Hello! Today’s newsletter picks up where last week’s Climate Focus left off, diving deeper into the ways sustainable switching is stalling, but also highlighting institutions trying to make the change.
Friday’s newsletter covered coral reefs, CO2 emissions and continued use of fossil fuels past 2050, but there was a missing piece of the puzzle – deforestation.
A report found the world is falling far short of the goal of stopping deforestation, with losses of 8.1 million hectares (20 million acres) of forest – an area about the size of England – in 2024, largely driven by agricultural expansion and forest fires.
This did not go unnoticed as global investors managing over $3 trillion called on governments to stop and reverse deforestation and ecosystem degradation by 2030, in a statement ahead of next month’s U.N. climate conference in Brazil. Also on my radar today: |
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Jair Schmitt, director at IBAMA, inspects logs from the Amazon rainforest during an operation to combat deforestation, Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino |
"All the investors that we are talking to think there is a huge risk for us not taking deforestation and climate change into consideration in the long-term, and not just for their own morals, but because that will harm the markets directly and their profits directly," said Ingrid Tungen, head of deforestation-free markets at Rainforest Foundation Norway, of what prompted the Belém Investor Statement.
The investors emphasized the need for policies that deliver legal, regulatory, and financial certainty to help protect the forests and safeguard economic stability, said Jan Erik Saugestad, CEO at Nordic firm Storebrand Asset Management. The role of U.S. President Donald Trump in rolling back support for global environmental efforts was also hampering action, said Tungen. "I think Trump has made it more difficult for investors and managers to take climate and biodiversity into account in such a volatile market," she said. |
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Holding the line on climate policies |
Speaking of rollbacks, France will keep pressing the World Bank to maintain its climate finance agenda despite the Trump administration's pressure on the global lender to abandon it, new French development minister Eleonore Caroit said.
Efforts to address climate change will feature heavily in France's presidency of the G7 in 2026, Caroit told reporters on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Washington.
"So we obviously continue to support the 45% objective," Caroit said, adding that France wanted to keep targets that agree with the Paris climate accords abandoned by Trump for a second time in January. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has derided the goal as "vapid, buzzword-centric marketing," called on the World Bank to return to financing coal projects, along with gas, oil and nuclear energy. In a statement to the IMF steering committee, Bessent said the 45% climate "co-benefits" target "skews projects away from country priorities and distorts projects away from the goal of increasing access" to reliable energy. But it’s not just the U.S. ramping up fossil fuels. Brazil's environmental agency Ibama approved Petrobras conducting exploratory research by drilling wells in the Foz do Amazonas region, near the mouth of the Amazon River, the state-run oil company said.
The drilling is expected to begin immediately and last around five months, Petrobras said, adding that for the moment it will not be producing any oil. The contrast between Brazil's energy policies and its climate leadership ambitions have drawn sharp criticisms from environmental advocates. |
Displaced Palestinian children walk, as one of them moves a cart loaded with water containers, amid a truce between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City. REUTERS/Ebrahim Hajjaj |
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Gaza aid concerns: Fearing a collapse of the Israel-Hamas truce, some Palestinians rushed to buy goods at Nuseirat’s main market, while families fled Khan Younis after nearby Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 people, including a woman and child, according to residents and health officials. The ceasefire deal also calls for increased aid to Gaza, where hundreds of thousands faced famine in August, the IPC global hunger monitor reported.
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Chicago ICE raids: U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis in Chicago called U.S. immigration officials into her courtroom to answer questions about agents’ use of aggressive tactics during President Donald Trump’s crackdown in the city. Ellis repeatedly expressed concern that federal agents were violating her October 9 order requiring officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to wear visible identification and to issue warnings before deploying anti-riot weapons such as tear gas.
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U.S. judiciary furlough: A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which employs roughly 1,250 people, said all of its staff will be furloughed, though "some are working on excepted activities during the lapse in appropriations." The court system exhausted what funds it had to sustain paid operations during a government shutdown now entering its 21st day.
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Vietnam pollution v jobs: Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh issued a directive prohibiting petrol motorbikes from entering the centre of the capital from the middle of 2026, as the country seeks to reduce high levels of air pollution. But Japan and some of the nation's top manufacturers warned that a planned ban on petrol-powered motorbikes in Hanoi could spark job losses and disrupt a $4.6 billion market that is dominated by Honda. Click here for the exclusive Reuters report.
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Aussie workers’ rights: Australia’s Fair Work Commission granted Karlene Chandler, a retail bank employee at Westpac, the right to work from home all the time in a closely watched employment case, as industry bosses urge more workers to return to the office. Chandler was told by a Westpac manager that "working from home is no substitution for childcare", but the commission said there was no reasonable ground to refuse her request.
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Click here for an in-depth Reuters graphics investigation into how Bashar al-Assad's government transferred bodies from a known mass grave to a hidden location between 2019 and 2021, in an effort to cover up years of atrocities.
The right to a dignified burial is a component of the right to justice and respect for human dignity under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 16, peace, justice and strong institutions as well as being enshrined in international law. |
Married couple Matinez Pode and Elisabelle Kouadio Ahou both from opposing groups during the civil war and the post-election crisis, in Duekoue, Ivory Coast. REUTERS/Luc Gnago |
Love as a form of peace and resolution takes the focus of today’s spotlight as a town in Ivory Coast, torn apart by election violence and mass killings more than a decade ago, is using "reconciliation marriages" between rival groups to help avoid a repeat.
Dozens of men and women from different communities have tied the knot in recent years. Many had joined youth groups and other activities organized by local nonprofit Limpia, which offered support and counseling to couples that got together. |
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