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Exclusive: Henry Dimbleby joins farmers in voicing fears of lower standards and a poor deal for British food producers

Britain’s rural communities could be “destroyed”, the former government food tsar has said, if ministers sign a US trade deal that undercuts British farming standards.

Ministers are working on a new trade deal with the US, after previous post-Brexit attempts stalled. Unpopular agreements signed at the time with Australia and New Zealand featured tariff-free access to beef and lamb and were accused of undercutting UK farmers, who are governed by higher welfare standards than their counterparts. Australia, in a trade deal signed by Liz Truss in late 2021 that came into effect in 2023, was given bespoke sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards aimed to not be more “trade-restrictive than necessary to protect human life and health”.

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Translating noisy geese to time travel across the universe.

Germany plans to move away from a focus on hydrogen to decarbonise industry, with carbon capture and storage (CCS) now on the menu as the new government pushes forward with gas-fired power plans.

Traders expect volatility and unsettled US compliance carbon markets under the looming overhang threat of federal action via several potential legal avenues seeking to terminate state-run ETS schemes following guidance from the White House. 

Kenya could raise $170 million from the sale of carbon credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, according to analysis by a carbon market data aggregator.

The UK government has thrown clear-cut support behind a company using high quality avoidance voluntary credits to meet Scope 3 indirect emission targets, as it steps into the void left by the opposition from the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), as well as the election of a climate sceptic US president.

Lawmakers from the ruling European People's Party (EPP) in the EU Parliament have requested an impact assessment of the bloc's Green Claims Directive, which seeks to regulate climate allegations that companies are allowed to put in front of consumers.

Auditors need to fully consider and disclose information on climate-related matters in their reports, a think tank warned on Thursday, based on an analysis of audits for more than 100 "carbon exposed" companies. 

A soil carbon project developer has secured continued support from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) after exceeding all key benchmarks set under the agency’s Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) initiative.

The Malaysian state of Sabah on Thursday made acquiring licenses mandatory for all carbon credit trading, with offenders facing fines of up to MYR5 million ($1.1 mln) and five years’ imprisonment.

Prices in China's national emissions market dropped to their lowest levels in a year amid downbeat sentiment, while the country's voluntary carbon credits maintained their relative strength.

Biodiversity credits have great potential for supporting the surge in rewilding projects, the chair of an international rewilding network has said.

Only 2% of the more than 22,700 companies assessed in 2024 achieved the highest rating for environmental transparency and action, according to new data released Thursday by a climate disclosure non-profit.

Supportive policy and a global price on carbon will be critical to making low-carbon steel production competitive, according to steelmaker ArcelorMittal, which reported on Thursday that it had almost halved its emissions footprint since 2018.

European carbon prices dropped away on Thursday morning as the market squared away for the extended Easter weekend break and some participants booked profits after a 9% rally over the last six days.

As the first climate summit in the Amazon approaches, a gulf is opening between what the area’s farming lobby wants, and what the world needs

• Revealed: world’s largest meat company may break Amazon deforestation pledges again
• The life and death of a ‘laundered’ cow in the Amazon rainforest

Yellowstone in Montana may have the most romanticised cowboy culture in the world thanks to the TV drama series of the same name starring Kevin Costner. But the true home of the 21st-century cowboy is about 7,500 miles south, in what used to be the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, where the reality of raising cattle and producing beef is better characterised by depression, market pressure and vexed efforts to prevent the destruction of the land and its people.

The toll was apparent along the rutted PA 279 road in Pará state. Signs of human and environmental stress were not hard to find during the last dry season. Record drought had dried up irrigation ponds and burned pasture grass down to the roots, leaving emaciated cattle behind the fences. Exposed red soil was whipped up into dust devils as SUVs and cattle trucks sped past on their way between Xinguara and São Félix do Xingu, which is home to both the biggest herd on the planet and the fastest erasure of forest in the Amazon.

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Brazilian ranchers in Pará and Rondônia say JBS can not achieve stated goal of deforestation-free cattle

• Bibles, bullets and beef: Amazon cowboy culture at odds with Brazil’s climate goals
• The life and death of a ‘laundered’ cow in the Amazon rainforest

The world’s largest meat company, JBS, looks set to break its Amazon rainforest protection promises again, according to frontline workers.

Beef production is the primary driver of deforestation, as trees are cleared to raise cattle, and scientists warn this is pushing the Amazon close to a tipping point that would accelerate its shift from a carbon sink into a carbon emitter. JBS, the Brazil-headquartered multinational that dominates the Brazilian cattle market, promised to address this with a commitment to clean up its beef supply chain in the region by the end of 2025.

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UN agency the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has released its environmental strategy for 2025-31, planning to support the development of biodiversity and carbon credit markets to reward small-scale farmers.

Salmon is often marketed as the sustainable, healthy and eco-friendly protein choice. But what you may not realise is that most of the salmon you buy is farmed, especially if you live in the UK, because Scottish salmon producers are no longer required to tell you.

Josh Toussaint-Strauss finds out why it is important for consumers to know where their salmon comes from, and examines the gap between the marketing of farmed salmon and the reality for our health, the environmental and animal welfare

• Scottish government must do more to control salmon farming, inquiry finds

• Scottish salmon producers allowed to remove ‘farmed’ from front of packaging

• Norway rules out fish farm ban despite ‘existential threat’ to wild salmon

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A US-based nature intelligence company has published a framework for supporting companies in biodiversity-related disclosures, in line with major reporting standards and rules.