ClimateEdict #1: Brazil’s Licensing Bill, Ocean Photosynthesis, Fortescue’s Green Financing

 

Opening Reflection

There’s a feeling I’ve chased my whole life, and it shows up most when I help animals. I’ve always loved them, and my dog, the cutest in the world, is a big part of that. When I realized how deeply climate change harms animals, I couldn’t sit back. This blog is part of my response.

So why the ocean. Because scuba diving is the thing I love the third most after my family and friends. Over time I’ve come to love the ocean itself. Its beauty, vibrance, and depth feel unmatched. That is why I decided to write about it. Each week I’ll cover key climate stories tied to the ocean, breaking down the data while adding my perspective. Reports can only show part of the truth. The rest depends on what we notice, what we feel, and what we are willing to lose.

DNA Maps a Global Superhighway Beneath the Sea

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Most people think of the deep sea as sealed off and isolated, but that’s no longer true. A team at Museums Victoria analyzed DNA from 2,699 brittle star specimens held in 48 natural history museums and uncovered evolutionary links stretching from Iceland to Tasmania. These links have held for more than 100 million years.

Brittle stars, which live even 3,500 meters below, don’t swim using muscle. Their yolk-rich larvae drift on slow currents, connecting populations across huge distances. Dr. Tim O’Hara, who led the study, called it a paradox: a system so deeply connected, yet fragile enough to unravel.

And it matters. Extinctions, shifting currents, or even changes in seafloor geography could snap these global ties. For marine life, those currents don’t just carry larvae, they carry resilience. Break the chain and the system collapses in ways that cannot be repaired.

Brazil’s Licensing Bill

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Brazil’s Congress had pushed through sweeping licensing changes that would have loosened protections for forests, rivers, and coasts. The original bill would have allowed projects to bypass full reviews, a move environmentalists dubbed the “devastation bill.” But under pressure from civil society, President Lula da Silva struck out 63 of the nearly 400 provisions, significantly scaling back the proposal.

Those vetoes included removing a shortcut for medium-impact projects to self-certify online, restoring licensing safeguards for Indigenous and Quilombola communities, and protecting fragile biomes like the Atlantic Forest. Yet the law still includes a “Special Environmental Licence” that fast-tracks approval. Critics warn it could leave loopholes for companies to exploit with little accountability.

The fight over this bill shows how fragile Brazil’s safeguards are and how one Senate vote could undo years of progress. With COP30 slated for Belém this November, environmental groups are calling for vigilance. As of now, Brazil remains at a pivotal moment. Will safeguards hold, or will the bill be reset in favor of development pressures?

Global Photosynthesis Shift

A recent study published in Nature Climate Change shows that the balance of global photosynthesis has shifted. Between 2003 and 2021, total net primary production (NPP) — the carbon fixed by plants and algae after respiration — has grown by about 0.11 petagrams of carbon per year. On land, NPP increased by about 0.20 petagrams per year, driven by longer growing seasons in the north, expanding forests, and stronger crop growth in wetter regions. For now, that has strengthened the land sink and allowed terrestrial ecosystems to absorb more carbon.

The ocean tells the opposite story. NPP at sea fell by roughly 0.12 petagrams per year, with the steepest drops in tropical and subtropical regions. Warmer surface layers are trapping nutrients below, leaving phytoplankton starved. As they decline, fisheries, corals, and the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon all weaken. El Niño and La Niña may hide the loss for a season, but the long-term trend is unmistakably downward.

When researchers graphed both together, they found a fragile trade-off. Land is greening while the sea is thinning. Gains on land currently offset the ocean’s losses, but forests cannot expand indefinitely, and climate extremes already cut into that growth. The concern is whether this balance holds or tips. The evidence suggests that Earth’s carbon sink isn’t exactly collapsing but shifting in a way that looks temporary and unstable.

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Fortescue’s Green Financing Shift

Most think of climate battles as protests or policies. But some of the biggest shifts begin in boardrooms.

Australian company Fortescue, one of the world’s largest iron ore miners, just secured a 14.2 billion yuan ($2 billion) syndicated loan from various banks around the world. They are the first company in Australian history to achieve this with unrestricted use of funds. The five-year loan, at 3.8% interest, is meant to back Fortescue’s decarbonization efforts as well as its core mining operations.

This loan came at a crucial time. Fortescue was recently forced to abandon green hydrogen projects in Arizona and Queensland due to unstable policies in the US and Australia. To adapt, they turned to partnerships with Chinese companies. Executive Chairman Andrew Forrest framed it bluntly: “While the US steps back, China and Fortescue are advancing the green technology that could lead the global green industrial revolution.”

The ocean sets the rhythm of our climate. When mining and shipping pour out emissions, they heat and acidify the water, and those changes spill out into the air above. Storms get stronger, coastlines shift, and weather grows less predictable. I’ve seen how just a small rise in temperature or acidity makes fish scatter and corals bleach. That isn’t just an underwater crisis. It weakens the ocean’s ability to store carbon and steady the climate we all rely on. If companies clean up their operations, it’s not about looking good to investors. It’s about giving reefs, currents, and coasts a chance to keep holding the line for all of us.

Coming Up

Next week, the spotlight may fall on three fronts: whether Brazil’s Senate will keep or reverse Lula’s vetoes, the UN’s release of updated ocean acidification data, and early signals from Asia-Pacific governments on coastal protection policies.

This blog exists to track how decisions in science, policy, and business ripple into the oceans we depend on. These stories are just pieces of a bigger picture. One that shows how decisions on land have after-effects in the sea.

Sources

• O’Hara, T. et al. “Brittle star DNA reveals deep-sea superhighways.” Nature, 2023.
• Nature Climate Change (2023). “Global photosynthesis balance shift between land and ocean.”
• Reuters. “Brazil’s environmental licensing bill and Lula’s vetoes.” 2023.
• Mongabay. “Brazil’s licensing reforms and Indigenous safeguards.” 2023.
• Reuters. “Fortescue secures $2 billion loan for decarbonization.” 2023.
• Bloomberg. “Fortescue financing and green hydrogen setbacks.” 2023.
• NOAA & IPCC AR6 reports on ocean–climate connections.