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In today's edition of This Week in Climate, we saw the UN's COP17 desertification summit open in Ulaanbaatar with $12 billion in pledges for 74 vulnerable nations, the Trump administration move to strip road-free protections from nearly 45 million acres of national forest, and China's Ecological and Environmental Code take effect as legally binding climate mandate.

The Climatebase Fellowship — the Forbes-recognized program for professionals moving into climate, with 4,500+ alumni worldwide — closes Cohort 10 applications this Monday, August 24.

Discover the thousands of climate jobs that have been posted on Climatebase over the past few days—from startups to major employers hiring across climate tech, energy, policy, food, nature, and more.

Quick reminders:

The Climatebase Fellowship is the Forbes-recognized flagship program for professionals building careers in climate and sustainability. Over 12 weeks, Fellows work through an expert-led curriculum, hear from leading guest speakers across the field, and take on hands-on capstone projects — all alongside career support designed to help them actually land the role, not just learn the landscape.

Applications close this Monday, August 24th — Apply today.

Now in its seventh year, the Greentown Labs Climatetech Summit is the ultimate celebration of climate-focused entrepreneurship and innovation. 

The path toward our sustainable future requires transformative innovation across all of our world’s industrial systems: how we power our lives, move through cities, build and manufacture goods, grow and distribute food, and manage the natural resources the whole planet depends on. And at Greentown, their bet is on the entrepreneur! 

Once a year, they open the doors of our incubators to the people working hardest to move all of it forward. On Sept. 16 in Houston and Oct. 29 in Boston, step inside their labs to meet their 250+ climatetech startups, hear perspectives from industry leaders, and forge connections with changemakers across the ecosystem. 

Throughout the event, they’ll highlight how collaboration across Texas and Massachusetts's climate and energy ecosystems, and far beyond, is accelerating deployment, scaling impact, and commercializing the technologies that will power a cleaner, more abundant, and more resilient future.

Event details: Sept. 16 in Houston and Oct. 29 in Boston

→ Overall event website

→ Houston agenda page

→ Boston agenda page:

By Julian Moore

The UN’s COP17 desertification conference opens this week in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, against the backdrop of record global heatwaves, wildland fires, and an advancing El Niño. Driven by mounting threats to world food security, the long-overlooked initiative is gaining unprecedented international urgency and financial backing.

A central objective of the summit is allocating over $12 billion pledged during the 2024 summit in Riyadh to help 74 vulnerable nations execute concrete land restoration projects. The UNCCD aims to convert national drought management plans into practical solutions, including upgraded irrigation, drought-resistant crops, and improved rainwater storage.

Long considered the neglected "poor relation" of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit treaties, the UNCCD is securing stronger diplomatic alignment. Saudi Arabia has emerged as a primary financial driver through its global drought resilience partnership, while the United States remains an active member.

Though the $12 billion in public funding falls well short of the $2.6 trillion required by 2030 to reverse global land degradation, organizers are actively seeking private sector investment from water-dependent industries to shore up food supply chains and build long-term climate resilience.

The Trump administration is advancing a proposal through the U.S. Forest Service to repeal the Clinton-era 2001 "roadless rule," opening nearly 45 million acres of national forest wilderness to road construction and logging. The plan affects millions of pristine acres, including 9 million acres in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

Administration officials, Republican leaders, and industry groups argue that removing these quarter-century-old protections will allow proactive forest management, reduce wildfire risk, expand firefighter access, and boost economic development like mining and timber production. 

Conversely, environmentalists, Democrats, and ecologists strongly oppose the move, warning it threatens key wildlife habitats, municipal drinking water supplies, and climate-mitigating carbon sinks. Multiple advocacy groups plan to file lawsuits. Experts also counter the wildfire rationale, warning that introducing roads could actually elevate fire risks, as most wildfires stem from human activity. Critics contend the wildfire argument merely masks a push to increase commercial logging, aligning with President Trump's directive to boost timber production.

The public comment period will begin once the proposal is published in the Federal Register.

Western Drought Leads to New Category of Heat Wave

Scientists have formally defined a distinct climatic phenomenon dubbed "snow eaters": prolonged, early-season heatwaves where temperatures remain above freezing day and night for three to five consecutive days. A recent Science Advances study reveals that these extreme events nearly double normal snowmelt rates. Driven by climate change, snow eaters in the Western United States are arriving a month earlier per century and expanding across an additional 40,000 square miles over the same timeframe, severely disrupting historical water cycles.

The accelerated melting is further compounded by a dreaded feedback loop: as warmer temperatures degrade the structural integrity and reflectivity of snow crystals, the snowpack absorbs more solar radiation and melts even faster. These sudden melts reduce natural water storage, transforming crucial snowpack into immediate flood risks and leaving forests parched later in the season. Researchers link these conditions directly to heightened drought stress, which fuels severe, widespread wildfires across the West.

Beyond ecological impacts, snow eaters disrupt water management infrastructure, alter mountain soundscapes, and potentially trigger physical hazards like avalanches and permafrost degradation. By establishing a formal definition for these events, scientists aim to improve predictive modeling to help communities better manage water resources and mitigate seasonal climate risks.

China’s landmark Ecological and Environmental Code officially took effect on Saturday, transforming the nation's climate policies into legally enforceable mandates. Designed to secure China's target of peaking carbon emissions by 2030, the law replaces a fragmented regulatory system with binding policies that require industries to adopt low-carbon manufacturing standards, expand the national carbon emissions trading market, and prioritize clean power generation over fossil fuels.

To enforce these targets, the framework codifies regional oversight systems, such as the "river and forest chief" models, making local officials directly accountable for meeting environmental benchmarks. Courts now hold unified legal criteria to prosecute regulatory violations, removing previous loopholes caused by conflicting local rules. Internationally, the code legally obligates state agencies to comply with global climate treaties while mandating the integration of green technologies, such as solar power, into foreign development projects.

Latest Jobs

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Mycela

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Global Carbon Market Utility

“The GCMU is building the infrastructure necessary to scale the voluntary carbon market. ”

SolarAPP Foundation

“Automating permits to fast-track and reduce costs of nationwide clean energy installations.”

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RE-volv

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Bonneville Environmental Foundation

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West Africa Blue

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SCS Global Services

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Kaluza

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Ekotrope

“Home Energy Rating Software improving energy efficiency in 20% of new US homes annually.”