News

European Parliament Approves Rollback in Corporate Sustainability Regulation

On November 13, 2025, the European Parliament approved its official position on the Omnibus I legislative package, which significantly alters the European Union’s corporate sustainability regulatory framework. The vote — 382 in favor and 249 against — weakens key provisions of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).

Key Changes Approved

1. Reduced Scope of Application

The proposal replaces the phased implementation model of the CSDDD, established in the 2024 legislation, with a single application threshold. The directive now applies only to companies with:

• More than 5,000 employees

• Global turnover above €1.5 billion

As a result, the number of companies covered by the CSDDD in the EU has been reduced from tens of thousands to around 1,600.

2. Removal of Climate Transition Plans

The legal requirement for companies to develop and implement climate transition plans aligned with the Paris Agreement has been eliminated from the approved text.

3. Elimination of Harmonized Civil Liability

Parliament removed the EU-level civil liability regime, which would have allowed companies to be held legally accountable for failures in due diligence. Enforcement will now depend on the national legislation of each Member State.

4. Changes to the Supply Chain

The new text redefines the scope of due diligence, focusing only on direct business partners (Tier 1). Collecting information from small and medium-sized enterprises has been reduced to a “last resort.” This narrows the obligations and limits visibility across deeper levels of supply chains.

Legislative Background

The original version of the CSDDD, approved in 2024, established:

• Progressive application based on company size (three phases between 2027 and 2029)

• Mandatory mapping of environmental and social impacts across the chain of activities

• Mandatory climate plans

• Standardized civil liability at the EU level

These provisions led to negotiations between the Commission, Parliament, and the Council of the EU, reflecting a centrist compromise. The new proposal breaks with this model.

Political Configuration of the Vote

Approval of the proposal was enabled by an alliance between the European People’s Party (EPP) and right-wing and far-right groups in Parliament. The former centrist coalition between the EPP, Socialists & Democrats (S&D), and Renew Europe collapsed. Attempts to maintain an intermediate proposal failed in October, paving the way for the current version of Omnibus I.

Reactions from Stakeholders

Labor and environmental organizations publicly criticized the decision.

• The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) declared that the move represents deregulation that reduces corporate accountability.

• WWF and Friends of the Earth Europe stated that the proposal undermines climate goals and overlooks transparency in supply chains.

Business entities expressed divergent views. While industrial groups pushed for more flexibility, around 190 companies and investors published statements opposing the changes, arguing that deregulation penalizes companies that have already invested in sustainability.

Public opinion polls conducted prior to the vote indicated that around 75% of EU citizens support measures that hold companies accountable for environmental and social impacts. The Parliament’s stance diverges from this trend.

Next Steps

The November 13 vote establishes the European Parliament’s negotiation position. The final text will be determined through negotiations with the European Commission and the Council of the EU (trilogues), which holds a more moderate position.

The outcome of these negotiations will shape the future of the CSDDD and the broader architecture of corporate sustainability regulation in the bloc.

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Video

What Does Zohran Mandani’s Election Reveal About the Future of Cities?

There comes a moment when a city stops being just a backdrop and becomes the protagonist. A moment when public demands—such as housing, mobility, and fair access to resources—gain enough strength to challenge the traditional urban model, the one built on exclusion, speculation, and the logic of profit above all else.

That moment seems to have arrived in New York.

Zohran Mandani’s victory in the mayoral race marked more than a simple change in leadership. It exposed a collective desire for a city that is accessible, sustainable, and truly centered on people, especially those who have been pushed aside throughout the city’s history.

What stands out is not just the fact that he is the city’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor. It’s the way his campaign tapped into universal urban wounds: the unsustainable cost of living, the financialization of housing, and the urgency of rethinking sustainability beyond environmental issues by embracing social justice as well.

New York, Vienna, Barcelona… each of these cities has something to teach about real alternatives to exclusionary urban models.

Want to dive deeper into the topic?

Watch our full video to learn more about how Zohran Mandani’s term in the city that never sleeps could influence other cities around the world!

Disclaimer: The video is in Brazilian Portuguese, but simultaneous translation and subtitles are available in multiple languages.

News

2025 Climate Reports Confirm Political Stagnation and a 2.6 °C Global Warming Path

Amid COP30, held in November in Belém (Brazil), the major international climate reports of 2025 present a unified diagnosis: the world remains on a warming trajectory of approximately 2.6 °C by 2100, a level considered critical by scientists and specialized agencies. The consolidated analysis from the UNEP Emissions Gap Report, Climate Action Tracker (CAT), and Global Carbon Budget (GCP) reveals that climate ambition has stagnated since 2021, and systemic risks are increasing.

Stagnation of Targets and Failure of the Paris Mechanism

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, initially managed to reduce the projected warming trajectory from 3.6 °C to 2.6 °C. However, the cycles of target updates — known as the “ratchet mechanism” — have failed. Most countries did not revise their targets for 2030 and 2035, and according to CAT, the updates that were submitted did not alter the warming projection.

• Current CAT projection: 2.6 °C based on existing policies and targets.

• UNEP report: 2.3 °C to 2.5 °C based on fully implemented NDC pledges.

• Both attribute variations to methodological improvements, not new climate actions.

The “net-zero” scenario, which combines long-term targets with current policies, has worsened to 2.2 °C due to the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

Failure to Meet the 1.5 °C Limit

All reports indicate that the carbon budget compatible with the 1.5 °C limit will be exhausted as early as 2025. As a result, official language has shifted from “avoiding 1.5 °C” to “managing the overshoot” — meaning limiting the duration and intensity of the exceedance above the target.

• Remaining budget to limit warming to 1.5 °C with an 83% chance: 30 GtCO₂ — exhausted in 2025.

• For a 50% chance: 130 GtCO₂ — exhausted by 2028.

Rising Emissions and Declining Sinks

The Global Carbon Budget 2025 recorded an all-time high in fossil CO₂ emissions, with an estimated increase of 1.0% to 1.1% compared to 2024, totaling around 38.1 GtCO₂.

• The expansion of renewable energy was not enough to offset the growth in global energy demand.

• The United States and the European Union saw a reversal of declining emissions trends, attributed to colder winters and other structural factors.

• The degradation of natural sinks, such as forests and oceans, is undermining carbon absorption capacity. The Amazon and parts of Southeast Asia have already become net sources of emissions.

The carbon budget imbalance was -1.7 GtC, indicating that current models cannot fully explain the rapid accumulation of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Increased Risk of Irreversible Tipping Points

The 2.6 °C trajectory is associated with a series of Earth system tipping points, whose effects may be irreversible:

Science shows that once triggered, these tipping points are irreversible even with a future decline in global temperatures.

Strategic Failure and a New Political Paradigm

The strategy based on voluntary commitments and five-year cycles has proven insufficient to contain the crisis. The central recommendation of the 2025 reports is a shift toward climate policy based on emergency-level responses, financially robust and state-led.

Recommended actions include:

• A scheduled phaseout of carbon-intensive technologies (e.g., combustion vehicles);

• Demand-side incentives (e.g., public procurement of clean energy);

• Massive financing of the energy transition, especially in developing countries;

• Reform of the international financial architecture.

The goal now is to prevent a deeper overshoot and accelerate decarbonization through high-impact economic and regulatory mechanisms.

Conclusion

The consolidated analysis of the 2025 climate reports shows that the world is on a consistent trajectory toward 2.6 °C of warming by 2100, with growing systemic risks and diminishing capacity to reverse key Earth system impacts. The stagnation of climate targets between 2021 and 2025 has compromised the 1.5 °C goal, rendering the incremental approach obsolete.

COP30 is taking place in a context of scientific urgency and the failure of the current political model. The decisions made at this conference will determine whether the international system can adopt measures proportional to the severity of the risks described.