Climate change news from the ground, in a warming world Was this forwarded to you? Sign up here [[link removed]] Laurie Goering [[link removed]]

Climate editor

Plant-based biofuels can help cut the use of fossil fuels in cars, planes and other equipment - and lower climate-changing emissions.

But they can have other costs, such as tropical forests cleared to grow oil-yielding palm and soy, or labour abuses on sugarcane plantations.

Our reporter Fabio Teixeira spent time in the sugarcane fields of Brazil, the world's second-biggest producer of ethanol, a biofuel that can be mixed with gasoline to reduce emissions from vehicles.

What he found [[link removed]] is low-paid workers carrying out backbreaking labour in conditions becoming dangerously hotter as the planet warms, with some dying on the job. Despite the problems, some of the ethanol is making its way to Europe and the United States.

"My whole body would cramp," said Jose Cicero Lemos, a former sugarcane worker in the northeastern state of Alagoas who suffered from a condition known as "kangaroo". "You are conscious, but you lose control of your body, and you vomit all over yourself."

A worker cuts down sugarcane in a plantation near Maceio, Brazil, on September 27, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Ailton Cruz

In Pakistan's cities, residents are facing a different kind of risk: choking air, with Lahore this month declared the most air-polluted city in the world.

But with most of the smog this time of year coming from vehicles and things like crop-stubble burning, a new reduction in taxes on electric vehicles [[link removed]] could help reduce the deadly pollution - and carbon emissions.

While Pakistan's electric-vehicle charging infrastructure still needs work and the poor will struggle to afford the switch, the tax exemptions "make the price point competitive" for more people, said Malik Amin Aslam, who advises the prime minister on climate change.

Petrol station attendant Naeem Satti charges an electric SUV at a charging station in Islamabad, Pakistan, October 8, 2021. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Imran Mukhtar

The need for a "just transition" [[link removed]] to a climate-smart future - with benefits reaching through society and those in vanishing industries aided to reskill - is becoming clearer, and got new prominence at the COP26 climate talks as India pushed back [[link removed]] against a faster phase-out of coal, which it fears could hurt jobs and energy buyers.

Workers "need to have hope that there will be jobs for themselves and their children [[link removed]], that they'll be able to put food on the table," Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, told a conference [[link removed]] run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation last week.

Need some good news? Community-led efforts to save people from fiercer floods [[link removed]] are taking off in northeast India, while in Indonesia, harvesting a little-known nut [[link removed]] is helping keep forests standing.

In Uganda, bamboo "fences" [[link removed]] planted along waterways are holding back river floods, and in London, the mayor's office is finding ways to push greener homes and cleaner air [[link removed]] despite limited powers.

See you next week!

Laurie

EXCLUSIVE-Boom in sugar-based biofuel leaves Brazil's workers with a bitter taste [[link removed]]

Brazil is the world's second biggest producer of the biofuel ethanol - but it has a heavy human cost in the country's sugarcane fields

Nature-pact goal to protect 30% of land and ocean hangs in balance [[link removed]]

Some biodiversity-rich nations are reluctant to endorse the 30x30 goal - a central pillar of a draft global agreement to be finalised next May - due to challenges such as lack of funding

Tax breaks kick Pakistan's electric car shift into higher gear [[link removed]]

Spurred on by hefty new tax exemptions for electric vehicle imports, an ambitious policy to cut carbon emissions and urban pollution is picking up speed

EXPLAINER: How COP26 pushed 'just transition' up the global climate agenda [[link removed]]

New financial support and a scuffle with developing countries over ending coal power at the Glasgow talks grabbed attention for the need to ensure a socially fair shift to greener economies

Coal power stand at COP26 climate talks lends India time to transition [[link removed]]

At Glasgow summit, India rejected a bid to phase out coal power, arguing it still needs the high-carbon fuel to develop, while experts urged it to start preparing for a green shift

Little-known nut helps Indonesian farmers build sustainable forest economy [[link removed]]

Village-owned enterprises being set up around the country to boost rural livelihoods could have the added benefit of slowing tree loss

Local volunteers to the rescue as fiercer floods ravage northeast India [[link removed]]

With homemade rafts and plastic-bottle life jackets, teams of young villagers save stranded locals when the Brahmaputra River bursts its banks

Can bamboo walls help Uganda hold back worsening floods? [[link removed]]

By slowing floodwater and stabilising riverbanks, bamboo walls could protect farmers from climate change-worsened floods – and earn them extra income

'The woods next door': U.S. community forests take root [[link removed]]

The country is seeing a growing trend in green spaces governed by local residents, bringing conservation, educational benefits and income to urban and rural communities

Could making climate change a rights issue help boost action? [[link removed]]

A growing number of climate litigation cases demonstrate how climate change is increasingly seen as a human rights issue

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