Climate Change Is Making Fire Weather Worse for World’s Forests. Forest fires are on the rise globally. An increase in severe fire weather is largely responsible.

 

Fires at Tatkin Lake in British Columbia, Canada, in July 2023.Credit...BC Wildfire Service/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images

 

By Rebecca Dzombak

 

In 2023 and 2024, the hottest years on record, more than 78 million acres of forests burned around the globe. The fires sent veils of smoke and several billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, subjecting millions of people to poor air quality.

Extreme forest-fire years are becoming more common because of climate change, new research suggests.

“Climate change is loading the dice for extreme fire seasons like we’ve seen,” said John Abatzoglou, a climate scientist at the University of California Merced. “There are going to be more fires like this.”

The area of forest canopy lost to fire during 2023 and 2024 was at least two times greater than in the previous nearly two decades, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers used imagery from the LANDSAT satellite network to determine how tree cover had changed from 2002 to 2024, and compared that with satellite detections of fire activity to see how much canopy loss was because of fire.

 Globally, the area of land burned by wildfires has decreased in recent decades, mostly because humans are transforming savannas and grasslands into less flammable landscapes. But the area of forests burned has gone up.

 

Boreal forests lost more than two times the canopy area in 2023-24 compared with the period between 2002 and 2024, the study found. Tropical forests saw three times as much loss, and North American forests lost nearly four times as much canopy, mostly because of Canada’s wildfires.

Significant losses were in remote forests, far from human activities. That isolation suggests fires are increasing primarily because of climate change, said Calum Cunningham, a fire geographer at the University of Tasmania who was not involved with the study. “Chronic changes in climate are making these forests more conducive to burning,” Dr. Cunningham said.

Climate’s fingerprint on forest fires, particularly remote ones, can be obvious. That’s because fires are limited either by how much there is to burn or by how wet or dry the fuel is. So when scientists see more fires in remote forests, far from cities, infrastructure or other human activities, like logging, they look to climate for an explanation.

 

Fire weather encompasses all the conditions that have to be right for a blaze to take off. Unrelenting spells of hot, dry weather and high evaporation rates let plants and soil dry out. Local wind patterns can shift, potentially pushing fires across a landscape, up and over hills and roads. Longer, hotter, drier stretches of fire weather make fires more likely.

Climate change is making severe fire weather more common around the world, raising the chances of worsened forest fire seasons, a study in the journal Nature Communications found. Previous work has shown that climate change is in many places making the fire season longer. But many studies that attribute climate change to fires are regional, not global.

The study assessed globally how much more likely extreme fire-weather conditions are to occur in the modern climate, compared with the preindustrial period, before greenhouse gas emissions rose significantly. The researchers used satellite observations of burned areas, along with weather data, to connect observed fire weather with actual occurrences of forest fires.

The chances of seeing extreme fire weather are roughly double in today’s climate compared with the preindustrial period, the researchers found. Years with extreme fire-weather conditions had more forest fires and more carbon dioxide emissions than typical years without severe fire weather. Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, acts as a blanket in the atmosphere, trapping the sun’s heat and warming the environment.

Neither study’s findings were particularly surprising to the experts, because most of the regions the studies highlighted have burned in recent years. Both studies add to a growing body of evidence that points to climate change as one of the main reasons the planet is experiencing more frequent and more severe forest fires, often overlapping.

“It really puts to bed any debate about the role of climate change in driving these extreme fires,” Dr. Cunningham said.

When more places are hit with fire weather at the same time, countries’ capacities for sharing firefighting resources drop. “You get stretched thin,” Dr. Abatzoglou said. Reduced firefighting can create a dangerous feedback loop: Bigger fires mean more emissions, which creates more fire weather and makes future fires more likely.

Budget and staffing reductions at science agencies in the United States, along with policy changes can exacerbate climate driven changes to fire trends, said Peter Potapov, an ecologist at the World Research Institute who led the PNAS study. For instance, repealing the “roadless rule,” which banned roads in some remote American forests could increase human activity there, along with fire risk. Terminated satellites could degrade fire forecasting. And funding cuts to the United States Agency for International Development, a State Department program that has been largely dismantled by the Trump administration, ended a program that helped other countries improve their fire monitoring capabilities.

A Planned E.U. Rule Has Coffee Growers in Ethiopia Scrambling

Farmers gathered ripe coffee cherries in the Sidama region of Ethiopia. Credit...Maheder Haileselassie/Reuters

 

The measure will require geolocation data to show that beans aren’t linked to deforestation. Farmers say they need more time to prepare.

 By Shola Lawal

Farmers in Africa that produce some of the world’s most prized coffee are in a scramble to comply with new European Union environmental rules that require them to document the origin of every shipment of beans.

The new measure, coming into force at the end of this year, is designed to prevent deforestation driven by agricultural expansion. To comply, farmers must provide geolocation data to show that their coffee was not grown on land where forests have recently been cut down.

After Dec. 31, any producers that cannot will lose access to the vast European market.

Europe consumes more coffee than any country or bloc in the world and experts say the new rule, formally known as the E.U. Deforestation Regulation, is a potentially powerful tool to promote sustainable agriculture and prevent forest destruction.

But it also represents what some are calling a “green squeeze” that imposes heavy burdens on millions of small farmers in developing countries that have contributed the least to climate change, and tests ability of policymakers to balance the needs of people and the needs of nature.

“Of course data is very important to us, but what we are just saying is we need support,” said Dejene Dadi, head of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union. “It’s very challenging and costly and we don’t have any help.”

Mr. Dadi said his group, the largest coffee growers’ cooperative in Ethiopia, with more than half a million members based in the central part of the country, probably could not prepare all its farms by the deadline without additional support.

Trainers have traversed the Oromia region for more than a year, collecting coordinates for maps and helping farmers with new technology. As of March, they had mapped 24,000 farms. European officials will verify shipments by cross-checking current geolocation data against base line satellite images and forest cover maps.

Mr. Dadi said the cost of mapping one farm was about $4.50. The cost of training is partly covered by a grant form the International Trade Center, a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization that was created to help poor countries expand trade.

Ethiopia is the top coffee producer in Africa, and the crop accounts for about 35 percent of the country’s revenue. The arabica variety, smooth and mild with fruity and nutty notes, originated in the country’s southwestern highlands. More than a third of Ethiopia’s coffee goes to Europe.

Coffee accounts for about 35 percent of the Ethiopia’s revenue.Credit...Syspeo/SIPA, via Shutterstock

 

 

According to a French government report last year, E.U. consumption is responsible for 44 percent of coffee-related deforestation worldwide. Another report, by the World Resources Institute, an environmental group, found that nearly two million hectares of forest cover had been replaced by coffee plantations between 2001 and 2025. Indonesia, Brazil and Peru recorded some of the highest deforestation rates in that period.

Global leaders pledged in 2021 at a climate summit in Glasgow to end deforestation by 2030. The agreement underscored a growing awareness of the role of nature in tackling the climate crisis. Intact forests are natural storehouses of planet-warming carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere, where, as carbon dioxide, it speeds warming by trapping the sun’s heat. When forests are cleared, those areas switch to releasing greenhouse gases. It also harms the forest’s biodiversity, its variety of life, by disrupting habitat.

The new E.U. rule also covers cattle, cocoa, palm oil, rubber and other crops. Coffee shipments without proper mapping data can be rejected or confiscated, and the importer can be fined.

But some experts say the measure is being implemented without the necessary support for farmers.

Jodie Keane, an economist at ODI Global, a research organization based in London, said the European Union and major coffee chains should do more to help small farmers.

“We all want to prevent deforestation,” Ms. Keane said. “But if you’re going to apply that standard to rural producers, you’re going to have to provide a lot of outreach, sensitization, you’re going to have to invest in learning how to do things differently so that they don’t just get dropped from the supply chain.”

Etelle Higonet, founder of Coffee Watch, a monitoring group, echoed that. “These are some of the richest companies in the world,” she said of European coffee chains. “Of course they could afford to do this.”

In an email, Johannes Dengler, a managing partner at Alois Dallmayr, one of the best-known coffee brands in Germany, acknowledged that the new rule was an “enormous challenge” for Ethiopia. He said Dallmayr was developing systems to assure compliance and was “working closely with our partners to find viable solutions.”

The office of the European Union commissioner for trade and economic security did not respond to requests for comment. In a news release on April 15 the bloc said that, based on feedback from partner countries, it had allocated 86 million euros, or about $97 million, to support compliance efforts.

Ethiopian coffee farmers take pride in their high-quality beans, a result of exceptional heirloom varieties, high altitudes and traditional farming practices.

In the southwestern Jimma Highlands, farmers like Zinabu Abadura say most growers follow a longstanding unwritten rule against cutting trees.

Mr. Abadura, who sells directly to informal middlemen, said his farm has not yet been mapped. Most farmers in his area live off their coffee proceeds and cannot afford disruptions or additional expenses. “Life will be difficult,” when the new European rule comes into force, he said.

Farm workers prepared coffee beans for roasting at a cooperative in Sidama.Credit...Maheder Haileselassie/Reuters

 

 

But while the new E.U. standards could reorder the Ethiopian coffee sector, analysts say, they probably will not halt sales.

Countries like China offer alternative, less-rigid markets. And Ethiopians themselves are big coffee drinkers. Hospitality is incomplete without a coffee ceremony, where hosts roast, grind and brew beans in front of their guests. About half of the country’s yearly coffee production stays at home.

But Tsegaye Anebo, who heads the Sidama Coffee Union, which represents 70,000 farmers, said pivoting to new markets would be disruptive in the short term. He noted that his region’s Sidamo variety, distinctive for its fruity tones, was a favorite in wealthy Europe. And that means premium prices.

Giving up on the E.U. market, he said, is not an option.

“We need the E.U.,” Mr. Anebo said. “But they also need us because they can’t find our coffee anywhere.”

Munira Abdelmenan contributed reporting.

Lei aprovada em Mato Grosso quer converter Amazônia em Cerrado; entenda. Estudo mostra que mudança liberaria 5,3 milhões de hectares para o desmatamento; deputado nega incentivo à derrubada de floresta.

 

Lei abre brecha para aumento do desmatamento no Mato Grosso, afirmam ambientalistas Foto: Tiago Queiroz/Estadão

Por Paula Ferreira

 

 

BRASÍLIA- Uma lei aprovada pela Assembleia Legislativa do Mato Grosso quer converter florestas antes consideradas pertencentes à Amazônia em vegetação classificada como do Cerrado. Caso a medida seja sancionada pelo governador Mauro Mendes (União), o porcentual de reserva legal, ou seja, a área onde o desmate é proibido, cairá de 80% para 35%. O texto foi aprovado na quarta-feira, 8, por 15 votos a 8.

Na prática, segundo ambientalistas, a mudança deixará uma área maior suscetível ao desmatamento. Isso porque com a queda do porcentual de reserva legal, produtores rurais poderão expandir suas áreas agrícolas sobre a vegetação.

 O projeto de lei complementar 18/2024 foi apresentado originalmente pelo Executivo, em maio do ano passado, para fazer um ajuste na escala de mapas utilizada como base pela Secretaria de Estado do Meio Ambiente para operar o Cadastro Ambiental Rural (CAR). O projeto, no entanto, sofreu diversas alterações durante a tramitação, o que acabou desfigurando a proposta.

O texto aprovado, de autoria do deputado Nininho (PSD), traz uma nova redação para a lei que cria definições para áreas que seriam classificadas como floresta, pertencentes ao bioma Amazônia, e as que seriam enquadradas como Cerrado.

 

O dispositivo diz que serão definidas como “floresta” as áreas com predominância de vegetação “com as médias de alturas totais a partir de 20 metros, e que apresentem indivíduos com alturas máximas entre 30 (trinta) e 50 (cinquenta) metros”. Já “as áreas com predominância de indivíduos com a média das alturas totais até 20 metros” serão classificadas como Cerrado.

O deputado Lúdio Cabral (PT) chegou a apresentar outro substitutivo para suprimir a redação e preservar a proposta original do Executivo, mas o texto não passou.

 

Milhões de hectares vulneráveis

Um estudo feito pelo Observatório Socioambiental de Mato Grosso afirma que a mudança permitiria o desmatamento de 5,2 milhões de hectares. Em nota, o Instituto de Pesquisa Ambiental da Amazônia (IPAM) cita o levantamento e classifica como “retrocesso” a aprovação da lei na assembleia. Segundo o Ipam, a perda de florestas acentua as mudanças climáticas.

“Estudos científicos já demonstraram que não é mais necessário derrubar nenhuma árvore para ter mais produtividade no campo. Em muitos casos, os ganhos podem dobrar ou até triplicar apenas restaurando áreas degradadas ou reutilizando pastos abandonados”, afirma no comunicado o diretor-executivo do Ipam, André Guimarães.

 

Após a repercussão negativa da lei, o deputado Nininho afirmou em nota publicada em seu site que a legislação proposta atende as exigências feitas pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal para identificação de biomas.

“O projeto não aumenta nem incentiva o desmatamento no Estado. Estamos adequando o que já foi decidido pelo STF e adotando dados mais precisos do IBGE, em conformidade com o projeto original enviado pelo próprio Governo do Estado”, argumentou no comunicado.

Procurado pelo Estadão neste sábado, 11, o deputado não se manifestou sobre o tema. A Secretaria de Estado de Meio Ambiente de Mato Grosso também não se posicionou até o momento. O espaço permanece à disposição.

 

 

Collapsing wildlife populations near ‘points of no return’, report warns

An orangutan in Sabah, where much of the forest has been cleared for palm oil. A study found 3,000 orangutans a year were being killed on Borneo’s palm oil plantations. Photograph: Alamy

 

Global wildlife populations have plunged by an average of 73% in 50 years, a new scientific assessment has found, as humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink of collapse.

Latin America and the Caribbean recorded the steepest average declines in recorded wildlife populations, with a 95% fall, according to the WWF and the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) biennial Living Planet report. They were followed by Africa with 76%, and Asia and the Pacific at 60%. Europe and North America recorded comparatively lower falls of 35% and 39% respectively since 1970.

Scientists said this was explained by much larger declines in wildlife populations in Europe and North America before 1970 that were now being replicated in other parts of the world. They warned that the loss could quicken in future years as global heating accelerates, triggered by tipping points in the Amazon rainforest, Arctic and marine ecosystems, which could have catastrophic consequences for nature and human society.

Anta, Mata Atlântica - Brazil

 Matthew Gould, ZSL’s chief executive, said the report’s message was clear: “We are dangerously close to tipping points for nature loss and climate change. But we know nature can recover, given the opportunity, and that we still have the chance to act.”

 

The figures, known as the Living Planet Index, are made up of almost 35,000 population trends from 5,495 birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles species around the world, and have become one of the leading indicators of the global state of wildlife populations. In recent years, the metric has faced criticism for potentially overestimating wildlife declines.

The index is weighted in favour of data from Africa and Latin America, which have suffered larger declines but have far less reliable information about populations. This has had the effect of driving a dramatic top line of global collapse despite information from Europe and North America showing less dramatic falls.

Hannah Wauchope, an ecology lecturer at Edinburgh University, said: “The weighting of the Living Planet Index is imperfect, but until we have systematic sampling of biodiversity worldwide, some form of weighting will be necessary. What we do know is that as habitat destruction and other threats to biodiversity continue, there will continue to be declines.”

Critics question the mathematical soundness of the index’s approach, but acknowledge that other indicators also show major declines in the state of many wildlife populations around the world.

Brazilian rainforest in Humaitá. The report identifies land-use change driven by agriculture as the most important cause of the fall in wildlife populations. Photograph: Adriano Machado/Reuters

 

In a critique of the index published by Springer Nature in June, scientists said it “suffers from several mathematical and statistical issues, leading to a bias towards an apparent decrease even for balanced populations”.

They continued: “This does not mean that in reality there is no overall decrease in vertebrate populations [but the] current phase of the Anthropocene [epoch] is characterised by more complex changes than … simple disappearance.”

The IUCN’s Red List, which has assessed the health of more than 160,000 plant and animal species, has found that almost a third are at risk of extinction. Of those assessed, 41% of amphibians, 26% of mammals and 34% of conifer trees are at risk of disappearing.

The index has been published days ahead of the Cop16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, where countries will meet for the first time since agreeing on a set of international targets to halt the freefall of life on Earth. Governments have never met a single biodiversity target in the history of UN agreements and scientists are urging world leaders to make sure this decade is different.

Susana Muhamad, Cop16 president and Colombia’s environment minister, said: “We must listen to science and take action to avoid collapse.

“Globally, we are reaching points of no return and irreversibly affecting the planet’s life-support systems. We are seeing the effects of deforestation and the transformation of natural ecosystems, intensive land use and climate change.

“The world is witnessing the mass bleaching of coral reefs, the loss of tropical forests, the collapse of polar ice caps and serious changes to the water cycle, the foundation of life on our planet,” she said.

Land-use change was the most important driver of the fall in wildlife populations as agricultural frontiers expanded, often at the expense of ecosystems such as tropical rainforests. Mike Barrett, director of science and conservation at WWF-UK, said countries such as the UK were driving the destruction by continuing to import food and livestock feed grown on previously wild ecosystems.

“The data that we’ve got shows that the loss was driven by a fragmentation of natural habitats. What we are seeing through the figures is an indicator of a more profound change that is going on in our natural ecosystems … they are losing their resilience to external shocks and change. We are now superimposing climate change on these already degraded habitats,” said Barrett.

“I have been involved in writing these reports for 10 years and, in writing this one, it was difficult. I was shocked,” he said.

Deforestation ‘roaring back’ despite 140-country vow to end destruction

 

Bird’s eye view of tropical rainforest deforestation. Indonesia’s deforestation alone spiked by 57% in a year, the report says. Photograph: WhitcombeRD/Getty/iStockPhoto

 Demand for beef, soy, palm oil and nickel hindering efforts to halt demolition by 2030, global report finds

 The destruction of global forests increased in 2023, and is higher than when 140 countries promised three years ago to halt deforestation by the end of the decade, an analysis shows.

The rising demolition of the forests puts ambitions to halt the climate crisis and stem the huge worldwide losses of wildlife even further from reach, the researchers warn.

Almost 6.4m hectares (16m acres) of forest were razed in 2023, according to the report. Even more forest – 62.6m ha – was degraded as road building, logging and forest fires took their toll. There were spikes in deforestation in Indonesia and Bolivia, driven by political changes and continued demand for commodities including beef, soy, palm oil, paper and nickel in rich countries.

The researchers said attempts at voluntary cuts on deforestation were not working and strong regulation and more funding for forest protection were needed.

Amazon Rainforest Deforestation

Amazon Rainforest Deforestation

 

The report highlighted a bright spot in the Brazilian Amazon, where President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s new government cut deforestation by 62% in its first year.

“The bottom line is that, globally, deforestation has gotten worse, not better, since the beginning of the decade,” said Ivan Palmegiani, a consultant at the research group Climate Focus and lead author of the report.

“We’re only six years away from a critical global deadline to end deforestation, and forests continue to be chopped down, degraded, and set ablaze at alarming rates,” he said. “Righting the course is possible if all countries make it a priority, and especially if industrialised countries seriously reconsider their excessive consumption levels and support forest countries.”

Erin D Matson, a senior consultant at Climate Focus and co-author of the report, said: “When the right conditions are in place, countries see major progress. The next year, if economic or political conditions change, forest loss can come roaring back. We’re seeing this effect in the spiking deforestation in Indonesia and Bolivia. Ultimately, to meet global forest protection targets, we must make forest protection immune to political and economic whims.”

Aerial view of reforestation. Most countries backed the 2030 zero deforestation pledge at the UN Cop26 climate summit in 2021. Photograph: Jose Luis Raota/Getty Images

 

Most countries backed the 2030 zero deforestation pledge at the UN Cop26 climate summit in 2021. The 2024 forest declaration assessment, produced by a coalition of research and civil society organisations, assessed progress towards the goal using a baseline of the average deforestation between 2018 and 2020. It found progress was significantly off track, with the level of deforestation in 2023 almost 50% higher than steady progress towards zero would require.

Matson said: “Indonesia’s deforestation alone spiked by 57% in one year. This was in large part attributable to surging global demand for things like paper and mined metals like nickel.

“But it’s also clear that the Indonesian government took its foot off the gas. It experienced the steepest drop in deforestation of any tropical country from 2015-17 and 2020-22, so we have to hope that this setback is only temporary.” In 2023, Indonesia produced half the world’s nickel, a metal used in many green technologies.

“Brazil gives us an example of positive progress [in the Amazon] but deforestation in the Cerrado [tropical savanna] increased 68% year over year,” she said.

 

Amazon

Amazon

The country has also been ravaged by forest fires that are being made more likely and intense by the climate crisis. The report found that about 45m ha have burned in the past five years.

Other countries that made progress towards the 2030 deforestation target included Australia, Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela and Vietnam. Outside the tropics, temperate forests in North America and Latin America recorded the greatest absolute levels of deforestation.

The researchers said funding for forest protection, strengthening the land rights of Indigenous people and reducing demand for commodities produced via deforestation were needed.

The EU has proposed ambitious regulations that would ban the sales of products linked to deforestation, such as coffee, chocolate, leather and furniture. However, on 3 October, the European Commission proposed a one-year delay “to phase in the system” after protests from countries including Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Ivory Coast.

Matson said: “This pushback is largely driven by political pressures, and it’s a shame. We can’t rely on voluntary efforts – they have made very little progress over the last decade.”