Category: Uncategorized

Monica Piccinini

4 December 2025

Every week, millions of shoppers in the UK pick up everyday staples, including bread, fruit, vegetables, trusting that they are safe to eat, but recent analysis and studies suggest that many of these products carry multiple pesticide residues whose long-term effects on human health remain poorly understood. 

According to a new analysis by Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK), three-quarters of fruit and a quarter of vegetables tested by the UK government contain a cocktail of pesticides.

Of the 17 types of produce examined, scientists detected 123 different pesticides. Among them are chemicals linked to cancer, and others known to disrupt human hormones, the systems that shape fertility and healthy development.

Grapes emerged as one of the most contaminated foods, with one single sample containing residues from 16 different pesticides.

The ‘invisible’ cocktail effect

Shoppers often hear that chemical residues remain “within safe limits”, but those limits only apply to one chemical at a time, even though we rarely just eat one.

Regulators state that staying under MRLs (maximum residue levels) is considered safe. The rules were designed around single chemicals, assuming that each is unlikely to cause harm if applied correctly, but many scientists and campaigners argue that this system does not account for combined effects of multiple chemicals consumed over the years, or even decades.

Nick Mole, who led the analysis for PAN UK, warns that this blind spot in regulation leaves us dangerously exposed:

Safety limits are set for one pesticide at a time, completely ignoring the fact that it’s all too common for food to contain multiple chemicals. The truth is we know very little about how these chemicals interact with each other, or what this exposure to hundreds of different pesticides is doing to our health in the long term.

We do know that pesticides can become more toxic when combined, a phenomenon known as ‘the cocktail effect’. Given how high the stakes are, the government should be doing everything it can to get pesticides out of our food.

The top offenders

The new Dirty Dozen list reveals the produce most likely to carry multiple chemicals. Grapefruit comes first, followed by grapes and limes. Each of them appears regularly in supermarket promotions celebrating freshness and wellness – yet behind the marketing, contamination is widespread.

PAN UK looked at the test results to figure out which Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) showed up the most in our fruit and vegetables. Two fungicides topped the list: imazalil and thiabendazole. They were found in about 9% of samples, mostly on fruits like bananas, grapefruit and melons.

They’re used to stop mould from growing during storage and transport, but there are serious worries about their safety. Both are suspected of disrupting hormones and may even be linked to cancer.

Our daily bread

Even the food we rely on more than any other, our daily bread, is affected. The government’s tests found that almost every loaf contained chlormequat, a developmental toxin that scientists warn may harm our babies and children.

More than one in four bread samples contained glyphosate, the UK’s most used herbicide, repeatedly associated with cancers and other chronic diseases.

Almost half the bread tested contained multiple chemicals. Even the nation’s toast has become a source of chemical exposure.

While regulatory bodies argue that exposure levels detected in bread are well below thresholds considered dangerous, the absence of comprehensive studies on mixture toxicity means uncertainty remains. Low-dose, chronic exposure over decades, essentially a lifetime of daily consumption, has not been studied thoroughly.

Banned at home – yet allowed on our plates

A particularly troubling detail hides deeper in the data: nearly one-third of pesticides detected aren’t approved to be used on British farms.

Crops grown overseas using chemicals banned in the UK can still be imported and sold on British shelves. The government’s own advisory bodies have warned that this unfairly hurts UK farmers who work under stricter rules and, far worse, exposes consumers to risks regulators have already acknowledged are too great.

We’re eating the very chemicals that are considered too dangerous to be sprayed here in our farms.

The UK risks importing produce containing high levels of pesticides, including Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) already banned in the country. For instance, Brazil is the largest consumer of pesticides in the world, and half of them are HHPs.

Still, UK trade minister, Sir Chris Bryant, who describes himself a “passionate Latinophile”, said to Politico that the UK-Mercosur (South American trading bloc including Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia) agreement is a ‘no brainer’.

Bryant commented:

I’ve had very positive conversations in Argentina and with Brazil, but I haven’t had any conversations with Uruguay and Paraguay yet.

We deserve better

PAN UK is calling on the UK government to rethink its new pesticide-reduction strategy, which now only covers crops like grains. They argue that fruit and vegetables – the foods we and our children eat the most of, and where chemical residues are often highest – must be included if the plan is going to truly protect people and the environment.

The organisation is also calling for support to help farmers transition to safer methods, and for phasing out and banning Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) known to harm human health.

Mole emphasises that the current system can’t realistically shield us from exposure:

Pesticides appear in millions of different combinations and varying concentrations in our food so it’s simply impossible to design a system sophisticated enough to protect us from these chemical cocktails. The only way forward is to cut our overall pesticide use significantly.

This year, the UK government introduced a target to reduce pesticides in the arable sector. But this latest testing data reveals that – for the sake of our health – we urgently need to expand the target to also cover fruit and vegetables.

This isn’t a distant environmental concern; it’s a public health issue on our plates.

Most families don’t have the luxury of filling their baskets with organic alternatives. Parents shouldn’t have to scrutinise spreadsheets of chemical substances when doing their weekly shop. And farmers often say they don’t really have a choice – the system pushes them to use chemicals, while also making it harder for them to earn a fair living and stay competitive.

Food should nourish, not damage our bodies. Wanting food that doesn’t come with a side-order of chemicals shouldn’t be seen as radical, it’s a basic expectation that what we feed our families won’t harm them, and that the people growing it aren’t put at risk either.

Featured image: Bruno D Andrea / Dreamstime

Monica Piccinini

24 November 2025

Most people in the UK have little idea that the meals on their plates are closely connected to extreme weather now sweeping Brazil. Yet, the UK imports more food from Brazil than any other country outside Europe.

This means that the food on British shelves is increasingly shaped by droughts, floods, and heatwaves that are now becoming the norm in Brazil.

According to a recent report by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, ECIU, almost two-fifths of the UK’s food is imported. Brazil is a major supplier of soybean, beef, chicken, coffee, sugar, and fruit, and it’s also one of the countries experiencing the fastest climate shifts.

Over the past two years, the Amazon has faced its worst drought in seven decades, the south has endured deadly floods that scientists say were made twice as likely by global warming, and extreme heat forced schools close for children’s safety.

These changes are harming the farms that supply so much of the UK’s food.

Gareth Redmond-King, international programme lead at the ECIU, said:

British families are already paying the price at the tills for climate extremes hitting both here and abroad. This year saw the UK’s second worst harvest on record.

Climate change

The Amazon’s drought left boats stuck in mud, entire communities cut off, and forest areas dry enough to burn. Meanwhile, towns in southern Brazil were underwater, destroying crops and livestock almost overnight. Heat is rising across the country, with far more days now reaching dangerous temperatures.

These events are no longer exceptional. Dry seasons are longer, rainfall is becoming erratic, and forests are losing their natural ability to recycle moisture.

The result is a weaker, less stable climate system, one that affects not only Brazilians, but also thousands of people miles away, including UK consumers.

We depend on Brazil for coffee, sugar, oranges and tropical fruits – as well as a lot of soy to feed livestock grown in the UK. In addition to the threat from climate change, vast swathes of rainforest and other biomes have been cleared to grow some of these foods; this deforestation is itself a key driver of the climate change affecting the ability to produce these foods, mentioned Redmond-King.

A Global Witness analysis shows that, despite a 2021 law meant to clean up supply chains, UK shoppers are still buying products linked to deforestation.

The group found that recent imports of beef, soy and palm oil were tied to forest loss on a scale comparable to the size of cities like Newcastle, Liverpool or Cardiff.

The Environment Act was supposed to stop companies sourcing goods from illegally cleared land, but years later it still hasn’t been enacted because of repeated government delays, leaving the UK market open to “forest-risk” products linked to deforestation and human rights abuses.

Soy: Britain’s hidden connection to Brazil

Soy is the strongest link between UK diets and Brazilian farms. Nearly all soy imported to the UK is fed to animals, mainly chickens. In 2024, the UK imported £243m of soy from Brazil.

Brazilian soy production is now under pressure from long dry spells and extreme heat. Rivers used to move the crop have dropped so low that transports have slowed or stopped. Scientists say that every 1⁰C of global warming is estimated to cut soy production by around 6%.

There’s also a much bigger danger: the Amazon’s long-term survival is at risk. Experts warn that if deforestation reaches 20-25%, the forest could tip into a state where it can no longer sustain itself; roughly 17% has already been lost.

This would change weather patterns across Brazil, making soy production even more unstable, and threatening the UK’s poultry industry.

There’s also a social, environmental, and health dimension to Brazil’s soy industry that often gets overlooked.

As Unearthed reports, the introduction of herbicide-resistant seeds reshaped the country’s soy sector, to the point where roughly 98% of today’s crop is believed to be genetically modified.

This rapid expansion hasn’t been without consequences, it has pushed soy farming into huge new areas, contributing to deforestation and sparking land disputes in regions like the Amazon and the Cerrado.

A daily habit at risk

Brazil supplies up to 35% of the UK’s green coffee beans. But coffee is highly sensitive to drought and heat. The 2023-24 drought in Brazil caused global prices to spike. By the time the shock reached the UK, supermarket coffee prices had risen more than 13%.

Millions of Britons’ morning cups are now at risk from a warming planet.

Forest loss on the menu

Beef and chicken imports connect UK shoppers directly to the forests under threat.

Cattle farming, the leading driver of Amazon deforestation, is responsible for around 80% of forest loss. High heat makes it harder for animals to survive, pushing ranchers into untouched forest areas.

The UK imports over 500,000 tonnes of Brazilian chicken each year. Because the chicken industry depends heavily on soy feed, this links British diets to the same environmental pressures affecting soy farming.

Crops at risk

Mangoes, melons, limes, papayas, and sugar that arrive in UK shops come from regions in Brazil now struggling with water shortages and heat. In the centre-south, dry conditions have cut sugar cane production, and northeastern fruit farmers are forced to use far more water to keep the crops alive.

The orange juice industry, which supplies more than 70% of global exports, is also under strain. Heat and disease have hit citrus trees across the country.

As a result, UK fruit juice prices are still about 30% higher than in 2022, and orange juice prices more than doubling since 2020.

What this means for the UK

Climate shocks in Brazil are already reflected in UK supermarkets. Food becomes more expensive when crops fail, supply chains become less reliable, and families on tight budgets are hit hardest.

Global supply chains also face more risks from plant diseases and poor harvests linked to hot weather. The UK’s dependence on food from places deeply affected by climate change makes the country more vulnerable than most people realise.

The UK climate change committee released its progress report and adaptation and it’s horrendous to look in there and see for food security, in this grid they have, they’ve got red and amber, and green, and when it comes to planning, and when it comes to actual action on adaptation, the planning for food security in the UK is red, it’s insufficient, the plans are not good enough.

There aren’t even metrics for us to understand how the threat to food security is happening, said Laurie Laybourn-Langton, associate fellow at the Chatham House sustainability accelerator during an Innovation Zero webinar last May.

A shared responsibility

The food we consume in the UK is now tied to Brazil’s forests, rivers, and farmland. When the Amazon dries, southern Brazil floods, or crops fail in the heat, the impacts don’t stay in Brazil. It travels. It influences what we can find in our supermarkets, what families can afford, and how reliable our supply chains truly are.

Climate change isn’t a distant worry anymore; it’s already shaping the price and availability of everyday meals. Understanding this connection, and choosing to act on it, means taking some of the pressure off vulnerable environments and helping to build a food system that can cope with the changes ahead.

Featured image: Dzmitry Skazau/Alamy

Monica Piccinini

10 November 2025

By late 2024, dredgers begin carving through the seabed off the coast of Presidente Kennedy, a small town in southern Espírito Santo, once known for its quiet beaches. This is the chosen site of Porto Central, Brazil’s next mega-port and one of the most ambitious private logistics projects in the country’s history.

Promoters describe Porto Central as “one the largest industrial port complexes in Latin America”, a project meant to redefine Brazil’s export future. Yet, behind the promises of jobs and progress, tension is growing along this quiet stretch of coast. Critics are questioning who truly benefits from this ambitious initiative and who bears the hidden costs.

Porto Central spans 2,000 hectares, an area roughly the size of 2,800 football pitches, with a 25-metre-deep access channel capable of hosting giant VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) vessels. A single VLCC can carry approximately two million barrels of crude oil.

The project would host up to 54 terminals serving oil and gas, agribusiness, minerals, containers, and even renewable energy. Construction is divided into five phases, with total investment estimated around R$16bn (approximately $2.9bn).

A city by the sea

Porto Central’s attraction is geography. Sitting halfway along Brazil’s coastline, it promises to reduce transshipment and shorten export routes for oil and gas, grains, and iron ore.

Several major backers, including TPK Logística S.A., the Dutch company Van Oord, and the European subsidiary of US-based company Modern American Recycling Services (M.A.R.S.), are supporting Porto Central’s vast project, a deepwater hub designed to link Brazil’s pre-salt oil fields, agribusiness, and mining industries directly to global trade routes.

The pitch is clear and simple: reduce transshipment costs, shorten export routes, and compete with maritime giants like Rotterdam, Singapore, and Shanghai.

Phase 1 involves four core components: dredging 60 million m³ of seabed (the equivalent of 25,000 Olympic swimming pools); constructing a south breakwater with rock quarried 26 km inland; building a deep-water bulk and liquids terminal for oil transshipment; and developing a 65-hectare back area to assemble pipelines and foundations. Implementation began in late 2024, with full operational capacity planned for the end of the decade.

Yet, beneath the display of engineering confidence, lies a tangled web of risks.

 Dredging up damage

The socio-environmental stakes are immense. Porto Central’s environmental impact report (RIMA) outlines a list of risks rarely seen in such concentration: seabed dredging that could raise turbidity suffocating coral and fish, altering sediment flow, accelerating coastal erosion.

Protected species, including sea turtles, dolphins, and even migrating whales, use this stretch of coast to feed and breed. Noise, ship traffic, and artificial light threaten those rhythms.

Artisanal fishermen, farmers, and quilombola communities, many of whom operate within sight of the dredging site, risk losing both fishing grounds and income. Past compensation programmes for similar projects have proved inconsistent.

In 2023, Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, issued an installation license (LI) to Porto Central relating to Phase 1 of the project, requiring extra monitoring and mitigation. Environmentalists warn that enforcement capacity remains limited.

Voices

Local voices warn that the ecological and social costs of Porto Central could far outweigh its promises. Teacher, environmentalist and activist, José Roberto da Silva Vidal, who has been following the project’s impact in Presidente Kennedy, spoke with deep concern:

It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening to our land and sea as Porto Central moves forward. The restinga forests are being cleared, rocks are blasted apart, and the water that sustains life here is under threat.

Every new truck, every machine adds to the damage releasing more emissions into an already fragile atmosphere. Calling this progress ignores the truth we’re all facing – the planet is warning us, and yet we keep choosing to look away.

On the front line against the Porto Central project, the grassroots group REDI gives voice to fishing families and riverside communities whose lives and traditions are at risk. FASE Espírito Santo stands with them, supporting local communities, defending their land and waters, and demanding accountability from those pushing destructive projects.

Marcos Pedlowski, a researcher and associate professor at the State University of Northern Rio de Janeiro (UENF), expresses deep concern about the potential impact of Porto Central on the small, fragile town of Presidente Kennedy. His worries are based in nearly two decades of research and firsthand experience living among those affected by the Açu Port, another large-scale project located less than 100 km from Porto Central:

Presidente Kennedy is a poor, quiet place, unprepared for a project of this size. When thousands of workers arrive, life here will change overnight, and not for the better. We’ll see more social tension, more prostitution, more alcohol and drugs. Violence will rise, and the community will be left to deal with the consequences.

He warns that these social risks are tied to deeper political realities:

We already live with corruption and heavy-handed policing in Espírito Santo. When you add a project like Porto Central to that mix, you’re setting the stage for even greater injustice.

For Pedlowski, what’s happening in Presidente Kennedy is part of a larger story, one he has seen unfold before along Brazil’s coast:

These are what I call sacrifice ports. The investors know the damage they’ll cause: the erosion, the pollution, the displacement of fishermen and quilombola families. But the profits speak louder. Behind all the promises, what’s really at play is the takeover of land and sea, with the state working hand in hand with corporate power.

A fossil fuel magnet

Some of Porto Central’s confirmed clients are hardly green. The company has signed contracts with Brazil’s state-owned oil and gas company, Petrobras (2021), Norwegian Equinor (2024), Chinese CNOOC (2024), and Spanish Repsol Sinopec (2025), to handle crude oil and derivatives.

José Maria Vieira de Novaes, Porto Central’s CEO, described oil as “one of the anchors of the project”, citing government forecasts of booming exports and limited existing infrastructure. He told Folha Business in 2022:

The existing terminals can’t absorb what’s coming.

While Brazil pledges to decarbonise, its newest mega-port is potentially built to accelerate fossil-fuel throughout.

Who profits?

At the heart of Porto Central is TPK Logística S.A., owned by the Polimix Organisation, a major Brazilian conglomerate in concrete, aggregates, and logistics. Polimix is controlled by Ronaldo Moreira Vieira, and José Maria Vieira de Novaes is one of TPK Logística’s partner.

According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Ronaldo Moreira Vieira is listed in the Panama Papers database. Being listed “active” in that database means the entity was operational at the time of the 2016 leak, evidence of involvement in offshore structuring. Though not proof of illegality, the revelation invites scrutiny over transparency and beneficial ownership.

A president with 13 companies

José Maria Vieira de Novaes, meanwhile, wears many hats. Corporate registries show his name linked to 13 companies, from Agropecuária Limão Ltda to Kennedy Energia Solar Ltda and Praia Kennedy Empreendimentos Ltda, collectively controlling over R$388m (approximately $72m) in share capital.

Several of these companies operate within the same region as the port. Some are active in real estate and energy, the very sectors poised to benefit from Porto Central’s rise. Such overlap could allow Novaes to benefit indirectly from Porto Central’s infrastructure expansion, a potential conflict of interest that blurs the line between public good and private gain.

Hazards and mitigation

Brazil’s environmental agency, Ibama, has already required Porto Central to conduct additional sediment and noise studies before advancing major phases of construction. While the company claims to operate under “international environmental standards”, local NGOs accuse it of pre-emptying full approval.

The list of some of the potential hazards reads like an environmental check-list from hell: destruction of marine habitats from dredging, disturbance to turtle nesting and marine mammal migration, erosion of beaches from altered sediment flow, pollution from oil spills, waste and sewage, noise and vibration from heavy machinery disturbing wildlife and residents, salinisation of groundwater, introduction of invasive species via ballast water, accident and spills during ship-to-ship transfer, destruction of mangroves, long-term erosion along the Presidente Kennedy coastline.

Porto Central vs Açu Port: a tale of two mega ports

Both Porto Central and Açu Port, located less than 100 km apart along Brazil’s southeast coast, share grand visions, deepwater and export terminals, and industrial zones promising jobs and growth.

Açu, launched in 2013 in São João da Barra, in Rio de Janeiro state, has matured into a functioning port and energy hub. Yet, academic research reveal deep scars: displacement of fishing families, salinisation of water tables, and unfulfilled social compensation. Research papers describe community disruption and environmental degradation as long term legacies of the project.

Carlos Freitas, an environmentalist with the NGO REDI, says the story repeating in Presidente Kennedy is painfully familiar. His group has been working with fishing families and the farmers in the MST (landless worker’s movement) settlements near Morro da Serrinha, where quarrying for Porto Central’s construction has already disrupted lives:

What happened at Açu Port is happening again here – the same promises, the same silence about the damage. They call it progress, but what we see is destruction disguised as development.

He explains that company meetings are called with only a few days’ notice, leaving little room for real participation. Meanwhile, explosions from the quarry scare off animals, cause livestock miscarriages, and shake the homes of farming families:

People are being misled with talk of jobs and growth, while explosions shake their land and animals flee. In the MST settlements, families are watching their crops and animals suffer. Porto Central isn’t bringing life to this region – it’s taking it away.

This illustrates a shared Brazilian dilemma, rapid industrialisation without governance or ecological safeguards.

Logistics

Beneath the promise of progress lies uncertainty. The project relies on unfinished national logistic links, including the EF-118 railway between the capital of Espírito Santo, Vitória, and Rio de Janeiro, EF-352 linking the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais and Goiás, and highway upgrades on BR-101 and BR-262. Without them, Porto Central could become a bottleneck. The port’s promoters insist the state government’s commitment will guarantee completion, but Brazil’s infrastructure history is littered with stalled railways.

Add to that the climate challenge, as rising seas and stronger storms could test the port’s defences before it’s even operational.

Ambition and accountability

Porto Central sums up Brazil’s eternal paradox: vast potential, fragile governance.

It could, in theory, anchor Brazil’s future in global trade. Yet, without transparency, oversight and rigorous socio-environmental stewardship, it risks becoming another cautionary tale, of profit for a few and pollution for many, a crossroads between development and destruction.

With ownership structures stretching into offshore secrecy jurisdictions, and leadership linked to a constellation of private companies, accountability remains elusive.

 Whether Porto Central becomes Brazil’s Rotterdam, or its next development scandal, will depend less on engineering than on ethics.

For many locals, the question isn’t whether Porto Central will rise, but who it’ll serve once it does.

Porto Central did not respond to a request for comment.

Featured image: Governo do Espírito Santo.

Monica Piccinini

26 October 2025

As leaders gather in Belém for COP30 this November, carbon markets are back in the spotlight. Once celebrated as a key tool for reducing emissions, carbon credits are now under increasing scrutiny, with critics questioning whether they provide genuine climate benefits or simply give polluters a free pass.

For years, we’ve been told that buying carbon credits could cancel out our pollution and help protect the planet. Pay a little extra for your flight, offset your business emissions, and somewhere a rainforest would stay standing. It sounds like a simple fix for a complicated problem, a way to carry on as usual while someone else planted or protected trees for us.

But a new research, led by Dr Thales A. P. West, a tenured assistant professor at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has blown that idea apart.

The paper states that many REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) voluntary carbon offset schemes are built “on hope, not proof”.

Published in the Global Change Biology journal and written by leading scientists from across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, the research finds that most carbon offsets don’t work. In fact, many are based on shaky assumptions, exaggerated data, and a convenient kind of wishful thinking.

Another article recently published in Nature states that:

Offsets undermine decarbonisation by enabling companies and countries to claim that emissions have been reduced when they have not. This results in more emissions, delays the phase-out of fossil fuels and diverts scarce resources to false solutions.

A market built on hope, not proof

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) was designed to help people and companies offset their emissions by paying for projects that prevent deforestation and forest degradation. Each credit, worth one tonne of avoided carbon dioxide, could be traded, bought, and sold like a stock.

At the heart of the problem lies the “baseline”, the imagined scenario of what would have happened without the project, how much forest would have been destroyed. The worse the imagined future, the more credits a project can sell.

And that’s where the problem starts. Some projects exaggerated those threats, claiming they were saving forests that were never really in danger. Some built computer models so weak they were “no better than guessing”, the research reveals. Others were set in remote areas where nobody was planning to cut trees in the first place.

So, while companies brag about being “carbon neutral”, some of those credits may not represent any real climate benefit at all.

Dr West says that while some developers act in good faith, the system itself is set up to fail:

Not every project developer is inflating baselines. Some genuinely want to do the right thing, but they’re forced to follow Verra’s approved methodologies. Even with the best intentions, if you follow the “wrong recipe”, you will probably not get the right result.

These frameworks just aren’t fit for measuring project performance or impact. The tools exist to do it properly, but they add uncertainty and risk, and that’s bad for business. The uncomfortable truth is that accuracy may not be profitable.

Offsets become greenwashing

From airlines to tech giants to luxury brands, offsets have become a moral license to keep polluting, with a green halo attached.

The people certifying and selling the credits often have a financial stake in keeping the system alive. Everyone benefits from big numbers, except the planet.

The paper exposes how this system, which was meant to channel money into conservation, is filled with conflicts of interest.

Certification bodies, paid by the very projects they audit, have every incentive to keep the credits flowing. Rating agencies compete for business by offering favourable evaluations.

Developers often withhold crucial data hiding behind commercial secrecy. Even some auditors, the research reveals, have “relied on self-reporting by project staff” instead of independent verification.

Dr West argues that without structural independence, integrity is impossible:

Some people believe government oversight could help but look at the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol – there are many well-known cases where corruption was rampant. Bringing in more organisations won’t fix it if the incentives stay the same. 

A simple step would be for developers to pay the certifying body, which then randomly assigns an auditor. There should also be firm standards for auditor competence and team size. Right now, one person might inspect a project in two days while another team spends a week. That kind of inconsistency can compromise the quality of certification.

Forests still falling

The researchers revisit the Suruí project in Brazil, once celebrated as a model of Indigenous-led conservation. It was built on solid science, used local knowledge, and even gained international recognition.

Despite its promise, the project collapsed under pressure from illegal miners and cattle farmers. The lesson, reveals the paper, is clear: even the best-designed offset can’t stop deforestation if the wider system – politics, law enforcement, and land rights – is broken.

This month, Brazil’s federal public prosecutor’s office (MPF) filed a lawsuit asking to immediately stop a carbon credit project in protected areas of Amazonas where Indigenous and traditional communities live. The MPF says the project, launched by the Amazonas State Department of the Environment (Sema), is moving forward without consulting the local communities, breaking the rules of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169.

These are not isolated stories. From Cambodia to Kenya, projects have been undermined by corruption, land disputes, or government decisions to build dams and roads through “protected” zones. Others have restricted local people’s access to forests, cutting off livelihoods.

Too often, communities see little of the money that flows through these schemes. For instance, in Zimbabwe, the government decreed that half of all carbon revenue must go to the state, with only a fraction reaching local villages. The “benefits” are usually captured by community “elites”.

Dr West says the system rewards profit-driven consultancies rather than grassroots groups with genuine ties to the land:

Some NGOs have worked with local communities for decades, long before carbon credits existed, but many developers are international consulting firms chasing profit. If they can strike a deal to keep 90% of the revenue and hand 10% to the community, they probably will. 

Governments should step in with clear rules to guarantee fair shares. Without that, communities are left to negotiate from a position of weakness, without the knowledge or representation to protect their interests.

The problem that never goes away

The researchers also highlight what they call “leakage”. Protecting one forest simply pushes deforestation somewhere else. A logging ban in one area, for example, can just shift logging to the next valley.

Most projects assume leakage is small, often just 1%, but studies suggest it could be ten times higher.

Then there’s the problem of “non-permanence”, when forests burn, rot, or are cut after a project ends. Fires in California and the Amazon have already wiped-out vast stretches of land whose carbon credits are still circulating in global markets.

Under current rules, many buyers are essentially “renting” temporary reductions that could vanish tomorrow. Once a project ends, there’s often no legal responsibility for anyone to replace those lost credits.

Dr West says the market’s safeguards are far too weak:

If companies buy credits from forest projects, the forest must be there. If it disappears, the credits disappear too. The problem is that even certified and audited calculations may still lack credibility – certification alone doesn’t necessarily guarantee anything.

Verra’s insurance buffer was meant to cover losses, but research shows it’s far too small and based on shaky risk models. Most projects last only a few decades; once they expire, their credits could eventually expire too. Yet no one wants to talk about that because it’s inconvenient. The voluntary market has simply chosen to not take the issue of permanence seriously.

A system built to look good

The UN’s earlier carbon market under the Kyoto Protocol rejected forest protection credits precisely because they were too hard to measure and too easy to manipulate. Two decades later, the voluntary market revived them, but this time with better branding and slick marketing.

Now, as governments consider including such projects under the Paris Agreement, the researchers warn against repeating the same mistakes.

Companies want easy answers, consumers like the comfort of “carbon neutral” products, and carbon credits make the story possible, even if it isn’t true.

Prospects

The scientists behind the research aren’t against protecting forests, they just want honesty about what these projects can and can’t do. Real conservation is vital for biodiversity, climate stability, and the livelihoods of millions.

But pretending that selling carbon credits for these efforts can “cancel out” fossil fuel emissions is dangerous and delusional. Real climate action means cutting emissions at the source, not outsourcing guilt to a forest thousands of miles away.

Some projects could make a genuine difference, such as forest management, reduced-impact logging, or restoring native ecosystems rather than planting monoculture tree farms. But these are slower and less profitable, which means the market mostly ignores them.

The authors call for true transparency, public data, and independent audits that aren’t paid by the very people being audited. They warn that without major reform, REDD+ risks repeating the injustices it claims to solve.

Until then, every dollar spent on bad credits is money not spent on real solutions.

Time for truth

As climate pledges tighten and pressure mounts, companies are rushing to buy offsets, but some courts are now ruling that calling a product “carbon neutral” based on such credits is misleading.

For years, carbon credits offered an easy story, that we could keep burning, flying, and spending like no tomorrow, while forests quietly cleaned up our mess, but that story is ending.

As COP30 prepares to put carbon markets centre stage, the debate over their future is intensifying.

Dr West says it’s time for an honest reckoning, either fix the system or face the truth about its limits:

Some of my co-authors think the market is beyond repair; others believe it can potentially be fixed if we finally confront its flaws. We’ve never really tried to make it work properly. Only by admitting what’s wrong and applying rigorous science can we find out if it’s salvageable.

But the current system runs on conflicts of interest. The people defending it either don’t understand it or profit from keeping it broken. Unless there is a change in attitude among companies, governments, and organisations such as the UN, the market is likely to continue prioritising convenience over integrity.

Featured image: Fahroni / Alamy

Monica Piccinini

24 October 2025

With COP30 fast approaching, the first UN climate summit to take place in the heart of the Amazon, a new investigation exposes an uncomfortable reality: the flow of finance into oil and gas extraction across the rainforest shows no signs of slowing, even as many of the banks behind it promote themselves as champions of climate action.

According to environmental group Stand.earth’s new report, Banks vs the Amazon Scorecard, and updated Amazon Banks Database, just 10 banks are responsible for almost 75% of all direct financing for oil and gas across the Amazon basin since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2016.

Together, those 10 banks, led by JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America, Itaú Unibanco and HSBC, have poured more than $15bn into Amazon oil and gas projects.

But a shift is underway. European lenders, once deeply entangled in the region’s fossil fuel industry, are beginning to pull back, while banks in the Americas are stepping in to fill the gap.

France’s BNP Paribas and Britain’s HSBC have reduced their exposure following the introduction of Amazon-specific exclusion policies that prohibit financing for companies involved in Amazon oil and gas activities. As a result, the banks have dropped in recent financing rankings: BNP Paribas now 45^th, HSBC 17^th, with $4m and $12m respectively since January 2024.

In contrast, the biggest increases now come from the Americas. Brazil’s Itaú Unibanco tops the latest list with $378m in new financing in the past 18 months alone, a 3-place jump that puts it ahead of JP Morgan Chase with $326m, and Bank of America with $317m.

Peruvian bank Credicorp and Canada’s Scotiabank have also sharply increased their roles, with Credicorp nearly tripling its contribution to $154m.

Dr. Devyani Singh, lead researcher for the database and scorecard said: 

Our research reveals that although European banks like BNP Paribas or HSBC applied more robust policies to protect the sensitive Amazon rainforest than their peers, significantly dropped in financing ranks, no bank has yet brought its financing to zero. Every one of these banks must close the existing loopholes and fully exit Amazon oil and gas without delay.

The scorecardranks 18 major global banks on five criteria, from Amazon-specific policies to human-rights safeguards, grouping them as “frontrunners”, “moderate achievers”, “followers”, and “laggards”.

Only BNP Paribas earns the top tier. HSBC, Barclays, ING, and Société Générale are judged moderate achievers, having introduced partial exclusion rules.

Citi, Santander, BBVA, Intesa Sanpaolo, and Standard Chartered follow with limited project-level restriction, while Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Itaú Unibanco, Scotiabank, Credicorp, Goldman Sachs, Royal Bank of Canada, and Banco Nordeste sit among the laggards, banks with little or no Amazon-specific policy and rising exposure.

Stand.earth’s analysis also underscores a transparency gap: direct Amazon financing represents only 2% to total identified fossil fuel finance to companies operating in the Amazon. This means that the true scale of exposure is likely far higher.

Martyna Dominiak, Stand.earth’s senior climate finance campaigner and lead author of the report, said:

The Banks vs. The Amazon scorecard and Amazon Banks Database update present not only a clear opportunity but an urgent deadline ahead of COP30 for banks to stop financing fossil fuels in the Amazon. For Indigenous Peoples resisting extractivism — and their allies — the region’s first climate COP is a pivotal moment demanding an Amazon free from fossil fuels.

Devastation and disease

The timing couldn’t be more urgent, as the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, is approaching an irreversible tipping point, where deforestation, degradation, and climate change, could flip it from carbon sink into a carbon source.

Oil and gas operations are contributing to deforestation and degradation by opening roads and pipelines, driving settlements, clearing land, polluting waterways, bringing total chaos and devastation.

According to investigations cited in the report, over 6,000 oil-contaminated sites have been documented across the rainforest, in Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. Communities living near extraction zones report rising cases of cancer, miscarriages, and respiratory disease.

Still, governments continue to expand drilling. Brazil auctioned 68 new oil blocks in the Amazon earlier this year, while in Ecuador drilling continues in Yasuní National Park despite a 2023 referendum to stop it. In Peru, 31 new blocks have been auctioned since 2023, overlapping with the lands of more than 400 Indigenous communities.

Olivia Bisa, president of the autonomous territorial government of the Chapra Nation, said:

It’s outrageous that Bank of America, Scotiabank, Credicorp, and Itaú are increasing their financing of oil and gas in the Amazon at a time when the forest itself is under grave threat. For decades, Indigenous peoples have suffered the heaviest impacts of this destruction. We are calling on banks to change course now: by ending support for extractive industries in the Amazon, they can help protect the forest that sustains our lives and the future of the planet.

Corruption and violations

The database links over $2bn in new financing since early 2024 to just six companies: Petrobras, Eneva, Gunvor, Gran Tierra, Pluspetrol Camisea, and Hunt Oil Peru. Each one of them face allegations of corruption, environmental damage and/or violations of Indigenous rights.

Eneva, a Brazilian gas producer whose operations overlap Indigenous Gavião Real territory, located in the municipality of Silves, in eastern Amazonas, was forced to suspend its activities following an order from federal court citing violations of Indigenous rights and environmental law.

Despite the ruling, Eneva continues to receive financing from Itaú Unibanco, Banco do Nordeste, Banco da Amazonia, Bradesco, BTG Pactual, Banco do Brasil, XP Investimentos, Santander, and Arab Banking Corporation.

Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil giant, is pressing ahead with plans to drill at the mouth of the Amazon River. Environmental experts have repeatedly warned that the project could threaten marine life, fisheries, and coastal ecosystems in the region.

The case involving Swiss oil trader Gunvor highlights how loopholes in banking policies still allow problematic clients to slip through. Gunvor was convicted of bribing Ecuadorian officials to secure oil contracts between 2013 and 2020, yet it continues to benefit from financing by ING, one of Europe’s largest banks, illustrating how partial exclusions and project-level bans can still leave room for continued support of controversial fossil fuel projects.

The road to Belém

Stand.earth is calling on all banks to phase out Amazon oil and gas financing by 2030, including loans, bonds, and advisory services, and to strengthen Indigenous rights policies in the line with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Central to this is respecting free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), according to the ILO 169 Convention, which gives Indigenous nations the right to say no to projects on their lands.

The organisation argues that the upcoming COP30 summit in Belém, at the heart of the Amazon, is the perfect stage for banks to announce real commitments.

If banks choose to act, COP30 could mark a turning point, not only for the Amazon, but also for the financial industry’s role in the climate crisis. If they don’t, the next decade could decide whether the world’s greatest rainforest lives or dies.

Featured image: Lays Ushirobira / Stand.earth

Monica Piccinini

16 October 2025

From gorillas in Congo to seabirds in Argentina, wildlife diseases are spreading faster than conservationists can respond. A new report warns that the next great biodiversity crisis may already be underway, and it’s microscopic.

A new report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has sounded the alarm: the world’s most treasured ecosystems are being weakened by a threat that rarely makes the news. It’s not a drought or a wildfire, but something smaller, quieter, and spreading fast.

As the planet heats up, forests shrink, and invasive species move in, a surge of new pathogens is taking hold. These diseases are changing the way nature works, reshaping entire landscapes and pushing vulnerable species closer to the edge.

The IUCN World Heritage Outlook 4 assessed in total 271 sites, 231 natural and 40 mixed world heritage sites spread across 115 countries, covering an area of 470 million hectares. It reveals a sharp increase in the number of natural world heritage sites reporting serious disease outbreaks.

Five years ago, only two sites considered pathogens a major concern. Today, 23 describe them as high or very high threats.

It’s a tenfold jump that signals how viruses, bacteria, and fungi are emerging as powerful agents of ecological disruption, often spreading faster than conservationists can track or contain them.

In the report, Dr. Grethel Aguilar, IUCN director general, highlights that protecting world heritage is essential to preserving the planet’s life, culture, and shared identity:

Protecting world heritage is not just about safeguarding iconic places – it is about protecting the very foundations of life, culture, and identity for people everywhere.

These are some of the world’s most outstanding sites, as they are home to extraordinary biodiversity and geodiversity. They sustain communities, inspire generations, and connect us to our shared history.

The silent spread

Across continents, pathogens are killing species faster than most recovery programmes can respond.

In Africa’s Virunga National Park, Ebola continues to infect great apes, erasing decades of conservation progress. In Argentina’s Península Valdés, the avian influenza A/H5N1 strain has devastated seabird and elephant seal colonies, leaving beaches filled with carcasses.

Half a world away, the Tasmanian Wilderness remains under attack from chytrid fungus, a microscopic invader that has driven amphibian species toward extinction.

In the US, Mammoth Cave’s bat populations have been decimated by white-nose syndrome. Even trees, the quiet giants of the biosphere, are not spared, as the Sundarbans mangroves of South Asia are succumbing to a “top dying” disease that undermines both biodiversity and the coastal protection millions of people depend on.

These aren’t isolated cases, as they form part of a global pattern, what the IUCN describes as the “biological fallout” of a warming planet.

Pathogens are travelling further and faster, their reach increased by climate instability, global trade, and tourism. Stable ecosystems are now becoming laboratories of infection, petri dishes.

Climate change

According to the IUCN report, climate change now poses the greatest threat to natural world heritage sites worldwide, with 43% of sites rated as highly threatened, up from 22% in 2020.

The report links the rise in diseases directly to climate change. Shifts in rainfall and temperature are moving species and the microbes that live on them into unfamiliar territory. Mosquitoes climb to higher altitudes, fungal spores drift further on the wind, birds migrate at the wrong time, carrying parasites into unprepared ecosystems. 

In the Arctic, warming temperatures could awaken ancient microbes from permafrost. In tropical forests, animals pushed by heat or drought come into closer contact with humans, heightening the risk of zoonotic spillovers.

In North America, diseases now are above wildfires as a leading threat to heritage sites. In South America, avian flu and coral pathogens have reached epidemic levels. In Africa, diseases like Ebola and canine distemper are merging with chronic challenges like poaching and habitat loss, complicating conservation efforts challenging to manage.

The report calls these overlaps “planetary feedback loops”, where environmental change breeds disease, which in turn weakens nature’s resilience to that very change.

Invasive species and pathogens collide

According to the report, there’s a subtle but deadly partnership: invasive species and pathogens often move together. Rats spread parasites, ornamental plants carry fungi, mosquitoes are spread to new places. These hitchhikers exploit the same pathways as trade and tourism.

Invasive species are already ranked as the second-greatest global threat to world heritage sites, after climate change, and the report warns that biological invasions and infectious diseases are converging into a single crisis.

Without strong biosecurity and early detection, local outbreaks can snowball into continental epidemics.

Interdependence

The report calls attention to how disease outbreaks threaten local communities that depend on ecosystem services. Mangrove dieback in the Sundarbans undermines fisheries and coastal protection for millions. Coral diseases linked to warming seas endanger livelihoods in island nations.

The interdependence of species outlined in the “Once Health” concept argues that the health of people, animals, and ecosystems is inseparable.

Tourism, while economically vital, is also a vector for disease transmission. It highlights that tourism-related activities can cause the spread of invasive alien species and pathogens, especially in island ecosystems.

Science and surveillance

The IUCN admits that disease monitoring remains incomplete, and assessments rely on patchy information. The report calls for standardised health monitoring across all heritage areas: sampling water and soil for pathogens, recording wildlife mortality, sharing genomic data internationally. It suggests weather forecasting could predict outbreaks months ahead.

In the end, the IUCN’s warning is not about any specific microbe but about the conditions that led them to thrive. Habitat loss, global trade, fragmented governance, these are the real culprits or vectors. Pathogens only exploit the cracks we leave open.

The pathogen surge isn’t just a biological problem; it’s humanity’s fragmented relationship with the natural world. Deforestation, trade, and carbon emissions aren’t separate crises, they’re interconnected, making both people and ecosystems more vulnerable to disease.

Dr Aguilar, IUCN’s director general, writes:

The decisions being made today by governments, corporate leaders, and consumers will determine whether we can reverse global biodiversity loss – or experience a catastrophic collapse of our biosphere.

Monica Piccinini

2 October 2025

Across the globe, zoonotic and vector-borne diseases (ZVBDs), illnesses that jump from animals to humans, either through direct contact or via carriers such as mosquitoes, have increased significantly over the past few decades, claiming millions of lives each year.

An estimated 75% of all newly emerging infectious diseases, along with more than 60% of all human pathogens, are spread from animals.

Mosquito-borne diseases alone put more than 80% of the global population at risk. Their spread threatens not only public health, but also the world economy.

Even before COVID-19 shut down economies and filled hospitals, emerging infectious diseases were costing the world over $1tn a year. The pandemic made those costs painfully visible, but did not create the problem, it exposed it.

Since 2003, outbreaks and pandemics have taken more than 15m lives and drained approximately $4tn from the global economy.

A study published in One Earth, a sustainability journal from Cell Press, warns that this crisis is no accident. Deforestation, climate change, and environmental degradation are creating the perfect storm for pathogens to thrive and spread.

The lead author of the study, Raquel L. Carvalho, warns about the risks in Europe associated with vector-borne diseases:

Europe is increasingly becoming a favourable environment for mosquito-borne diseases, as prolonged summers, elevated temperatures, and heavier rainfall create conditions in which mosquito populations can establish and spread in regions where they had previously been unable to survive.

Drivers

Since the 1940s, changes in how humans use land, cutting down forests, expanding agribusiness, and pushing deeper into wild areas, have been linked to more than one-third of all new infectious diseases.

Climate change is creating conditions where mosquitoes, ticks, and pathogens flourish. Rising temperatures extend mosquito breeding seasons and allow disease-carrying insects to spread into places where winters once kept them at bay.

Meanwhile, deforestation and land-use changes bring humans into closer contact with wild animals, increasing the odds of a spillover event. Poverty and weak healthcare systems magnify the danger, turning exposure into tragedy.

According to a study published in the International Journal of Emergency Medicine, climate change is also disrupting food production and supply, creating conditions that allow harmful microbes and toxins to thrive, while extreme weather and rising temperatures increase the risk of foodborne illnesses, such as Salmonella and E. coli.

Out of control

Recently, we’ve seen a sharp increase in the spread of diseases caused by parasites, viruses and bacteria, including dengue, Zika, chikungunya, Oropouche, malaria, Lyme disease, among others.

The spread of Oropouche fever, transmitted by the tiny Culicoides paraensis mosquito, popularly called maruim, is another alarming sign.

According to the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), in 2025, 12,786 confirmed Oropouche cases were reported in the Americas region, including over 11,888 cases in Brazil.

In Brazil, Oropouche outbreaks originated in the AMACRO region (deforestation hotspot named after the states of Amazonas, Acre, and Rondônia) and have already spread across the country to the state of Espírito Santo, with 6,322 recorded cases in 2025, and across the world.

The Amazon rainforest is considered one of the world’s largest reservoirs of zoonotic diseases. Many scientists have repeatedly cautioned that environmental disruptions are driving the rise of infectious diseases and have highlighted the imminent risk of a lethal pathogen originating from the region.

Joel Henrique Ellwanger, biologist and researcher at the department of genetics at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), said:

Climate change will trigger important ecological changes in the Amazon, many of them with the potential to reduce its biodiversity, facilitating the spread of known disease vectors and increasing the chances of new diseases emerging.

The research

A study, conducted by Raquel L. Carvalho, professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), and her team, analysed 312 papers that addressed 39 different diseases in 79 countries. Much of this work focuses on the pathogens themselves or the insects and animals that transmit them. In contrast, far fewer studies consider who’s exposed or why some groups are more vulnerable once exposed.

Carvalho highlighted gaps in existing research:

Only 7.4% of the studies looked at the full picture: hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Studying where mosquitoes live might show potential danger, but it doesn’t reveal who is most at risk, or why certain communities are more likely to fall ill.

Diseases like dengue fever, the West Nile virus, and leptospirosis thrive not only because mosquitoes and rodents are abundant, but also because people live in poor housing without proper sanitation, or because climate change drives mosquitoes into new regions.

If these human and environmental factors are ignored, predictions of where and when outbreaks will happen will always likely fail.

Most studies carried out come from the United States, China, and Europe, while tropical regions, where the risks of diseases are greatest, remain under-studied. Brazil and Kenya stand out as exceptions, but vast regions of Africa, South America, and Asia are left with little attention.

The places most likely to produce the next pandemic are also the least prepared to prevent it.

Building a better response

The researchers of the study explain that prevention requires a more complete picture of the risks, meaning the combination of ecological data with human and social realities.

Poverty, education, housing, and access to healthcare are as important as climate change and land use.

For example, in East Africa, malaria was mapped out more effectively when researchers combined mosquito data with measures of poverty and healthcare. In New York, Lyme disease predictions improved when scientists considered both tick abundance and human behaviour. Understanding hazard, exposure, and vulnerability together gives us tools for prevention.

Carvalho points out that tackling the threat won’t be easy, but insists that stronger monitoring and international cooperation are key:

It’s clear that there’s no obvious solution, but stronger surveillance systems, especially in disease hotspots, can act as an early-warning radar.

Cross-border scientific cooperation can ensure that no region is left behind. Additionally, the One Health approach, recognising that human, animal, and environmental health are interconnected, must guide every decision.

Communities living in poverty, the ones closest to the frontlines of environmental change, are the first to suffer. If we continue to ignore the full complexity of disease risk, we condemn these vulnerable populations to pay a high cost, while leaving the rest of the world exposed.

The COVID-19 pandemic taught us a lesson, showed us the cost of being unprepared. The next pandemic could be much worse, driven by climate extremes and ecological disruption.

The line between environmental neglect and human suffering is very thin. It shouldn’t be hard to understand that our health depends on the health of our planet, one protects the other.

Monica Piccinini

30 August 2025

Biotechnology isn’t just something locked away in high-tech labs anymore, it’s starting to touch almost every part of our lives. From the food on our plates to the medicine in our cabinets, the fabrics we wear, and even the microbes that keep our water clean, it’s quietly shaping the world around us.

The progress is speeding up, too. Making DNA is way cheaper than it used to be, AI can dream up new ideas in hours, and small groups of researchers are pulling off things that used to take entire governments to achieve.

Of course, big power brings big responsibility. The same tools that can fight disease and help with global problems could, if misused or mishandled, unleash risks we’re only beginning to understand. Biotech is no longer just science; it’s a force that’s starting to rewrite what life looks like.

The upside

Synthetic biology, the engineering of living systems, has already delivered COVID-19 vaccines at record speed, new cancer therapies, and precision diagnostics. Beyond healthcare, engineered microbes are producing fragrances, materials, and even designer enzymes that break down plastics.

The UN’s Scientific Advisory Board stresses these benefits are real and scalable, provided countries invest in governance that keeps pace with innovation.

Industrial biotech is driving change too, like tweaking microbial methods that could potentially replace petrochemical processes with cleaner, lower-emission approaches.

Experts predict the economic impact of bio-based products will expand rapidly this decade as laboratory design cycles shrinks from years to just months.

The global biotechnology market is projected to reach around $3.44tn by 2030.

The downside

Powerful technology needs rules. A report published in the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) warns of three major risks in modern biotech: bringing back dangerous viruses from published genetic sequences; making existing organisms more harmful; and creating microbes that produce deadly toxins.

These risks are growing as biotech becomes cheaper and more automated. According to the report, tools that were once limited to experts are spreading more widely, safety barriers are weakening, and regulations designed for older forms of biotechnology are struggling to keep up.

The danger isn’t just from intentional misuse. Even well-meaning experiments can go wrong.

For example, a microbe engineered to clean up oil spills could escape and start eating essential plants or animals instead. Or a genetic tool meant to wipe out malaria-carrying mosquitoes (gene drives) could disrupt entire ecosystems in ways we can’t predict.

In biology, control is never guaranteed: life adapts, mutates, and can slip past safeguards.

The most powerful nations are likely to capitalise on their strategic advantages to exploit emerging biotechnologies and the markets they create in pursuit of geopolitical objectives.

This dynamic is further complicated by intellectual property concerns, as control over patents and proprietary technologies can deepen global inequalities and limit access for less-advantaged countries.

Another concern is that genome editing, when applied to fertilised human embryos to address severe genetic disorders, could produce harmful effects, such as the activation of cancer genes or the inactivation of tumour-suppressor genes. Furthermore, there are worries that the broader use of gene editing could pave the way for eugenics.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system is the leading tool for gene editing. It directs the Cas9 enzyme to a precise DNA sequence, where it makes a cut, allowing scientists to fix mutations, add new genes, or turn off unwanted ones.

CRISPR pioneer, Jennifer Doudna, mentioned in her book, A Crack in Creation:

The power to control our species genetic future is awesome and terrifying. Deciding how to handle it may be the biggest challenge we have ever faced.

“Mirror life”: Building biology’s inverse

One of the most radical ideas in synthetic biology is “mirror life”, organisms built from the opposite versions of life’s usual building blocks. Instead of the left-handed amino acids that make up all known proteins, these organisms would use right-handed ones, creating a form of life that runs in reverse.

Scientists warn that such mirror organisms could slip past predators and even immune systems, and prove impossible to break down, posing serious danger to humans, animals, plants, and the environment, if they escaped into the wild, whether by accident or design.

Dr Kate Adamala, a synthetic biologist at the University of Minnesota, highlights the potential risks of mirror life:

The danger with mirror life is that it wouldn’t interact with the natural world the way other engineered organisms do. Normal synthetic cells can still be controlled by predators or viruses, but mirror cells would escape those checks and balances.

If these organisms interacted with normal molecules or spread through soil and food chains, the effects could be unpredictable and permanent.

That’s why many ethicists and policymakers are urging strict containment, or even a temporary ban, until society decides if it’s ready to experiment with an entirely new form of life.

Given the potential for mirror organisms to evade both immunity and existing treatments, Dr Adamala cautions that the technology could be deliberately weaponised, highlighting the need for strict safeguards:

Halting research now is the most effective way to prevent mirror life from being weaponised in the future.

We are still far from creating a mirror cell, achieving it would take a decade or more, require the coordinated effort of many experts, and depend on technologies that don’t yet exist. At present, it’s simply impossible for anyone to weaponise this technology.

Dr Adamala highlights a major victory in bioethics:

All key researchers capable of creating mirror life have agreed to halt their work. While there’s no international regulation or law enforcing this, the fact that no known actor with the expertise is moving forward is a remarkable achievement.

AI + Biotech

Artificial intelligence (AI) is making waves in biotechnology. Advanced AI systems, known as foundation models, can suggest new protein designs, fine-tune metabolic processes, and even guide people with limited lab experience through complex experiments.

For scientists, this is a game-changer, but it also raises new security concerns.

Experts warn that these AI-powered tools could make it easier for someone to create dangerous biological agents or bypass safety checks when ordering DNA online.

Security think tanks recommend measures such as mandatory DNA sequence screening, human oversight for sensitive orders, and rigorous testing of AI systems to prevent them from producing harmful outputs.

Meanwhile, researchers developing synthetic cells, from scratch rather than by modifying existing organisms, stress the importance of responsible practices.

They advocate for transparency, publishing safety measures alongside scientific advances, and designing experiments that prioritise safety, even before breakthrough discoveries are made.

Dr Adamala points out that AI can now help design proteins and run complex experiments, raising new questions about safety and misuse:

AI is speeding up experiments and could eventually lower the expertise needed in synthetic biology. Right now, harmful work still requires deep knowledge, but as AI develops, it may let less-experienced people perform complex experiments. That’s where the real risk lies, and safeguarding efforts will need to keep pace.

Safeguards might not be enough

Scientists have proposed a range of safeguards to make biotechnology safer, but it’s far from risk-free.

Their proposed safeguards fall into four main areas: checking DNA orders so dangerous genes don’t reach labs, designing organisms with “kill switches” that make them die outside controlled settings, testing new organisms carefully, first in labs, then in small outdoor trials, before any broader release, and setting up training and reporting systems to catch accidents early.

These measures are important, but none can guarantee safety.

DNA checks can miss cleverly modified sequences. Kill switches can fail. Lab tests and small trials can’t predict every real-world outcome. And human error, whether from oversight, cost-cutting, or simple mistakes, remains the most unpredictable factor of all.

Experts warn that the risks go beyond accidents. A malicious actor doesn’t need to create a superbug from scratch; they could exploit gaps in DNA screening or release a partially tested organism.

Even without ill intent, the race to commercialise new biotech can tempt startups to downplay risks, while governments often struggle to keep up with rapid innovation.

The potential consequences are huge: released organisms could disrupt ecosystems, public trust in biotech could crumble, and engineered pathogens could even spark global instability.

Unlike chemical or nuclear hazards, biological threats can spread, evolve, and multiply meaning a single misstep could have far-reaching effects for generations.

Is the juice worth the squeeze?

The breakthroughs promised by biotechnology are real, including faster vaccines and cleaner industries. These could help address some of the greatest challenges of our century.

But the risks are equally real, and they do not stop at borders.

An engineered pathogen released in one country can spread globally in weeks. A poorly tested organism introduced into one ecosystem can ripple across continents.

That is why many experts caution that the question is not whether biotech’s “juice” is worth the squeeze, but whether the world is prepared to squeeze responsibly.

National laws and voluntary guidelines are not enough in a field where DNA can be ordered online, and experiments can be done in almost any laboratory.

What’s missing is a robust international regulatory framework: international rules for DNA screening, common standards for biosafety, rapid reporting channels for accidents, and enforcement mechanisms strong enough to stop reckless or malicious use.

Without this kind of shared oversight, the positives of biotechnology could be overshadowed by the first major failure, whether through accident, negligence, or intent.

On the challenges of global oversight in mirror life research, Dr Adamala observes:

There is currently no enforceable international framework for biological safeguards of mirror life research. The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is limited, and given the current political climate, I believe state-level efforts are more practical than pursuing broad international treaties.

Safety in the “bio age“

Biotechnology is no longer just something that happens in labs. It’s shaping how we grow food, treat diseases, and run industries. Many people are excited about its potential to fight hunger, cure illnesses, and make our systems stronger and more reliable.

But others are more cautious. Changing life at such a basic level brings risks we can’t always predict, no matter how many rules we set. The same tools that offer big breakthroughs, like genetic engineering, also raise serious concerns.

As biotechnology moves forward, the challenges aren’t just about science anymore. They’re about choices and ethics. In the end, what matters most may not be how far we can push the science, but how wisely we decide to use it.