP16 | Rome

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

The post Cropped 12 February 2025: Trump chaos; COP16 leadership in question; How global trade harms forest species appeared first on Carbon Brief.