november 2025

LOCAL

1) Media articles written by CKM members since the last newsletter. 

16/09/25 - Fish full of mercury.

"Although there are natural sources of mercury, the largest source of mercury today is coal burning for industrial heat and power generation, which is estimated to release about 2,000 tonnes worldwide per year.  Over most of the planet, the mercury from coal smoke falls from the sky with rain and is washed away and buried in sediments.  In the high Arctic, however, mercury falling from the sky becomes trapped in permafrost – permanently frozen soil.  Today, scientists estimate that some 800,000 tonnes of mercury reside in Arctic permafrost.  And, as the climate warms, Arctic permafrost is melting."

25/10/25 - Tourism destroys what it seeks.

"At the 2025 ITB conference in Berlin, the world’s largest travel trade show, Linnaeus University business professor Stefan Gössling shocked his audience by proclaiming, “We have already entered the beginning of the age of non-tourism”. He argues that the rising cost of everything from food to insurance, due to worsening climate impacts, will soon make international tourism unaffordable for most people."

27/11/25 - Why so windy? 

"By now, most people can appreciate that global warming is making rainfall more intense.  Warmer air holds more moisture as water vapour and what goes up must come down, leading to more intense rainfall.  
But, what about the climate predictions that storms will become more windy and violent?  
Stronger winds are a troubling aspect of global warming because they are damaging in so many ways.  In addition to more destructive hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, they give us larger ocean waves and rougher seas which erode our coastlines and are a hazard to mariners.  They give us more air turbulence, bouncing passengers around airline cabins.  There is not much to like about the prospect of more violent storms.
It turns out, a major driver is that same increased moisture in our atmosphere." 

Here are links to copies of the full articles if you can't access them on The Press website - Tourism destroys what it seeks, Fish full of Mercury, and Why so windy? 

2) Articles highlighting overtourism.

With Tom's October opinion piece focusing on how tourism destroys what it seeks, I thought I'd include these couple of articles that highlight issues he raised.
 
The first article is written by Robert McLachlan, Professor in Applied Mathematics at Massey University and titled - NZ’s government wants tourism to drive economic growth – but how will it deal with aviation emissions?  You can check it out on the RNZ website.

The second article published on the ABC website in Australia and titled "After deadly floods in Bali, its people want answers. Many are blaming overtourism" has some interesting time lapse aerial views showing the big changes over a period of 22 years with rural land converted largely to high density urban zones with the large increase in hard surfaces resulting in more flooding. 

3) Submission on the Fast Track Approvals Amendment Bill 2025.

Tom has been busy recently doing a couple of submissions for CKM. Some of it is pretty technical stuff and we really appreciate him getting his head around it and submitting for the group.

Here are a couple of extracts from the first submission. You can check out the full submission if interested.

"Members of Climate Karanga Marlborough are deeply concerned about this piece of legislation and request that it be withdrawn in its entirety. It is disingenuous for the government to be proposing such a sweeping amendment to such a highly controversial law passed less than a year ago. It is also disingenuous for the government to justify this law as needed to improve competition in the grocery sector and that it includes only “technical and machinery changes”. The changes proposed in the amendment bill represent an expansive power grab by the Minister and a further erosion of public input project approval."

AND - "We object in the strongest way possible to a decision making process where high value is given to benefits described by the Minister or the applicant and low or no value is given to environmental and community impacts and consequences. We are stewards for the environment and we must take this responsibility very seriously because it is a healthy environment that sustains life. Economic considerations must not be allowed to override environmental ones because the cost is invariably too great in the long run. And it is in the long run that really matters. We must always ask the question, what is best for our descendants? It is too easy to put our own needs and wants first and forget about theirs. If the public are to have any faith in the Fast Track Approvals process it is critical that environmental and community impacts are never ignored or downplayed in favour of economic outcomes."

4) Submission on Amendment to New Zealand’s Second Emissions Reduction Plan 2026-2030.

Here are a couple of extracts from the second submission - "In summary, we are disappointed in the reduction in ambition represented by the changes in this amended ERP2.  There is a large drop in emissions reductions due to the government’s updated policy proposals and we are now on track to overshoot the CCRA (Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act) methane 2030 target. 
In addition, we are alarmed by a significant and unsubstantiated drop of 9.4 Mt in the baseline emissions for the amended ERP2.  This cannot be solely due to updated afforestation and fossil gas decline trends since neither of these can be expected to change that much since last year’s ERP2 report.  In addition, they are not reflected in the Climate Change Commission’s July 2025 monitoring report.  We are worried that the government has resorted to accounting tricks to meet the second emissions budget." 

AND - "It is clear that by dropping the requirement for reporting on-farm emissions and then dropping emissions pricing altogether, agricultural emissions will rise.  This is reflected in the small increase in emissions projected for EB2 and a larger one projected for EB3.  These policies are on track to result in the failure of meeting the CCRA target of a 10% decrease in agricultural methane relative to 2017 methane emission by 2030, as well as increase the projected overshoot of the EB3.
The obvious impacts are to government credibility and to the reputation of our agricultural industries.  By reversing its earlier commitment to price agricultural emissions in the CCRA, the government is undermining its domestic and international credibility that its policies will result in abated GHG emissions.  This then has a flow-on effect to our trade partners, who can then use it as an excuse to slap New Zealand exports with carbon tariffs.
The less obvious impacts are that the government gives cover to other nations wishing to weaken their commitments to reducing GHG, helping to tip the balance of global ambition away from emissions mitigation.  If we do less, other nations will be more inclined to do less, as well.  The end result will be more global warming, more destructive weather, more hardship, more displaced people and reduced global prosperity.  In essence, it is a curse of misery we put on future generations for our own short-term benefit."

Check out the full submission if you're interested in more detail. Item 10 in this newsletter also gives more information about a related legal action being taken against the Minister for Climate Change that is to be heard in March next year. 

5) Wilding pines threaten Kaikōura ranges in 'looming catastrophe'.

I have watched presentations about this problem three times over the recent months. Ket Bradshaw who is Coordinator for the South Marlborough Landscape Restoration Trust spoke at the September, Forest and Bird meeting, then again at the recent Biodiversity Forum. Then Rob Simons, the MDC senior biosecurity officer did a presentation at the November, MDC Environment and Planning meeting. The Trust have been doing stirling work eradicating the different wilding species they are contending with in South Marlborough, especially in the Branch/Leatham catchment, which is a tributary of the Wairau River. But it's an uphill battle due to inadequate funding being available. Somehow those who hold the purse strings have to be convinced that the cost of not getting on top of this problem is far, far worse than the cost of eradicating the trees. They have flown several MP's and others into the Branch/Leatham, which has been out of sight, out of mind for most people. The trees were originally planted by the Forest Service in an attempt to reduce erosion in that area. It is clearly the Crown's responsibility to clean up their own mess. Some areas are now impenetrable by a human being and the high country vistas are disappearing behind pine trees. But one of the biggest issues is the impact over time on water flows in the Wairau and Awatere Rivers reducing water availability for grape growing and for keeping the aquifer in the lower Wairau recharged. John Oswald did not pull his punches when he told Councillors "You can kiss goodbye to the wine industry for a start. There just simply won't be the water coming down the river,".... Conservation Minister Tama Potaka is one of those who's been flown into to see first hand the "looming catastrophe". Hopefully adequate funds will be allocated in the next budget. It's probably an advantage that it'll be an election year so we know the politicians will be looking for ways to buy votes. 

You can read about it in this article by our Local Democracy Reporter, Kira Carrington and also in this recent issue of the MDC online newsletter Marlborough Matters. 

Here is an extract from Kira's article. 

"Wilding pines are threatening to make their way into the Kaikōura ranges, as their rampant spread sparks a renewed call for more central government funding. The Marlborough District Council's Environment and Planning committee heard about the incursion in south Marlborough during an update on the invasive exotic pest on Thursday (Nov 20th).

South Marlborough Restoration Trust chairperson Johnny Oswald told the committee the trust's wilding pine control team had discovered a patch of wilding trees about 3km from the as-yet uninfected Inland Kaikōura Range. The nearest conifers were 25km to 30km away in the Branch-Leatham, so the seeds had travelled quite a distance, he said. The trust's 10-year plan said Marlborough needed at least $10m per year for conifer control, far more than it currently had, Oswald said.

"If we don't do this, the cost to the country is far, far greater than that. "You can kiss goodbye to the wine industry for a start. There just simply won't be the water coming down the river," Oswald said. "I think that we can do this, and that it needs a lot of work and a lot of money, but we're certainly not giving up."

NATIONAL

6) COP30: climate law changes mean NZ could retreat from its international obligations.

This article from The Conversation was published before the recent COP30 talks in Brazil. It is a good analysis of recent back-tracking changes made by the NZ government. 

"As this year’s UN climate summit (COP30) gets underway in Belém, Brazil, the New Zealand delegation will be attending beneath a cloud of scepticism about the government’s seriousness in addressing carbon emissions. In a late-night announcement last week, the government proposed changes to New Zealand’s landmark climate law, including a decoupling of domestic efforts to cut emissions from New Zealand’s pledge under the Paris Agreement.

Delinking the Emissions Trading Scheme – one of the few remaining policy tools for cutting domestic emissions – from the country’s Paris Agreement pledge constructs a pathway for the government to abandon its international obligations, while remaining compliant with domestic law. The retort from the market was immediate. The price of New Zealand carbon units plummeted 10% once trading resumed on the morning after the announcement, and crashed 18% by the end of the day. Having earlier promised to “let the market do its work”, the government’s move was described by Carbon News as “a brutal blow to confidence in an already moribund market”.

The Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019 enshrined long-term targets and established the Climate Change Commission. To secure bipartisan support for the act, implementation of the commission’s advice was made optional. The compromise imposed a requirement for governments to at least seek the commission’s advice when setting targets and to provide the public with an explanation if it chose to depart from that advice. This created transparency about the government’s actions and encouraged accountability to the public. Eliminating some of the commission’s advice has one guaranteed outcome. The public will be less informed on the robustness of the government’s mitigation plans or its progress toward meeting the country’s international obligations. Failure to meet those obligations could do immeasurable harm to New Zealand’s international reputation, while undermining free trade agreements that include clauses requiring those targets be met.

Even if the coalition is no longer in government in 2030, getting the country back on track to meeting its Paris Agreement obligations will be difficult. The loss of bipartisan agreement on climate policy will increase instability well into the future as governments take turns to flip flop on the settings. That could prove costly in the long run. A recent joint report issued by the World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group highlights the costs of climate inaction. It calculates the financial penalties of a late, chaotic transition to a zero-emissions world, estimating that investment today in climate adaptation and mitigation will be repaid five to six times over in avoided loss and damage in the future. This is completely at odds with the government’s stated concerns about the transition costs for itself and businesses, and even more at odds with public wellbeing in the face of rapidly worsening risks from climate change."

7) Restoring forests and capturing carbon for a thriving future.

I've been very interested in the landscape scale predator eradication project undertaken by ZIP (Zero Invasive Predators) largely in virgin native forest in South Westland. Lesley and I spent a few days staying with friends in Okarito earlier this year and we saw some of the intensive predator control work happening there. So I was happy to learn about their "Native Carbon Initiative" looking at how removal of pests can boost carbon stocks. 

"New Zealand’s native forests and tussock grasslands are powerful carbon sinks—but introduced wild animals like possums, rats, stoats and deer are damaging them, turning some of these ecosystems into a source of carbon emissions. Data collected by the Ministry for the Environment and Department of Conservation shows that tall growth forests on the South Island’s West Coast could be losing as much as 1 tonne of carbon per hectare every year.

ZIP is pioneering new ways to measure how removing pests can boost carbon stocks (a process known as sequestration). Proving this link could unlock a cost-effective, nature-based solution to climate change—while restoring the health of our natural world. Under the Paris Agreement, New Zealand is allowed to count increases in carbon stored in older forests if those increases come from new management actions. That means we could count the extra carbon stored in forests where we remove animals like possums, rats and stoats, and manage deer numbers at a level that enables and promotes the regeneration of browsed native plants.

We’ve done some early economic calculations to figure out how much extra carbon a new animal control project would need to capture to be worth the cost. The findings showed that, over 25 years, each hectare of forest would need to store just 0.25 tonnes of extra carbon per year. That’s only 25 grams of carbon per square metre annually—about the same as 50 grams of wood. For kāmahi-podocarp forests, this is just a 0.1% increase in carbon each year. Because this change is so small, it’s not surprising that many traditional methods for measuring forest carbon can’t detect it reliably. Even though that’s a very small amount, it could make a big difference if done across large areas of forest. Plus, based on current Treasury estimates, this method would cost about one-third as much as buying carbon credits from overseas."

You can learn more about their work on the ZIP website.

8) NATURE AS SHAREHOLDER -
Who speaks for the Trees? The Opportunities and Challenges of Nature owning shares of Companies.

This sort of initiative interests me a lot. As someone who accepts the evidence that our current dominant economic and political system is completely unsustainable I'm always keen to see someone advocating for new way of doing things. It's an important part of recognising that retaining a viable and vibrant natural world is critical to ensuring our own survival. Steven Moe's argument that if we can grant "personhood" in the law to companies and corporates then why should we not also do it for nature makes perfect sense to me. I learnt about this from a short item in a regular email I get from NZ Geographic that we subscribe to. Thank goodness for NZ Geographic. It's an important part of me keeping my sanity in this world of craziness by helping me stay connected with what's happening in the natural world we are simply a part of.

Steven states in his paper - "What if Mother Earth stepped in and was the owner of companies instead of human flesh flakes like you and me that will be returned to dust in one blink of her eye? Surely that would help to solve the excesses that a misguided belief in Milton Friedman and shareholder primacy has led us stumbling towards, bowing to a golden calf and drinking its bitter water." 

I love it when people step back, take a broader perspective of our shared predicament and recognise humans are not supreme. That our belief in our supremacy is in reality a delusion. Ideas like this one that Steven is sharing give me a little hope that sanity can still prevail.  

Here's the brief item I received in August from NZ Geographic.  

"A couple of days ago Steven Moe, a partner with the Christchurch firm Parry Field Lawyers, released a compelling paper titled Nature as Shareholder. In it, he describes how companies adopted some of the rights of legal persons in the 1800s, powering the Industrial Revolution. Yet, says Moe, “A company does not really exist, is is a fiction. So if we made them up we could reimagine them—or use them as an example to create other legal entity types. What might it mean if we were to grant legal personhood to nature?” 
By the time Moe returned in 2016 from a decade-long stint in London, Parliament had recognised legal personhood for three natural entities in New Zealand—Te Urewera, Whanganui Te Awa Tupua/River and Taranaki Maunga. But why stop there, he wondered... What if nature was a shareholder in our companies and institutions, or shares held by an entity on behalf of nature? “What might it look like if we did want to embrace a more prominent role for nature?” This may be the defining question of our age. Moe ends quoting Seuss’s cautionary tale of The Lorax; “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

You can read the first few paragraphs from the paper below. If you're interested you can learn more and download the full paper from the The Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers website.

"More than 50 years ago two influential pieces of writing were released within a year of each other. They could not have been more different in style and approach yet they each unleashed different yet powerful conceptions about the role of companies, shareholders and directors. The first was by Milton Friedman, an economist who in September 1970 wrote the essay, “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits”. This would go on to influence a generation of thinkers and is credited  with justifying a “greed is good” mindset. At its extreme it represents a paradigm of thought where Directors  consider that their main focus is to maximise profits for shareholders (to the exclusion of other considerations). Less than a year after that in August of 1971, another form of thinker - Dr Seuss, published “The Lorax”. In the parable of The Lorax the title character “speaks for the trees” by opposing “the Once-ler”. In this parable, a faceless business owner is destroying nature for profit and the creation of unnecessary and needless “thneeds” by cutting down all the Truffula trees in a paradise for birds, bears and fish. It was Dr Seuss’s favourite book and he said of it: “The Lorax came out of me being angry. The ecology books I’d read were dull ... in The Lorax I was out to attack what I think are evil things and let the chips fall where they might”. It also has a direct bearing on the topic we will explore here – what it might mean if nature itself were a legal person and the resulting possibility of nature owning  shares of a company. It is rare today to find someone advocating that a pure Friedman inspired shareholder primacy holds weight as an approach, as most people would agree there are many stakeholders involved in a company. Ignoring stakeholders like employees, customers, suppliers, government, Iwi, local communities and regulators just won’t work.
Released within a few months of each other these two contrasting philosophical conceptions – representing clashing paradigms of thought about the role of the company - were released. Like magnetic forces propelling against each other and pushing each other away they are significant because which approach you align with most will impact many things – such as how you think about directors and their approach to governance responsibilities. It also has a direct bearing on the topic we will explore here – what it might mean if nature itself were a legal person and the resulting possibility  f nature owning shares of a company. It is rare today to find someone advocating that a pure Friedman inspired shareholder primacy holds weight as an approach, as most people would agree there are many stakeholders involved in   company. Ignoring stakeholders like employees, customers, suppliers, government, Iwi, local communities and regulators just won’t work. How about the other approach though – what are both the opportunities and the challenges of approaching things the way the Lorax might?

Listening to nature sounds great – simple even. But as we will discover in this paper, there are many threads to weave together for it to work well - we need to explore this conception fully and understand the tools at hand available for that to happen. For example, how might we do this without continuing a colonisation mindset of adopting our preferred aspects of a cosmology that are taken from indigenous worldviews? What is the seed of this idea of listening to nature? Well if a capitalist mindset fuelled by the smell of greed and profits have led us to the climate change flood and drought driven era we now live in, then why don’t we change that narrative. What if Mother Earth stepped in and was the owner of companies instead of human flesh flakes like you and me that will be returned to dust in one blink of her eye? Surely that would help to solve the excesses that a misguided belief in Milton Friedman and shareholder primacy has led us stumbling towards, bowing to a golden calf and drinking its bitter water. To honour the positive desire to preserve and protect and give nature a voice we have to do some heavy lifting first. The answer is more subtle, and deeper, than just turning to Mother Earth. But if we can answer this well you will be left with practical ways for you to consider giving nature a voice in the companies or organisations that you are involved with. We have the potential to do this. So in this paper we are going to use the fast evolving and world leading legal framework and context of Aotearoa New Zealand. This is a small and often nimble place where legislative change is possible. The principles developing here will apply anywhere so this could form a template or case study which those of you in other jurisdictions could then look to." 

9) Don’t mention the (environmental) war. Dr Rod Carr - November 2, 2025.

I'm always interested in what Rod has to say because he has a very good ability to get to the core of climate issues and this article in The Post is no exception.

"In my opinion, the mainstream media and elected leaders who fail to become informed and talk about the attribution of increasingly severe and increasingly frequent weather events to global warming induced climate change, are allowing those with vested interests in causing the change, and requiring us to incur avoidable costs of adaptation, to hide in plain sight.
‘Don’t talk about climate change’ cannot be justified in the interests of national security nor can it be justified to avoid reliving the trauma of death, injury and property loss from weather events caused by the increasingly avoidable actions of others. Our high emitting foreign exchange earning sectors such as dairy, red meat, tourists on visiting cruise liners and short stay long haul fly in tourists are vulnerable to changing consumer preferences, foreign regulators and new low emission substitutes. Not talking about climate change does not change the physics, chemistry and biological impacts of avoidable human induced global warming."

10) What’s in New Zealand’s long-awaited climate adaptation plan? And what was left out?

On October 23rd, the government released a National Adaptation Framework, a broad plan for how to deal with the ongoing, worsening effects of climate change. 

“New Zealand faces growing risks from floods, storms and other natural hazards. We need our country and economy to be resilient and well-prepared,” said climate change minister Simon Watts on releasing the plan. The framework will “give us an enduring system that prepares New Zealand for the impacts of climate change, supports economic growth and keeps the overall costs to our society as low as possible”.

So who is responsible for doing what, and who pays for it? Here’s what we know. New Zealand now has a National Adaptation Plan – is it a big boring document? What does it say? Unlike many plans and government documents, it’s pretty short and straightforward – just four pages (two are the title and a message from climate change minister Simon Watts), which you can read here.

There are four sections: risks and response information sharing, roles and responsibilities, investment in risk reduction and cost-sharing pre-and post-event. For “risks”, the basic rundown is that the government will provide more information (through a new national flood map and an existing natural hazards portal) so that climate change risk is fully incorporated in consenting with the new RMA process.

Nick Cradock-Henry, a principal scientist at Earth Sciences New Zealand, was one of many researchers attending the Adaptation Futures conference in Christchurch this week, a global gathering to discuss climate adaptation – from dealing with heat in schools to making plans for disabled people during natural disasters. “The message was clear: there was an urgent need to accelerate effective adaptation now,” he said. But the difficult part is still to come. “We must also continue to confront the difficult trade-offs that lie ahead. We need to ask: Where is adaptation still feasible? When do we need to shift from incremental to transformational changes? And how do we ensure that these transitions are fair and just?” 

While adaptation is important, the other side of the coin is the emissions that continue to create the climate crisis. Decreasing emissions and absorbing those in the atmosphere already will mean adaptation is easier, cheaper and in some cases, not necessary at all. “Adaptation must go hand-in-hand with aggressive and sustained emissions reductions. Every additional degree of warming locks the world into an increasingly unsustainable future, marked by higher temperatures, more frequent and severe storms, and deepening social and economic disruption,” said Cradock-Henry.

You can read the full article in the Spinoff. 

11) Climate litigation: Holding the government to account for delivering an effective climate plan.

Here is an extract from the announcement made recently by the Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) and Lawyers for Climate Action NZ (LCANZI) We should all be very appreciative of the legal actions taken by groups such as ELI and LCANZI on behalf of the general NZ public.  These sort of actions are an essential part of the democratic process if we are to see any accountability from our politicians. 

"With our friends, Lawyers for Climate Action NZ, we are taking legal action against the Minister of Climate Change over ‘glaring holes’ in the Government’s climate plan. We believe in fairness and the rule of law. As a nation, we have high carbon emissions per capita. As a wealthy country, we need to meet our climate targets with real action, as part of the global effort to limit warming to no more than 1.5C this century. Yet, in its first eight months, the Luxon-led Government cancelled 35 climate policies and actions which were part of the first Emissions Reduction Plan - without first consulting the public, as required by law.  

It then developed the second emissions reduction plan which is almost devoid of actions or policies that will reduce emissions at their source. Climate Change Minister Simon Watts instead relied heavily on offsetting the country’s emissions with forestry plantations. This was despite warnings from the Climate Change Commission that tree planting is no substitute for reducing emissions at source. It locks-in vast pine plantations for future generations, and falls short of our obligations under the Paris Agreement.  The science is clear that forestry is important, but it’s not a substitute for reducing our combustion of fossil fuels. The Minister has made the pathway for achieving the third emissions budget incredibly difficult. Left unchallenged, it will be a huge burden for the future."

INTERNATIONAL 

12) COP30 Matters.

Many of you will be aware of the totally inadequate outcome from the recent COP30 conference in Brazil. In more than 30 years of annual climate meetings, the need for fossil fuel use to halt has been mentioned only once – in a resolution made two years ago, at Cop28 in Dubai, to “transition away from fossil fuels”. Delegates from the Arab Group of 22 nations, from Russia, and from a sprinkling of others, were determined it would not happen again, even though there was a very strong and well supported push for the final declaration to explicitly state what steps should now be taken to "transition away from fossil fuels." After the usual intense last minute negotiations Saudi Arabia finally agreed to an oblique compromise wording that resulted in the conference being able to close with an agreement, something that looked to be in jeopardy up to that point. Rather than use the words fossil fuels, the agreement referred to “the UAE consensus” from the COP28 declaration. You can read more about what happened in this Guardian article titled ‘Fossil fuel giants finally in the crosshairs’: Cop30 avoids total failure with last-ditch deal.

It says in the article "With this “Belém political package”, the world took another small step towards the phaseout of fossil fuels – a faltering, inadequate step, and one that will barely interrupt the climate’s steady march towards catastrophe. But a significant departure from total inaction nonetheless."

What is much more encouraging is the initiative from Irene Vélez Torres, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia who announced the Colombia Declaration at the conference. She and her delegation decided that they weren't interested in playing  the ongoing games where fossil fuel interests controlled the agenda.

These extracts below are from an informative article published on the Australian website "Renew Economy", which provides a useful assessment of what happened at the conference.

"Irene Vélez Torres, Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia announced the Colombia Declaration on Friday morning in Belém, Brazil to a standing ovation and rapturous applause. “We are not asking for a lengthy document. We are not asking for a lengthy discussion,” she said. “We believe there is a consensus rising from the people of the world. “As we governments are responsible for the decisions that will impact future generations, we have a moral responsibility to improve the people’s demand for Climate Justice.”

AND -

"Juan Carlos Monterrey, Climate Envoy for Panama, had earlier criticised the Brazilian COP Presidency for the last minute change to drop the fossil fuel declaration from the office text. “It fails the Amazon, it fails science, it fails justice, and it fails the people we’re here to represent. It simply cannot be recognised,” Carlos said. “Failing to name the causes of the climate crisis is not compromised. It’s denial. It’s criminal.”

Colombia’s initiative follows a separate campaign by Pacific countries to push for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty launched in 2020. Vanuatu and Tuvalu were the first to endorse the proposal and both countries are signatories to the Colombia Declaration. Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change, said the cause of climate change was fossil fuels and that it was necessary to act to address this. “We came here to Belem to see the UNFCCC come up with a clear action plan for transitioning away from fossil fuels,” he said. “On this final day, unfortunately, we do not have that yet. We need to build a group of states that will make that happen”

The creation of the group represents a challenge to the COP process where major fossil fuel producing countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia have sought to block discussion or commitment to working through how to get the world off fossil fuels. Torres later told reporters that the world expected a “substantial result” in Belém and that the initiative was needed because the COP process itself was being used to stop action. “I think what the problem is right now is the methodology of consensus, because this consensus has turned into veto,” Torres said. “So the most ambitious agenda has been eliminated. Veto is what is happening here.” 

If you read the above article you will see that Australia after some uncertainty, was one of the 24 founding countries to sign the declaration. As of November 20th there were 83 countries signed up to the declaration, of which, surprise, surprise New Zealand is not one! I've grown to expect such unethical and unprincipled action (or lack of action) from the current government. 

You can see a list of the countries who have signed in this article from the Earth.org website.  

Colombia also followed up the Declaration by announcing "that it will host the First International Conference on the Progressive Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels, scheduled for April 28 and 29, 2026, in Santa Marta, together with the Netherlands.

This announcement embodies a determined commitment: to take the climate agenda beyond the traditional margins of the UN and to build a concrete roadmap toward a just, unequivocal, and global energy transition.

The announcement was made in the final stretch of a climate summit that, as in previous scenarios, disappointed due to the lack of ambition in the final conclusions, which are still not fully closed in a draft presented by the Brazilian presidency that sparked protests from various sectors."

You can read more about this on the Colombia One website.

Finally I wanted to share about The Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change declaration launched in Belém on Wednesday (Nov. 12) during the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30). The document was announced with the signatures of 11 countries, including Brazil, and a call for more signatories.

The Global Initiative is a coalition launched by the Brazilian government with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) during the 2024 G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. It brings together governments, multilateral organizations, society, academia, and the private sector in actions to tackle climate misinformation and promote public debate based on scientific evidence, transparency, and international cooperation.

“This is the first COP that includes information integrity as a topic on the agenda for action. For the first time, we have two days dedicated to information integrity. And this also applies to the negotiation process,” said João Brant, Secretary of Digital Policies at President Lula’s press office.

“Bringing information integrity to the cooperation process means learning from each other, from both the perspective of climate action and that of information integrity, joining forces to take urgent action,” Brant added.one other positive initiative coming out of COP30. 

The Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change launched a declaration in Belém on Wednesday (Nov. 12) during the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30). The document was announced with the signatures of 11 countries, including Brazil, and a call for more signatories.  The Global Initiative is a coalition launched by the Brazilian government with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) during the 2024 G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. It brings together governments, multilateral organizations, society, academia, and the private sector in actions to tackle climate misinformation and promote public debate based on scientific evidence, transparency, and international cooperation.

“This is the first COP that includes information integrity as a topic on the agenda for action. For the first time, we have two days dedicated to information integrity. And this also applies to the negotiation process,” said João Brant, Secretary of Digital Policies at President Lula’s press office. “Bringing information integrity to the cooperation process means learning from each other, from both the perspective of climate action and that of information integrity, joining forces to take urgent action,” Brant added.

13) The Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL).

While researching the earlier item "Nature as Shareholder" I learnt about GAIL and their work on behalf of humanity and our shared planet. They are another example of a group of lawyers using their knowledge and skills on our behalf.

Here are their statements of Purpose, Strategy, Mission and Vision. You can learn more on their website.
  
Our Purpose.

The Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL) has been formed to promote, for the public benefit, through legal education, study, standards and conduct:

    knowledge and understanding of how law can be used as a force for positive impact, and ways of practising law and doing          business that maximise the positive impact of law and business on people and the environment.

GAIL advances its purposes for the benefit of the global public and not for any special interest group.

Our Strategy

The Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers is unique in its operation. 

GAIL brings together a community of legal leaders who are using the practice of law to have a positive impact on people and the planet. We believe lawyers are uniquely positioned to advocate for and champion a truly sustainable and inclusive economy in line with GAIL’s purposes. We leverage the expertise of lawyers to accelerate the shift of corporate models and capital to more sustainable and impactful forms which make sure business is truly a sustainable force for good. We also draw learning from across the full spectrum of Impact disciplines in law and business.

We profile, connect, educate, inspire and mobilise Impact lawyers – locally and around the world. Together, we aim to use the practice of law to create a truly sustainable and inclusive economy. GAIL shares learnings that exist within our community widely to equip lawyers with the knowledge they need to take action. Lawyers are powerful advocates, champions and gatekeepers. Through our programming, we identify and showcase examples of some of the most Impactful work lawyers across the world are engaged in. We highlight legal approaches and tools that can be used elsewhere across the world, and that can be scaled up. By distributing insights and practical learnings effectively, we enable lawyers in any part of the world to act on this knowledge.

Mission

To grow the next generation of ‘Impact Lawyers’ who will advocate for and champion a rapid and just transition towards a truly sustainable and inclusive economy.

Vision

Our work will not end until a sustainable and inclusive economy has been achieved – and all lawyers are Impact lawyers.

14) High Seas Treaty Ratification.

"In June 2023, governments adopted the High Seas Treaty to protect ocean life. The Treaty opened for State signatures on 20 September 2023. By signing countries indicate their willingness to ratify and formally consent to the new international law. On 19 September 2025, the High Seas Treaty reached the milestone of 60 state ratifications needed to trigger its entry into force, enabling stronger international efforts to protect our ocean, mitigate climate change, and safeguard the lives and livelihoods of billions of people worldwide. The 60th ratification triggered a 120 day countdown after which the High Seas Treaty will enter into force and become a legally binding agreement."

You can see which countries have ratified the treaty if you're interested. What is just as interesting is to see the countries who haven't ratified it yet, NZ being one of them. When I last checked there were 75 countries who had ratified. 

This Stuff article ‘World’s biggest crime scene’: Historic treaty agreed, but NZ still yet to ratify provides more information saying "Officials say domestic legislation must first be passed, and that this is “well underway and on track” for New Zealand to ratify next year, in time for the first conference of all parties." 

Let's hope our government follows through and doesn't come up with any excuses why they can't ratify. The global ocean is under huge pressure from over exploitation and being used as a dump for waste from human's activities. This treaty is an essential step towards protecting ocean life. 

Greenpeace have provided some useful background info if you want to know more.

Here is an extract -

"In 2022, the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which aims to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. Target 3 of the GBF is to ‘Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent … of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas’. This is known as the 30×30 target. At the current rate of protection, the 30% goal will not be reached until 2107. 

The ocean and seabed in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) – making up 64% of the global ocean – represent Earth’s largest commons and are home to thousands of unique species and a wide range of ecosystems, from dynamic pelagic systems to highly fragile habitats thousands of metres below the surface. Due to the lack of comprehensive governance, less than 1% of ABNJ are fully or highly protected, with the remainder vulnerable to overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution and climate change.

The Global Ocean Treaty has emerged as a potential framework to address these challenges by, among other means, facilitating the establishment of area-based management tools (ABMTs), including marine protected areas (MPAs), in ABNJ. One of the Treaty’s objectives is to create an ecologically representative network of MPAs in ABNJ. It therefore represents a critical new legal vehicle to help achieve the 30×30 target."  

15) ‘Food forests are everything’: creating edible landscapes helps nature thrive in Afro-descendant lands.

"Afro-descendant communities in Latin America have long cultivated “edible landscapes”, which grow in the midst of natural forests and mimic the surrounding flora. Across the region, Afro-descendant peoples manage about 200m hectares (2m sq km or 494m acres) of these agroforestry systems in biodiversity hotspots, of which only 5% are legally recognised as collectively titled territories.

For decades, those communities have argued that they play a critical role in protecting biodiversity and therefore need legal protection over their lands. Until recently, there was little scientific data to support their claims.
New research changes that. A paper published recently in Nature Communications Earth & Environment is the first peer-reviewed study quantifying the role of Afro-descendant peoples’ contributions to biodiversity, carbon sequestration and the reduction of deforestation, says Martha Cecilia Rosero-Peña, a co-author and environmental sociologist."

Check out the full article in the Guardian. 

Here is the Abstract from the original research paper .

"Over 130 million people in Latin America identify as Afro-descendants, many of whom inhabit lands with potential to mitigate biodiversity loss and climate change. Yet, the role of Afro-descendants is not adequately considered in conservation and climate decision-making. Here, we mapped the biological value of Afro-descendant lands in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Suriname, and conducted a matching analysis to estimate the effect of these lands on deforestation. Afro-descendant lands coincide with areas that have high biodiversity and irrecoverable carbon and were associated with a 29%–55% reduction in forest loss compared to control sites. To contextualize these findings, we present a social-historical assessment of Afro-descendant conservation practices. This assessment highlights the adaptation of African knowledge to the American tropics and the development of sustainable environmental practices. Global environmental institutions, multilateral agencies, and governments should include Afro-descendants in environmental decision-making and support research and policies that enable Afro-descendant management practices." 

16) Humble Aussie scientist breathing life into ruined land with unique farming method.

Tony Rinaudo went with his wife to Niger in 1981.  He championed a simple way to re-establish trees in the dry landscapes of the African Sahal that is now being copied in many places around the world. He calls it Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), which is the process of using existing root networks to regrow trees, instead of starting from seeds. He is now the Principal Climate Action Advisor for humanitarian agency World Vision.

Tony explained, "we worked with farmers and through regenerating the seed stock and the living tree stumps that were already in that landscape, over the next 20 years, across some 5 million hectares, 200 million trees were regenerated. "Gross incomes have increased by about $900 million every year in one of the poorest countries of the of the world and Nigerian farmers, without using fertiliser or irrigation or improved seed, they're growing an additional 500,000 tonnes of grain every year, enough to feed two and a half million people."
"In effect, it's a combined bank account and an insurance policy. If all else fails, the trees are there as a mainstay," he said.

"People who had no hope, couldn't feed their children properly, put nice clothes on them or even send them to school, all of a sudden, here's a simple solution that empowers you and enables you to create that future that you want." The farmers aptly call their trees, "their green gold".

To honour Tony's achievements, he's been awarded the 2025 Luxembourg Peace Prize for Outstanding Environmental Peace.

When asked what the recognition means to him, Tony said, "every time I go back into the villages and see the look on people's faces, that's the actual reward." However, he admits, "an award like that puts it on a pedestal that people can notice." Tony's looking forward to the future, planning to travel back to Kenya and Uganda next year to continue his life's mission. "Our goal is to spread this to at least 100 countries and to regenerate over 1 billion hectares of degraded land," he said. "I've got no doubt that Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration will continue to spread now that it's been released out there."

Check out the full article.

You can also read more about this work on the World Vision website.

17) The sea around Antarctica is much saltier than it should be—and that’s a bad thing.

The information in this item was again something I learned from an NZ Geographic email. 

"As sea ice melts in a warming climate, the Southern Ocean should be getting fresher. That’s what scientists expected to find when they analysed recent satellite data. Instead, they were astonished to find it’s actually getting saltier. It likely means the delicate structure of the ocean has been upset, and relatively dense, warm, and salty water, which is usually held down by a fresher layer on top, is now bursting to the surface—accelerating ice retreat around Antarctica. The researchers speculate that stronger westerly winds, a consequence of climate change, might be to blame. 

“We think this could be a regime shift,” says Alessandro Silvano from the University of Southampton, who led the research. “What the consequences are in the long term is an open question.”

If this interests you then check out The European Space Agency website, which provides more detail about this research.  

Here is an extract highlighting our lack of understanding about the global dynamics we are interfering with. Another example of how human hubris has consequences -

Dr Silvano added, “Our new study has revealed that the Southern Ocean is changing, but in a different way to what we expected.

“We might be closer to passing a tipping point than expected and we have potentially entered a new state defined by persistent sea ice decline, sustained by a newly discovered feedback loop.”

The loss of Antarctic sea ice has far-reaching global consequences. As the ice melts, more heat stored in the ocean is released into the atmosphere, fuelling more intense storms and accelerating climate change.

This, in turn, contributes to extreme heatwaves on land and further melting of the Antarctic ice sheet – leading to rising sea levels around the world. Diminished sea ice also threatens vital habitats for penguins and other species that depend on the ice for survival.

Antarctica is no longer the stable, frozen continent it was once thought to be. It is undergoing rapid and unexpected changes that current climate models didn’t predict. Until recently, these models assumed that a warming climate would lead to increased precipitation and ice melt, freshening surface waters and helping to maintain relatively stable sea ice levels.

That assumption no longer holds true. These new findings reveal a rise in surface water salinity, a breakdown in the ocean’s layered structure, and a much faster decline in sea ice than previously anticipated.

18) Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says -

I've included this item as a good example of human hubris and the serious consequences arising from it.
Isn't "hubris" such an excellent word to describe human foolishness in the face of copious evidence that we must change our economic system and our lifestyles.

HUBRIS - Extreme pride or overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance.

"Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions. The failure of carbon offsets to cut planet-heating pollution is “not due to a few bad apples”, a review paper has found, but down to deep-seated systemic problems that incremental change will not solve.

Research over two decades has found “intractable” problems that have made carbon credits in most big programmes poor quality, according to the study. While the industry and diplomats have made efforts to improve the system, it found much-awaited rules agreed at a UN climate summit last year “did not substantially address the quality problem”.

“We must stop expecting carbon offsetting to work at scale,” said Stephen Lezak, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Smith School and co-author of the study, in Annual Reviews. “We have assessed 25 years of evidence and almost everything up until this point has failed.”

You can check out the full article in the Guardian. 

19) The world needs peasants -

This long read from the Aeon website is another big picture item challenging those who read it to look at their worldview. Instead of the narrative that we should be helping lift up the lifestyles of the world's peasants to become closer to those of us who live in the developed world, it argues that they should be supported in their lifestyles. It is we in the developed world that must reduce our expectations and simplify our lifestyles, because we are currently using far more than our share of the resources provided by Papatuanuku and producing far more than our share of the pollution and waste She has to try and assimilate.

"Far from being a relic of the past, peasants are vital to feeding the world. They need to be supported, not marginalised.

The peasant way of life is a critical buffer against climate change. Peasant villages recycle biochemical waste back to the land; many peasants also supply their nutritional needs from their own farms. Peasants, who directly manage about 10 per cent of the land on Earth – an area five times larger than all towns and cities – supply a countervailing principle to corporate extractionism and short-termism. They also preserve critical local knowledge of land and weather systems, and the interactions of plants and animals. The peasantry is one of humanity’s most crucial economic, social and ecological resources, and we need to invest in it if we are to flourish. Affluent and innovative, this class will insulate us from more extreme degradation of natural systems. Impoverished and terrorised, it will be forced, in the end, to leave the land en masse, with manifold catastrophic consequences.

In 1979, writing from a remote village in eastern France, John Berger observed that the objective of the peasant was to hand on the means of survival (if possible made more secure, compared to what he inherited) to his children. His ideals are located in the past; his obligations are to the future, which he himself will not live to see. 

We all would do well – survival may depend on – generalising Berger’s apt characterisation of the peasant relationship to life and land. The crisis of the global peasantry sits at the centre of all other crises, and we have to solve it. We must put peasants back at the centre of our worldview. Their struggle to hold on to their vital place and role is our struggle. A species struggle."

20) 2025 State of the Climate Report: Our Planet’s Vital Signs are Crashing.

This article published on the Bioscience website summarises the annual State of the Climate Report, which brings together a range of data on our planet's Vital Signs. It has been shared by a CKM member and includes a series of graphs highlighting how severe the deterioration of the health of the planet really is. My usual process of putting together this newsletter is to accumulate different items I see, or that other people pass onto me, and then put them together every three months.  As I've shared before this is a process I struggle with at times because there is so much information providing evidence of how serious our predicament is and I'm trying to decide what I should share. This time round I've left out several items but decided this one must be included. I certainly understand why people often choose to avoid this sort of information, but inevitably I get back to the point of thinking "it's not going to help if we ignore the signs and pretend our lives are going to continue as we've all become so used to". Do people think we've reached a level of disruption that will level off and not get worse? To me it seems so obvious it can only deteriorate because I know one simple fact. That fact is global CO2 levels are still increasing inexorably. Look at the first graph in the article. The rate of increase of CO2 levels is still climbing. The line on the graph is getting steeper. All the other graphs tell a similar story. Why do we carry on as if this is not happening? Why are we so obsessed with "The Economy" and "Growth" when those things are wholly dependent on the health and ongoing viability of the environment and climate? I guess I could try and put my head in the sand and ignore what is front of me but once you know something it's very hard to un-know it!  

The report presents a lot of critical information but also includes important climate change mitigation strategies. It also addresses the important question of  "Social Tipping Points". In the conclusion of the report the authors state the following. The final sentence, which I have highlighted, gets to the crux of the issue for me - 

"Climate change is a threat to ecosystem and human health, but it is also fundamentally a social justice issue. We are disproportionately harming the vulnerable and marginalized—those least responsible for the crisis. As we confront rising seas, burning forests, and destabilized communities, we must remain guided by a commitment to justice, dignity, and the common good. The future is still being written. Through choices in policy, investment, education, and care for one another and the Earth, we can still create a turning point. It begins by embracing our shared humanity and recognizing the profound interconnectedness of all life on the planet."

Here is an extract from the article. 

A yearly analysis of climate change’s progress and effects shows a “planet on the brink” of ecological breakdown and widespread crisis and suggests that only rapid climate mitigation can avoid the worst consequences. “We felt an ethical responsibility to document this turning point clearly and to speak directly to humanity about where we stand,” wrote William Ripple, an ecologist at Oregon State University and coauthor of the new report, in an email. “What we’re seeing now are signs of systemic distress.”

The sixth annual report, published in BioScience, analyzes global data on Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, energy, ecosystems, food systems, and more. Researchers identified our planet’s so-called vital signs, including ocean temperature, surface temperature, sea ice extent, and carbon pollution. Of the 34 vital signs, 22 were at record levels, indicating a highly stressed Earth system. 

For example, 2024 surpassed 2023 as the hottest year on record. Ocean heat and wildfire-related tree cover loss are both at all-time highs. Deadly weather disasters surged in 2024 and 2025, with floods, wildfires, and typhoons killing hundreds in the U.S. alone. Atmospheric warming is showing signs of accelerating. Ice at the poles continues to melt, contributing to sea level rise. And the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a global network of currents critical for circulating heat on Earth, is showing signs of weakening, which could trigger further climate disruptions. 

21) I wish we could ignore Bill Gates on the climate crisis. But he’s a billionaire, so we can’t.

This is the title of a recent Guardian article from George Monbiot. George is very good at shining a light on issues that most people would prefer to ignore. I was particularly thankful to see that he addresses the issue of climate tipping points and their unpredictability and calls Bill Gates out for his form of denial. 

Let’s begin with the fundamental problem: Bill Gates is a politics denier. Though he came to it late, he now accepts the realities of climate science. But he lives in flat, embarrassing denial about political realities. His latest essay on climate, published last week, treats the issue as if it existed in a political vacuum. He writes as if there were no such thing as political power, and no such thing as billionaires.

His main contention is that funds are very limited, so the delegates at this month’s climate summit in Brazil should direct money away from “near-term emissions goals” towards climate “adaptation” and spending on poverty and disease.

Yes, the funds available for any good cause are scarce, but that’s not because of some natural law, some implacable truth about human society. It’s because oligarchic power has waged war on benign state spending, leading to the destruction of USAID and drastic cuts to the aid budgets of other countries, including the UK. Austerity is a political choice. The decision to impose it is driven by governments bowing to the wishes of the ultra-rich.

Gates calls his essay Three Tough Truths About Climate. So here’s another tough truth he studiously ignores. If, as now seems likely, crucial Earth systems cross tipping points and suddenly collapse, the effects on human life, let alone the survival of other life forms (a topic he fails, as usual, to mention), would destroy the smooth and steady progress he foresees. Because environmental change is likely to proceed not in gradual and linear ways, but through sudden changes of state, the possible impacts on human wellbeing are extremely hard to predict. His argument that we should align all funding to current “data-based analysis” of improvements in human welfare, while it might sound rational, introduces in the face of systemic change a profound irrationality, prompting us to ignore the greatest threats.

I wish we could ignore Bill Gates. Unfortunately his economic and political power makes that impossible. But unlike him, we can recognise that this power exists and, when it speaks, it does so on its own behalf.


22) Warning! This “Colorful Chart” is Censored by IPCC.

I received this from James Hansen recently. It is a bit technical but for those who are interested in climate forcings it is pretty interesting. The graph is below.

The abstract from the paper states - 

"Abstract. The growth rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) climate forcing increased rapidly in the last 15 years to about 0.5 W/m2 per decade, as shown by the “colorful chart” for GHG climate forcing that we have been publishing for 25 years (Fig. 1). The chart is not in IPCC reports, perhaps because it reveals inconvenient facts. Although growth of GHG climate forcing declined rapidly after the 1987 Montreal Protocol, other opportunities to decrease climate forcing were missed. If policymakers do not appreciate the significance of present data on changing climate forcings, we scientists must share the blame."

Here is a further extract with more info - 

"One implication of the increased growth rate of GHG forcing in the last 15 years is that the goal to keep global warming under 2°C is now implausible. IPCC defined a GHG scenario (RCP2.6) intended to provide a 66% chance of keeping global warming below 2°C. Actual growth of GHG forcing has diverged dramatically from that scenario (Fig. 1), with reality being close to the extreme RCP8.5 scenario. The gap between reality and RCP2.6 could be closed by capturing and storing CO2 (carbon capture and sequestration, CCS), but the annual cost for the gap at January 2023 (the time of the last 60-month mean) would be $2.4-5 trillion with current technology, and the gap and annual cost are increasing.

RCP2.6, in fact, was never plausible, as it relied on assumption of large-scale biomass-burning at powerplants with carbon capture and permanent storage of the captured CO2, a scheme that would ravage nature and threaten food security. We scientists must share the blame, if we allow policymakers to believe that such scenarios provide a realistic projection of climate change."

If you wish to read the full report you can download it from James' website.