Seven million hectares of forest were permanently destroyed in 2025, 15% fewer than a year earlier
Researchers behind the Forest Declaration Assessment say 7 million hectares of forest were permanently destroyed in 2025, 15% less than the year before. They say that is not enough to meet the 2030 pledge to end deforestation.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 5%
- Operator
- Operator 55%
- Investor
- Investor 40%
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap−10
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence62
Peat fires produce most of Indonesia's haze from under a third of its wildfires
Peat burns in under a third of Indonesia's wildfires but yields most of the haze, according to Greenpeace research. Fire emissions reached 140.5 megatonnes by Oct. 6, the highest since 2019, Copernicus data show.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+5
- Incentives50
- Confidence60
Haze from Indonesian fires closed Malaysian schools while El Niño was still strengthening
Malaysia closed schools in several regions last week because of haze from Indonesian fires, a phys.org roundup of El Niño impacts reports. The WMO says El Niño will keep intensifying until a December peak. Several damage reports also name causes besides the weather cycle.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence55
Panama was struck on Friday by a magnitude 7.7 earthquake near the village of Pitaloza Arriba, the USGS said. A USGS seismologist says the tsunami threat from the shallow, inland rupture has largely receded; shaking and aftershocks are the hazard that remains.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 16%
- Operator
- Operator 69%
- Investor
- Investor 15%
Reality
- Evidence64
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence55
Rescuers pull dozens of orangutans hurt by burns and smoke out of Indonesia's fires
Indonesian conservation groups and authorities have rescued dozens of orangutans suffering burns and smoke inhalation from fires in Sumatra and Borneo. An IUCN warning in CNA's version of the AFP report puts the exposure much wider, with fires burning in habitat that holds 52 per cent of Borneo's orangutans.
Reality
- Evidence60
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+5
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence58
Australian sea lions and long-nosed fur seals hear best near 3.2 kHz in first in-air tests
Curtin and Taronga researchers ran the first hearing tests on Australian sea lions and long-nosed fur seals and found both hear best near 3.2 kHz. Four zoo animals tested in air supplied the curves, so underwater hearing and the noise levels that cause harm are still unmeasured.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence60
Hurricane Isaias, the first of the 2026 Atlantic season, is heading for a Friday-night landfall on the northern US Gulf Coast. Evacuated rigs had taken about 63% of Gulf oil output offline by Thursday, AFP reported, in a season a strong El Niño has held back.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap0
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence60
Green turtle recovery shows how slowly protection pays off in a species that breeds at 20
WWF's Living Planet Report finds a 73% average decline in monitored wildlife populations over 53 years, though about half are stable or growing. Green turtles are among them, after decades of protection in a species that takes 20 years to mature.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives40
- Confidence60
Nobel laureate Francis Halzen credits neural nets with finding the Milky Way in IceCube data
Nobel physics laureate Francis Halzen said he proposed neural nets for physics data in 1991 and credits them with finally showing IceCube the Milky Way. His account links an idea he says took decades to mature to one of the Antarctic detector's best-known results.
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives35
- Confidence50
UN climate chief cites survey of 1,000 clinicians to warn of heat danger in pregnancy
UN climate chief Simon Stiell will tell a pre-COP summit in Fiji that heat endangers pregnancy, citing a Wellcome survey of 1,000 midwives and doctors. The survey counts clinicians' impressions, so it can press the issue ahead of COP31 but cannot say how often heat causes harm.
Reality
- Evidence38
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives62
- Confidence45
Divers search Lake Issyk-Kul's floor for the edge of a Silk Road town drowned about 800 years ago
Some 20 scientists funded by the Russian Academy of Sciences are diving on a Silk Road town that sank into Lake Issyk-Kul an estimated 800 years ago. What it adds to Central Asian history hangs on lab dates for remains that have proved hard to date.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives45
- Confidence55
Hungary's paprika growing area has shrunk by 89 percent since its 1979 peak
Hungary's paprika growing area fell from 13,029 hectares in 1979 to 1,410 in 2024, according to official statistics. Climate is one pressure among several on the small growers who remain, alongside cheap imports and a shortage of seasonal pickers.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap0
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence60
Lac des Brenets on the French-Swiss border is days from passing its 1906 record low
Lac des Brenets on the Doubs fell 14.66 metres below normal on October 1 and is days from passing a low-water record set in 1906. A local historian says it now empties every couple of years, a pattern AFP's account supports only with residents' testimony.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives40
- Confidence55
Chile's forestry body says parts of the Atacama took the heaviest seasonal rain in its records. The desert's dormant seed bank has responded with a bloom that is drawing tourists north of Santiago.
Reality
- Evidence50
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence45
Bogong moths swarm across Australia again after an estimated 99.5% population crash
Bogong moths are swarming across Australia again, nearly a decade after drought, pesticides and habitat loss cut their numbers by an estimated 99.5%. The return rests on sightings, and its likely cause, wetter weather, faces a severe El Nino this summer.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence40
Warming aggravated by El Niño drives tuna and anchovy from Latin America's Pacific coast
Jonathan Cedeno's Guayaquil survey found water off Ecuador up to 6°C warmer at 40 meters over ten weeks, as fishers along the Pacific coast land less. Surface water warmed 2.5 to 3°C, and so far the damage is recorded in skippers' own accounts from four countries, with El Niño's peak still ahead.
Reality
- Evidence52
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence55
Swiss glaciers lost 5.5% of their ice in 2026, the second-largest melt on record
Switzerland's GLAMOS network found the country's glaciers lost 5.5% of their volume in 2026, bringing the five-year loss to nearly 20%. Their meltwater eased summer shortages this year, and the network says that relief is dwindling as glacier area shrinks.
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+5
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence72
Wageningen and Leiden researchers grow rice on wet Dutch peat to test a fix for sinking land
Wageningen and Leiden researchers have grown the Netherlands' first rice on 0.6 hectares of peat to test whether a wet crop can stop the land sinking. Whether the swap helps the climate depends on how much methane the wet fields give off compared with grassland, and the team is still measuring that.
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption5
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives55
- Confidence45
Legal routes against Indonesia's fire haze stall on consent at the ICJ and on proof elsewhere
Malaysia and Singapore have few legal options against Indonesia after more than a month of its fire haze, according to legal experts quoted by AFP. The routes still open to them, a civil suit in Indonesia or Singapore's own haze law, both depend on proving which fires caused which harm.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+5
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence58
Tamil Nadu sinks 8,500 reef modules to slow the erosion of Kariyachalli Island
Tamil Nadu is lowering about 8,500 artificial reef modules around Kariyachalli, an island that has shrunk from 20.85 to 3.14 hectares since 1969. The evidence that the method works comes from one nearby island whose recovery was reported without figures, so Kariyachalli's own shoreline is the real test.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption30
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives60
- Confidence40