Peatlands urgently need to be restored for UK to meet emissions targets

The headline goal of the UK’s peatland strategy – a framework published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that sets out how to improve UK peatlands – is simple, yet ambitious. The aim is for 20,000km² (2 million hectares) of UK peatland to be kept in good condition, restored or sustainably managed by 2040.

Yet, with approximately 30,000km² (3 million hectares) of these soggy ecosystems forming a complex mosaic across the UK’s four nations, 80% of it in poor condition, this is a monumental task. Five years after its launch in 2018, the experts behind the IUCN’s UK peatland programme have been reflecting on the progress.

Peat forms where wet and oxygen-limited soil conditions slow the decay of dead vegetation. This builds up over thousands of years leading to thick accumulations of organic matter, or peat. Given the continuing climate emergency, it is imperative that the carbon this contains is kept in the ground and out of the atmosphere where it will contribute to climate change.

However, land use practices over the last century have deeply drained the UK’s peatlands, destroying the waterlogged and oxygen-free conditions that preserve them and releasing the equivalent of 20 million tonnes of CO₂ each year.

Peat restoration is an important nature-based solution that can mitigate climate change and will be an essential part of reaching the UK’s legally binding emissions targets.

By restoring the UK’s peatlands, we avoid further emissions and, in time, convert them back into carbon sinks. Not only that, peatland restoration restores important functions of the ecosystem that help to reduce flood risk, clean water and improve biodiversity.

There are some reasons for optimism. Peat restoration began in the 1990s but has been rapidly accelerating in the last decade, largely focusing on raising water tables to restore low-oxygen conditions.

Around 2,550km² (255,000 hectares) of restoration have been completed. Despite problems in collating reliable data, a preliminary milestone of “1 million hectares in good condition by 2020” has probably been achieved. However, this number includes the best peatlands, which had never been extremely degraded and required little intervention.

Peatlands are finally being recognised in policy. Scotland, England and Wales all now have national peatland strategies that drive restoration of each unique landscape. And progress has been made in legislating against the effect of peat burning, with all burning on deep peat banned in England since 2021 and unlicensed burning on Scottish peatlands set to be implemented from 2025.

The peatlands of Scotland’s Flow Country, the world’s largest and most intact expanse of blanket bog, was recently designated a Unesco world heritage site.

peat cut on peatland, left out to dry
Peat turf cut and left to dry on a wetland in the Scottish Highlands.
DrimaFilm/Shutterstock

The way that peatland landscapes are being managed is advancing too. Paludiculture, a way of farming that allows groundwater to remain near the surface, has been a success in Europe and recent trials have shown promise in the UK.

This wetter farming could produce sustainable construction materials and biofuels with crops like bulrushes or reeds and wetland food crops like cranberry, celery and watercress. It could help convert intensive grasslands to wet meadows that can be grazed by carefully chosen breeds of cows or even water buffalo.

Although not ready to be widely implemented, recent trials suggest that this could be key to UK land management in the future.

Despite all this attention, there has been limited progress towards most key areas of the peatland strategy, with both conservation of the best peatlands and restoration of the others falling well below target levels. Indeed, the UK government’s climate change committee consider progress to be “significantly off-track”.

In this latest report, the IUCN UK peatland team says: “The progress we talk about in our report has been made across the whole of the UK since the 1990s.” Scotland, for example, needs to complete as much restoration in only ten years as they have in the last 30. They have scaled up – just nowhere near enough.

Shortfalls and long-term goals

So why, with all this effort and goodwill, are we still falling short? Funding is a problem.

It is widely accepted that public funding will not deliver the estimated £8-22 billion needed to restore all peatlands, but private financing schemes like carbon credits are in their infancy.

There are still no universally agreed definitions of either “peatland” or “restoration”, so eligibility for the various environmental schemes that allow landowners to fund restoration is confusing and off-putting.

Even where restoration can overcome these limitations, there is no centralised way to record the progress in transforming peatlands and very little capacity for the long-term monitoring needed to show whether particular projects are being successful. So tracking progress is near impossible.

Most frustratingly, despite collectively investing £318 million in peat restoration projects, no government has banned the extraction of peat and the long-promised ban on peat sales for horticulture has not materialised anywhere in the UK.

Although progress has been slow, the capacity and knowledge built over these last five years is huge. There has never been such awareness of a need to protect and restore our peatlands, so many people available with the right skills to do it and so much political will and public or private funding to carry it out.

There are many reasons progress has been slow but, with the right funding and legislation, the progress made in the last five years can be accelerated and two million hectares of healthy UK peat may still be possible by 2040.

Now that the UN’s climate summit, Cop29 in Azerbaijan, is over, it is clearer than ever that almost every peat-containing nation in the world is grappling with the same trade-offs. Just as we are debating how to raise water tables in Somerset without ending hundreds of years of dairy farming, south-east Asian countries struggle to reduce emissions from their vast regions of degraded agricultural peatland while still sustaining populations with enormous requirements for rice.

Keeping peat in wet ground, from Scottish peat bogs to the rice paddies of China, is one of the most cost-effective ways of keeping greenhouse gas emissions down, and we need to preserve and restore as much of it as possible.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Dr Casey Bryce, Senior Lecturer, School of Earth Sciences, University of BristolThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Casey Bryce

 

African penguins could be extinct by 2035 – how to save them

African penguin on a beach
African penguin. Photo by Taryn Elliott via Pexels.

In October 2024, the African penguin became the first penguin species in the world to be listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

This is a sad record for Africa’s only penguin, and means it is now just one step away from extinction.

How did this happen? African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) are found only in Namibia and South Africa. Their numbers have been declining since the 1800s. At that time, they were burnt in ships’ boilers, their eggs were harvested and consumed as a delicacy, and their nests were destroyed by guano-harvesters seeking a rich source of fertiliser.

Such activities are fortunately no longer allowed. African penguins have been protected under South Africa’s Sea Birds and Seals Protection Act since 1973 (and more recently under the Marine Threatened or Protected Species Regulations since 2017).

These laws and regulations ban the capture of penguins or their eggs, and any intentional harm done to them. Fertilisers no longer use guano (penguin excrement). After egg and guano harvesting stopped, the lack of prey (small fish like sardines and anchovies) became the main issue for penguins from the early 2000s.

The impacts of climate change on the distribution and abundance of their food, and competition with industrial fisheries, have contributed to a 70% reduction in this penguin’s population between 2000 and 2024.

We are a group of scientists from universities and non-governmental organisations that have, for years, focused on solutions to save the African penguin. Today, unless the South African government takes urgent steps to protect the African penguin, it will likely become extinct in the wild by 2035. At present there are fewer than 20,000 birds left in the wild.

Penguins are like the canaries in the coal mine. They are disappearing because the ecosystem they rely on, together with many other species, including fish targeted by commercial fisheries, is in dire straits. By saving them, we protect their ecosystem and the other species that rely on it.

Penguins are also valuable to the economy, bringing in revenue from tourism.

What’s worked for the penguin so far

The destruction of African penguins’ nesting habitat over the centuries has been partly repaired by setting up artificial nests in penguin colonies. New research has found that these improve the number of penguin eggs that hatch by 16.5% compared to natural surface or bush nests which remain vulnerable to the elements.

Steps to protect the African penguins’ food supply also worked. One step was the experimental “no-take zones”, where the South African government prohibited fishing around the penguins’ breeding areas between 2008 and 2019.

The government closed commercial fishing of sardines and anchovies in a 20km radius around Robben Island on the west coast and St Croix Island in Algoa Bay for three years. During this time, commercial fishing around the neighbouring penguin colonies of Dassen Island and Bird Island was still permitted. The closure was alternated every three years until 2019 to see if it affected the penguin populations.

The results were positive. Penguins were able to catch fish with less effort and their chicks’ health and survival rates improved. The population increased by about 1% – a small increase, but very important, considering they were already endangered.

In parallel, the African Penguin Biodiversity Management Plan was published in 2013. The plan focused on managing predators, such as Cape fur seals and kelp gulls, and rescuing abandoned eggs and chicks. Thousands of individual penguins were saved and released into the wild over the years.

What has gone wrong for the penguin

Despite these efforts, the African penguin population fell faster from the mid-2010s. This was mostly due to the sudden collapse of the colony at St Croix Island, then the world’s largest African penguin colony.

This collapse coincided with the establishment of ship-to-ship bunkering activities (refuelling ships at sea rather than in ports) in Algoa Bay in 2016. While the ships were refuelling, four oil spills occurred.

Ship-to-ship bunkering also increased underwater noise pollution due to a ten-fold increase of maritime traffic in the bay.

Our previous research has revealed that African penguins are highly sensitive to underwater noise. Noise from ships or drilling equipment chases penguins away from their feeding grounds.

This also uses up the African penguins’ energy, often at a time when they have none to spare. Penguins need energy reserves before starting their annual moult, when they stay ashore for three weeks without eating to replace all their feathers. If they don’t find enough food before or after that stressful period, they die.

Can the African penguin be saved?

The experimental use of no-take zones in penguin breeding areas ended in 2019. A panel of international experts was then appointed by the South African government to review the experiment and suggest a way forward.

The panel said no-take zones should be put in place around all colonies. They recommended ways to balance the benefit to penguins against the cost to fisheries.

But the government departed from the panel’s recommendations and put in place fishing closures aimed at minimising economic losses to fisheries, and not conserving penguins. For example, they closed down fishing in some areas where penguins don’t hunt for fish.

In March 2024, the non-profit organisation BirdLife South Africa and the South African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds, represented by the Biodiversity Law Centre, asked the Pretoria high court to review and set aside the Minister of Fisheries, Forestry and Environment’s August 2023 decision on fishing closures around key African penguin breeding colonies. The case is still underway.

Meanwhile, bunkering in Algoa Bay has stopped temporarily after the South African Revenue Service detained five ships in September 2023 on allegations of breaching customs laws.

Subsequently, small increases in the St Croix Island penguin population have been seen for the first time in nearly ten years.

African penguins can bounce back when environmental conditions are good. Government and non-governmental organisations have worked hard to prevent various threats to penguins. But critical work remains to be done to protect their foraging habitat (the ocean around their colonies) from polluting activities.

Penguins also need protection from competition with industrial fisheries for fish supplies.

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This blog is by Lorien Pichegru, Adjunct professor, Nelson Mandela University; Alistair McInnes, Research Associate, Nelson Mandela University; Katrin Ludynia, Honorary Research Associate and Research Manager at SANCCOB, University of Cape Town, and Peter Barham, Professor emeritus, University of Bristol. Dr Lauren Waller of the Endangered Wildlife Trust contributed to this article.The Conversation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tiny oceanic plankton adapted to warming during the last ice age, but probably won’t survive future climate change – new study

Phytoplankton

Global temperature records are expected to exceed the 1.5 °C threshold for the first time this year. This has happened much sooner than predicted. So can life on the planet adapt quickly enough?

In our new research, published today in Nature, we explored the ability of tiny marine organisms called plankton to adapt to global warming. Our conclusion: some plankton are less able to adapt now than they were in the past.

Plankton live in the top few metres of ocean. These algae (phytoplankton) and animals (zooplankton) are transported by ocean currents as they do not actively swim.

Climate change is increasing the frequency of heatwaves in the sea. But predicting the future effects of climate change is difficult because some projections depend on ocean physics and chemistry, while others consider the effects on ecosystems and their services.

Some data suggest that current climate change have already altered the marine plankton dramatically. Models project a shift of plankton towards both poles (where ocean temperatures are cooler), and losses to zooplankton in the tropics but might not predict the patterns we see in data. Satellite data for plankton biomass are still too short term to determine trends through time.

To overcome these problems, we have compared how plankton responded to past environmental change and modelled how they could respond to future climate changes. As the scientist Charles Lyell said, “the past is the key to the present”.

We explored one of the best fossil records from a group of marine plankton with hard shells called Foraminifera. This comprehensive database of current and past distributions, compiled by researchers at the University of Bremen, has been collected by hundreds of scientists from the seafloor across the globe since the 1960s. We compared data from the last ice age, around 21,000 years ago, and modern records to see what happened when the world has previously warmed.

We used computational models, which combine climate trends with traits of marine plankton and their effect on marine plankton, to simulate the oceanic ecosystems from the last ice age to the pre-industrial age. Comparing the model with the data from the fossil record is giving us support that the model simulated the rules determining plankton growth and distribution.

We found that some subtropical and tropical species’ optimum temperature for peak growth and reproduction could deal with seawater warming in the past, supported by both fossil data and model. Colder water species of plankton managed to drift to flourish under more favourable water temperatures.

Our analysis shows that Foraminifera could handle the natural climate change, even without the need to adapt via evolution. But could they deal with the current warming and future changes in ocean conditions, such as temperature?

Future of the food chain

We used this model to predict the future under four different degrees of warming from 1.5 to 4 °C. Unfortunately, this type of plankton’s ability to deal with climate change is much more limited than it was during past warming. Our study highlights the difference between faster human-induced and slower-paced geological warming for marine plankton. Current climate change is too rapid and is reducing food supply due to ocean stratification, both making plankton difficult to adapt to this time.

Phytoplankton produce around 50% of the world’s oxygen. So every second breath we take comes from marine algae, while the rest comes from plants on land. Some plankton eat other plankton. That in turn gets eaten by fish and then marine mammals, so energy transfers further up the food chain. As it photosynthesises, phytoplankton is also a natural carbon fixation machine, storing 45 times more carbon than the atmosphere.

Around the world, many people depend heavily on food from the ocean as their primary protein sources. When climate change threatens marine plankton, this has huge knock-on effects throughout the rest of the marine food web. Plankton-eating marine mammals like whales won’t have enough food to prey on and there’ll be fewer fish to eat for predators (and people). Reducing warming magnitude and slowing down the warming rate are necessary to protect ocean health.

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This blog is written by Rui Ying, Postdoctoral Researcher, Marine Ecology, and Daniela Schmidt, Professor in Palaebiology, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Rui Ying
Rui Ying
Daniela Schmidt
Daniela Schmidt

Reducing the reliance of traditional fuels in informal settlements

The pilot of a community kitchen in Portee-Rokupa, Freetown, Sierra Leone

There is political controversary around the total population of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The 2021 mid-term Population and Housing census noted a significant decrease in Freetown’s population which has subsequently been challenged by the mayor and other leading stakeholders. Statistics vary from 600,000 to 1.35million. Regardless, it is estimated that 36% of the city’s population live within densely populated informal settlements scattered across Freetown’s eastern peninsula. These communities, not too dissimilar to other low-income settlements across the city, and indeed other densely populated urban centres, are often located in geographically vulnerable areas and prone to increased hazards, risks and disasters.

It is in the informal settlement of Portee Rokupa where researchers from the University of Bristol have been working since 2021 (Figure 1). The ESRC funded ‘Beyond the Networked City’ project (grant number:  ES/T007656/1) is a collaboration between the University of Bristol, Loughborough University, Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC), Makerere University, and the University of Cape Town that seeks to further understand urban service delivery of key infrastructure such as water, sanitation and energy in Freetown and Kampala. In close partnership with SLURC, over 360 households in Portee Rokupa were surveyed on their energy services such as electricity and cooking.

Map of Portee Rokupa, Freetown
Figure 1: Map of Portee Rokupa, Freetown

In Portee Rokupa, like most of these communities, their residents, mainly women and young girls, carry out the daily task of cooking. Cooking, whether for personal consumption or income generating purposes, is usually prepared using traditional biomass fuels such as charcoal with basic, inefficient metal stoves called coal pots (Figure 2). The use of traditional coal pot stoves are contributors to air pollution and environmental degradation affecting health of users and local forest cover.

A stereotypical charcoal coal pot used in Freetown
Figure 2: A stereotypical charcoal coal pot used in Freetown

Working closely with the residents and community actors in Portee Rokupa, there is an overwhelming desire to transition to cleaner cooking solutions, but there are challenges around accessibility, availability, finance, and imposed knowledge that hinders the sustainable uptake of ‘clean’ cookstoves. Whilst trying to further understand what could be done to improve their cooking service delivery, the idea for a communal cooking space, which offers a range of cooking technologies, to be used on a pay-as-you basis, was both desirable and aspirational for the community.

SLURC project managed the community kitchen project whilst also facilitating community dialogue to ensure that residents themselves were part of the design and construction, and management of the kitchen. They also fostered new and existing partnerships with key stakeholders including the Government Technical Institute (GTI), the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC), and Afrigas, a national LPG supplier. What started as ad-hoc discussions around the need to improve cooking service delivery within informal settlements, turned into the creation of the Platform for Energy Safety, innovation, and Access Consortium (PESIA), a call to action for stakeholders to further understand the cooking needs of residents living in informal settlements.

To ensure long-term sustainability of the kitchen, community members were selected to become community Energy Champions and were trained by the above stakeholders on the use, maintenance, finance and safety of different cooking technologies that would enable them to provide tailored support in the community kitchen as well as broader advice around energy choices within the community. The community were involved at every stage of the project from kitchen design, choice of location, selection of preferred stoves and fuels as well as overall kitchen management. For example, because Portee Rokupa is predominantly a fishing community, the desire for larger stoves and ovens that would help smoke, preserve and process fish was something residents regularly communicated. The community kitchen does not only provide access to improved cooking facilities, but also serves as a hub for broader community interaction, something that is of importance to the community.

Training of Energy Champions
Figure 3: Training of Energy Champions

So, what has the Community Kitchen achieved? Since it’s official launch in May 2024 (Figure 4), the pilot has received significant attention within Freetown, especially on social media channels and within local news outlets. Management of the kitchen has been fully handed over to the community and energy champions who have elected a chairwoman and a chairman who will oversee the use of the kitchen and be responsible for financial accountability. Residents of Portee Rokupa are now regularly using the kitchen facilities, not only for their mealtime cooking, but for community events such as parties and weddings, and local entrepreneurs are using the kitchen for productive uses such as food preparation, fish smoking and soap making.

The broader impact of this initiative extends beyond the immediate benefits of access to cleaner, more efficient cooking solutions. The kitchen is now an official vendor of Afrigas bottles, bringing a consistent supply of LPG to the community for the first time. Community buy-in, consistent dialogue, co-creation of kitchen design and the training of energy champions has fostered a sense of ownership and responsibility, encouraging them to advocate for and implement sustainable practices within their communities. This grassroots approach has also extended into other informal communities such as Susan’s Bay and Dwazark where energy champions are spreading their knowledge to ensure households are more aware of different cooking options available rather than solely relying on traditional ways of cooking. The Portee-Rokupa community kitchen was a pilot initiative driven by a community desire to have access to alternative cooking services. It is now forging its way as a beacon of knowledge, empowerment and sustainability. It demonstrates how targeted training and community engagement can drive significant changes, paving the way for a more sustainable and resilient future for all. As these Energy Champions continue their work, they are not just transforming kitchens; they are transforming lives and building a brighter, greener future for their communities.

Cooking in the community kitchen
Figure 4: Cooking in the community kitchen on launch day, May 2024

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This blog is written by Amadu Kamara Labor and Dora Vangahun from Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, Freetown, Sierra Leone; and Charlotte Ray and Sam Williamson from the School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Energy Management Research Group, University of Bristol.

The background research behind this work was funded by the ESRC through grant ES/T007656/1, Beyond the Networked City: Building innovative delivery systems for water, sanitation and energy in urban Africa. The Community Kitchen was funded by a joint EPSRC/ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award, grant numbers EP/X525674/1 ES/X004392/1.

Breaking down ‘the beef’: Unpacking British animal farmers’ attitudes towards veganism

In recent years, plant-based diets have spiked across the UK. These trends are accompanied by increased discussions about consumption choices, in which vegans and livestock farmers are often depicted as rivals in a highly polarised public debate. Debates often centre on the modern meat industry, predominately criticised for its exploitative animal husbandry and/or its unsustainable farming practices. As livestock farmers’ activities are placed under the microscope, are their reputations falling in respectability?

Attempts have been made to improve communication between farmers and consumers, addressing a so called urban-rural ‘disconnect’. The thought goes that when communication is poor between these parties, polarization and stereotypes are given greater space to thrive. This issue became the springboard for my project. As veganism’s objections to animal farming are well-documented, I wanted to hear more from UK farmers’ themselves about their relatively unheard views on veganism.

Research realities

The nature of this study called for qualitative research: semi-structured interviews aiming to gain detailed, ‘close-up’ information on farmers’ lived experiences. With resources limited, my participants comprised of 12 British meat and dairy farmers, allowing me to explore sheep, cattle and pig farms of different shapes-and-sizes.

Although UK farming communities are recognised as an especially hard-to-reach demographic for research engagement, I was able to utilize my ‘insider’ status to secure a high response rate. Whilst I am from a farming background, I am also a vegetarian: an ‘outsider’ dietary choice that is frequently met with negativity in the agricultural world.

 

Spatial distribution of interviewees across the UK
Spatial distribution of interviewees across the UK

Farmers’ ‘issues’

The livestock farmers I interviewed expressed two broad issues with veganism. The first issue spoke of the ‘urban disconnect’ from everyday, rural cultures and lifestyles on the farm. Farmers cast vegans as estranged ‘city people’ who therefore create misconceptions about farming practices. Speaking of artificial insemination, one farmer with a micro-dairy explained that animal rights activists are “just totally wrong” by commonly naming AI as “raping a cow”. He named these claims as an “anthropocentrism […] [The cows are] not in any distress with it […] The idea that it goes against the will of the cow is just incorrect” (Farmer J).

Farmers also saw veganism’s disconnection from the realities of livestock farming as leaving no scope for there to be any positive kind of relationships between farmer and animal. Things like

sheep running through the field […] the farmer helping a ewe give birth […] The kind of joyful sides of it […] If a farmer says: ‘but no, there’s a relationship and it’s like a symbiotic thing’, it’s like ‘fuck off is it symbiotic, it’s the most exploitative relationship possible’ (Mixed livestock farmer).

In general, farmers spoke of complicated and intimate farmer-animal relationships. Whilst acknowledging that livestock are kept for economic purposes, they felt that animals can equally shape ways of being in the world for farmers. They believed that most vegans failed to recognise this, only having the scope to consider the worst bits of livestock farming. In other words, they see “the end product, and the end product is death”.

Secondly, many farmers problematised veganism as an unsuitable paradigm for UK agriculture to holistically follow:

I think that veganism is still just as dependent on the worst bits of our food system, as in the agro chemistries […] I think it’s just as dependent on all of these, but it has falsely blamed animals as the consequence of the environmental degradation (Sheep farmer).

Situated in the no-meat/pro-meat debate, many farmers I spoke with joined the rising number of people championing small-scale, naturalistic animal farming. Contrary to veganism, they saw livestock — extensively managed — as necessary for any healthy, farmed ecosystem. This mirrors one micro-dairy farmers’ discussion on the reintegration of livestock onto degraded arable land:

There could be a really important role for livestock on repairing arable lands that could also help with transitioning away from artificial fertilizers and heavy use of fossil fuels in arable.

Overall, farmers critiqued veganism for failing to recognise the damage that conventional farming practices elicit, whilst promoting a singularly negative view of animal farming. They named the movement responsible for the successful “demonizing of cows”, claiming instead that it’s not the cow, it’s the how.

A less politically charged takeaway, however, is the idea that the UK’s fundamentally unsustainable food system is not being challenged by veganism. Farmers spoke about the need to reform the UK’s import-culture, in which only 55% of our food is home-grown. One believed that an ethical diet can’t be based on “unjust global structures either” as, for example, “problems [are] being caused for Mexican people by [the UK] importing so many avocados”.

Farmers felt that veganism falsely implies that ‘the food system is fine, just as long as customers do the correct thing and don’t eat animal produce’. Instead, many prefer to aspire towards a system that they felt does address deeper food system issues, such as a ‘farm-gate to plate’ model of local, agroecologically produced food.

Livestock farmers praise veganism

However, to focus solely on livestock farmers’ issues with veganism would paint a false image of what was said. Most farmers interviewed defended certain aspects of veganism, with a minority actively praising the movement:

So, where I think they do [understand the realities of livestock farming] is the […] refusal to look away from the bad aspects, from the dirtier aspects or the bloodier aspects of livestock farming […] I think a lot of meat-eaters just totally disavow that as if it doesn’t exist […] So I think vegans understand sometimes the realities of eating meat more than meat-eaters (Sheep farmer).

Here, this farmer approved of veganism for encouraging animal welfare debates. This reveals veganism’s potentially positive role in farmers’ eyes, overcoming some of the romantic ignorance about primary food production that persists in the UK. These welfare discussions often led to farmers passionately claiming that, as a nation, we need to drastically reduce our meat consumption, naming it “quite frightening” that meat consumption continues to rise “even with the vegan movement”.

Unlike existing narratives — casting vegans and livestock farmers as opposites — many farmers in my study sympathised with veganism’s goals. When discussing vegans’ decisions to eschew animal produce, one sheep farmer even said: “I totally get it and I certainly get the point where I don’t want to kill it because it’s beautiful”. These results reveal novel connections between two seemingly polarised groups. One mixed-livestock farmer even claimed that “for people to make a stance and make a decision, I applaud that”.

Farmers’ perspectives will always be diverse and complex. Nonetheless, there was a strong sense that many farmers are feeling that, within the realm of consumption, ignorance may just lie in focusing too much on what we eat, and not enough on the environment in which our food is from.

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This blog was written by Sophie Wise, a postgraduate student in Sociology (with a study abroad) at the University of Bristol.

Fresh reflection on COP 16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity

Margherita Pieraccini and Naomi Millner at COP16. Sat down and holding a block representing the SDGs,
Margherita Pieraccini and Naomi Millner at COP16.

As 2024 is drawing to a close, Conferences of the Parties (COPs) of three major Multilateral Environmental Agreements are happening in close succession: COP 16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was held between end of October and the beginning of November, COP 29 of the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is happening in mid-November, and COP 16 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification will take place in early December.

Although exploring the synergies between these three COPs is of great importance and their close temporal proximity this year facilitates such discussion, I will focus solely on the CBD COP 16 as I had the opportunity to attend it in person as a University of Bristol academic observer.

CBD COP 16, held in Cali, Colombia started on the 21st of October and was due to end on the 1st of November. Negotiations overrun until the morning of the 2nd of November but they were suspended as the quorum was lost, leaving discussions on some key issues such as the strategy for resource mobilization to be resumed at a later date.

As biodiversity COPs are held biannually, COP 16 was the first COP since the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) at COP 15 in 2022. No one was expecting the negotiation of another major agreement at COP 16, with the key issue being the implementation of the GBF framework.

An introduction to the GBF

Differently from the Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC, the GBF is not legally binding.  Nevertheless, given that the boundary between binding and non-binding instruments in international environmental law is not always so clear-cut, the GBF has a central role in directing biodiversity law and policy. The GBF is a largely aspirational goal and target-oriented instrument. It contains four Goals to ‘live in harmony with nature’ by 2050 and 23 global Targets for 2030, split into three categories, namely ‘reducing threats to biodiversity’, ‘meeting people’s needs through sustainable use and benefit-sharing’ and ‘tools and solutions for implementation and mainstreaming’.  The Targets have different degrees of ‘quantifiability’, impacting also on Parties’ strategies and methodologies of implementation.

For example, the well- known ‘30 by 30’ target (Target 3) sets the threshold of 30% of the coverage of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) in terrestrial and inland water areas as well as marine and coastal areas to be reached by 2030. In contrast, Target 5, which still falls within the first category of ‘reducing threats to biodiversity’, is framed using a more general language: ‘ensure that the use, harvesting and trade of wild species is sustainable, safe and legal, preventing overexploitation, minimizing impacts on non-target species and ecosystems, and reducing the risk of pathogen spillover, applying the ecosystem approach, while respecting and protecting customary sustainable use by indigenous peoples and local communities.’

There are not only differences between Targets but the wordings of individual Targets themselves is sometimes contradictory, making for complex implementation as conflicting directions are suggested. For example, Target 16 pushes for the marketisation of nature, encouraging the private sector to invest in biodiversity and employing uncritically the language of green bonds and payments for ecosystem services, whilst, at the same, promoting the role of ‘Mother Earth centric action and non-market approaches’. Even if not all targets are rife with internal contradictions, other internal differences may exist, with some objectives expressed in a qualitative rather than a quantitative manner or by reference to concepts that lack unified legal definitions. This makes it more difficult to devise specific indicators, with the consequence that Parties will likely concentrate on the objectives requiring easier interpretative skills. For example, going back to the ‘30 by 30’ Target 3, the quantitative component is followed by references to ‘equitably governed systems’, which could mean very different things to different regulatory actors and there is still much work to be done on the identification of OECMs.

It should be recalled that this is not the first time the CBD employs the language of Targets and Goals. Notably, the CBD Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 included the Aichi Biodiversity Targets structured around 5 strategic goals, though most were not achieved and few partially achieved, as reported in the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5. COP 16’s focus on implementation was therefore crucial to avoid historical failures repeating themselves in 2030.

The spaces and voices of COP 16

COPs are notoriously busy and chaotic events. COP 16 of the CBD did indeed feel busy, with many side events happening simultaneously and in parallel to the formal negotiations of the two Working Groups and plenaries, as well as press conferences and Pavilion events. It was also the largest-ever CBD COP with some 23,000 registered delegates. Yet, the Conference Centre that hosted COP 16 in Cali was very capacious and the horizontal disposition of the spaces facilitated inter-ethnic, inter-generational, inter-disciplinary and of course inter-jurisdictional discussions under a Colombian sky often veiled by clouds.

It was a pleasant surprise to witness the high representation of youth, as well as indigenous peoples and local communities advocating for their rights and the rights of nature, though one may wonder if this was primarily due to the fact that COP 16 was organised in South America where the question of who is indigenous and who is not is not as contested as in other continents (such as Africa) and where youth environmental activism is thriving.

Side events also saw the participation of a plurality of voices, hosting delegates from a myriad of Inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), as well as researchers, Secretariat members and sometimes Parties. Thus, cross-fertilisation of ideas dominated the Conference with the hope that points made in side events by activists, academics, and others could filter through Parties to the negotiation tables. Indeed, many times in side events speakers addressed the audience as if it were an audience entirely made up by Parties’ delegates (seldom the case in practice), encouraging it to report back to the contact groups, which are closed working groups attended by Parties discussing draft texts of decisions.

Human rights as a framing device for different world-makings

The language of human rights pervaded the whole COP 16. This is a recent turn for the CBD, considering that the CBD itself and its instruments pre-GBF do not explicitly refer to human rights. In contrast, the GBF lists among the considerations for the implementation of the Framework a ‘human rights-based approach’. Section C 7(g) states in full that ‘the implementation of the Framework should follow a human rights-based approach, respecting, protecting, promoting and fulfilling human rights. The Framework acknowledges the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment’. There are a few other references to human rights language scattered in the text. For example, in Target 22, reference is made to the ‘full protection of environmental human rights defenders’. The GBF’s explicit inclusion of human rights language and also the acknowledgement of a substantive human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment—which cross references the UN General Assembly Resolution of 28 July 2022—has solidified the link between human rights and biodiversity protection. Thus, it is not surprising that delegates at COP 16 used human rights language extensively.

In this context, it was interesting to observe that different groups internalised and strategically deployed human rights language to advance different, sometimes, but not always complementary, world-makings. Youth representatives referred to human rights as a tool for achieving inter-generational equity in biodiversity conservation; many indigenous peoples’ representatives employed human rights language to advance substantive claims such as rights to land and resources as well as procedural ones such as participatory rights in conservation decision-making; women representatives employed human rights language to address gender inequalities in conservation; some UN representatives strongly supported a human rights-based approach to area-based conservation as a means to avoid the tragedies brought about by ‘fortress conservation’; others used human rights language to reiterate key objectives of existing international law instruments.

The concept of human rights returned over and over in COP discussions intersecting with other reflections that unwrap the many lines around which biodiversity is framed and practiced by different communities and actors.

Outcomes and beyond

As mentioned above, COP 16 was suspended leaving for a later date, decisions on some critical issues, such as finance mechanisms and monitoring mechanism to measure Parties’ progress in achieving GBF Targets and Goals. Considering the slow implementation of the GBF- only 44 Parties have submitted revised National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs), which are the main national implementation tools under Article 6 of the CBD- it is disappointing that decisions on budget and monitoring mechanisms have been left pending. However, there were also many achievements at COP 16, including:

  • the launch of the ‘Cali fund’ to operationalise the sharing of benefits from uses of digital sequence information (DSI);
  • decisions on Article 8(j), focused on traditional knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities, including the adoption of a new Programme of Work on Article 8(j) and the establishment of a new permanent subsidiary body on Article 8(j);
  • a number of sectoral decisions, including one on the mechanism for identifying ecologically or biologically significant marine areas (EBSAs), which had been the subject of legal and political discussion for eight years.

The decisions related to Article 8(j) stand out considering the central role indigenous peoples and local communities play in the protection of biodiversity and the importance of including different epistemologies in biodiversity decision-making. During COP itself, there were arguments in favour and against the creation of such subsidiary body. Concerns revolved around questions such as ‘Why fixating on only one article of the CBD? Why a subsidiary body on this specific article and not others?’, ‘Would the subsidiary body silo indigenous peoples and local communities concerns?’, ‘Should indigenous peoples and local communities still be clustered together?’ Many counter-arguments were raised promoting the establishment of the subsidiary body as a way to legitimise and render more visible indigenous peoples and local communities’ practices turning these actors as policy makers instead of policy takers included in NBSAPs. The new subsidiary body’s modus operandi will be developed over the next two years, and it will be interesting to follow such development.

Outcomes are important, and in a goal and target-oriented environmental law world such as the one the CBD governance infrastructure presents, it is natural and logical to focus on what is achieved and what is not. However, the success of COP 16, like all COPs, should not solely be determined by its outcomes. It is essential to remember the spaces and the conversations that unfolded in between, the sharing of knowledge by a global community coming together for a few days from very different paths of life and with different agendas, a multitude unified by the shared concern of biodiversity loss, which continues at unprecedented rates and deserves everyone attention in COPs and beyond.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member, Professor Margherita Pieraccini, Professor of Law at the University of Bristol Law School.

Margherita Pieraccini
Margherita Pieraccini

Why UN climate summits still matter – and what to expect from Cop29

Zulfugar Graphics/Shutterstock

Every autumn, the UN holds its international climate summit or “Cop” (Conference of the Parties). Between each Cop, a smaller, lower-profile gathering takes place. Called the SB – short for “subsidary bodies” of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – these smaller meetings matter but don’t draw as much public attention.

The SB meetings are a world apart from Cops. Held in the same small venue in the German city of Bonn every year, the latest, SB60, had 8,606 participants whereas last year’s Cop28 in Dubai had around 100,000. Observers make up about half of the SB participants, and the atmosphere is less about being there to show you care and more focused on the matter at hand – global negotiations.

In contrast to Cops, there are no pavilions and exhibition spaces. The focus is on negotiations and side events. In June 2024, our team of climate law and policy experts from the Cabot Institute at the University of Bristol attended SB60 as observers. We prioritised going to Bonn instead of the upcoming Cop29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, because SBs offer a chance to see negotiations in flux.

In Bonn, there’s more chance to speak directly to negotiators including diplomats, heads of state, and UNFCCC staff (who are less pressed for time) – and to have an influence on policy outcomes (because positions are not yet as cemented as they are at Cops).

SB60 revealed some important sticking points and challenges for delegates going to Cop29 in Baku, which starts on November 11. The negotiations proved to be particularly difficult in three key areas.

1. A stalled transition

The first is “just transition” – the idea of making society fairer for everyone as we respond to climate change. Negotiations collapsed before the end of SB60 due to disagreements on scope, timelines and implementation planning.

The term just transition was only defined and planned for at a global governance level for the first time at last year’s Cop28. There was a real push and pull between developing and developed countries when it came to setting out the aims and scope of this plan.

Developed countries, including Norway, the US and the EU, pushed to focus on jobs and technology. Developing countries, including the UN’s coalition of 77 developing countries known as the G-77, China, small island developing states, and 54 states of the UN’s Africa Group, wanted costs to be shared fairly in a way that recognises existing inequalities between countries, and with compensation for past harms.

There was a sense that developing countries wanted to see broader system changes within the UNFCCC. One of us (Alix Dietzel) noted down how the G-77 plus China stressed that getting just transition right was “key for the future of the Cops and the regime of the UNFCCC”.

Eventually, the developed countries’ version won out at Cop28. But at SB60, it became clear there were still deep disagreements over what a just transition means and how this will play out. Negotiations over how to achieve the targets for a just transition collapsed when states could not agree whether to include wider discussions of systemic inequality and new finance goals, and whether the UNFCCC’s five-yearly global stocktake required a scaling up of ambition.

The outcome document produced on the final day of SB60 stated that parties met and negotiated – but frustratingly, did not capture any views that can be used as a basis for further negotiations.

Co-authors Alice Venn and Alix Dietzel at SB60.
Alix Dietzel, CC BY-NC-ND

2. Responding to climate loss and damage

There is increasing urgency to deliver meaningful support to developing countries experiencing the worst economic and non-economic losses from climate impacts. These range from extreme weather and sea level rise to damage to ecosystems and communities. A key priority is funding to support the recovery and preparedness of the most at-risk countries and communities.

A new loss and damage fund, currently hosted by the World Bank, was established at Cop28. So far, it has received more than US$702 million (£540 million) in pledges. At SB60, the debate focused on how best to urgently scale up this funding and make it more easily available to the communities most in need of it.

Many countries and observers called for a more inclusive approach based on human rights, and stressed the need for technical support in less developed countries.

3. Finance is key

Cop29 is all about money. Billed as “the finance Cop”, leaders in Baku must agree on a new climate finance goal. Known as the “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG), this aims to support developing countries with climate action. Industrialised nations have only met the current annual target of US$100 billion once, in 2022. SB60 was meant to lay the groundwork for a finance deal at Cop29. The outcome in Bonn, however, was disappointing.

We observed that developing countries felt frustrated at the dithering of developed nations over who should pay and how much. The Colombian government, for example, is committed to decarbonisation, but in Bonn expressed dismay at the lack of concessionary climate finance to support this process.

Developing countries seemed angry that finance flows prioritise private infrastructure investment over key sectors that are considered non-profitable, such as education, health, coastal flooding defences or landslide prevention. This makes climate adaptation harder, especially in the context of high debt burdens.

The road to Baku

The intimate setting of the SB negotiation space might look like it could deliver better climate outcomes compared to huge Cops. Negotiators at Cop28 were crowded out by lobbyists and industry representatives. In Bonn this year, smaller numbers meant delegates could more easily meet for informal huddles outside the negotiation rooms.

conference room with chairs, signs for country names and big screen with blue presentation for climate finance discussions
Finance negotiations will be centre stage at Cop29.
Alix Dietzel, CC BY-NC-ND

At the Cop climate summits, observers like us normally don’t have a significant voice. But at SB60, interactive workshops and contact groups gave observers opportunities to speak. We held a side event with the global mayors network, C40 Cities, and Earthshot prize winners, the environmental and youth empowerment group Green Africa Youth Organization. Discussions focused on how to make urban climate policy more inclusive, and we later introduced ourselves to the UK negotiation team.

Contributions from civil society observers were recorded by the UNFCCC and incorporated into official SB reports on finance and loss and damage. Nevertheless, big decisions on just transition, loss and damage, and climate finance are constrained by competing geopolitical and economic interests, regardless of the size of the negotiating space.

SB60 set the scene for two weeks of fractious negotiations in Baku. Climate change-induced extreme weather events and changing weather patterns are accelerating. Key climate tipping points could be breached soon.

Developing countries will require trillions of dollars a year to adapt to and mitigate these extreme scenarios. Based on what we experienced in Bonn, a finance deal at Baku that delivers climate action for developing countries seems a long way off.

The Conversation

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members, Drs Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in Climate Justice, University of Bristol; Alice Venn, Senior Lecturer in Climate Law, University of Bristol, and Katharina Richter, Lecturer in Climate Change, Politics and Society, University of BristolThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dr Alix Dietzel
Dr Alix Dietzel
Dr Alice Venn
Katharina Richter
Dr Katharina Richter

What Works – Co-devising a place-based green skills plan in Bristol

Young man fixing solar panels to a roof

The UK Green Jobs Taskforce has called for new policies to build pathways into “good, green careers” for young people and a just transition for workers in carbon-heavy jobs. Skills development is central to this: providing school leavers with new opportunities and supporting older workers to find an off-ramp from jobs that may be phased out in the future.

Green skills gaps’ hinder climate action: more workers are needed to retrofit buildings and build green infrastructure . UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves, in the 2024 autumn budget, pledged £3.4bn for the warm homes plan to upgrade buildings and lower energy bills alongside building new homes, the creation of Great British Energy and investing in EVs. Workers are needed to do so.

Beyond specific new roles and skillsets, one in five jobs in the UK will experience some change to the skills required. Such ‘green’ skills can be understood as ‘future’ or ‘resilient’ skills: training that allows people to have long-term job security rooted in policies to achieve net zero by 2050.

As the Local Government Association has argued, while the role of local authorities remains unclear, devolved decision-making for green skills allows provision to be place-based and locally driven, responding to the needs and opportunities in different communities.

In our recent work, supported by the Cabot Institute for the Environment and Policy Bristol through What Works funding from Research England, we have worked to foreground these national discussions of green skills in the context of Bristol and the neighbourhood of Lawrence Weston.

Why green skills matter in (Bristol and) Lawrence Weston In 2022, Bristol City Council launched the 20 year Bristol City Leap programme, partnering with Ameresco to accelerate city decarbonisation. One of the initiative’s ambitions is to create at least 1000 local jobs. This creates an opportunity: to both create new green jobs and to ensure they are shared equitably across Bristol – benefiting those who need them most.

We focus here on Lawrence Weston, a post-war housing estate and home to 7,000 people on the north-west outskirts of Bristol, where deprivation levels are some of the highest in Bristol and the UK. The area is home to Ambition Lawrence Weston (ALW) a resident-led group formed in 2012 working to make the neighbourhood a better place to live, and achieving national fame with their building of a community-owned onshore wind turbine in 2022.

Lawrence Weston has primary and secondary schools but further education colleges offering skills, trade or vocational training require residents to travel across the city or beyond. ALW have recently moved into a new community hub ‘Ambition House’ and hope to, among many other services, host new green skills opportunities for the local community, providing many in the area with a local opportunity for new skills and qualifications and helping address current barriers to post-secondary education in the community.

Co-devising green skills approaches

Community spaces and organisations can be a key space for green skills development. They can provide launchpad sites for skills offerings, taster sessions, or short courses. Whilst employers may re-skill workers in the workplace, localised skills offering can reach those who may otherwise struggle to engage: increasing accessibility by bringing new opportunities directly to the community.

Over the past year, we have worked with Ambition Lawrence Weston and other partners to understand green skills needs in Bristol, and the barriers to gaining those skills and accessing new jobs – particularly in the context of Lawrence Weston. To do so, we teamed up with the Civic University Agreement team to bring together key stakeholders in local and regional government, further and higher education, and ‘green’ sectors to understand what should happen in this space – and how to make it happen.

We held two workshops – in June and October 2024 – to co-develop new green skills approaches in Bristol and, with it, to position Lawrence Weston as a key space in which to pilot and develop such initiatives.

What we found and why it matters

Place-based approaches are important as they allow us to meet people where they are and understand how different circumstances define potential take-up and engagement. Jobs and skills policy will need to engage various groups in different ways, these include school-leavers, those not in education, employment or training (who would benefit from new, resilient career pathways), and people already working, who may need to update professional skills.

These people are characterised by diverse experiences and needs but many shared barriers can be found. These include:

  • Physical accessibility, linked to travel distances and costs and lack of affordable public transport.
  • Lack of confidence to engage due to language and other barriers
  • Financial factors, with a cost-of-living crisis creating pressing, significant financial pressures that create an ‘earn or learn’ equation.
  • Lack of awareness of local opportunities – and how this varies in different neighbourhoods.
  • Overlapping with the above, the time required to train – linked to travel distances, the timing of sessions, caring responsibilities, and the need to continue earning.

To overcome these barriers, a place-based green skills approach must:

  1. Understand how these factors interact with more subjective barriers – such as a lack of aspiration or confidence in working in emergent sectors and careers or in learning new skills. Key here is engaging with young people early – even as early as primary school – to signal what these new jobs are and how they are available to all.
  2. Be guided by employers of all sizes to identify the skills pathways required: people need to be able to enrol in a course safe in the knowledge that these skills learned will be needed and valued for many years into the future.
  3. Provide financial support: a key solution is in funded training schemes where workers are ‘paid to learn’: be it through reimbursement for lost work, paying travel costs, and/or providing meals. In Wales, the Personal Learning Accounts scheme provides financial support to study new skills and qualifications, including skills in net zero and green technologies.
  4. Include ‘softer’ skills to support business development and growth. This is to support those working for or managing smaller businesses to link into established supply chains, bid for certain ‘green’ work, and build confidence in these new industries and trades. Ideas here include providing mentors and career champions, hosting job fairs and information sessions, and working with Skills Connect careers guidance materials.

Labour’s budget may give clarity on what skills will be required yet certainty is needed locally: through both financial support and clearer direction on how these skills can be accessed.

Green skills gaps require locally-led solutions. In our work, we are getting closer. Our next steps included working with schools and careers advisors to create materials that move beyond boosting awareness and towards showing young people routes into new green jobs and continuing to work to get green skills into Lawrence Weston soon.

Doing so ensures that the future of ‘green’ education can empower people as much as it can decarbonise the city around them.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Drs Ed Atkins (Geographical Sciences) and Caroline Bird (Computer Science).

Ed Atkins
Ed Atkins
Caroline Bird

Why climate activists keep targeting art galleries – despite public outcry

Two Just Stop Oil activists were recently jailed for 27 months and 20 months respectively for throwing soup at one of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings at London’s National Gallery back in October 2022. Some commentators suggested these were overly harsh sentences for a nonviolent protest, while others felt such sentences were appropriate and an important deterrent.

We study activism and its impact (and sometimes have participated in direct actions like these). In our latest research, we looked at 42 climate protests at museums and art galleries in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia between 2022 and 2024. We wanted to know what makes this form of protest so unpopular with the general public, and why climate activists have continued to return to galleries despite, or even because of, the resulting social outrage.

As it happens, we published our work in the journal Protest just a few days before the Just Stop Oil activists were sentenced.

One common theme we found is that such protests are widely criticised because of their supposed irrationality. For instance, in his sentencing remarks in the Sunflowers case, Judge Christopher Hehir spoke for many when he described the soup-throwing action as “criminally idiotic”.

However, we should consider the logic offered by the activists themselves. The video of the action in October 2022 shows one of them, Phoebe Plummer, asking: “What is worth more – art or life? Is [art] worth more than food, more than justice?”

Soup on Sunflowers (2022)

The judge claimed these words revealed “how little the [protesters] cared about Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, or art generally”. This seems an odd misunderstanding. The question of which is worth more – art or life – only warrants interest because the value of life is being compared to objects that are considered to be the most valuable products of human culture. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if Just Stop Oil had thrown soup over a less-heralded artwork.

Why is (apparent) art destruction so powerful?

Throwing soup at paintings is extremely unpopular. We recently commissioned a YouGov poll in which 2,048 representative members of the public were asked about 15 different forms of climate protest. Throwing food at paintings was considered the least justifiable of these protests – less justifiable than sabotaging pipelines, damaging private jets or breaking windows at companies financing oil exploration.

The extreme unpopularity of throwing soup at Sunflowers virtually guaranteed that it would have an audience of millions. Although commentators worried that such an unpopular action would turn people away from the cause, there is no evidence for such an impact. The public may hate the messengers and their actions, but they’re nevertheless exposed to the message.

Indeed, we suspect the reason activists target art is directly related to why it is so unpopular. In academic psychology, terror management theory suggests that damaging revered cultural symbols threatens the psychological defences we rely on to mitigate existential fears.

Think of how memorials are built to soldiers who die in war, to offer them a form of symbolic immortality (“they shall not grow old”), and the way any threat to desecrate such memorials is met with strong condemnation.

Masterpieces like Sunflowers offer a similar sense of immortality and permanence. In a way, our veneration of his work means that Van Gogh is still alive, and its preservation means our culture will live on after our own demise. This explains why the apparent destruction of art provokes such a strong backlash, and why activists use the spectacle to draw parallels between cultural and environmental preservation.

It seems the symbolic value of the painting was an important factor in Judge Hehir’s sentencing. In his words:

It is not the value of the damage caused to the frame that is the most serious aspect of your offending … [Van Gogh’s] work is part of humanity’s shared cultural treasure … you came within the thickness of a pane of glass of irreparably damaging or even destroying this priceless treasure, and that must be reflected in the sentences I pass.

Punishment should fit the crime

Another YouGov poll conducted in July 2023 found fewer than 30% of the UK public think prison sentences are appropriate for nonviolent protesters; only 6% favour sentences of “more than a year in prison”. Over twice as many (15%) don’t believe there should be any punishment for nonviolent protest.

The appropriate punishment for radical dissent should be a matter of concern for all of us. Punishment is not only about retribution. It also communicates societal disapproval. Judge Hehir said: “Sentences must be imposed which both adequately punish you for what you did, and what you risked, and which will deter others whose motivations may incline them to similar behaviour.”

In the immediate aftermath of the sentencing of Plummer and her co-defendant Anna Holland, another three Just Stop Oil activists visited the same gallery in London. They have been charged with criminal damage after soup was thrown at the protective glass of two other paintings by Van Gogh.

Solidarity protests happened in Norway, Sweden, Canada and Germany. Rather than deterring activists, in the immediate term the sentencing seemed to backfire by causing more protests.

These protests trigger a powerful desire for punishment and condemnation. But society would benefit from a sincere attempt to understand the rationale and motivations of those activists who seem to go beyond the normal bounds of protest. Deterrence will not work for those who are acting by their own moral imperatives. It will not stop those climate activists who are drawn to radical symbolic action in order to interrupt the “business as usual” that is leading toward the destruction of both art and life.


This blog is written by Alexander Araya López, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Potsdam and Cabot Institute for the Environment member Colin Davis, Chair in Cognitive Psychology, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Earth’s greatest mass extinction 250 million years ago shows what happens when El Niño gets out of control – new study

252 million years ago, there was only one supercontinent: Pangaea.
ManuMata / shutterstock

Around 252 million years ago, the world suddenly heated up. Over a geologically brief period of tens of thousands of years, 90% of species were wiped out. Even insects, which are rarely touched by such events, suffered catastrophic losses. The Permian-Triassic mass extinction, as it’s known, was the greatest of the “big five” mass extinctions in Earth’s history.

Scientists have generally blamed the mass extinction on greenhouse gases released from a vast network of volcanoes which covered much of modern day Siberia in lava. But the volcanic explanation was incomplete. In our new study, we show that an enormous El Niño weather pattern in the world’s major ocean added to climate chaos and led to extinctions spreading across the globe.

It’s easy to see why volcanoes were blamed. The onset of extinction coincides almost perfectly with the beginning of the second phase of volcanism in the region known as the Siberian Traps. This led to acid rain, oceans losing their oxygen and, most notably, temperatures beyond the tolerance levels of almost all organisms. It was the greatest episode of global warming in the past 500 million years.

The world 252 million years ago

Map of world with one big supercontinent
Alex Farnsworth

However, there were outstanding questions for proponents of this seemingly simple extinction scenario: when the tropics became too hot, why did species not just migrate to cooler, higher latitudes (as is happening today)? If warming was sudden and rapid, why did species on land die off tens of thousands of years before those in the sea?

There have also been many instances of volcanic eruptions of similar scale, and even other episodes of rapid warming, but why did none of these cause a similarly catastrophic mass extinction?

Our new study reveals that the oceans rapidly heated up all across the world’s low and mid latitudes. Normally, it gets cooler as you move away from the tropics, but not this time. It simply became too hot for life in too many places.

A world prone to extremes

Using a state-of-the-art computer program, we were able to simulate what the weather and climate was like 252 million years ago. We found that, even before the rapid warming, the world would have been prone to extremes of temperature and rainfall.

That’s a consequence of all the land at the time forming into one large supercontinent, Pangaea. This meant that the climates we see today at the centre of continents – dry, with hot summers and freezing winters – were magnified.

Pangaea was surrounded by a vast ocean, Panthalassa, the surface of which would fluctuate between warm and cool periods over the years, much like the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific today. Yet once the mass Siberian volcanism started and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased, those prehistoric El Niños became more intense and lasted longer thanks to the larger Panthalassa ocean being able to store more heat.

An El Niño far stronger than anything today

chart of el nino fluctuations
Change in sea surface temperature (SST) compared to the long-term average. El Niño conditions are red, La Niña (or its prehistoric equivalent) is blue. Left = modern day pre-industrial Pacific Ocean. Centre = 252 million years ago, before the Siberian Traps volcanism. Right = at the peak of the mass extinction.
Alex Farnsworth

These El Niños had a profound impact on life on land, and kicked off a sequence of events that made the climate more and more extreme. Temperatures got hotter, especially in the tropics, and huge droughts and fires caused tropical forests to die off.

This in turn was bad news for the climate, as less carbon was stored by trees, allowing more to linger in the atmosphere, leading to further warming, and even stronger and longer El Niños.

252 million years ago, pre crisis:

Animated map of temperature 252m years ago
Before the Siberian Traps volcanism 252 million years ago, the world was slightly hotter than today. (Animation shows average monthly temperatures according to the authors’ climate model).
Alex Farnsworth

These stronger El Niños caused the extreme temperatures and droughts to push outside of the tropics towards the poles, and more vegetation died off and more carbon was released. Over tens of thousands of years, extreme temperatures spread over much of the world’s surface. Eventually, the warming began to harm life in the oceans, particularly tiny organisms at the bottom of the food chain.

…and at the peak of the extinction:

Animated map of temperature 252m years ago
At the peak of the extinction, temperatures regularly soared far above 40°C.
Alex Farnsworth

During the peak of the crisis, in a world that was already warming thanks to volcanic gases, an El Niño would boost average temperatures by a further 4°C. That’s more than three times the total warming we have caused over the past few centuries. Back then, the El Niño-charged climate would have regularly seen peak daytime temperatures on land of 60°C or more.

The future of El Niño

In recent years El Niños have caused major changes to rainfall and temperature patterns, around the Pacific and even further afield. A strong El Niño was a factor in record-breaking temperatures through 2023 and 2024.

Fortunately, such events typically only last a few years. However, on top of human-caused warming, even these smaller scale El Niños of the present day may be enough to push fragile ecosystems beyond their limit.

El Niño is predicted to become more variable as the climate changes, though we should note that the oceans are still yet to fully respond to current warming rates. At present, nobody is forecasting another mass extinction on the scale of the one 252 million years ago, but that event provides a worrying snapshot of what happens when El Niño gets out of control.The Conversation

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This blog is written by Dr Alex Farnsworth, Senior Research Associate in Meteorology, University of Bristol; David Bond, Palaeoenvironmental Scientist, University of Hull, and Paul Wignall, Professor of Palaeoenvironments, University of LeedsThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.