The Mirage of Climate Action at the Summit in Brazil

In this era of societal disruption and metacrisis, international climate summits provide us a Shakespearean display of the human craving for credible myths to avoid daunting truths. Four lanes of greed carve through one of the remaining lungs and heat-shields of our planet — and this month it speeds 50,000 souls towards reassuring each other that they are noble, not needy, and well-informed, not foolish. Earlier this year, the summit secretariat rushed to tell everyone that this new highway through the Amazon Rainforest would have been built anyway. They’d probably heard how new roads cause – and then enable – deforestation. The Brazilian government responded with some more commitments on rainforest protection. That’s promising, but they still give permits to dig up the Amazon for the metals under the trees. The mirage shimmering above the asphalt, seen by delegates as they approach the city of Belem, is a symbol for what passes as scientific curiosity, environmental care, and responsible leadership on the world stage in 2025. 

Ahead of the latest tropical junket, I spoke with the Climate Emergency Forum about what the climate has been telling us through the crazy temperature readings over the last two years. The changes can’t be explained through carbon gases alone. There are various contributing factors — and an important one is that human activity has badly disrupted the biohydrological processes where large forests and oceans naturally seed clouds. I explained the need for a paradigm shift in climatology and related activism and policy, and mentioned my recent essay on the topic, where I summarise the evidence. As many people have followed my analysis on the topic since 2018, I thought it important to summarise my latest understanding — beyond ‘carbon-centrism’.

Seven years ago in the Deep Adaptation paper, I stated that there was already evidence that climate change was accelerating. It’s odd that my research analysis, as an outsider, was closer to today’s observational truth than the top career climatologists. But that points to some of the limitations of any institutionalised scholarship. This week I wrote an article for a current affairs magazine explaining that to challenge mainstream climatology and the IPCC is not to disrespect science. Instead, science grows stronger when challenged in good faith; weaker when shielded from scrutiny. Blind deference to scientific authorities may look like respect, but it’s the opposite. It freezes curiosity, which is science’s beating heart. 

But I am not a climatologist, and so have limited influence, and as well as a personal need to get on with other areas of work. Therefore, it is really important that more attention is given to the climate researchers who aren’t trapped in either a dogma of rejecting anthropogenic climate change, on the one hand, or claiming the recent changes are mainly due to carbon emissions. That’s why I am pleased that highly capable and experienced scientists like Dr. Anastasia Makarieva started writing accessible articles, on Substack and elsewhere. To enable your attention to the relevant scientists, I will list some key papers and who wrote them, at the end of this blog. 

Attending one climate summit in Egypt three years ago helped confirm my view of what’s going on at these events. The summits — and related commitments — are little more than dressing the windows of the prison cells of our societies, trapped in a system of rapacious capitalism, and restrained by the agendas set by two factions of capital. On the one side, there’s over six trillion in fossil fuels, which runs a well-oiled machine of political influence. On the other side, there’s over three trillion dollars in lower carbon energy, happily cashing in on public concern with the climate. The need to reshape industrial consumer societies in a fair way, so we can reduce energy consumption, stop habitat destruction, repair nature, and reduce damage from unfolding climate weirdness, have been too unprofitable to get centre stage. 

Will anything change? I concluded my recent interview by telling the hosts of my hope that some of the established environmental NGOs will be more bold about how defending and restoring nature must be at the centre of the climate fight. This is their opportunity to reclaim their role in contemporary environmentalism. And if they don’t challenge carbon-centrism and its ‘fake green fairytale‘ more clearly from now on, then they wouldn’t be doing their job — either for the environment, or for their own future viability as organisations. 

But I won’t be holding my breath. Sadly, environmentalism is somewhat infected with compromise, careerism, and performativity. Look out for the LinkedIn posts from the summit that report graciously on rubbing shoulders with people higher up a career ladder, or with large online followings. And try not groan too much when delegates Instagram about profound experiences with the trees, people, and plant medicines of the Amazon, which they were “honoured” to have after “great efforts” at the summit. Of course, I’d be happy if that translated into a radical pan-ecological approach to climate change! 

Below I list some key texts that support a transition to such a pan-ecological approach. 

Thx, Jem

(Image at top was produced with AI. My article on AI ethics and collapse comes out next week).

The climatologists saying change is accelerating and we don’t know why

The World Meteorological Organisation reported in May 2025 that the unanticipated number and length of warmer periods, which are higher than the threshold of 1.5C above preindustrial levels, “signals accelerating climate change.” World Meteorological Organization – global temperatures will continue to break records in the next 5 years | Global Climate Risks 

Some climatologists prefer to say this involves natural fluctuation, and is temporary, so there is no acceleration, whereas some of them who confirm acceleration, claim they know the reason, such as cleaner shipping fuel. But many admit they don’t know why. I was relieved to see NASA’s Gavin Schmidt say that. 

The latest global albedo study

In 2024, a paper in the journal Science, by a team of German climatologists, reported on the record-low planetary albedo, or low reflectivity, caused mainly by reduced low-cloud cover. The key issue becomes, therefore, what’s causing that decline?

Helge F. Goessling et al., Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo. Science 387,68-73(2025). DOI:10.1126/science.adq7280 

The snow in Tibet paper 

A paper in Nature Climate Change in 2023 on climactic “teleconnections” between different regions, reported on how the clouds in Tibet are affected by what’s happening in the Amazon. The scientists were a team from Beijing Normal University and the Potsdam Institute. So there is snow in Tibet that was formed around the pollen and bacteria sent up into the atmosphere by the Amazon.  

Liu, T., Chen, D., Yang, L. et al. Teleconnections among tipping elements in the Earth system. Nature Climate Change, 13, 67–74 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01558-4

The phytoplankton and clouds studies

In 2024, a group of Scandinavian climatologists reported in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, that marine dimethyl sulfide (DMS) emissions from phytoplankton are key for cloud seeding and precipitation over lands, not just the oceans. 

de Jonge RW, et al (2024) Natural Marine Precursors Boost Continental New Particle Formation and Production of Cloud Condensation Nuclei. Environ Sci Technol. 2024 Jun 25;58(25):10956-10968. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c01891.

The problem is that the phytoplankton we need for that process are in decline, globally, as reported in 2025 by South African climatologists in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. 

Ryan-Keogh, T.J., Tagliabue, A. & Thomalla, S.J. Global decline in net primary production underestimated by climate models. Commun Earth Environ 6, 75 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02051-4

For years many scientists have been calling for a more ecological approach 

In 2017, a group of twenty-two scientists from around the world summarised the underappreciated role of forests in climate regulation, not just carbon storage, in the esteemed scientific journal Global Environmental Change. They said: 

“Forest-driven water and energy cycles are poorly integrated into regional, national, continental and global decision-making on climate change adaptation, mitigation, land use and water management. This constrains humanity’s ability to protect our planet’s climate and life-sustaining functions.” 

David Ellison, et al (2017) Trees, forests and water: Cool insights for a hot world, Global Environmental Change, Volume 43, 2017, Pages 51-61, ISSN 0959-3780, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.01.002. 

Also poorly integrated into decision-making on climate are the water and energy cycles driven by healthy oceans, which are probably even more important than those involving forests. But we haven’t seen things shift. 

The research showing the ancient carbon lag – and its implications 

Many people will remember the hockey stick graph in the film An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore was elevated into the air to follow the rise in carbon dioxide and temperatures. That graph, as well as other scientific records, actually shows that prior to human activity affecting the atmosphere, carbon dioxide nearly always increased hundreds of years after global average temperatures increased. So atmospheric warming affects the biosphere such that it releases more carbon dioxide, which then further adds pressure towards warming. A paper in the scientific journal Nature back in 2018, from scientists Brook and Buizert, reported that Antarctic ice cores indicated about 90% of past global warming episodes followed the CO2 amplification of the initial heat forcing by other factors, not CO2. This suggests there are already ‘committed carbon’ emissions arising from nature due to existing warming. Some current observational data, such as carbon being emitted from forests that used to be sinks for carbon, and from some parts of some oceans like in the Mediterranean, is evidence that this process is already underway.

A more honest reading of the relationship between heat and carbon does not debunk the concern with current global warming. It does the opposite. By increasing carbon gas concentrations in the atmosphere by about 50% in less than two hundred years, humanity has created the possibility of a catastrophic warming amplification episode that could be triggered by other factors, such as increased sunspot activity, Pacific Ocean currents, or the ongoing reduction of cloud cover due to forest loss and a decline in phytoplankton.

Brook, E. J. & Buizert, C. (2018). Antarctic and global climate history viewed from ice cores. Nature, 558(7709), 200-208.

More research is needed on biohydrological processes, such as how large the forest needs to be to seed clouds regionally and globally

It is tragic that so little has been done on the biotic pump and other biohydrological   processes. The scientist Dr. Anastassia Makarieva has been doing some great work for twenty years to develop the field. She now has a substack, and wrote a eulogy for her Russian colleague who introduced her to an ecological paradigm. It sounds to me the same as the Gaia hypothesis in the West. She writes: “If the destruction of natural ecosystems continues, then reducing carbon dioxide and methane emissions will not stop the looming global environmental and climate catastrophe.” 

We need more research such as on the size of forests – but this doesn’t mean we need more research before acting. The concept of post-normal science is that when jeopardy is so high and time is critical, then action informed by limited knowledge can be justified if the risks of that action aren’t also high.