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Cropped 26 August 2026: Desertification talks | Record ocean temperatures | Colorado water woes

26.08.26
By:
Orla Dwyer, Dr Giuliana Viglione

This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s fortnightly Cropped email newsletter.

We handpick and explain the most important stories at the intersection of climate, land, food and nature over the past fortnight.

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Article Contents

Key developments

Mongolia desertification talks 

DROUGHT: Countries are divided over a global drought protocol at the ongoing UN desertification summit COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, reported Down To Earth. The protocol was “left unresolved” at the last major round of talks in 2024, with disagreement over whether or not it should be binding, noted the outlet. Nigeria’s Premium Times said countries are “rac[ing] to finalise decisions…before the conference closes on 28 August”. 

FUNDS: A number of announcements were made at COP17. Sustainability outlet Edie reported that countries and the private sector mobilised more than $1.3bn for land restoration and drought resilience projects. Reuters covered a new report from the International Union for Conservation of ​Nature, which found that countries have fallen “far short” of their land-restoration targets. 

PROTEST: Indigenous peoples’ representatives “staged a protest” at COP17, calling for greater inclusion in the official negotiations after certain agenda items were set aside, reported Down To Earth. The outlet said protesters “argued that the dedicated Indigenous peoples and traditional communities caucus set up for this COP was insufficient and merely symbolic”. 

Ocean temperatures break records

SST SOARS: Sea surface temperatures reached 21.1C – the highest daily average on record – on 22 August, said the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The Copernicus record extends back to 1979 and focuses on the global ocean between the latitudes of 60°S and 60°N. Separately, a rapid-attribution study from the World Weather Attribution research group found that human-caused climate change made June and July’s record-high ocean temperatures in Europe both more intense and more likely to occur. 

SEAS SUMMIT: A wide range of countries have “launched a bid” for voluntary ocean-protection measures to be incorporated into a negotiated decision at the upcoming COP31 climate summit, reported Climate Home News. The plan is “expected to include regional and international steps to integrate measures to safeguard the planet’s ocean and climate”, it added. Co-host Turkey will hold an “ocean and seas summit” in Trabzon in September, ahead of November’s COP31. 

WANDERING WHALES: The Southern Ocean krill fishery closed “more than three months early” after reaching the quota designed to prevent overfishing, said Mongabay. The outlet added that scientists are “raising concerns about the combined impacts of overfishing and climate change” on krill, which is the “foundation of the Antarctic food web”. Meanwhile, BBC News reported on a new, decades-long study showing that whales have been moving into “previously inaccessible areas” of East Greenland as the sea ice has disappeared. 

News and views

  • PROTECTION RESCINDED: The Trump administration in the US moved to rescind the “roadless rule”, which bars road construction – “and, by extension, most logging and mining activity” – from otherwise “untouched” public lands, reported National Public Radio. 
  • BURNING: Major wildfires in Indonesia “scorched wide areas of forests and peatland”, reported the Associated Press. Indonesian newspaper Kompas said fires in Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, are threatening species such as the critically endangered Bornean orangutan.
  • FOOD IMPACTS: Coverage continued on the impact of this summer’s extreme weather on farming. The Guardian reported on fears of “catastrophic” harvests in Europe. Reuters covered farmers in Japan working at night to avoid daytime heat. The New York Times said extreme heat led to an early grape harvest in parts of France. 
  • RULES: Farmers producing more than half of Nigeria’s cocoa beans could fail to meet requirements set out in the EU’s anti-deforestation law, industry experts told Reuters. The law is due to take effect at the end of this year. 
  • OIL EXPLORATION: Brazilian president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva pledged to “continue to care for the environment”, even as he advocated for further oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon River, said Folha de São Paulo. Petrobras, the state-run oil company, is seeking to drill new wells “to assess the area’s potential and determine whether the discovery is commercially viable”, it added.

Spotlight

The Colorado River’s water woes

This week, Carbon Brief explains the historic water shortages on the Colorado River and the potential impact of the current El Niño.

The US Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water resources in the western US, last week released its long-awaited plan for addressing persistent water shortages on the Colorado River.

Earlier this month, the two largest reservoirs in the US – Lake Mead and Lake Powell, both of which are located on the Colorado – recorded their lowest-ever water levels.

The proposed cuts will begin in 2027 and affect the three “lower basin” states of Arizona, California and Nevada. The four “upper basin” states – Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming – will not face mandatory cuts under the plan.

On Monday, the state of Nevada sued the Trump administration over the plan, saying it would cause “devastating environmental, socioeconomic and health and human safety impacts”.

Water shortfalls

The shortfall in Lakes Mead and Powell is due to a combination of climate change, natural variability and prolonged over-consumption. 

The Upper Colorado River Basin, which feeds the river, has been gripped by a historic “megadrought” for more than a quarter of a century. Nearly half of the megadrought’s intensity over 2000-18 is attributable to climate change, according to a 2020 study.

At the same time, the river has been consistently overdrawn for decades. 

Water rights on the Colorado River are allocated between the seven upper and lower basin states by the Colorado River Compact of 1922. (Later agreements also codified an allotment to Mexico.)

These agreements allocated 7.5m acre-feet (9.25 cubic kilometres) per year to each basin’s states, as well as 1.5m acre-feet (1.85km3) to Mexico.

However, since 2000, the average inflow of water into the river basin from snowmelt is around 12.5m acre-feet (15.42km3). Voluntary usage cuts and water-saving methods have not been enough for the river’s reservoirs to rebuild their water storage in the face of the consistent over-drawing, said Dr Jack Schmidt, a senior research scientist at Utah State University’s Center for Colorado River Studies.

Role of El Niño

The current El Niño – which is widely expected to become the strongest such event on record – also will not provide a lasting solution to the water woes in the western US. 

While El Niño does historically bring wetter winters to the US south-west, this is primarily in the form of rainfall in the lower basin states. Carbon Brief climate science contributor Dr Zeke Hausfather told Wired:

“Peer-reviewed correlations between El Niño and Upper Basin snowpack or streamflow are modest at best.”

Where El Niño could make a difference to the Colorado Basin’s water supply is if this expected higher-than-normal rainfall allows Arizona and California to withdraw smaller quantities of water to irrigate their crops, Schmidt told Carbon Brief.

In 2025, “exceptional wet conditions” in the autumn allowed for such a reduction, Schmidt said:

“That allowed a lot of savings of water. That really bailed us out.”

Overall, however, the water levels in Lakes Mead and Powell will continue to decline until next spring, when the Upper Colorado snowpack begins to melt. Schmidt added:

“We’ve got many months ahead of us of declining supply.”

Watch, read, listen

PLANTING PROBLEMS: The Wire explained “why India’s ecological restoration drive needs revamping”. 

DAM ISSUES: The Mekong Eye examined whether the way hydropower dams operate in Vietnam may be less effective at reducing flood impacts in “unpredictable” weather. 

TICKED OFF: Civil Eats looked at the impact of a “surge” in ticks in the US, partly due to climate change. 

SAVING FORESTS: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast spoke to environmentalists about how to better protect forests in Africa. 

New science

  • Restoring previously degraded forests stored carbon at a 50% higher rate than planting new ones in China over 1986-2019 | Nature Geoscience
  • Data from 36 coastal low- and middle-income countries showed that an increase in the number of marine heatwaves increased the probability of child mortality by nearly 6% | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  • Policy-driven expansions in solar power “inadvertently” led to reduced bird diversity in parts of China over 2014-23 | Science 
  • Nearly two-thirds of river-dwelling fish will face “more persistent” restrictions on their habitats due to uneven warming, under a very-high emissions scenario | Nature Climate Change
  • Experiments showed no evidence that trees adjust their hydraulic and photosynthetic systems in response to drought conditions | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Noticeboard

This edition of Cropped was written by Orla Dwyer and Dr Giuliana Viglione. 

Cropped is edited by Dr Giuliana Viglione. Please send tips and feedback to [email protected].