In 2025, several moments left indelible marks on the areas of Environment and Nature at global, European, and national levels. Their effects, the good and the bad, will reverberate for many years, and even decades, and will be felt by current generations and those to come.
During the year that is now coming to an end, we had yet another global climate summit, COP30, which, although it achieved some positive advances, such as the intention to triple by 2035 the financing of adaptation in developing countries (which, even so, those countries considered insufficient) and the creation of a fund to pay countries that protect their forests, failed, once again, in what was most important: to acknowledge the end of fossil fuels and chart the path of the transition.
Also in 2025, the seventh planetary boundary threshold, ocean acidification, was surpassed. In other words, the oceans, the result of contact with pollutant gas emissions released by humans into the atmosphere, are becoming so acidic that the stability, functioning and future of their ecosystems are in serious danger.
Also on the list of what could have gone much better this year, the failure of negotiations of what would be the first global treaty on plastics. In August, almost two hundred UN member countries were in Geneva for another round of negotiations on a legally binding treaty whose objective is to regulate, globally, the production, consumption and end of life of plastic, and thus protect soils, oceans, biodiversity, and human health.
As happens in climate summits, also in these negotiations on plastics the petroleum-producing countries, driven by the fossil industry, blocked any consensus on limits to the production of new plastics, so the meeting ended the same way it began: without a global agreement to curb plastic pollution.
This year, the world also had to say goodbye to one of the greatest global figures in Nature conservation and primatology, Jane Goodall, who passed away in October at 91. The British scientist changed the way the world viewed primates, showing that they are much more similar to our species than we thought (or wanted to admit), that she was the voice of hope for a brighter future and that she was a fervent advocate for the role of youth to drive change.
But not everything was bad, and it is necessary to balance the gloom with a spark of hope. The high seas treaty, to protect marine waters beyond national jurisdictions, reached the minimum number of signatories to come into force in January 2026.
“When we face a triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – this agreement is a lifeline for the ocean and humanity,” said, at the time, António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
In addition, the global production of electricity from renewable sources surpassed, for the first time, the energy produced from coal.
Considered a historic milestone in the energy transition, solar energy production grew 31% worldwide in the first half of the year, the largest increase ever recorded. Wind energy rose 7.7% in the same period.
Together, these two clean sources generated more than 400 terawatt-hours of additional energy, a value greater than the total growth in global electricity demand in that interval.
This advance allowed, for the first time, renewables combined to produce more electricity than coal, traditionally the largest contributor to emissions in the energy sector.
At the European level to highlight, for example, the criticisms that environmentalist organizations have been launching against the European Commission of Ursula von der Leyen, accusing it of dismantling the regulatory framework that protects the environment and Nature in favor of easing environmental and sustainability requirements for companies. In addition, to note the new delay, by another year, of the European anti-deforestation regulation
In the field of biodiversity, there were good and bad news.
The update to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species revealed that three Arctic seal species are closer to extinction, that more than half of bird species are in global decline and that six new extinctions were recorded. One of the species officially listed as extinct is the slender-billed curlew (Numenius tenuirostris), which has become the first continental European bird to become extinct in 500 years.
Nevertheless, that update brought signs of hope for green turtles (Chelonia mydas), whose threatened status was eased from “Endangered” to “Vulnerable”.
Experts say that this was possible thanks to decades of sustained conservation actions, with the global population of these marine reptiles increasing by about 28% since the 1970s. However, some subpopulations still face threats, such as illegal egg collection for commercial purposes, accidental mortality in fishing nets, hunting and destruction of nesting sites due to infrastructure construction.
Closer to home, there were also positive advances in the field of conservation.
The Iberian program for captive breeding of the Iberian lynx reached a record number of 62 births in 2025, in the five captive breeding centers for the animal that exist in Portugal and Spain, according to the Institute for Nature Conservation and Forests.
In 20 years of existence, the program produced 835 offspring of the Iberian lynx, 640 of which survived weaning and 424 were subsequently released into the wild at various points of the Iberian Peninsula. These efforts allowed the species to move from being classified on the IUCN Red List as “Endangered” to “Vulnerable”.
Still in our region, the Portuguese government approved the new conservation strategy for the wolf, the Alcateia Program 2025-2035, and has already updated the compensation payments to livestock keepers for wolf attacks, something that had not happened since 2017.
At a time when Europe takes a favorable stance toward a reduction of legal protection invested in wolves, Portugal ensures that the conservation of the Iberian wolf will continue to be a priority, with the current government asserting that this is “a government goal” (a government mandate).
In addition to all this, 2025 was another year of devastating fires in Portugal and in many other countries, with new records of maximum temperatures, having already been classified, globally, as one of the three hottest on record.
The coming year, 2026, will certainly be another year full of turbulence, progress and setbacks, but may also be one of significant positive advances in protecting the planet and all who live on it. It is anticipated, for example, that the high-seas treaty will come into force in January and the start of Portugal’s Deposit and Return System in April.
Much remains to come. We will see what the new year has in store for us.
