The Convention on Biological Diversity, or CBD, is one of the three conventions  signed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Every two years, representatives from 196 countries, and many non-governmental actors like Indigenous Peoples and civil society meet to discuss, negotiate and decide on measures to promote the protection of Earth’s biodiversity. This year, the CBD’s COP17 is happening in October, in Yerevan, Armenia.

While these meetings can sound like something very distant from our everyday lives, they are gatherings where crucial decisions, that directly impact our lives and the future of the planet, are taken. From deadly heatwaves to floods, extreme weather events are wreaking havoc on the world, taking thousands of lives and threatening millions more. So the COP is a moment where governments must listen to our voices and take action for the planet. 

The world’s forests are being devastated by industrial agriculture, logging, and by a new rush for minerals. Oceans are plundered by industrial fishing, and deep sea mining is threatening to destroy an area of our planet that has barely been studied. Healthy oceans and functioning forests are vital to maintain the planet’s web of life. Protecting Earth’s ecosystems is also crucial in the fight against the climate crisis, for the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and for the survival of thousands of species, including ourselves.

What is the most recent progress at the CBD?

In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) to “take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss” by 2030. Protecting and restoring at least 30% of land and sea by 2030, the 30×30 targets, are key targets of the framework. This global commitment is not just an environmental aspiration, it is necessary to prevent irreversible ecosystem collapse and biodiversity loss and limit warming to 1.5°C. But the 30×30 target progress review must look beyond area coverage, and there is an equally important need to establish much better policy coherence with other conventions and agreements such as the Paris Agreement and the Global Ocean Treaty. 

Other key targets of the KM-GBF are stressing the need to mobilise enough finance to implement the framework – through increasing public finance and finding innovative ways to do so, and through phasing out and reorienting harmful subsidies. 

In 2024, COP16 established a new body (SB8j) dedicated to Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights, roles, territories and knowledge. Indigenous Peoples and local communities have protected Earth’s vital ecosystems for generations while resisting colonialism and the extraction of the planet’s natural resources. Their knowledge and relationship with nature demonstrate that ecosystems are most resilient when local peoples who depend on them have the power to defend and manage their territories. Yet, their participation in decision making processes related to their lands have been historically sidelined. 

Recognising and respecting Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights, and recognising their contribution to conservation action is the foundation for closing the 30×30 implementation gap through a human rights-based approach, and the creation of the SB8j is a major step to ensure Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ equitable participation in decision-making at the CBD. 

What governments must do at the CBD COP17

This year, governments will review the collective progress in the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, providing a critical moment to assess whether or not the world is on track to achieve its 2030 goals and targets. Governments must take this opportunity to deliver on their commitments by prioritising the protection and restoration of high integrity ecosystems through a human rights-based approach, and by closing the biodiversity finance gap with truly innovative approaches, such as the reform of global and national economic and fiscal policies.

Greenpeace is calling on governments to:

1. Align their national biodiversity plans and strategies, spatial planning and conservation laws with international human rights standards, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and equitable governance principles.
2. Recognise and scale up Indigenous and local community-led conservation initiatives to close the implementation gap of the KM-GBF, particularly Goal A, Target 3, Target 22 and Section C, and support the recognition of Indigenous and Traditional Territories (ITTs) as a distinct, rights-based contribution to Target 3 implementation, without forcing them into protected areas or Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECM) models.
3. Support equitable, predictable and rights-based direct access finance mechanisms for Indigenous Peoples and local communities through existing and future biodiversity finance mechanisms, including the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), the Cali Fund, the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) and other international funding structures.
4. Ensure a coordinated approach between the Rio Conventions for Parties to meet the KM-GBF objectives, enhancing cooperation and policy coherence among the Conventions and maximising synergies between national plans and strategies and monitoring and reporting, to align implementation at the global level and prioritise action where it is most needed. 
5. Improve consistency across climate, biodiversity, human rights and trade-related reporting systems through a harmonised approach to definitions, monitoring methodologies, degradation indicators and ecosystem integrity metrics.
6. Establish legal and regulatory frameworks that demonstrate due diligence to achieve the 2030 targets, including enforceable mechanisms for monitoring, transparency, accountability and remediation. Such frameworks should include a non-deterioration principle for primary and high-integrity ecosystems, preventing activities that cause measurable declines in ecosystem integrity.
7. Align financial systems with due diligence obligations and ecosystem integrity objectives
   • Repurpose subsidies and trade incentives that promote industrial exploitation and resource expansion, such as fossil fuels, agribusiness and harmful forestry practices.
   • Identify, prevent and address the climate, biodiversity, and human rights risks associated with investments, lending, and insurance activities that contribute to deforestation and forest degradation. 
   • Redirect financial incentives towards agroecology and supporting small-scale food producers, to achieve a just transition in the food systems sector, while scaling public finance and fiscal tools that reward protection, restoration and community stewardship, including direct access to finance for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. 
8. Phase out harmful industrial activities, rejecting offset-driven, extractivist, destructive approaches that damage ecosystems and biodiversity, undermine rights, or enable continued marginalisation of local people.
9. Recognise forest degradation as a major driver of ecosystem loss, moving beyond narrow approaches to deforestation and forest-cover loss and adopting ecosystem-integrity-based approaches.
10. Enhance synergies between the CBD and the Global Ocean Treaty (BBNJ) to drive a seamless network of fully and highly protected ocean sanctuaries across the blue planet, from coastal waters to the high seas, while safeguarding marine ecosystems against high-risk destruction such as deep sea mining through applying the precautionary principle and the phase-out of harmful public finance, subsidies and incentives.

How to correct the course on ecosystem protection

Indigenous Peoples, local and coastal communities’ ways of life have always been shaped by a deep connection to their territories. They are proof that the path to healthy oceans and forests runs through the people protecting them. Two recent Greenpeace International reports showcase real solutions led by Indigenous Peoples, local and coastal communities, with examples of initiatives that can be strengthened and multiplied:

• The Real Community Solutions is an interactive map showing case-studies that demonstrate practical and effective pathways to forest protection through community-led initiatives, while highlighting how direct access to financial resources is essential to promote such initiatives with a decolonised approach to conservation.
• The report Global Ocean Justice Now makes the case that the world’s ’30×30′ ocean protection targets cannot be met through top-down conservation models that sideline coastal communities. Drawing on four in-depth case studies from Chile, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, the report documents both the cost of exclusion and the results of community-led stewardship while arguing  that rights-based conservation is not only the most just approach, but the most effective one.

The briefing Beyond Deforestation: Ecosystem Integrity and the Emerging Legal Paradigm, argues that existing legal and policy frameworks continue to underestimate the significance of forest degradation by focusing primarily on deforestation, while failing to adequately address the loss of ecosystem integrity caused by logging, extractive activity, and global commodity supply chains. This disconnect between ecological reality and legal governance has become increasingly clear, with the defining question for forest governance in the coming decade not simply being whether forests remain standing, but whether they remain functioning. 

Greenpeace International, together with Mighty Earth, Rainforest Foundation Norway and Fern, released an indicative global Restricted Areas Map and Framework, which provides a prime example for why high integrity ecosystems need to be protected against extractive activities, and these activities need to be regulated, by making the argument that the proposed framework is a crucial step to ensure mining does not destroy essential biodiversity, natural ecosystems, carbon storage and freshwater systems.

Ana Clis Ferreira is a forest campaigner at Greenpeace Brazil. Her journey is defined by a lifetime of dedication to building bridges between environmentalism and marginalized communities. At the age of 27, she has already accomplished a great deal, committing herself to driving change far beyond what she once thought possible. Please, meet Ana Clis.

How did your story with Greenpeace begin?

My story with Greenpeace began in an unusual way. Back in 2016, I became a donor after meeting a fundraising volunteer with Greenpeace Brazil whose enthusiasm inspired me so much. The following year, when I needed to cancel my contribution, I received an invitation to become a volunteer in the organisation. I accepted.

Still, I felt there was a disconnect between what I was doing and learning as a volunteer and the reality of the marginalised communities I belonged to. I lived far away, and it took me four hours a day on public transport to commute to and from the Greenpeace Brazil office in São Paulo. After two years, I decided to step away—though the connection was never truly broken.

When did you return to Greenpeace and how were things different?

Yes! I returned to the volunteer group a year later and created Raízes (Roots), a project focused on working in favelas and urban Indigenous territories. Our mission was to connect communities and bring environmental issues to less reached, peripheral, low-income neighbourhoods, whilst also introducing these neighbourhoods’ struggles to environmental movements.

One of our initiatives—which included talks in schools—was organising a “climate funk party” in a remote area of São Paulo called Cidade Tiradentes, with the backing of the Greenpeace Brazil climate campaign team. Named Baile na Terra (Party on Earth), the project brought together over 150 people, while we also ran several initiatives in public educational spaces across the sprawling city. It helped bridge the gap.

Then you had another very deep experience as a volunteer, which was to flyover the Amazon rainforest.

Indeed. Five years after becoming a volunteer, I was invited to join a flyover over Rondônia, in the Amazon. Seeing the vastness of the rainforest sharing the horizon with wildfires had a transformative impact on me. I wept at the forest destruction and felt tiny in the face of such a colossal problem, but I also felt motivated that I could do something to help and that the true power lay in collective action. And soon after, a campaigner vacancy opened up on the Greenpeace Brazil Forests team. My colleagues supported my application. I was hired, and my volunteering became my profession!

What have been the challenges of activism and what have you learned along the way?

Throughout my journey as an activist, I have often felt guilty for not being able to spend more time with my family. However, my heart found comfort when my father came to understand what I did, and my mother and grandmother proudly told me that my feet tread in places theirs never will.

I am driven by a strong sense of justice, community spirit, and education. I understand what it feels like to be invisible, so today, my work is all about trying to lift those marginalised people out of invisibility.

*Inspiring Stories is a global video series of interviews with Greenpeace staff and volunteers that blends personal narratives with insights on eco-social justice. Through stories of People Power, we show that changemakers aren’t unreachable superheroes, but ordinary people whose active hope, resilience and pursuit of change can inspire others – and change the world.

Karina Miotto is a Content Editor with Greenpeace International.

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From calls for the protection of the deep sea in Jamaica and Switzerland, to nuclear protests in Spain. Here are a few of our favourite images from Greenpeace work around the world this week.

Jamaica – Greenpeace International, the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition plus other organisations and allies join a ‘paddle out’ at Jamnesia Surf School near Kingston, Jamaica. To call for the protection of the deep sea and to stop deep sea mining before it starts. Paddle out participants also formed the words “NO Deep Sea Mining” on the beach.

Switzerland – Greenpeace Switzerland activists have screened a video at five symbolic locations across Switzerland highlighting the Swiss company Allseas’ involvement in deep-sea mining. The video reveals what the tranquil village of Châtel-St-Denis has to do with Donald Trump and one of the greatest plundering operations in modern history.

Spain – Greenpeace Spain activists displayed a banner in Madrid on the Moncloa Arch with the message: “Pedro, keep your word. Say NO to nuclear power”. Through this action, the organisation is once again calling on Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to respect the nuclear phase-out timetable agreed by his government with the electricity companies in 2019. The protest comes after the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN) issued a report setting out the mandatory conditions for extending the operational life of the Almaraz nuclear power station in Extremadura.

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, please visit our Media Library.

Kingston, Jamaica – Greenpeace International strongly condemns the International Seabed Authority (ISA) Council’s decision to extend The Metals Company subsidiary Nauru Ocean Resources Inc’s (NORI) exploration contract, despite its support for the pursuit of unlawful deep sea mining via US unilateralism.[1] 

It is public that NORI will be making payments to the government of Naoero (Nauru) if The Metals Company USA engages in unilateral mining.[2] Attention in the remaining days of the ISA Council now turns to the next steps in the global inquiry into companies supporting unilateral mining. 

Louisa Casson, campaigner at Greenpeace International, said:

“Granting an extension sets a dangerous precedent for both the deep sea and the rule of law. This decision risks showing that companies can use aggressive lawsuits to avoid consequences. It also calls into serious question the regulator’s ability to enforce basic compliance under its existing rules and makes the case for an immediate moratorium on deep sea mining more urgent than ever.”

Last Saturday, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) explicitly refused to suspend the ongoing inquiry into potential non-compliance by contractors, after TMC’s subsidiaries sued the ISA. Instead, the ITLOS decision focused on ensuring the inquiry follows due process.[3][4][5]

Greenpeace International now demands that governments at the ISA Council establish a clear and robust timeline for concluding the inquiry, to enable governments to act if non-compliance is confirmed. Through these ITLOS legal proceedings, NORI and Tonga Offshore Mining Limited (TOML), another wholly owned The  Metals Company subsidiary, have identified themselves as “requiring specific attention to possible non‑compliance” in the inquiry process.

Louisa Casson added: 

“The political responsibility now falls squarely on governments to step up their game to set a clear direction that unlawful deep sea mining will not be tolerated, and fend off a corporate group that deploys strategic litigation to evade scrutiny. This inquiry cannot become a toothless box-checking exercise. The ISA must execute it with absolute rigour, establish a firm timeline without delay, and stand firm against corporate intimidation. Additionally, States must take immediate responsibility and act against any company or national connected to unilateral mining, to disrupt and limit unlawful deep sea mining supply chains. At the ISA, governments must enact a moratorium to protect our ocean and multilateralism from this dangerous industry.”

In July 2025, governments of the ISA Council unanimously decided to investigate potential contractual breaches in light of TMC USA’s highly controversial applications to gain unilateral permission for deep sea mining from the Trump administration, including in the same areas where NORI and TOML hold ISA exploration contracts. At the March 2026 meeting, the ISA Council called for the inquiry to include publicly available information.

Multiple legal experts argue that States Parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) have both an opportunity and an obligation to take action against companies and nationals under their control to prevent their participation in unilateral, unlawful deep sea mining. This is notably the case of Swiss-Dutch offshore giant Allseas, which has signed an agreement to provide TMC USA the technology and infrastructure needed to proceed with unlawful mining, as shown by a legal opinion commissioned by Greenpeace Netherlands.[6] 

ENDS

Notes:

[1] ISA Council decision, adopted 20 July 2026 

[2] Sponsorship agreements between The Republic of Naoero and Nauru Ocean Resources Inc (revised 29 May 2025) indicate that NORI willingly anticipated and prepared to accommodate unlawful mining activities – an issue the ISA membership must act upon. 

[3] ITLOS Seabed Disputes Chamber did not rule on whether the ISA violated NORI’s rights, nor did it order a contract extension. It merely directed that both the compliance inquiry and decisions over extensions of ISA contracts proceed separately under standard due process.

[4] Greenpeace International compilation of the events that led to the ITLOS proceedings, as well as the network of companies connected to The Metals Company’s activities. (July 2026) 

[5] Compilation of public information evidencing potential breaches of contract by ISA contractors NORI and TOML (March 2026) 

[6] See legal opinions, for example, from Greenpeace International, Deep Sea Conservation, Fisher and Robb, Lathrop

Contact: 

Sol Gosetti, Media Coordinator for the Stop Deep Sea Mining campaign, Greenpeace International: sol.gosetti@greenpeace.org, +34 633 029 407

Greenpeace International Press Desk (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org, +31 (0)20 718 2470 

We are not just in a “cost‑of‑living crisis”. Across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, fossil‑fuel price shocks are driving a new phase of inflation known as fossilflation, pushing up energy, food and housing costs while oil companies profit.

Aren’t we all weary of reading about the Strait of Hormuz in the news? This tiny strip of waterway not only controls 20-25% of the world’s oil and gas supply, it also has direct power over our everyday bills. Has it finally opened? Or did the deal between Iran and the US collapse again?

In this never-ending guessing game of oil, politics, and keeping up with the cronies of fossil fuels, the one real fallout is that economic costs for all of us, worldwide, have been feverishly climbing, with hardly any respite in sight.

Things are more expensive, globally: the fossil fuel price shock

Triggered by the energy shocks of the Israeli-US war on Iran, prices of everyday goods, from electricity to transport and fuel, have risen massively this year. Households in fuel-importing East Asia and Southeast Asian countries are among the hardest hit. Across Africa, the burden has landed on communities with the least room to absorb it. And across Europe and North America too, families are struggling with higher electricity, food, transport and fuel bills.

In the Philippines, driver Toni Prado’s take-home pay collapsed from 1,000 pesos to 200 pesos for the same three trips.

In South Sudan, where 96% of electricity comes from oil, the government is now rationing power, cutting neighborhoods off from late afternoon until early morning.

In India, families have begun quietly trading imported cooking gas for cheaper firewood and dried cow dung, undoing years of progress toward cleaner, safer kitchens.

From Manila to Juba, Delhi to Berlin, this fossil‑fuel‑driven price shock is following the same pattern: higher energy prices, squeezed wages and governments scrambling to respond.

Data backs this up. In the US, prices are projected to rise around 3.2%, and in Europe, about 2.6%. In Asia the Asian Development Bank estimates prices rose by 5.2%. According to the International Monetary Fund global inflation has been at 4.7% worldwide this year — which is equivalent to two and a half weeks’ worth of your yearly household budget vanishing into thin air. 

One day Hormuz will reopen, but the relief for most of us will still be partial and temporary. That’s because we are stuck in a fossil-fuel shock cycle. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has already triggered one of the biggest global energy price shocks since the 1970s, pushing up gas and electricity prices and driving higher food and transport costs across much of the world, and those impacts are still being felt today. It’s essentially the same, predictable pattern playing out right now, just a few years on, only under the guise of a different geopolitical conflict. So it’s all just a matter of time until the fossil fuel shock hits and prices climb again. 

Calling this repetitive cycle a cost-of-living or an affordability crisis, as many have been doing, would be too simplistic, and frankly inaccurate. What we’re really caught in is a fossil-fuel dependence crisis, actually known as: fossilflation. 

If 2026 were a book about war and rising bills, the word ‘fossilflation’ would have to be in the title 

Fossilflation is a portmanteau of “fossil fuels” and “inflation”. It was coined by Isabel Schnabel, a member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board, in a 2022 speech on energy and inflation. Put simply: fossilflation is when the cost of everything rises because our economic systems are still built to run on fossil fuels.

They are an energy source whose supply and price remain volatile, controlled by a handful of producers, shipping lanes, and governments who can disrupt it on a whim. And it’s a familiar problem because we know that oil shocks have hit roughly every decade since 1973: from the Arab oil embargo and the Iran-Iraq War, to the 1990 Gulf War, the 2008 financial crisis, the Arab Spring, and Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine – each one driving prices up and economies into turmoil.

Every time one of these shocks hits, it’s ordinary households, not oil companies, that absorb the cost through higher bills. So we’re basically all just waiting to see whose decision sends fossil fuel prices, and by extension the wider economy, into disarray next.

What’s in a name: fossilflation vs inflation and the cost‑of‑living crisis

Economics 101 tells us prices of everyday goods and services going up is called inflation. And yes, it’s true, we’re living in a world where everything costs more. Inflation is a useful word on its own, but a slippery one to use in the context we’re living in today, because it describes the effect without naming a cause. You can blame inflation on your government, invisible “markets” or “the economy” and never once have to ask where the money from your rising bills went to, instead. 

Fossilflation goes a step further and names the culprit: our economies’ deep reliance on coal, oil and gas has put us in an economic crisis. Fossil fuels aren’t just something we burn for energy, the system we live in makes them inextricably linked to our food, water, healthcare and insurance systems too.

Which is why oil and gas price hikes also cascade through the prices of other essential goods. Fossil gas is the main feedstock for ammonia, which makes up 70-90% of the cost of producing nitrogen fertiliser, so a gas price spike becomes a fertilizer price spike, which becomes a pricier harvest. Diesel prices do the same to every truck, ship and plane moving that harvest to a shelf, pushing transport costs, and then the price of everything they carry, up in step. Even insurance isn’t immune: the climate disasters fossil fuels help drive have pushed US homeowners’ premiums up 40% faster than inflation in recent years. When the bill for fuel goes up, you can be fairly certain you’ll be writing a higher cheque for higher prices across the board, sooner or later. 

That’s the real distinction between the two words: inflation tells you prices rose. Fossilflation tells you why, and who to send the bill to.

How fossilflation is writing out massive cheques to Big Oil

In just the first 50 days of the US-Israel war in West Asia and North Africa (the Middle East), over US$150 billion had been siphoned from ordinary households to oil and gas companies just through soaring energy prices. 

Even if the Strait of Hormuz swiftly returns to normal operations right now, ordinary households will still be paying out the fallout of elevated oil and gas prices to the tune of $600 billion. And should it continue to be blocked, that hit to households, businesses and governments could be as high as $1 trillion.

While our bills climb mercilessly, Big Oil seems to be doing rather well for itself. Shell’s first-quarter profits jumped 24% to $6.9 billion as the war pushed prices higher. TotalEnergies reported $5.5 billion for the same quarter. Across the industry, the world’s largest oil and gas companies made an estimated $23 billion in excess profits in the first month of the war alone.

And that’s before governments even open their own wallets. Governments worldwide are on course to spend $1.1 trillion propping up the fossil fuel industry in 2026 alone, prioritising short‑term fossil fuel subsidies over a clean energy transition instead of helping people face fossilflation and reducing their economies’ dependence on fossil fuels.

Then there’s the cost of the extreme weather fossil fuels drive: the floods, droughts, hurricanes and cyclones, whose fallout lands several times over, in our bills, in our wellbeing, and in the recovery costs. Air pollution from burning coal, oil and gas is linked to roughly 8.7 million premature deaths a year worldwide, nearly one in five deaths on the planet. Europe’s recent heatwaves added an estimated €700 million (or US$800 million) to electricity bills in France and Germany alone, on top of the 1,300 lives it took. The fossil fuel industry causes at least US$9.3 trillion per year in climate damages and air pollution deaths alone, and pays almost nothing for it. Add to that direct government subsidies and tax breaks, and the total transfer of public money, our money, to the fossil fuel industry reaches $12 trillion a year. That is equivalent to more than $1,400 from every person on Earth. 

This is fossilflation in action. Our money isn’t vanishing into thin air. It’s landing in the wallets of oil executives. If our countries remain dependent on fossil fuels, we remain trapped in repeated cycles of fossilflation. 

The way out of fossilflation

The fix to fossilflation has never really been complicated, just largely inconvenient for the people currently profiting from the problem. But the solution does exist, and it’s up to our representatives to act swiftly.

Unlike past cycles of fossilflation, we now have a clear way out of fossil fuel dependency: renewables. Wind and solar power are no longer the plucky underdog, they’ve quietly become the cheapest form of energy in human history. Solar costs have fallen 87% since 2010, battery storage costs have dropped 93% in the same window. Further, in contrast to fossil fuels, renewables don’t rely on being shipped and can be built and owned locally, so their prices remain low and stable once constructed. And quite importantly these days, renewable energy is less, much less likely to fuel conflicts. Governments must now ensure that we can switch to decentralised renewables in a fast, fair and just manner. 

They must make polluters pay on their profits with stronger and more permanent taxes, so that this money can be redirected towards a just transition and supporting those facing the worst impacts of the climate crises. 

And while all this happens, let’s also name the crisis for what it really is. Not just an affordability or cost‑of‑living crisis. We are currently living through fossilflation, but that doesn’t mean we have to ever again.

Mallika Singhal is a Senior Coordinator for Global Communications with 350.org

Guest authors work with Greenpeace to share their personal experiences and perspectives and are responsible for their own content.

You might not recognise their name, but chances are you’ve had their food in your fridge or in your local restaurant. 

Headquartered in the Netherlands, JBS is the largest meat company on earth. It is controlled by billionaire brothers whose companies have pleaded guilty to bribery, been forced to pay millions to settle labour rights violations cases, and whose supply chain has been linked to massive deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. JBS is also a massive polluter, estimated to be responsible for more climate wrecking methane emissions than oil giants Shell and ExxonMobil combined.

Why JBS’s US$6 billion Nigeria expansion is a climate and human rights threat

Right now, JBS is engaged in a $6 billion global expansion, with almost half earmarked for Nigeria, from where it plans to bring its destructive industrial livestock model to sub-Saharan Africa for the first time. Community groups in Nigeria fear that the expansion will cause irreversible environmental damage and threaten access to land and water that local communities depend on for food security – all to line the pockets of wealthy international elites. 

With a track record like this, it’s easy to see why JBS prefers to stay in the shadows. It has long shirked corporate transparency while peddling empty promises. Its approach to Nigeria appears no different. Information published about its plans is extremely limited and despite the efforts of community groups in Nigeria, no environmental or social impact assessments have been published.

That’s why we need to drag them into the light.

Dragging JBS industrial meat expansion in Nigeria out of the shadows

Earlier this year, Greenpeace Netherlands activists took over JBS’ first shareholder meeting on Dutch soil to deliver a letter demanding they disclose the truth about their expansion plans. Using a new Dutch law which allows access to certain corporate data for the purpose of building litigation against a company, JBS were given 21 days to hand over files relating to the climate, nature and human rights impacts of its historic operations and its planned expansion.

Just hours before the deadline, JBS responded in its usual way: denying responsibility, refusing transparency, and completely dismissing anyone who dares to challenge them. JBS ignored the voices of thousands of Greenpeace supporters who emailed in support of our action and all those in Nigeria whose livelihoods are on the line.

Greenpeace Netherlands hoped it wouldn’t come to this. They didn’t want to trouble a judge with this matter. But JBS’ intransigence has left them no choice. Today, Greenpeace Netherlands has submitted a petition to a Dutch court asking it to force JBS to release the files. This is the first step towards stopping JBS’ dangerous plan to open new industrial frontiers in Africa and beyond before it even starts.

See you in court!

JBS appears to believe that despite moving to the Netherlands, it doesn’t need to follow Dutch rules. Today’s legal action aims to prove it wrong – and lay the ground for a first major climate and nature lawsuit against the dangerous expansion of the global meat industry.

Greenpeace Netherlands believes that JBS’ historic business practices and its future expansion plans are inconsistent with the company’s climate and biodiversity obligations and therefore breach Dutch duty of care, a legal obligation requiring companies to act in line with international human rights law. 

This is the basis of groundbreaking litigation that Greenpeace Netherlands is building against JBS. Today’s action brings us one step closer to that goal. If the judge rules in Greenpeace’s favour, it will be a huge victory for transparency against corporate interest. And it will provide Greenpeace Netherlands with crucial information to robustly challenge JBS’ dangerous business model in court and hold it to account before its global expansion causes further harm.

JBS tears up climate and nature pledges – act now!

This legal intervention couldn’t have come at a more crucial time. Just weeks ago, JBS scrapped flagship commitments to eradicate deforestation from its supply chains and reach Net Zero emissions by 2040. With them, safeguards for traditional communities and Indigenous peoples may well also be gone.

Make no mistake, these were always empty promises that JBS was never realistically going to deliver. But now JBS appears to have given its supply chain carte blanche for the wholesale sacrifice of ecosystems from the Amazon to its new frontiers in sub-Saharan Africa, while abandoning responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions exceeding those of Spain, a country of nearly 50 million people. Its expansion plans will balloon these impacts even further.

We can’t let JBS get away with it. And that’s where you can help.

We believe that public interest must come before commercial confidentiality, that corporate impunity must come to an end and that private wealth accumulation should never trump a healthy planet. We believe states like the Netherlands which host multinational corporations must hold them accountable – wherever they operate in the world. 

But we need a massive wave of public support to show the courts the strength of global concern about JBS’ plans. 

Stand in solidarity with local communities fighting the corporate takeover. Stand up for nature and the climate. Help us stop the new wave of destruction before it starts.

Take the world’s biggest meat company to court

We need to stop the expansion of the world’s largest meat company. Join the People vs. Big Ag.

Join now

Daniela Montalto is a Global Campaigner at Greenpeace UK based in London.

Amsterdam, Netherlands – Greenpeace Netherlands has petitioned a Dutch court seeking to compel meat giant JBS to disclose information in order to challenge its business policies in court. This includes its planned US$ 6 billion global expansion, of which almost half is earmarked for Nigeria.

Elizabeth Atieno, Food Campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said: “JBS’ meat empire expanded hand-in-glove with Amazon destruction, colossal emissions, human rights and corruption scandals, all with barely a semblance of transparency. This is the business model it wants to export to sub-Saharan Africa. JBS promises food security, but its expansion in Nigeria risks causing irreversible environmental damage and the displacement of smallholder farmers to line the pockets of wealthy global elites.

“Nigerians know well from the legacy of companies like Shell the destructive impact wrought by unchecked corporate power. As Greenpeace Africa has argued before the African Court of Human Rights, states with jurisdiction over multinationals must hold those corporate actors accountable – wherever they operate in the world. We welcome this bold legal action: the Netherlands and other European states must not be safe havens for corporations like JBS seeking to evade their responsibilities.”

In light of JBS’ longstanding failure to publish accurate and reliable information on its climate, nature and human rights impacts or its expansion plans, Greenpeace Netherlands views accessing this data as a necessary precursor to formal litigation in order to support its case. The case has the potential to be the first climate litigation of this scale against the livestock industry. This could set a major precedent for future legal challenges against the industrial agriculture sector, a major source of global emissions, particularly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, responsible for 0.5°C of warming since the Industrial Revolution.[1]

Marieke Vellekoop, Executive Director at Greenpeace Netherlands, said: “In a month where JBS has thrown its flagship environmental commitments onto the scrap heap, JBS’ disdain for basic transparency only adds to the impression that this meat giant has something to hide and is desperate to prevent its expansion plans from going public. We were hoping we wouldn’t have to trouble a judge with this matter, but JBS has left us no choice but to seek our right to information through the Dutch courts.

“JBS appears to believe that despite moving to the Netherlands, our rules do not apply to it. This legal action aims to prove it wrong – and lay the ground for a first major climate and nature lawsuit against the dangerous expansion of the global meat industry.“

At the centre of the dispute is JBS’ planned US$ 2.5 billion investment in industrial livestock production in Nigeria.[2] Civil society groups in Nigeria have raised urgent warnings that the aggressive expansion will threaten local food security, drive regional instability, and accelerate ecological degradation. There is no available evidence that JBS has conducted any impact assessments or community consultations in Nigeria, and local efforts to gather more information via Freedom of Information requests have reportedly been ignored.[3]

The escalation to the courts follows the refusal of JBS, the world’s largest meat company, to comply with a formal disclosure demand delivered by Greenpeace Netherlands in April. The environmental group is utilising new Dutch legislation, which grants parties with a legitimate interest the right to demand access to specific corporate data necessary to build litigation against Dutch companies.[4]

Greenpeace Netherlands’ lawyers allege that JBS’ historic business practices and future expansion plans are inconsistent with the company’s climate and biodiversity obligations and represent a breach of its Dutch duty of care, which requires companies to act in line with international human rights law.[5]

If the court rules in favor of Greenpeace Netherlands, it is entitled to seek the required information in the form of documents and from senior JBS figures under oath, raising the prospect of the Batista brothers being forced to testify in Dutch court. JBS reincorporated as a Dutch entity (JBS N.V.) last year to facilitate a dual listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

In April, JBS was forced to temporarily suspend its first annual general meeting since moving its headquarters to Amsterdam after it was disrupted by dozens of Greenpeace Netherlands activists. 

Last week, JBS scrapped two flagship commitments to reach Net Zero emissions by 2040 and eradicate deforestation from its supply chain. It also removed any explicit reference to Indigenous lands from all of its current policies. Greenpeace Netherlands is concerned this indicates JBS is seeking to expand unconstrained by the climate, nature and human rights impacts of its business.

ENDS

Notes:

[1] The livestock sector is estimated to be responsible for 31% of global methane emissions (more than oil and gas operations). In comparison to CO2, methane is shorter lived (around 12 years) but has a much stronger ability to trap heat in the atmosphere over its lifetime: it has approximately 80 times more climate impact than CO2 when measured over 20 years. This means that changes in methane emissions have a more rapid effect on the climate than changes in CO2. See Greenpeace Netherlands letter to JBS dated 30 April 2026.

[2] JBS announcement

[3] Experts raise concerns over the risks of industrial animal farming (The Sun Nigeria) 

[4] Simplification and modernisation of Dutch evidence law (Fieldfisher)

[5] Greenpeace Netherlands petition to Dutch court available on request. Media briefing with further details on JBS expansion plans, including in Nigeria.

Contacts:

Joe Evans, Agriculture Global Comms Lead at Greenpeace UK,  +44 7890 595387, jevans@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

You might not always see soy, but it could be in your chocolate, your shampoo, your cooking oil. Soy is in almost everything, which is exactly why almost no one asks where it comes from.

‘Contains soy. May contain deforestation.’ is the alert from a new Greenpeace Brazil campaign. Without a clear commitment to zero deforestation from across the sector, it is difficult to guarantee that the soy used in thousands of everyday products does not come from a deforested area in the Amazon rainforest.

Where does the soy we consume without knowing it come from?

There is a trail, and it leads straight to the forest, with every purchase, on every shelf, to every company that built a brand on the word sustainability and then agreed to dismantle the greatest mechanism that made that word verifiable: the Soy Moratorium. The soy trade in the Amazon is dominated by a handful of large companies like Cargill, Bunge, Amaggi, and ADM among them, that decide, in practice, whether or not the soy that reaches you is or not free from deforestation.

Could these items be on your shopping list?

Soy is the base of obvious food like oil, plant-based milk, textured protein, but it is also a ‘hidden’ ingredient. Soyby-products, such as soy oil and soy lecithin, are found in a massive number of processed products like biscuits, cosmetics, and animal feed that turns into meat, eggs, and milk on your table, alongside many other processed goods we wouldn’t even imagine.

We could be consuming soy produced in deforested areas of the Amazon without even knowing it. That is why a clear commitment from across the entire sector is essential.

What has changed in the protection of the Amazon against soy?

For 20 years, an environmental agreement called the Soy Moratorium prevented the purchase of soy grown in areas of the Amazon deforested after 2008. The mechanism worked, and the figures for the reduction in deforestation linked to the grain during this period proved it: production advanced, exports grew, and Brazil became the world’s largest soy producer.

The Moratorium proved that it is possible to produce without deforesting, but its effectiveness has always bothered those who want to remove barriers for predatory production. So, in recent years, the battleground has shifted and moved into politics.

As a result of an agribusiness movement that wanted to see the end of the Moratorium, Brazilian state governments in Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Maranhão, and Tocantins passed laws withdrawing tax benefits from companies with environmental criteria that are stricter than what legislation requires, and CADE – Administrative Council for Economic Defense – opened an investigation into allegations that the agreement constitutes anti-competitive practice.

In January 2026, the very companies that sustained the agreement abandoned it. ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus, and Amaggi, among others, which for years used the reputation of deforestation-free soy to access demanding markets, gave in to tax benefits and political pressure and set aside the instrument that helped build that advantage. Thus, the guarantee of zero deforestation in the Amazon soy supply chain, which lasted for nearly two decades, ceased to exist.

Instead of backing down, companies should expand their commitments.

The Amazon, without the protection that was lost in early 2026, is at serious risk. Without clear zero-deforestation criteria, poor transparency, and weakened monitoring, soy will once again eat the Amazon.

According to the article The Rise and Fall of the Amazon Soy Moratorium, from Science Magazine, potential impacts of soy on the Amazon without a zero-deforestation commitment include:

• 1.4 million hectares (2 million football pitches) projected to be deforested by 2036 without the Moratorium
• Another 9.1 million hectares (the size of Portugal) suitable for soy could be legally deforested
• 28.7 million hectares of unallocated public forests (an area the size of Italy) are at risk of land grabbing and illegal deforestation

Additionally, 1.7 million hectares deforested before July 2008 in soy farms remain available for use, instead of deforesting new areas. Showing that continuing implementing Zero Deforestation is completely feasible.

If it contains soy, it may contain deforestation. And those who decided that the Amazon is worth less than the next harvest need to be accountable for it. We cannot accept anything less than zero deforestation.

That is why we are demanding action:

Companies that trade soy (traders) such as Cargill, Bunge, Amaggi, and ADM: Recommit to zero deforestation in the Amazon – monitoring production right from its source on the farm and rejecting soy from farms deforested after 2008. Expand these commitments to other threatened Brazilian biomes, like the Cerrado, and to other products at risk of deforestation, such as maize.

Banks, buyers, and retailers: Commit to the same zero deforestation requirements. Do not finance or buy products linked to deforestation.

Click here to sign our petition (in Portuguese).

Caroline Haddad is a Communications and Engagement Forests Campaigner at Greenpeace Brazil.

In times when genocide, wars, extreme weather and the largest World Cup ever can coexist, the world’s biggest football tournament inevitably becomes a stage for geopolitical tensions and contradictions. Even more so when it is co-hosted by a country that has threatened to annex a fellow host country and started a war against one of the competing nations.

While football has been historically considered a working-class sport, the 2026 World Cup goes far beyond football tactics and the performance of national teams, and it has put the sport’s inclusive nature to the test. It places not only a magnifying glass on the global social and economic divide, but also exposes the brutal reality that countries are falling behind on many indicators, and remain far from the victory their people truly seek: a dignified life in a safe and liveable environment.

The “people’s game” in a world of visa walls and fossilflation

The US hard-line immigration and border policies affecting players from competing countries, as well as fans, showed that teams do not compete under equal conditions and standards. A Somali referee was denied entry into the country. An Iraqi striker was held for seven hours of questioning. Iran’s players were subject to unfair treatment, from visa denial (to at least fifteen officials and team staff) to different travel arrangements between training and matches. The US has barred or restricted citizens from 39 countries and halted immigrant visa processing for 75 countries; out of 150 Ghanaian fans who applied for visas, 147 were refused. The divide is clear.

For those fortunate enough to pass the entry barriers, another layer of privilege for those attending the matches is related to the attendance costs: the most expensive in the World Cup’s history. This year’s tournament has made it as clear as ever that fans are not merely supporters; they are treated as consumers and a revenue stream for an industry that becomes more and more elitist. The dynamic pricing system and the sophisticated profit tactics adopted by FIFA led category 1 tickets to reach more than US$10,000, flights from abroad to reach $2,000 roundtrip, and average hotel price on matchdays $400. For fans in competing countries going through high domestic inflation (an increasingly common trend around the globe), attending a match has become financially impossible. 

This reflects however a broader social problem: the unprecedented global income inequality in an era in which the world has for the first time a trillionaire (a status Elon Musk reached the day after the World Cup kicked off), while over 673 million people face hunger, and society is treated as a marketplace. A strong social safety net and fair income distribution are at least as important as people being able to enjoy and afford World Cup matches, because dignity off the pitch and joy on it should go hand in hand.

Nations short scoring on democracy, inequality and the cost‑of‑living crisis

Besides the tournament itself exposing deep paradoxes from the host nation’s foreign diplomacy, from strict borders to price discrimination, other issues underscore the effect that geopolitics has on current inequality and rising cost-of-living. Countries around the world — competing or not to the World Cup — have been falling short in many other social, economic, and climate indicators. 

As latest data from the independent research institute V-Dem shows, nearly 74% of the world’s population now live under autocratic rule, including many of the competing countries. This number is likely to increase next year as recent developments in countries like Colombia and Peru show, from Colombia’s razor‑thin election of a Trump‑backed far‑right president promising US‑backed airstrikes and mega‑prisons to Peru’s ongoing post‑electoral crisis and weakened democratic institutions. The “third wave of autocratization” is fast spreading through both democratically fragile and traditionally stable nations: also in the United States itself, which according to the analysis in a timeframe of a bit more than one year is rapidly moving from electoral democracy towards electoral autocracy. 

The world is taken by a widespread affordability crisis driven by increasing inflation, whose cause is manifold: the war-driven energy shock, pressure on global food supplies because of crop failures caused by extreme weather, increased defense and fiscal spending amid rising global tensions, as well as core inflation by housing and rent, which in many countries make up the largest chunk of consumer price indexes; all this while the wages fail to keep the pace with price shocks on top of structural cost of living. In 2026, the energy shock has put significant pressure on key regions such as Europe and Asia, which are dependent on oil and gas from West Asia and North Africa (the Middle East) and facing industrial recessions and high utility bills, with countries facing deep energy shortages, soaring prices and tight supplies. 

War, energy shocks and fossilflation: who is actually winning?

When the US–Israeli war on Iran shut down shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and pushed oil prices up, ordinary people paid more for fuel, food and transport, but fossil fuel corporations turned the chaos into a jackpot. Greenpeace analysis shows the world’s biggest oil and gas companies raking in tens of billions of dollars in windfall profits during the first months of the Iran crisis, with major European firms booking some of the highest quarterly earnings in their histories and making more than 80 million euros per day in “war profits” from inflated diesel and petrol margins.

The same pattern is playing out in our food system. As gas supplies tightened, fertiliser prices soared and big agribusiness and agrochemical giants reported windfall profits, while farmers struggled with higher input costs and households faced rising food bills. These companies use crises like the war on Iran and the global energy shock to demand more subsidies and weaker environmental rules, turning “food security” into corporate welfare while people and ecosystems pay the price.

If people are to win, it is time to change the tactics

While football remains a universal language that unites people around the world, breaks down cultural barriers and offers relief when everything else feels upside down, the World Cup is a timely moment to remind our leaders that goals on the pitch are not enough to guarantee a life with dignity on a livable planet. What truly decides that future is whether countries can rebuild what has been lost amid deep economic and political crises, straining public services, collapsing democratic foundations and a trapping dependence on fossil fuels that keeps causing repeated economic disruptions.

New outcomes cannot be expected when outdated tactics are in place. People are eager for justice, equality, and economic stability. It is time for our leaders to stop defending a broken system and start playing for a different kind of victory.

Marília Monteiro is a Senior Campaign Strategist with Greenpeace International, working on socioeconomics analysis and responsiveness, based in the Netherlands.

A world cup message in New York, to the oceans treaty projection in Switzerland. Here are a few of our favourite images from Greenpeace work around the world this week.

USA – A ferry passes by the New York skyline that is enveloped in wildfire smoke shortly before a rain shower. Most of the Tri-State Area, including New York City, is under an air quality alert on July 15 and 16 due to smoke from Canadian wildfires. The alert is also due to ground-level ozone. New Yorkers can expect to see smoke over the five boroughs during the mid-morning hours. New York City is in a Code Red as heat indices are expected to reach triple digits. 

USA – Greenpeace USA projects a message for World Cup fans onto the Verizon Building and Brooklyn Bridge. Activists lit up the New York skyline days ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup final at MetLife Stadium with the message “Defend Your Balls. Dove, Kick Plastic Out,” as part of its campaign calling out Dove, an Official 2026 FIFA World Cup Personal Care Sponsor, for selling itself as a brand that cares about men yet consistently ranking as one of the world’s top plastic polluters amid growing concerns about the role plastics may play in men’s reproductive health. Greenpeace USA is calling on Unilever to phase out plastic packaging, transition to plastic-free reuse and refill systems, and support a strong Global Plastics Treaty that cuts plastic production. Projections include the messages: “Defend Your Balls,” “Sperm Count Down,” “Microplastics In Semen,” and “Dove, Kick Plastic Out.

Indonesia – Greenpeace Indonesia held a public discussion to mark the launch of the paper, “Reassessing Coal in Islamic Finance: Ethical Imperatives for Divestment and Sustainability in Indonesia.” This paper encourages a reassessment of the tayyib principle of coal, which has negative impacts on health, the environment, and the economy, in the Islamic finance screening methodology.

Switzerland – Greenpeace activists have projected a video at five symbolic locations across Switzerland highlighting the Swiss company Allseas’ involvement in deep-sea mining. The visual shows what the tranquil village of Châtel-St-Denis has to do with Donald Trump and one of the greatest plundering operations in modern history.

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, please visit our Media Library.